Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Warg gets lengthy jail term

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Warg has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for hacking into computers and illegally downloading files.

He and a co-defendant were convicted of breaking into computers owned by technology services giant CSC by a Danish court.
They downloaded police and social security files from the computers.
Prosecutors said it was the "largest hacking case to date".
Soon after the sentence was announced, lawyers representing Mr Warg said they would launch an appeal.
Warg's accomplice was given a six-month jail sentence but walked free from the court, having served 17 months in pre-trial detention.
The initial hack attack took place in February 2012 and gave the pair access to the sensitive information, including social security numbers and police records, for about six months.
Defence lawyers said that, although the hack attacks were carried out using a computer owned by Warg, he was not the person that used it to steal the files.
Instead, they said, an unnamed hacker took over this machine and used it to carry out the attacks. Warg has declined to name this other hacker.
After considering evidence, the judge and jury in the case said it was "unlikely" that other people were responsible.
The court's decision is the third to go against Warg in the last five years.
He was deported from Cambodia in September 2013 to Sweden where he served a jail term for copyright theft because of his involvement with the Pirate Bay file-sharing site.
In a separate trial in 2013, Warg was sentenced to two years in a Swedish jail for hacking into a bank's computers. This sentence was reduced to one year on appeal.
In that trial, Warg and accomplice were found guilty of breaking into the computer systems of computer services firm Logica, which was doing work for Sweden's tax office and a bank. On that occasion his accomplice was put on probation.
In late November 2013 he was deported to Denmark to face charges in the CSC hacking cases.

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Samsung Galaxy A5, A3 Release Date Annouced

The Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 release date has just been announced with Samsung unveiling two new ultra-thin, fully metal devices targeting young consumers with a 5-megapixel selfie camera and social networking optimization. According to Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 are its thinnest devices yet with the 5-inch Galaxy A5 just 6.7mm thick and the 4.5-inch Galaxy A3 just 6.9mm thick, beating or matching the iPhone 6, which is 6.9mm thick. The two new smartphones are also the first from Samsung to feature a metal unibody design.

“The Galaxy A5 and A3 offer a beautifully crafted full metal unibody, slim design, superior hardware and the best possible social media experience,” JK Shin, CEO and Head of IT & Mobile Communication at Samsung Electronics, said in a release. “These devices make our advanced Galaxy experience even more accessible to young and trend conscious consumers.” To facilitate selfie taking, the Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 feature a 5-megapixel front camera with a slew of selfie modes including wide selfie, palm selfie, beauty face features, rear-cam selfies and even an animated gif maker.

Samsung Galaxy A5

The Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3 release date announcement is seen by analysts as Samsung’s first counterstrike after a dismal third quarter earnings report, Reuters reported. While the new shiny devices are being marketed to young consumers, it’s clear that Samsung is aiming to reclaim its title of biggest smartphone maker in China from local upstart Xiaomi. The two new smartphones will go on sale in China in November and other select markets that have yet to be announced. Pricing details for the Samsung Galaxy A5 and A3 have not been revealed but they are considered mid-tier devices without the top-of-the line specs of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy devices.

The Samsung Galaxy A5 is a more premium device than the Galaxy A3, which the A5 boosting a higher resolution screen, more memory, better rear camera and bigger battery. The Samsung Galaxy A5 has a 5-inch 720x1280 pixels or 294 ppi display compared to the Galaxy A3’s 4.5-inch 540x960 pixels or 245 ppi display. While both new devices have a 5-megapixel camera front camera with selfie functions, the Galaxy A5 has a 13-megapixel rear camera while the Galaxy A3 has an 8-megapixel one.

The Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 both sport a quad-core 1.2GHz processor but the A5 has 2GB of RAM, while the A3 has 1GB of RAM. Both devices have 16GB of  built-in storage with support for up to 64GB microSD card. But the Galaxy A5 has a 2,300 mAh battery compared to the Galaxy A3’s 1,900 mAh battery. Both devices will ship with Android 4.4 KitKat and come in a variety of colors including white, black, soft pink, light blue, silver and gold.

