Want to know what's going on at home while you're away? Win a Wi-Fi camera that streams live video of homestead happenings to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Colin West McDonald
Important-announcement time: We notify Crave giveaway winners via email, so please make sure the email address connected to your CNET account is current. Otherwise you might miss your prize, a misfortune that has befallen several giveaway participants in recent months.
Now that that PSA is out of the way, we've got a brand-new freebie, an ArcSoft Simplicam Wi-Fi security camera. It lets you check in on your kids, pets, chairs and sofa from your smartphone.
The facial-recognition feature is available through an optional cloud service starting at $5 a month (ArcSoft is tossing in a $49.99 one-year subscription to the Closeli Cloud for this giveaway). Without cloud-recording services, you still get motion and sound alerts and live 720p streaming to your smartphone,tabletor computer via the free Closeli app.The camera has the motion and sound alerts typical for surveillance cams but stands out for its facial-recognition capabilities. It can't actually distinguish between faces, but it can recognize that it's looking at one, and theoretically, notify you that a human, as opposed to a cat or a rustling branch, has triggered its motion sensor.
In her CNET review of the ArcSoft Simplicam, Megan Wollerton has a few minor quibbles with the $149.99 Simplicam, but says that "Simplicam impresses and in some ways surpasses pricier models." So how do you go about snagging one for free? There are a few rules, so please read carefully.
The share of PCs running on Microsoft's latest operating system jumped in October.
A little more than a year after Windows 8.1 was made available, the update to Microsoft's PC operating system is finally seeing some progress.Microsoft
The market share of PCs that run Windows 8.1jumped to 10.9 percent in October, up from 6.7 percent in September and 7.1 percent in August, according to Net Applications, which tracks activity through analyzing the browsers hits of specific websites.
The share gains suggest a small bit of momentum as Microsoft seeks to upgrade all users to the latest version of its marquee Windows operating system. While consumers didn't respond toWindows 8, which was the first to emphasize tiles as part of its user interface, the company has added back features with 8.1. In August, it added small touches like a Shutdown button on the Start screen and the ability to run modern apps from the desktop.
Customers, however, have been more keen to hang on to their existing version of Windows. Windows 7had the largest share with 53.1 percent, following by Windows XP at 17.2 percent. The share of XP users is falling (it was at 23.9 percent in September) consistently after Microsoft cut off support for that version of Windows in April.
There may be users who are hanging on and waiting to see how the next version of Windows will run.Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 last month. The update moves away from the tiled "Metro" interface, replaced by live tiles and a more classic Windows experience, addressing a primary complaint with Windows 8.
Apple's CEO publicly discussed his sexual orientation for the first time in an effort to help anyone "struggling to come to terms with who he or she is."
Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly acknowledged his sexual orientation for the first time, saying he wants to use his position as leader of one of the world's most valuable companies to bring attention to the discrimination minorities face.
"I'm proud to be gay. I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," Cook said in an 800-word essay posted on Bloomberg Businessweek. "Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It's made me more empathetic."
Cook, who has been CEO of Apple for three years, described how he's been open about his sexuality with many people, but has tried to maintain some privacy on a wider public level. He quoted Martin Luther King in describing how he decided to balance his desire for privacy with his position as a role model, which gives him a platform to speak out on issues of discrimination.
"Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I'm gay, and it doesn't seem to make a difference in the way they treat me," Cook wrote. "Of course, I've had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people's differences. Not everyone is so lucky."
Cook said he doesn't consider himself an activist, "but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy."
As recently as September, Cook tweeted in support of the Austin, Texas, pride parade celebrating gay rights. In his tweet, Cook gave "a shout-out to 3000 Apple employees and their families marching in the#AustinPride parade! Inclusion inspires innovation. #applepride." And while talking about Apple's diversity report in August (which showed most Apple employees are white men), Cook said Apple's "definition of diversity goes far beyond the traditional categories of race, gender and ethnicity."
"It includes personal qualities that usually go unmeasured, like sexual orientation, veteran status and disabilities," he said in the diversity report. "Who we are, where we come from, and what we've experienced influence the way we perceive issues and solve problems. We believe in celebrating that diversity and investing in it."
