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Apple unveiled iOS 8 at WWDC today, the latest OS that will drive its iPhone and iPad devices.

iOS brings plenty of new features across its apps, as well as new tools for developers to create new apps for the OS. Among its notable new features are iCloud Photo Library to spread/use your photos and videos more seamlessly across your devices, and the anticipated new Health app that gathers your health and fitness data to one place.

The new Messages app is also more powerful, making it possible to very easily send/receive audio, video and picture messages. Additionally, the new QuickType Keyboard could speed up your messaging significantly. It's predictive typing ability can learn aspects of your personality which it stores encrypted on the device, and that enables you to quickly respond to questions and even construct entire sentences with a few taps.

By understanding the context of your messages, it enables you to give quick answers to queries, for example, if you are asked whether you want to go to dinner or a movie tonight, it will identify "dinner" and "movie" and make it possible to respond with a tap.

Group messaging also became easier to control, making it more simple to add and remove contacts, leave a conversation and use the option to not be disturbed.

Want to watch Apple's WWDC keynote live today and get a glimpse of the future of iOS and OS X, and possibly more? Here's how..

Apple is livestreaming the event itself, but given that this is Apple we are talking about, it has set limitations on how you can watch its live stream. Firstly, you must be using an Apple device, running Safari 4 on OS X 10.6 or later, or if you have an iPod touch, iPad or iPhone you can watch it on Safari on iOS 4.2.

If you have a second- or third-generation Apple TV STB, then you can watch as long as you have v5.0.2 or later. Whether you can watch it on Safari for Windows with QuickTime installed we honestly do not know yet.

Here is Apple's direct link: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2014/

For Windows users, there may be several secondary streaming options to watch along, although there could be ads or even commentary over the keynote.

One such feed is from "Live Tech Keynotes" on Ustream and it is embedded below, but please remember this is not a feed provided by AfterDawn and we are not responsible for its content.

EVENT IS OVER, STREAM REMOVED

Feel free to post other (NON-SPAM) links to the comments in due course. Enjoy!

Jolla, the Finnish smartphone start-up initiated by ex-Nokia employees, has revealed its FY-2013 figures showing a sizable loss relative to revenue.

Last year's revenue amounted to €3.5 million, while spending (including research & development) was north of €10 million. Jolla revealed an operating loss for 2013 of €8.3 million, over double its turnover for the period.

Jolla's financials also showed that the company received €9.8 million in investments in 2013, while convertible bonds increased by over €1.3 million and bank debt increased by €800,000. At the end of the year, Jolla counted around €300,000 in cash.

The Finnish start-up only started selling its first smartphones in December 2013, so the figures are not much of a surprise.

Initiated by several former Nokia employees, Jolla makes smartphones that run the Sailfish operating system. Sailfish is developed by Jolla in cooperation with the Mer project (based on Intel's MeeGo).

The first Jolla device went on sale in Europe in December 2013, selling for €399. Since then, developers have ported Sailfish to run on Google Nexus 4, and the OS exited beta in February of this year.

According to reports, the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States has grabbed millions of photos from the Internet for use in facial recognition systems.

The report in the New York Times was based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, who is nearing a year in asylum in Russia as he evades U.S. authorities. It claims that the NSA has mined millions of photos from the Internet as part of its facial recognition projects, sourced from social media, e-mail, video chats and even text messages.

Images snapped up from the Internet were then cross-referenced with other databases that included images of airline passengers and even from national identity cards of other countries. The NSA denied that it has access to photos taken for U.S. passports or U.S. driving licenses.

The leaked documents showed that the NSA's facial recognition systems have produced mixed results. Examples were included within that the "Tundra Freeze" (codename) project had turned up several obvious mismatches when trying to identify a young bearded man with dark hair in a photo, and even turned up incorrect results when querying photos of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Some efforts were successful however, including correctly matching a picture of a bald man at a water park to another picture of the same man with hair, and different clothes in a different setting.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Google is set to spend over $1 billion launching 180 satellites into low-Earth orbit to provide Internet access around the world.

Previously, Google had raised more than a few eyebrows a year ago when it announced Project Loon to deliver Internet access in unconnected areas and disaster zones using balloons high up in the atmosphere. Since then, it also bought Titan Aerospace, a company that is building drones that are solar-powered and can provide Internet access from above too.

Google is now preparing to jump above the atmosphere for its cause of delivering Internet access globally. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Google is preparing to launch 180 mini satellites that will orbit the Earth at relatively low altitude and will possibly launch more later.

The report cited sources familiar with the project in setting an expected cost of around $1 billion, though other sources hinted it could swell to $3 billion as the project progresses.

Greg Wyler, founder of O3b Networks, has been identified as the head of the project. O3b Networks has been invested in by Google, and it produces 1500lb satellites. Google's sats though, will reportedly weigh in at 250lb a piece.

Huawei has achieved 10Gbps Wi-Fi service in laboratory trials in Shenzhen, over ten times faster than commercially available Wi-Fi solutions today.

Specifically, the prototype system achieved a record transmission speed of 10.53Gbps on 5GHz frequency bands. Next generation Wi-Fi technology could make these improvements commercially available from 2018 onwards, pending the agreement of global standards requirements and sufficient chipset availability.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 WLAN standard plenary meeting held last month saw the election of Dr. Osama Aboul Magd from Huawei as the 802.11ax WLAN standard task group chair, which will focus on the development of the next generation 10Gbps WiFi standard.

Commercial launch of the next generation Wi-Fi standard is planned for 2018.

Faster speeds can be achieved through a combination of new innovative technologies, such as MIMO-OFDA providing improvements in multi-user data rates.

