Samsung design chief replaced following Galaxy S5 disappointment

Samsung has a new man in charge of its mobile design team, following criticism of its new Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone.

Chang Dong-hoon will be replaced by Lee Min-hyouk, who was the vice president for mobile design, Reuters reports. Samsung didn't have any comment to make about the move, though apparently Chang Dong-hoon offered to resign himself last week (likely under pressure by the sound of things).

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New UK measures to combat piracy are far weaker than hoped for by copyright owners

A new deal could be struck between ISPs and representatives of the music and film industries in UK in a bid to combat online piracy. But the proposed scheme does not go anywhere near as far as had been hoped by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and the MPA (Motion Picture Association). Four of the country's biggest ISPs -- BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media -- have come together to create the Voluntary Copyright Alert Program (Vcap) which has the aim of educating downloaders of pirate material of the error of their ways. As the name suggests, the program is completely voluntary.

There have been years of debate on the topic, and the BBC has seen documentation that shows ISPs will be doing little more than sending out letters to those suspected of downloading pirated material. The letters are described as having an "educational" tone, while the industry bodies had been calling for warning letters to be sent out alerting downloaders to the possibility of legal action. They had also asked for access to a database of web users known to have downloaded pirated material.

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Snap happy -- Google Camera app for KitKat is a winner [Review]

I was never a big fan of the camera interface that came with KitKat on my Nexus 5. Having to roll my finger about on the screen to get to the various menu options never really appealed. It felt awkward, and I was always missing the selections I wanted.

Anyone running KitKat may have come across the fact that the camera app has changed. My Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 both got it as an automatic download, but if you are running KitKat on a handset or a tablet and don't have the new camera app, you can pop along to the Play store and download it. It's called Google Camera.

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Panda Cloud Antivirus 3 Free adds scheduler, USB vaccination

Panda Security has announced the release of Panda Cloud Antivirus 3.0, the latest edition of its popular cloud-based antivirus tool.

As with many other security packages, the program now has a Windows 8-style interface. Panda has made a better job of it than most, though: it looks good, is easy to use, and you can even drag the tiles around to rearrange them.

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Twitter bolsters security with password reset and suspicious login improvements

Security is always important, but now that we find ourselves in a post-Heartbleed world, it seems that there is more importance than ever being placed on passwords and the safety of online accounts. The constant advice, that we should be using unique passwords of ever-increasing complexity for each service we use, means that there is a greater chance of forgetting our login details. This is something that Twitter recognizes with a couple of account safety changes that are being introduced today.

A new password reset procedure lets you choose whether reset details should be sent to your registered email address or phone number. Having a choice is helpful in case you no longer use the email address you registered with, or if you have switched phone numbers. Choice is good! Mobile users will also find that the reset process has been improved, and Twitter helpfully provides some tips to aid with selecting a strong new password.

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Weapon up! Unreal Tournament to return as free, crowd-sourced game

Remember Unreal Tournament? Remember the hours (days?) you invested in it? Well, it's back! Or at least it will be soon… It's a game that we've heard nothing of for some time now, but Epic is wheeling out the classic title for a new airing. This time around, the gaming community is being called upon to contribute. In a post on the Unreal Engine Blog, Steve Polge says, "work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we're happy to announce that we're going to do this together, with you".

What does all of this mean? To cut to the chase, a new version of Unreal Tournament is, as of right now, being developed. Yippee! The UT community is a passionate one, and the new project is going to take full advantage of this. This is a collaborative project and the finished product will call upon the input of fans, Unreal Engine 4 developers, and Epic. If you fancy getting involved -- be it to contribute code, artwork, or just ideas -- you are free to do so.

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ZTE begins selling Open C Firefox OS Phone on eBay for $99

Android and iOS pretty much have the smartphone market locked-up. Sure, Windows Phone and even BlackBerry still represent a small slice of the market-share pie, but they are non-factors -- for now. Sadly, when duopolies have a stranglehold on markets, it is hard for a third player to make an impact.

Mozilla is trying to change that with Firefox OS, but so far, it has not sparked the interest of consumers. However, Firefox devices have not been widely available; they have been relegated to developer devices being sold on eBay. Today, that trend continues with the consumer-focused ZTE Open C, which is being sold on the auction site for a wallet-friendly $99.

