Prsm' is the social network that knows everything about you, courtesy of the NSA

Social media fragmentation is a real problem in the modern landscape. Foursquare may let you check in at a restaurant, and your Netflix queue may go to Facebook, but who's keeping track of the calls you make from your cellphone or Skype number? What service will give a group of interested strangers access to your email? Where can you turn if you just want to let somebody literally watch your ideas form as you type? Well, you might want to consider Prsm. Not that you have to, strictly speaking. You probably have an account already.

Mind you, Prsm isn't a social network, precisely. Almost everyone you know is on it, but you're only sharing with the highly trained media engagement experts at the NSA, who will use their time-tested sorting algorithms and proprietary XKeyscore software to put you in circles with the people most like you. If you're a non-US citizen located outside the US, you'll have free access to its premium Pinwale database, though we're told at least a few thousand US users will be admitted as part of a closed beta. While Prsm doesn't have the gaming ecosystem we've grown accustomed to in major networks like Facebook, sources tell us that it's internally testing an Ingress -like alternate reality game in which players identify potential terrorists to earn "skilz" points and unlock achievements.

Asus to halt production of Windows RT tablets

Even while Asus is rumoured to be making the new Nexus 10 for Google, the Taiwanese company has confirmedthat it will cease manufacturing Windows RT tablets. The Windows tablets that are strugglingto sell anyway are now facing trouble with manufacturers pulling out of the project.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal , Asus was not very impressed with the poor sales of Windows RT-based tablets. On thesidelines of thecompany’s post-earnings conference, Asustek Chief Jerry Shen said, "It's not only our opinion,the industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful.”
He added that Asus will make Windows 8 devices only for Intel’s chipsbecause thesystem has a backward compatibility. This compatibility has been a cause of concernfor themanufacturer as far as Windows RT went. Shen said that Asus has already taken a writedown as far as its Windows RT tablets went in thesecond quarter of this year. He, however, declined to give a figure.
Microsoft had releasedthe Microsoft RT runningtablets in October, which met with a lukewarm response. The company even slashed prices for theSurface RT last month by a huge $150. This cutcame in an effort to increasethe tablet’s share in themarket, a move that has not exactly met with a thunderousresponse.
Asus, meanwhile, seems to be warming up to Google ina big way. It has manufactured both iterationsof the company’s successfulNexus 7 tablets and is rumoured to be taking up charge forthe Internet giant’s larger Nexus 10 tablets.

Images of iPad 5 display, digitizer leaked: Rumours

There’s finally something more to chew on the upcoming Apple tablet, iPad5, or so we’d like to believe.
This time the news is from Macfixit Australia. The siteis carrying photos of the replacement screens that reportedly belong to theyet unannounced Apple iPad 5. Guys at this site were informed by their supplierthat this new iPad5 Screen/Digitizerhas the same display area as theiPad Retina version, and theedges of the frameare narrower akin to theiPad mini. This supposed iPad5 displayimage has also givenaway that it houses 2 connectorsinstead of 1. The connectors themselves have undergonechanges too – from FFC ((Flat FlexibleCable, like the iPad2/3/4) to FPC (Flexible Printed Circuits,like theiPhone 4/5).
If the displayin theabove image indeed belongs to the iPad5, we must say that it has come at an opportune time. An earlier report on the iPad5 had revealed that its productionwas to begin in July-August 2013 period.
A DigiTimes report that cited sources close to Taiwan-based supply chain companies had siad that the productionof the upcoming fifth-generation iPad would begin inthis period. The source, however, said that the "yield rates" forimportant parts of the 9.7-inch tablet, especially thetouch panels, could be "a major concern for smoothproduction."
The sources said the iPad5 will be thinner and lighter thanthe iPad4 and is said to embody a slim bezel, quite like the iPadmini. The device's display is likely to be suppliedby LG Display and Sharp, while the touch panel assembly will reportedly be carried out by TPK, a Taiwanese company. The ITO thin-film will be supplied by Nitto Denko and Teijin.

Tekken X Street Fighter Looking for the 'Right Time' to Release

Street Fighter X Tekken released on March 6, 2012, meaning Namco Bandai has been answering so-where-the-hell-is-it questions about Tekken X Street Fighter since March 7, 2012. Five games under the Tekken brand have appeared since, raising offhand speculation about TxSF 's priority.

Street Fighter 's star producer certainly didn't help things much when he joked that the game wouldn't get here until 2018. And as far back as 2011, Yoshinori Ono said the two projects were on independent timetables, and that back then, Namco hadn't started Tekken X Street Fighter yet.