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Auxo 2 now available for iPad [Updated]

Auxo 2, one of the best jailbreak tweaks for iOS 7 has just been updated to add support for iPad.
Auxo 2 is an awesome replacement for the app switcher that has been completely re-imagined for iOS 7, and comes with a number of new features such as Quick Switcher, Multi-Center, Hot Corners and more.
A3tweaks had released Auxo 2 for the iPhone earlier in the month, and it brings the same features to the iPad. Here’s a recap in case you missed it:
Quick Switcher:

It offers a cool new way to switch between apps with touch gestures. Here’s how it works. When you swipe up on the bottom left corner of the screen, it displays six app icons at the bottom of the screen instead of just one. You can then drag your finger across the app icons, and release it when you come to the app you want to switch to it, in one single motion.
The only difference in Auxo 2 for iPad is that, Quick Switcher is not limited to just 6 recently used apps like on the iPhone. You will be able to quickly switch to any app running in the background on the iPad.
Quick Switcher is one of the best features of Auxo 2, but it may take sometime to get used to the new workflow.
Multi-Center:
It integrates the Control Center with the app switcher. So you can access media controls, quick launch shortcuts, system toggles and brightness controls in the app switcher.
Unlike Auxo 2 for iPhone, the system toggles, the AirDrop/AirPlay options, brightness controls and media controls can all be accessed from the bottom, below the app switcher.

The developer has also paid attention to the smallest details by adding a Home icon to the Home screen page in the app switcher.
It also includes some nifty features for iTunes Radio users such as the ability to favorite a song to influence upcoming songs, and also to scrub songs which is not possible with the default Music app. Tapping on the name of the currently playing song will display the album art in the center of the screen. Tap and hold on the song information will launch the Music app.

Thanks to iPad’s larger screen real estate, Multi-Center doesn’t feel as cluttered on the iPad.
Close All app:
You can also swipe up on the Home screen card in the app switcher to close all apps running in the background, and is smart enough to know that it should not kill the music app if you’re listening to music. The animation when you swipe up on the Home screen card to close all apps is pretty cool.
Hot Corners:
The feature allows you to do a few things depending on how you’ve configured the other features. For example: A swipe up from the bottom right corner of the tweak lets you close the app you’re currently using. The animation when you close the app using the Hot Corner feature is also quite neat.
If you’ve Multi-Center disabled then swipe up from the bottom left corner of the screen will give you access to the Quick Switcher, and a further swipe up gesture will launch the multitasking tray.
Settings Options:
Auxo 2 allows you to customise how it works by offering various options in the Settings app such as:

• You can enable or disable each of the major features such as Quick Switcher, Multi-Center and Hot Corners using On/Off toggle in the Settings app.

• You can also quickly switch between two apps when invoking the Multi-Center by enabling the “Open to Last app” toggle.

• If you’re left-handed, then you can enable the Invert the Hot Corners toggle to access the app switcher from the bottom right corner.

• Auxo 2 may not play nice with all the apps such as games and full screen apps, so you have the option to disable it in specific apps.

Auxo 2 for iPad also comes with fewer configuration options than the iPhone version as you don’t need the Minimal Display option etc to reduce the clutter in Multi-Center
Auxo 2 is available for $3.99. If you have purchased Auxo previously, then you can purchase it for $1.99. If you had purchased Auxo 2 on the iPhone then you can install it for free on your iPad.
Auxo 2 is one of the best jailbreak tweaks for iOS 7, and it feels even better on the iPad.

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Driveclub PS+ Edition Release Date Delayed "Until Further Notice"

Sony's President of Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, just recently posted on the Driveclub Facebook page, and things aren't looking good for those who want to play the PS+ Edition of Sony's latest racing game. It seems that the PS+ Edition of Driveclub won't be coming to your PS4 any time soon. Yoshida's statement is as follows:

"Message from Shuhei Yoshida - President of World Wide Studios
Hi everyone,
I wanted to provide you with the latest update on DRIVECLUB. Unfortunately, the road to launch has been a little rocky, and we are truly sorry that so many of you have not been able to enjoy everything that we had hoped DRIVECLUB would deliver.
We have been listening to your feedback and realize that patience understandably is running out. Evo is working around the clock to close the gap, and we have deployed additional engineering resources to help resolve the remaining issues as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the time frames required to roll out the fully connected experience will be longer than anticipated and we do not have an exact time frame for when they will be resolved. We will continue to update you on progress and you can find the latest info on the DRIVECLUB Facebook page.
We are also very conscious that we have disappointed so many of you who were looking forward to playing the promised PS Plus Edition. Our first priority is to provide you with the best possible experience while playing DRIVECLUB. With the high volume of new players and additional server load the PS Plus Edition is anticipated to bring, we are currently not confident that we can guarantee the best online experience. Until we can ensure that everyone can enjoy the full social connected online experience, we will be postponing the release of the PS Plus Edition until further notice.
On behalf of WWS we are enormously grateful for your patience and we thank you for the continued support and encouragement. Again, we sincerely apologize for the delay. We are committed to giving you the best racing experience on PS4 – it’s taking a little longer than we hoped.
Thanks,  Shu"

