India's Supreme Court protects freedom of speech -- strikes down 'unconstitutional' IT Act Section 66A
It’s a big day for freedom of speech in India. The country’s Supreme Court today scrapped an ambiguous and controversial law which governed the consequences of posting sensitive and offensive content on the web. The ruling challenges the IT Act, including Section 66A, Section 79, and Section 69. With this decision the Supreme Court -- the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal under the Constitution of India -- ruled against the Central government which had defended the section.
The bench which consisted of Justice Chelameswar and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman struck down Section 66A of the IT Act. For a refresh, the Section 66A orders 3 years imprisonment for anyone making offensive statements on the web; Section 79 forces the intermediary to take down the content from the web; and Section 69 allows blocking of online content.
Flickr Tab displays great images on every new Chrome tab
Flickr Tab is a simple Chrome extension which displays a popular Flickr image every time you open a new Chrome tab.
Interesting idea, we thought. Maybe you’ll be able to customize the images, perhaps define a few keywords, so you’re running a personalized Flickr search each time?
Amazon's Fire TV Stick finally arrives in the UK -- Grab one for just £7
Amazon launched its Fire TV Stick in the US last October, leaving those of us in the UK feeling a little jealous of our stateside cousins. However, we don’t have to wait too much longer to get our hands on the retail giant’s streaming device as Amazon announces it will soon be available on British shores.
The Fire TV Stick is available to preorder today and will begin shipping on April 15. And there’s great news if you’re an Amazon Prime member, or have been toying with the idea of becoming one.
Easily create and debug batch files with Batch IDE
Creating and testing batch files can be a tedious experience. You’ll open Notepad, type your script, save it, switch to an Explorer window, find and double-click the file. And if there are problems you must switch back to Notepad and do the same thing again.
Batch IDE is a tiny portable batch file editor (a 114KB download) which cuts out all this hassle by including a "Run" button. Enter your script, click Run when you’re ready, and a command window opens to display the results: no saving or task switching required.
At $320 Xiaomi's new 40-inch Android Mi TV 2 is the best FHD TV you can't buy (yet)
At an event in China today, technology conglomerate Xiaomi introduces a new TV set to its Mi TV lineup. The new TV -- as we had expected -- is a smaller and cheaper variant of last year's Mi TV 2 with a lower resolution display. The new Mi TV 2 has a 40-inch display with Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) screen resolution. It is priced at 1,999 yuan (equivalent to $320), and is available for sale in China through the company's website Mi.com.
As for the specification, the new variant of Mi TV 2 sports a Sharp SDP X-GEN LED-backlit panel that offers a contrast ratio of 5000:1. It is powered by a quad-core 1.1GHz Cortex A9 processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. With a frame of 14.5mm waistline, the smart television set runs on Android 4.4-based MIUI TV OS. The company assures that it will soon release the Lollipop update to it.
Nexus 6 is amazing [Review]
When isn't a cell phone too big? The Motorola-made, Google-branded phablet answers that question for me, and may very well for you. From Samsung's introduction of the original Note, I scoffed at large-screen smartphones—and, honestly, the seemingly stereotypical gadget geeks using them. But big is better, and my arrogant attitude about phablets and the people buying them was unwarranted.
Simply stated: Nexus 6 is the best handset I have ever used. The experience is so fresh and delightful, the emotional reaction reminds of using the original iPhone that I purchased on launch day in June 2007. N6 shatters my negative preconception about phablets, particularly unwieldiness when used daily. That said, I made some lifestyle changes, including choice of clothing, to accommodate the mobile's massive size.
Hulu and TV show creator Jason Katims team for show, Stephen King among those on board
Original content is king these days, as the online streaming services fall all over themselves trying to score the next big winner -- the House of Cards for the next awards show. While Netflix and Amazon spring to mind, Hulu is no slouch either, offering an ever-increasing amount of content to its eager audience. Now one more original series has appeared in the pipeline.
Writer and creator Jason Katims, famous for Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, among others, is on board for a new series titled The Way. Not a title that gives much of any clue about content.
Twitch possibly hacked -- all users forced to change passwords
With so many security breaches nowadays, it can feel a bit fatiguing. You come up with what you think is a really good password, only to have a website hack compromise your credentials. This is why it is very important that you do not use the same password -- or similar variations of it -- on multiple sites. If a hacker gets the password to one site, they may try it on others; scary stuff.
Today, Twitch, the video streaming service for video gamers, announces that it may have been hacked. Yes, may have, as in the company isn't positive. It is frustrating that the company doesn't know for sure, but since there is a possibility, it is requiring that all users change their password.