Obama Administration’s Letter on Veto of iPhone, iPad Ban

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman issued the following letter to Irving A. Williamson, chairman of the United States International Trade Commission,on the decision to veto a ban on the sale of some
Apple AAPL +1.28% iPhone sand iPads:
On June 4, 2013, the United States International Trade Commission (“Commission”) determined that Apple Inc. (“Apple”) had violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, in the importation of certain devices,e.g., certain smartphones and tablet computers that infringe a U.S. patent owned by Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +0.47% , Ltd. and Samsung Telecommunications America Inc. (“Samsung”). Following this determination, theCommission issued an exclusion order prohibitingthe unlicensedimportation of infringing devices, manufactured foror on behalf of Apple. The Commission also issued a cease and desist order that prevents Apple from engaging in certain activities,such as sale of these products inthe United States.
Under section 337, the President is required to engage in a policy evaluation of the Commission’s determinations to issue exclusion and cease and desist orders. The President may disapprove an order on policy grounds, approve an order, or take no action and allow the order to come into force upon the expiration of the60-day review period. This authority has been assigned to the United States Trade Representative. The legislative history of section 337 lists the followingconsiderationsrelevant to the policy review of the impact of theCommission’s determination to issue an exclusion order: “(1) publichealth and welfare; (2) competitive conditions inthe U.S. economy; (3) production of competitive articles inthe United States; (4) U.S. consumers; and (5) U.S. foreignrelations, economic and political.”
In addition,on January 8, 2013, theDepartment of Justice and United States Patent and Trademark Office issued an important Policy Statement entitled“Policy Statement on Remedies forStandard-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary FRAND Commitments” (“Policy Statement”). The Policy Statementmakes clear that standards, and particularly voluntary consensus standards set by standards developing organizations (“SDO”), have incorporated important technical advances that are fundamentalto theinteroperability of man of theproducts on which consumershave come to rely, including thetypes of devices that are the subject of theCommission’s determination. The Policy Statementexpresses substantial concerns, which I strongly share, about thepotential harms that can result from owners of standards-essential patents (“SEPs”) who have made a voluntary commitment to offer license SEPs on terms that are fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”), gainingundue leverage and engaging in“patent hold-up”, i.e., asserting thepatent to exclude an implementerof the standard from a market to obtain a higher pricefor useof the patent thanwould have been possible before thestandard was set, when alternative technologiescould have been chosen. At the same time, technology implementers also can cause potential harm by, for example, engaging in“reverse hold-up” (“hold-out”), e.g., by constructive refusal to negotiate a FRAND license with the SEP owner or refusal to pay what has been determined to be a FRAND royalty.

HTC One and GALAXYS 4 Google Play Editions receive Android 4.3 OTA update

The HTC One and Samsung GALAXY S 4 Google Play Editions feature pure Android sans the common Sense and TouchWiz interfaces,and for some users, that Android has been bumped to version 4.3 with an OTA update this evening. Though not all owners have received the update yet, reports are starting to rollin from those who have, and we’ve got the details on it for you after the jump.
The update is showing up as build JWR66V, with the Samsung GALAXY S 4 version being the larger of the two at 180MB, while the HTC One version is 150MB. Among the changes that are coming with the update are larger icons on widget panels, tethering via Bluetooth for the GALAXY S 4, and the menu background has been switched from black to a lighter gradient.
As we noted in our review, the Google Play Edition versions of the two devices feel snappier when being used than their conventional counterparts, though purely in terms of benchmarks the two varieties aren’t much different. The GALAXY S 4′s software size comes in around the 6GB mark, a couple gigabytes lower than what you get with TouchWiz. As far as hardware goes, however, the handsets are relatively unchanged.
As mentioned, the update is coming OTA, and not everyone is seeing it yet, so if you’re still waiting, it should arrive shortly. Not familiar with Android 4.3? The latest Android version brings with it enhancements,improved rendering, and some changes for developers like On-screen GPU profiling.
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Xbox One AR gaming glasses appear in Microsoft patent

It looks like Microsoft is taking a dip into the wearable technology pool with a new patent that reveals plans fora pair of augmented-reality glasses that would be used during multiplayergaming to receive voice commands, track your eyes, and recognize thefaces of other players. As such, these glasses take a different approach than Google Glass.
The drawings included inthe patent application show off a pair of wonky-looking glasses with sensors along the side and on the front that are used forlocating gamers and tracking gestures. The information that the glasses collect can be used to send gaming invitations to friends, although that whole system isn’t fully detailed, and it seems a little vague at this point.
The glasses were actually leaked last year whena 56-page document got out that detailed theglasses, as well some other information about the Xbox business. The document says that these AR glasses would hit the publicsometime in2015, but we wouldn’t be 100% sure about that.
However, the document also talks about thenext Xbox (the
Xbox One as it’s now called), touting a 2013 release date with a second-generation Kinectincluded. The document listeda priceof $299, which is way off, but the document may have at least a little bit of merit. Seeingas how this is only a patent right now, a 2015 release periodseems realistic.
It’ll be interesting to see how these glasses will be implementedwith the Xbox One in thefuture, and whether or not they can be used to communicate directly with the Kinect. Of course, this is also just a patent, and most of time, patents never see the light of day as an actual product, so keep that inmind.

Moto X and the dawning Context Ecosystem

The Moto X is too expensive. It’s underpowered. It’s ugly. Consumers don’t want color options. They don’t want to talk to their phone, just on it. If it’s not metal, it’s not premium. Man, the Moto X is a disappointment. Some of the instant – and vocal – criticisms of Motorola’s new phone have bordered on the vitriolic, the backlash perhaps again proving that pre-reveal hype can be a double-edged sword. Nonetheless, there’s a sense that in immediately dismissing the Moto X on how it measures up to today’s phones, we’re missing out on recognizing how it could be showing us the shape of the phones of tomorrow.

We’re trained to judge on numbers, in part because it’s simply easier. User-experience is subjective, but 1.7GHz is faster than 1.5GHz, four cores are twice as many as two, and 13-megapixels is far more than 8-megapixels. That conveniently ignores the fact that just because a camera has more megapixels, say, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily take better photos; just because you have a quadcore, it doesn’t mean your phone will necessarily run smoother than a handset with a dualcore.

U.S. Government Requested Information On 1,319 Twitter Accounts In 2013

During the first six months of the year, 78% of all government requests for data Twitter received originated from the United States, according to a transparency report released on Wednesday.

O2 to launch 4G in Britain on August 29

O2’s will run its 4G network at a lower radio frequency than EE, which got a head start by reusing surplus airwaves while rivals were forced to wait for an Ofcom auction earlier this year.

O2’s 800MHz frequency is suited to covering wide areas and penetrating buildings. The higher frequencies owned by EE and Vodafone are better for delivering high capacity to keep internet access speed up in densely populated areas.