The Alabama-born 53-year-old described himself as "an engineer, an uncle, a nature lover, a fitness nut, a son of the South, a sports fanatic, and many other things." He joined Apple in 1998 from IBM and temporarily took over from Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO in 2009. He was appointed to the position permanently in August 2011. Jobs died from cancer in October 2011.Cook on Thursday said being gay has been "tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you're the CEO of Apple."
If you find the predictive text engine to be nothing but a distraction, then you can hide your keyboard's suggestions temporarily or disable the feature altogether.
Matt Elliott
I understand that Apple is only trying to be helpful with its new predictive text engine in iOS 8. It offers suggestions as you type, learning your writing habits and favorite phrases over time and tailoring its suggestions to your way of texting and emailing.
I've tried using this new feature for two weeks now and find the suggestions more of a distraction than anything. Perhaps we are still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, but I think I'm better off parting with the text predictions and going it alone. I rarely type out anything longer than a short text or email reply on my iPhone and have become a fairly fast thumb typist over the years, so I'm fine with going letter by letter for any correspondence on my iPhone. If you are ready to cut bait with the predictive text engine, you have two options: hide the predictions temporarily or disable the feature altogether.
To hide the predictions and continue typing without them changing and blinking and distracting you as you type, just pull down on the predictive text bar at the top of your keyboard. Admittedly, it takes a deft touch to collapse the thin predictive text bar instead of accidentally hiding the entire keyboard. You can then pull up to show the text predictions again.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott
If you have had it with the text predictions, then you can fully disable the feature. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard and toggle the switch for Predictive to off.
The European Commission also found that Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are not close competitors. Further, even though Facebook Messenger is a standalone app, it requires a Facebook account and Facebook integration.
"Users seem to use the two apps in different ways and many of them use the two apps simultaneously on the same mobile handset," the EC said. "Furthermore, this is a very dynamic market with several competing apps available on the market, such as Line, Viber, iMessage, Telegram, WeChat, and Google Hangouts.
But WhatsApp has had its eye on more than just mobile messaging. The company reportedly plans to add free voice calling services to its app later this year, which could present a thorn in the side to European telecom firms such as Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Telecom Italia, Reuters said. However, the EC didn't address this potential issue in its statement.
Meanwhile, Yahoo confirmed Friday that it has acquired the startup MessageMe, a service similar to WhatsApp. It will be shutting down the service, but MessageMe's eight members will join the company to work on on mobile communications products for Yahoo.
Yahoo also is reportedly in talks to invest in the popular messaging app Snapchat, drawing on the multibillion-dollar cash haul it got from last month's market debut of the e-commerce giant Alibaba.
"We want to make clear that, regardless of the acquisition, WhatsApp must continue to honor these promises to consumers," Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich wrote. "Further, if the acquisition is completed and WhatsApp fails to honor these promises, both companies could be in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act and, potentially, the FTC's order against Facebook."The Facebook-WhatsApp deal had already received approval from the Federal Trade Commission this past April. But the FTC was more concerned about the arrangement, at least when it comes to privacy. Along with its approval, the agency included a letter cautioning both Facebook and WhatsApp that they continue WhatsApp's policy of not collecting usernames, locations, email address, or other data, and that the company not share users' phone numbers with third parties.
Both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said that WhatsApp's privacy policies would remain the same. But the FTC vowed to keep an eye on the two just to be sure.
"Hundreds of millions of users have entrusted their personal information to WhatsApp," Rich told Facebook and WhatsApp. "The FTC staff will continue to monitor the companies' practices to ensure that Facebook and WhatsApp honor the promises they have made to those users."
Europe traditionally takes a strong stance on the privacy of its citizens, but concerns over privacy didn't play much of a role in the Facebook-WhatsApp deal.
"In the context of this investigation, the Commission analysed potential data concentration issues only to the extent that it could hamper competition in the online advertising market," the EC said in its statement. "Any privacy-related concerns flowing from the increased concentration of data within the control of Facebook as a result of the transaction do not fall within the scope of EU competition law. Based on the above, the Commission therefore concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns."
With approval from both the US and Europe in place, the acquisition should now be able to go through without any obstacles. The deal is expected to close sometime in the next few months.