Microsoft releases Windows 10 SDK tools for developers
It has been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally released the SDK for Windows 10 -- just ahead of next month's Build. Users have been playing around with various builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview, but this is the first chance developers have had to get hands on with the tools they'll need to create apps for the latest version of Microsoft's operating system.
The Windows 10 Technical Preview tools and Visual Studio 2015 CTP6 can be downloaded by Windows Insiders, and it gives developers the chance to try out the tools and provide feedback with the first technical preview. Templates are provided to make it easy to get started with the development of universal apps, and Microsoft is keen for developers to get to work.
Twitter teams up with Foursquare for location-based tweets
Foursquare (remember that app?) is joining forces with Twitter to make tweets more relevant to specific locations. At the moment it is possible to tag your location in a tweet, but you're limited to mentioning the town or city you find yourself in.
With the new partnership, you'll be able to tag individual locations such as the Starbucks you're sitting in with your iPhone or Android handset. It's a feature that takes advantage of the huge cache of data Foursquare has built up over the years and something that provides yet another way for users to search for data and, importantly, for Twitter to monetize data.
Xiaomi all set to launch the most affordable 4K smart TV you can't easily purchase
Chinese technology conglomerate Xiaomi will be launching its new TV models tomorrow, the company has teased on Twitter. Xiaomi reportedly plans to launch two models in its Mi TV lineup -- one of which will be the successor to 49-inch 4K capable Mi TV 2, while the other will be a smaller-sized television set with FHD display.
Xiaomi has earned a name for itself for selling incredibly cheap-priced smartphones and other mobile accessories, and its Mi TV is no exception. The Chinese company launched the Mi TV 2 last May in China for the equivalent of $640. As for the specs, it packs in a 49-inch display with 4K screen resolution. The smart TV is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MStar 6AM918 CPU paired with Mali0450 MP4 GPU and 2GB of RAM with 8GB expandable storage. Running on Android, the TV has MIUI ROM skin on top.
Nice curves! Samsung unveils new monitor lineup
Curves are en vogue these days with both monitors and TVs, though they still come at a premium price and the benefits are open to debate. Still, it seems to be the latest fad, coupling with 4K and riding on the heels of the failure to sell people on 3D. Samsung is no stranger to the market, manufacturing upper tier screens for living room and office alike.
Now the company is announcing its latest line of monitors, featuring five curved models. The latest offerings range in size from as small as 23.5 inches up to 31.5 inches, the latter approaching TV size. The specs of each are as varying as the sizes.
How to keep your smartwatch data safe
One of the technological highlights of 2015 so far has been the official announcement of the much anticipated Apple Watch, almost two years after Samsung’s first Galaxy Gear smartwatch. The iPhone compatible smartwatch is initially priced from $349 for the entry-level Sport model to around $17,000 for an 18-carat gold version. Some of the manufacturers, like Samsung, LG, SONY and Motorola, are already presenting the 3rd generation of their smartwatches.
While opinion is divided about how successful Apple Watch will prove to be, it’s clear that smartwatches and other wearable technologies are a great way to collect and display contextual data quickly and easily. However, because this is a technology boom that is still in its infancy, there are several questions that remain to be answered when it comes to data security and recovery. There are four things you might like to consider when protecting data accessed via a smartwatch.
Samsung will pre-install Microsoft apps on even more Android devices
Microsoft is now a services and devices company, meaning it is delivering its services and apps to all platforms -- not only its own. Heck, I bought the Microsoft Band over the weekend, and not only does it work with Windows Phone, but iOS and Android. In other words, the company is delivering on its services and devices mantra.
Having cross-platform apps is great, but you have to convince consumers to install them. With that said, it is much more preferable to have apps pre-installed on devices, which can make the consumer more likely to use them. Microsoft convinced Samsung to install some of its apps on the upcoming Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge; a major score for the company. Today, it announces that the partnership is expanding to even more of Samsung's Android devices.
New malware makes credit card transactions a scary PoSeidon adventure
As more and more transactions are carried out electronically, point of sale systems become an ever more tempting target for cyber criminals. Security researchers at networking company Cisco have identified a new strain of PoS malware that seeks to extract credit card data from memory and send it to remote servers.
Named PoSeidon it has a more sophisticated design than other PoS malware and has some resemblance to ZeuS. It's written to evade detection, can communicate directly with C&C servers, self-update to execute new code and has self-protection mechanisms to guard against reverse engineering.
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.