Driveclub has been experiencing a great deal of technical problems since before it was even released on Oct. 7 with those who purchased the full game still being locked out of the servers that are required to play the online racing game. Driveclub had been delayed two times before releasing, and it seems like more delays were needed. In an interview with GameInformer, game director Paul Rustchynsky said that the delays were primarily related to the feature called the "dynamic menu." Perhaps this is still the problems plaguing development.
Unfortunately for both those who bought Driveclub and those who were hoping to play the free PS+ Edition will just have to wait for Sony and Evolution Studios to figure out what is wrong and get it working again. There has been no estimated timeframe established for a fix, so please don't hold your breath.

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Guide to using Google+ Auto Backup

The holidays are fast approaching, so it's time to make sure that your captured moments will be safe if your mobile device gets lost or damaged. Google+ Auto Backup is a free and easy way to save all of your photos and videos to the cloud. The backup feature works by uploading media to the Photos area of your Google+ account. This guide will offer some tips for getting the most benefit from the service.
Note: You will need Google+ installed on your device to use the Auto Backup service. For Android users, installing Google+ will also include a shortcut app icon to the Photos area of your account.

Enable Auto Backup

It's important to note that this feature is not on by default, since it can use a large amount of data on your mobile device. If you dismissed the option to turn it on when you first installed the app, here's how to enable it:

Android

Open the photos app, head to Settings (the three dots in the top right-hand corner), then to Auto Backup. Toggle the feature to "on" at the top of the screen.

iOS

Open the Google+ app, then open the menu (hamburger icon). Tap the settings cog in the upper right-hand corner and choose Camera and Photos. Choose Auto Backup and toggle the feature on. If you receive an error message, you may need to grant Google+ access to your photos. This can be done by heading to your device Settings > Privacy > Photos, where you will need to enable Google+ access.

Select a photo size

Google has been kind enough to offer unlimited uploads for pictures at a standard size of 2,048 px. However, if you want your pictures in their original glory, you'll need to adjust the Photo size setting to Full size and keep within the limits of space on your account.

Android

In the Photos app, head to Settings, then Photo size and pick your preferred size.

iOS

In the Google+ app, open the menu, then tap the settings cog. Next, choose Camera and Photos and then "Auto backup." Change the Photo size setting to your preferred resolution.
If you're not sure how much space you have left -- since it is shared between Drive, Gmail and Photos -- you can find out by visiting this link.

Choose which folders to sync

Android only

Android users of Google+'s Auto Backup service can choose to sync media that is downloaded, like images from other apps. If you don't want a copy of these files, you'll want to specify which folders Auto Backup will sync. Here's how:
Open the Photos app, slide out the left-hand menu and choose "On device." You'll see all of the folders that are being synced with your Google+ account, with a small cloud icon above each. If the cloud is blue, that folder is being synced. If you tap the cloud, it will turn gray with a line through it and no longer be synced with your account.

Select a data connection for backups

When you're looking to conserve mobile bandwidth, backing up photos and videos isn't going to help. As a solution, you can set Google+ Auto Backup to only work when connected to Wi-Fi. Here's how:

Android

Tap the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the Photos app and choose Settings, then tap Auto Backup. Under Backup Settings, tap the "Back up photos/videos" option and you'll see that there are two connection choices: Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi or mobile network.

iOS

Open the menu in the Google+ app, and press the settings cog. Choose Camera and Photos from the menu, then press Auto backup. Select your preferred Auto Backup connection under "When to back up photos/videos."
Keep in mind that if you're not near Wi-Fi and plan to take a lot of photos or videos, you can still enable the mobile network option as needed.

View your Auto Backup media

Now that you have media backed up to your account, how can you view just those files?
The easiest way is to head to your Photos area of Google+ on the Web. In the search box, type #AutoBackup and only the photos that came from your device will be shown. You can also check out your #AutoAwesome photos (a special feature of Google+ that animates, applies filters to and combines photos) by searching for it from the same page.
Lost or damaged devices can be replaced, but the memories you captured on them cannot. Don't wait to set up a backup service.

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Siri Vs Google Now Vs Cortana

In the ongoing Siri vs. Google Now vs. Cortana battle, a new AI benchmark tests compares the voice assistants of Apple, Google and Microsoft. But which virtual personal assistant is the best? The new benchmark sees Google Now coming out on top, followed by Apple then Cortana.