Commenting on the EC's regulatory approval, a Facebook spokeswoman told CNET that "we are pleased to have received clearance from the European Commission and look forward to closing the acquisition."
CEO Marissa Mayer is facing pressure to repair the Yahoo brand.James Martin
Yahoo may soon launch a new ad campaign in an attempt to bring back consumers that have left its services, AdAge reported on Friday.
Yahoo has contacted a handful of ad agencies recently to determine whether one of them could be up to the task of creating a full branding campaign for the company, people familiar with the effort told AdAge. Yahoo is expecting the firms, which have not been named, to pitch their ideas later this month, according to AdAge.
Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pitches would come at a somewhat tumultuous time for the company. While Yahoo just scored a multibillion-dollar windfall from the Alibaba IPO, CEO Marissa Mayer has been called upon by some investors to make drastic moves to help her business. One of those moves, pitched by activist investor Starboard Value, is a merger between Yahoo and AOL. Starboard argues it would help the companies as they vie for more market share in an online-advertising market dominated by Google.
"We think that Yahoo would be far better off under the stewardship and vision of Mr. Son than under Yahoo's current top management," Alternative Investment Management & Research Managing Director Albert Saporta wrote in the letter, according to Bloomberg. "We would rather have Mr. Son in charge of investing Yahoo's cash hoard."
Finding an advertising agency that can help repair the Yahoo brand might prove difficult. While Mayer has done a good job at attracting more users to the company's many platforms, there is still a general consensus that Yahoo is an older company that can't match Google. It's possible that Yahoo believes a branding campaign could help change that mindset among some users.
Mayer has attempted to make changes to her company's brand already. Last year, Yahoo changed its logo to make it more modern. If the AdAge report is true, it appears more changes are afoot.
The owls may not be what they seem, but cryptic tweets could mean fans will get another dose of weird tales from David Lynch and Mark Frost.
If "Twin Peaks" returns, Agent Cooper could be drinking his favorite coffee once again.ABC
Will we ever discover what happened to F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper? Will the Log Lady ever give us veiled messages from beyond? Will the "Welcome to Twin Peaks" population sign greet us once again?
With the success of the "Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery" Blu-ray and DVD box set, that show we love is now back in style again. Rumors about the return of the bizarre yet beloved TV series "Twin Peaks," which aired from 1990 to 1991, circulate more than Bob possesses bodies. But thanks to a couple of cryptic tweets we might actually be seeing Agent Cooper and gang back on the scene.
On Friday, both creators of the original "Twin Peaks" TV series -- David Lynch and Mark Frost -- hinted cryptically that fans could be in for a treat.
Lynch and Frost each tweeted the identical message: "Dear Twitter Friends: That gum you like is going to come back in style! #damngoodcoffee"
The quote is from "Twin Peaks" episode 3 from season 1, when The Man From Another Place, aka the Dancing Man, tells Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in backwards-frontwards speak that "I've got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style."
And the "damn good coffee" hashtag refers to Agent Cooper's regular compliment about the java he constantly drinks while attempted to solve mysterious murders in "Twin Peaks."
While all we have to go on for the moment are both Lynch and Frost's tweets, fans have been speculating for a while that "Twin Peaks" may return for a new set of stories.
According to the fan site Welcome to Twin Peaks, actor Ray Wise, who played victim Laura Palmer's father on the show, has his own ideas what a new "Twin Peaks" show or movie might be about:
"They wouldn't remake it," Wise said. "If anything was done, it would be 25 years later. It would never be a remake of anything we already did. Maybe you just didn't mean to use that word, I don't know. A remake, no, but it would be something new and fresh. David always said the town of "Twin Peaks" is still there; it's still going on whether we watch it or not. So, who knows what'll happen in the future? It would be 25 years later, not anything remade."
Lynch himself answered the question recently at the Lucca Film Festival about the possible continuation of "Twin Peaks" in either movie or TV format.
"I've always said I love a continuing story," Lynch answered. "To love a world and to be able to go deeper and deeper into that world. So there's always a possibility and you just have to wait and see."
Even though we have only two tweets to go on, it's always a good idea to take notice. After all, it was Agent Cooper himself who said on the show, "When two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry we must always pay strict attention!"
