Tech More: Apple iPhone The next iPhone could come with the biggest camera change we've seen in years

   Apple may make a significant change to the camera sensor on its next iPhone, bumping up the megapixel count from eight to 12, according to IHS China analyst Kevin Wong, who shared his thoughts on Apple's next iPhone via Chinese social network Sina Weibo.
   If true, this would be the biggest change to the iPhone's camera we've seen on the iPhone in years.
   Apple has left the iPhone's camera sensor at eight megapixels ever since the iPhone 4s was released in 2011. But, while Apple hasn't increased the number of megapixels, it has made other improvements to the iPhone's camera over the past few years — including making each individual megapixel larger.
   To understand what this means, you need to know a little bit about how cameras work. A megapixel is essentially what filters light through a camera when capturing a photograph. And, the more light a camera captures, the better the image.

So it sounds like more megapixels equals better photos, right? Actually, not so much.

   While more megapixels can lead to better image quality, it's not necessarily the deciding factor. The size of the megapixels, rather than the sheer number of megapixels, is actually just as important, if not more so.



   Experts have previously likened the way a megapixel captures light to buckets capturing water, as CNET explains. Imagine each megapixel is a bucket, and the light coming in is water. If you want to capture as much water as possible, it would be more efficient to use as many big buckets as possible rather than a bunch of small ones.



More@
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-6s-specs-camera-rumors-2015-5

Wanna Type Faster? Meet a Buzzy New Keyboard Read more: Wanna Type Faster? Meet a Buzzy New Keyboard |

By Zara StoneMAR 012015

Why you should care

Maybe Q, K and Y keys are only getting in your way.

When Ray McEnaney types, he’s confident it’s the most efficient way possible. But it’s not typing school that’s given him this feeling. It’s his keyboard. Frustrated with the limitations of the traditional QWERTY layout, McEnaney spent the last decade designing a new one. Considering that the universal key arrangement was designed in the typewriter age — patented in 1878 — an alternative seems due. This one’s inspired by a bee.

McEnaney wasn’t satisfied with other typing options people turn to — the most prominent being Dvorak, which aims to minimize how far the fingers travel and reduce fatigue. He thought the learning curve was too great: Users need to seriously commit to becoming proficient. That’s how we get to the BeeRaider, his oddly shaped keyboard that resembles a bee in flight, with two “wings” of keys arranged on either side of a radial center. It’s a buzzy concept: The layout is larger, with the keys you need most at the center (which gives you less fatigue, McEnaney says). Keys that he considers “more useless” — including Q, K and X — are placed farther away.

… it’s an implicit knowledge of where the fingers go; the motor system learns where the keys are, and that’s how you learn to type.

Kristy Snyder, cognitive neuroscience researcher at Vanderbilt University

Read more: Wanna Type Faster? Meet a Buzzy New Keyboard | Good Sh*t | OZY 

✔7 Things you didn't know existed ▶23

08.M.W.C. - Honorable mentions:

Huawei's circular Android Wear watch is fine, but nothing special. Unless! Unless it turns out to be dirt cheap. We'll see!

Huawei's Android Wear Watch Is Handsome, But Still Too Bulky

Huawei is launching not one but three wearables this year at Mobile World Congress, and the new…Read more

Sony's Xperia Z4 tablet is about as slick and slim as 10-inch Android tablets get, if you are still into 10-inch Android tablets. Also, it's vaguely Surface-y with its new keyboard accessory!

Xperia Z4 Tablet: Slick and Slim, With Laptop Aspirations

There's a new tablet in town. It's the new Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet and yeah, it's…Read more

LG's mid-ranged smartphones are going to have slightly curved screens, which is a way to make mid-range a little more fun.

LG's Bringing Curved Screens To Its Cheaper Phones, Because Why Not

That curve on LG Flex's screen might seem like a total gimmick, even if it's pretty rad.…Read more

Meanwhile, Sony's new Xperia M4 Aqua is everything a cheap phone should be. Waterproof and two day battery, count me in. 

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Hands-On: Proper Waterproofing, Two Day Battery

With the Xperia Z4 smartphone nowhere to be seen at MWC 2015 (even if its tablet cousin is knocking …Read more

BlackBerry teased a phone with curved edges and a slide out keyboard. OK! Sure!

Blackberry Is Bringing Back the Slider Phone Because Sure Why Not

When square phones don't quite work and suing Ryan Seacrest is taking too long, what's a…Read more

HTC's new One M9 seems like a fine little improvement on its existing flagship, but with nothing super special or exciting to speak of.