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The scale of Windows 8.x’s failure is staggering

Once a month I report on the desktop operating system market share using data from NetMarketShare. The changes in fortune between the different flavors of Windows is usually fairly minimal -- a percentage point gained here, a percentage point lost there. And usually the rise or fall is a lot less than one percent, although as a month is quite a small time scale to measure market share changes over, and we’re talking about millions and millions of Windows users, that’s to be expected.

I decided, out of curiosity, to take a look at what a year’s worth of market share variations would look like, using StatCounter’s Global Stats, and the results were less than thrilling, with the different operating systems showing very little change. In May 2013, Windows 7 had 56.27 percent. 12 months later it is on 55.03 percent. A drop of just 1.24 percent. Windows XP fell 6.73 percent, while Windows 8.x grew 8.16 percent. The pattern is clear -- Windows 8.x sales look to be coming from upgrades (mainly XP) but people are mostly sticking with their older operating systems. Open up the time scale however, and a more dramatic -- and damning -- picture emerges.

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Soon police will be able to trace photographs back to the camera that took them

Forensic experts have long been able to match a series of prints to the hand that left them, or a bullet to the gun that fired it. Now, the same thing is being done with the photos taken by digital cameras, and is ushering in a new era of digital crime fighting.

New technology is now allowing law enforcement officers to search through any collection of images to help track down the identity of photo-taking criminals, such as smartphone thieves and child pornographers.

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Hide sensitive on-screen information from prying eyes with AntiSnooper

If you’re the kind of person who has to hurriedly switch off their monitor whenever anyone comes near, you need Bagrify’s AntiSnooper 1.1. This free tool makes it possible to obscure selected program windows whenever they’re not in focus, hiding whatever sensitive information you may have to hide.

It’s perfect for both business and home use, and runs on any PC with Windows XP or later installed.

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Mimecast adds spear phishing protection

Phishing

Spear phishing attacks are becoming more commonplace and with each major data leak, like that of earlier this year at Target, the number of people at risk of falling victim to one increases.

By their very nature spear phishing attacks are highly targeted and seek to trick users into visiting malicious URLs by appearing to come from a trusted source.

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Amazon adds Sunday delivery to 15 more US cities

Amazon's future plans for delivery have been all over the news recently. From drones to rumors the company will start its own service -- a UPS of sorts. While neither of those has yet come to pass, the company is opening up its delivery options a bit.

Amazon is announcing the expansion of its Sunday delivery service, adding 15 more cities. "In addition to the Los Angeles and New York metro areas where Sunday delivery launched in November 2013, Amazon customers in the following locations are now receiving deliveries on Sunday". The retailer then goes on to name the locations, which include Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.

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Change the look of your Windows Phone 8.1 homescreen with Theme+

Windows Phone 8.1 may not be as customizable as Android is, but the newest iteration of the tiled smartphone operating system does give users a fair bit of leeway when it comes to their homescreen layout and appearance. There are quite a few live tile colors to choose from, two background options, and, if that is not custom enough, an image can be set as background for pinned live tiles.

However, users can go even further with the homescreen customization in Windows Phone 8.1 by turning to third-party apps, like Theme+. It can generate custom images which are sized to work properly as live tile backgrounds.

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Adaptiva OneSite boosts WAN performance and optimizes Windows 8 environments

network

With business becoming more global and having remote offices in different locations, network performance is more than ever a key issue for administrators, especially when performing system updates.

System management specialist Adaptiva has launched a new version of its SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) tool OneSite, aimed at improving WAN performance and scalability as well as making the most of Windows 8 environments.

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Adobe Voice lets iPad users quickly create slideshow-based video stories

Adobe has unveiled a new free app for iPad users. Dubbed an app for storytelling, Adobe Voice 1.0 allows users to create animated slideshow-based video stories based on their own narrated scripts.

Each slide -- or "page" -- consists of a recorded sentence or two, a choice of layouts and then a selection of text, icons or photos that are automatically animated and edited together into a single movie that can be played back or shared online.

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