The Siri vs. Google Now vs. Cortana benchmark tests asks each voice assistant the same 60 randomly generated questions and scores them on how well they answer. The virtual personal assistants receive no points for answering a question incorrectly, not answering at all or not understanding the question. They receive 75 percent of a mark for returning a list of links or long paragraph that contains the right answer but doesn’t highlight the relevant information and full marks for answering correctly.

The questions posed to Siri, Google Now and Cortana were a mix of questions that are hard and questions that a smartphone user would likely ask. Examples of hard questions include “What is the principle quantum number of selenium?” and “Is radon an actinide?” While questions a user might ask include “What will be the weather in two days?” and “Where, near here, can I get a pineapple?”

With the set of questions asked, Google Now answered 33.3 percent correctly, Apple’s Siri answered 25.8 percent correctly and Cortana answered 11.7 percent correctly. While none of the voice assistants would seem to pass this test, some of the questions like “Show me animated images related to Middle of the Earth in Ecuador, if available” are so oddly specific that an asker probably wouldn’t even expect an answer. When I tried asking Siri this question, the first link she provided was of a photo set of middle of the earth in Ecuador but alas, not animated.

This AI benchmark test would seem to be geared towards Google Now winning, since Google’s voice assistant excels at information searches. Google’s voice search is also available for iPhone and Window Phone user via an iOS app and an Windows Phone app. This benchmark doesn’t test how well the virtual personal assistants perform with phone functions like setting reminders, launching apps and taking notes. And while Google Now might objectively be the best voice assistant, it’s completely devoid of personality that might allow it to become an autistic boy’s BFF like Siri. Microsoft’s Cortana, which is the newest mobile voice assistant on the block, is supposedly a combination of Google Now and Siri.

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iOS 8.1 Jailbreak Update: Pangu And Cydia Both See Changes But More Fixes Are Still Needed

It’s been exactly one week since the iOS 8 Pangu jailbreak unexpectedly released, and while issues with Cydia substrate, tweak compatibility and other needed updates have kept many non-developers from using the jailbreak tool, progress is being made. Late Monday night, Saurik, creator of Cydia and a cornerstone of the jailbreak community, released an update to Cydia, which seems to have fixed several issues users were having with apps not installing, iTunes not syncing and icons disappearing. The latest Cydia Substrate version 0.9.5015, combined with the Pangu team’s iOS 8 0.2 Untether update seem to be making the jailbreak more stable. For non-developers, however, we still advise waiting a bit longer to jailbreak your device as issues with Touch ID, passcode and freezing devices are still lingering. Saurik, the Pangu team and other members of the jailbreak community are working extremely hard to get this latest iOS 8 jailbreak into a form that everyone can use. I’m sure it won’t be too much longer now.
Below are Saurik’s release notes, which accompanied the new Cydia updated package:
“Cydia Substrate 0.9.5014 fixes a few bugs reported on iOS 8 with 0.9.5013, including ‘apps do not install’, ‘iTunes does not sync’, and ‘icons are gone’. (And 0.9.5015 fixes a bug in 0.9.5014 where some processes, including OpenSSH, would no longer start.)
If you've updated the Pangu 8.0-8.1 untether to version 0.2, you no longer need to respring after rebooting; this untether update fixes an issue that caused Substrate to not fully load into many processes immediately after rebooting. This untether update also means that disabling Substrate while booting (by holding the volume up button) should work consistently now.”
To this Saurik also adds limitations of the latest Cydia update:
“In short, on iOS 8: after every reboot, you need to respring before Substrate will load extensions in SpringBoard.
Substrate version 0.9.5013 supports iOS 8, but because of limitations in Pangu (versions 1.0 through 1.0.1 so far tested), Substrate won't work immediately after the device boots - it will only work after the first respring. You can respring by SSHing to your device and typing killall backboardd
This happens because Pangu loads Substrate after other processes have already loaded, causing Substrate to not work until the next time backboardd and SpringBoard restart.
We are coordinating closely with the Pangu team to make certain the best possible fix for this is deployed.
In addition, Saurik’s assistant, Britta, was good enough to add some additional limitations to an update on Reddit. In the post, she wrote,
“Just to be clear, these updates don't fix the problem causing devices to freeze upon booting if you set a passcode.”
And according to Pangu’s untether page,
“Updating this package requires a reboot; please note that rebooting can surface problems unrelated to the untether or Cydia Substrate. If you've set a passcode/TouchID, rebooting may cause your device to freeze: please disable passcodes/TouchID until further notice (sorry :/). Having incompatible tweaks installed can also cause problems upon rebooting.”

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