Samsung has launched the Samsung Z Tizen smartphone ahead of the Tizen Developer Conference to be held in San Francisco from Wednesday, June 3.

The Z packs a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display (1280 x 720), a fingerprint censor and will be available in Black and Gold. Under the hood, it houses a 2.3GHz Quad Core application processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal memory which is expandable to 64GB via microSD.

An 8MP camera can be found on the read, and a 2.1MP on the front.

Of course the most notable thing about the device is on the software side. The Samsung Z will be the first commercially available smartphone running the Tizen (v 2.2.1) operating system, which Samsung promises delivers a fast, optimal performance with improved memory management compared to Android.

Tizen boots faster than Android devices (apparently), and also delivers immediate multi-tasking capabilities.

  

As of writing, to be defined as high-speed Internet (broadband), your connection must have just a 4 Mbps down stream.

While a decade ago that may have been considered fast, such a low speed now hardly qualifies, especially with the rise of HD streaming. Netflix, for example requires a 5 Mbps connection for HD-quality streaming.

The FCC appears to agree, and has begun considering changing the definition of "broadband" into the future. The agency will be soliciting comments on whether broadband should be defined as 10 Mbps or higher, and in one extreme measure, 25 Mbps. Uploads speeds are also affected, with the standard moving to 2.9 Mbps, up from 1 Mbps.

In addition, the FCC will also look to see if they should adopt a tiered set of definitions for different regions or for different parts of the day, where requirements may be harder to meet.

In 2012, 6 percent of Americans lacked broadband, but that number will likely be significantly higher if the rules change.

After unveiling the app last month, Microsoft has launched a native file manager application for Windows Phone 8.1.

Dubbed "Files," the app is one of just many file managers and video editing apps expected to hit the operating system now that 8.1 allows for them.

The free app has the following feature set:

Access files stored on your phone and SD card
Browse, search and launch files
Easily share one file or multiple files
Create folders to organize your files
Copy, move, rename and delete files

Motorola Mobility has announced that it will shut down its factory in Texas that was opened to build the Moto X smartphone last year.

The plant, at its peak, employed 3800 workers, but that figure is down to 700 now.

While the company had hoped to show that manufacturing could make its way back to the U.S., it appears the costs remained too high (or demand was too low) to keep the plant open. Motorola is said to have sold 900,000 Moto X in the last quarter, compared to 26 million iPhone 5S, and over 40 million Samsung smartphones.

The Moto X will continue to be built in China and Brazil, confirmed the company.

Motorola's mid-range but cheap devices, like the Moto E and Moto G, have huge followings in nations like India and Brazil, and will therefore not be built in the U.S., where shipping and labor costs would be too high.

Source:
WSJ

According to Swedish source Expressen, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has been arrested in Sweden, following a police raid at a farm in the city of Skåne Tonganoxie.

Sunde had been wanted by Interpol since 2012 over copyright infringement violations.

The arrest leaves founder Fredrik Neij as the only fugitive of the group, as Gottfrid Swartholm Warg was arrested in 2009 after evading authorities on hacking charges.

Sunde will likely have to serve his eight month sentence for copyright crimes related to operating The Pirate Bay, and will also face stiff fines.

Source:
Expressen

Psy's "Gangnam Style," first released in July 2012, has reached another massive milestone, becoming the first video to hit 2 billion views on YouTube.

The viral hit was the fastest to 1 billion and surpassed Justin Beiber's "Baby" for the most viewed video of all-time last year.

As a commemoration, Google has added like dancing emojis of Psy around the play counter.

"2 billion views ... they are very honorable and very burdensome numbers," Psy said in response to the news. "With appreciation, I will come back soon with more joyful contents!!" Psy's second hit, "Gentleman," has a measly 690 million views.

Gangnam Stlye remains popular, and actually had 90,000 views in the time it took me to publish this blurb.

According to a new survey by Consumer Reports, 15 percent of all U.S. consumers were victims of personal data breaches in 2013.

Perhaps most shockingly, 62 percent have done nothing since being notified to protect their privacy online.

The report estimates that 11.2 million people were victims of email phishing scams and 29 percent of Americans have been infected with some sort of malware in the last year.

In 2013, there were eight "mega breaches" in which personal details were stolen from at least 10 million people. So far in 2014, that number is likely to go even higher following major breaches at Adobe and eBay (not to mention Heartbleed).

Read the full report here: Consumer Reports

Samsung has begun updating the original Galaxy Gear to Tizen, which should hopefully bring an updated operating system and better efficiency to the watch.

Aesthetically, the watch will look almost the same after the migration from Android, but there will be significant battery life and performance updates.

In addition, you will have a standalone music player, tap input shortcuts and voice commands for the camera.

The new features will closely resemble those of the newer Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, which ran Tizen out of the box.

You will have to update via Samsung's own Kies or you can get the firmware manually and upgrade it via USB chord. It is unclear whether it will be available OTA in the near future. It is important to note that you will need to wipe the device, but Samsung will let you backup your data and most third-party app support will be broken following the update.

First reported on in April, it is being reported that Google's new TV platform "Android TV" is ready for prime time and an official unveiling at the Google I/O conference next month.

The TV operating system will be available for smart TVs and set-top boxes and will focus on online streaming services and also Android based video games, making it similar to the newly launched Amazon Fire TV.

As expected, the platform will launch with all the major services on board, including Netflix, Hulu Plus and HBO Go. Hardware partners like LG and Samsung are also expected to be announced with devices ready in the coming months.

A "killer feature" of the platform is 'Pano,' which is the codename for the minimalist user interface. The apps will look like cards familiar to Google Now users, and different content like movies or TV shows can be found instantly when Android TV is turned on.