HTC One M9: Definitely Better But So Much the Same

This is the new HTC One, the third in a line of phones that got Android devices to adopt metal…Read more

You can read about allllll of our Mobile World Congress coverage here.

05.Will Sprint win new Google phone service?

Sprint appears to be the favorite partner for Google's much-anticipated wireless phone service.

Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) confirmed Monday that it plans to launch a new, small-scale wireless service that will become as a mobile virtual network operator riding onSprint Corp.'s network. The service, which doesn't aim to compete with the four largest carriers in the U.S., should become available in coming months, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Though Google has yet to confirm details, the new service is rumored to switch between Sprint(NYSE: S), T-Mobile and Wi-Fi networks to use the best network to serve customers telecom needs. The service had been rumored for years, but Monday marked the first public acknowledgment by the company. WSJ reports that Sprint negotiated "volume triggers"should the service soar in popularity.

Much like its Google Fiber service, Google's Nova product appears to be another attempt to drive other providers to enhance their services, be it broadband or mobile Internet. Better Internet infrastructure, and more people using it, translates to more engagement with Google's other Web products. The wireless service also further complicates Google's relationship with carriers that use Google's Android products.

Source:

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2015/03/03/will-sprint-win-new-google-phone-service.html?s=image_gallery

09.Blackberry goes cross-platform as it unveils new devices

Handset maker Blackberry has unveiled an "affordable" smartphone and announced plans for three other devices including a dual curved-screen "slider" phone and luxury smartphone.
The 5-inch $275 BlackBerry Leap will be rolled out in April and is designed for "rising stars" in business, the company said at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
The company's CEO John Chen also showed off a not-yet-finished "slider" phone.

Blackberry's "slider" phone
BlackBerry, has been struggling to gain any significant smartphone market, has also opened up a number of its key software assets to Android and iOS devices as it looks to widen the adoption of its services.

The Canadian firm already released its BlackBerry Messenger service to the other mobile operating systems last year but is now releasing its security and enterprise apps as well.

"We are committed to make software as a business...We are also going to make sure our software technology roadmaps addresses everybody's phone," Chen told reporters.




More@
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102470999

Amazon Announces New Enterprise E-Mail Service

Amazon Web Service (AWS) announced the preview of its new enterprise e-mail service called Amazon WorkMail this week.

In a direct challenge to primary cloud services rivals Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, the new product will offer all the usual business e-mail and calendaring functionalities and will even let users work with existing providers, such as Microsoft Outlook, Web-based services or mobile apps running on iOS or Android.






"Today, businesses face a difficult choice when it comes to e-mail," AWS said in a statement. "Hosting e-mail on-premises requires expensive hardware, complex software licensing and ongoing maintenance work. Existing cloud e-mail services may help with some of these problems, but they either don't offer the security features businesses require (like strong encryption key management and full control over data location), don't integrate with existing corporate directories, or don't support popular Microsoft Outlook features like shared calendaring. Now, Amazon WorkMail delivers the simplicity and on-demand access of a managed cloud service that works with popular e-mail clients and also has the security controls enterprises need."


Source:
http://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/01/29/enterprise-email-service.aspx

Updated Debian 7: 7.8 released

The Debian project is pleased to announce the eighth update of its stable distribution Debian 7 (codename wheezy). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available.

Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian 7 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old wheezy CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated.

Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

New installation media and CD and DVD images containing updated packages will be available soon at the regular locations.

Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the aptitude (or apt) package tool (see the sources.list(5) manual page) to one of Debian's many FTP or HTTP mirrors. A comprehensive list of mirrors is available at:

https://www.debian.org/mirror/list

Source:

https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150110

diff -u: What's New in Kernel Development

David Drysdale wanted to add Capsicum security features to Linux after he noticed that FreeBSD already had Capsicum support. Capsicum defines fine-grained security privileges, not unlike filesystem capabilities. But as David discovered, Capsicum also has some controversy surrounding it.

Capsicum has been around for a while and was described in a USENIX paper in 2010:http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/capsicum/papers/2010usenix-security-capsicum-website.pdf.

Part of the controversy is just because of the similarity with capabilities. As Eric Biderman pointed out during the discussion, it would be possible to implement features approaching Capsicum's as an extension of capabilities, but implementing Capsicum directly would involve creating a whole new (and extensive) abstraction layer in the kernel. Although David argued that capabilities couldn't actually be extended far enough to match Capsicum's fine-grained security controls.

Source:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/diff-u-whats-new-kernel-development-6