We can't wait to see the Welcome to Twin Peaks population sign again.ABC
The SpaceX founder hopes to put humans on Mars in the mid-2020s, but that's just the first tiny baby step toward creating his vision of a Martian metropolis.
This guy wants to send a million of us to Mars in the next century.Tim Stevens
We've been hearing from real-life Tony Stark inspiration Elon Musk about his hopes for sending humans to Mars for a few years now. But in a new interview, the SpaceX founder shares a vision that's far more grandiose than building a small base on the fourth rock from the sun. He envisions a Martian metropolis up and running within a century.
Previously, Musk has told journalists that manned missions to the Red Planet could be possible as soon as the mid-2020s, a pretty optimistic timeline when you consider that NASA is targeting the mid-2030s for such a mission and it took about a decade just for SpaceX to get to the space station for the first time. But in a fascinating conversation with Aeon Magazine, Musk dismisses such notions of pessimism (or realism, depending on your perspective and how many billions you have at your disposal).
"SpaceX is only 12 years old now," he said. "Between now and 2040, the company's lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people."
Musk says that first wave of settlers will have to pay their own way, probably to the tune of about a half million dollars each -- a migration he likens to those who saved up to pay for the treacherous voyage to the American colonies centuries ago.
Of course, the first few decades of attempted colonization of America's eastern shores were disastrous, as colonies were unable to support themselves in a foreign and unfamiliar land, but at least Jamestown and Plymouth had oxygen and water aplenty. What would it take to ensure a colony on another planet is both successful and sustainable?
Musk's answer is a bit of a stunner: He says it would take a million colonists. Even more mind-bending is the fact that, according to Musk's math, creating a city on Mars with more inhabitants than Austin, Texas, is achievable within a century's time.
He estimates that getting all those people and the cargo to support them to Mars would require "100,000 trips of a giant spaceship" from Earth. The rumor is that Musk is working on just such a colonial transport ship, and working out the logistics for such grand ambitions is built into the DNA of SpaceX, which is all about driving down the cost of space travel through reusable rocket technologies like the Grasshopper.
Not surprisingly, Musk's vision extends beyond Mars to other parts of the solar system. He imagines colonies on asteroids and on the more "welcoming" moons of Saturn and Jupiter, all centered around a new space economy that fosters our new multi-planet existence. The first step to achieving this in Musk's mind is to create a new Earth-to-Mars economy.
This vision might not be as crazy as it sounds when you consider that the colonization of the continent where I write from today was largely driven by a ravenous global search for things like spices, gold and silver. Keep in mind that at the time of Columbus, these precious items were largely just luxury goods -- humanity had not even begun to put them to use for more wonderful and practical things like dental fillings, electrical circuits or Sriracha.
But I wonder if this new interplanetary society and economy is further away than Musk believes. SpaceX seems to be succeeding in its quest to commercialize space travel, but its biggest client is not a large corporation looking to explore new, space-based business opportunities. Instead, it is me, my editor and a few hundred million other American taxpayers that fund NASA. So maybe SpaceX hasn't really commercialized space travel so much as it has just established itself as a reliable government contractor for the same old space program we've had for decades now.
I think my Martian condo and the Earth-to-Mars economy that will make it possible are a little further off than some billionaires would have you believe. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below or tweet @crave.
The filament is visible as a dark wiggly line across the sun.NASA/SDO
Our sun is a wild and fascinating place. While a big, fluffy, horizon-long set of clouds is an impressive sight here on Earth, the sun can handily top that with a single filament of solar material. Filaments appear on the sun from time to time. These unstable gaseous clouds of solar plasma sometimes hang around for weeks, giving scientists down here plenty to look at.
Recently, a filament appeared on the sun that stretches about a million miles in length. This massive formation is held up by magnetic forces and rotates along with the sun. Straighten it out and it would very nearly reach around the sun. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps a constant watch on the sun and has been tracking the huge filament for days.
The filament appears in images taken in different wavelengths as a long, tendril-like line etched across the sun. It looks like something out of a CGI-fueled sci-fi movie. Scientists are studying filaments in an effort to learn more about how they are created and what causes them to occasionally turn into powerful eruptions shooting plasma out into space.
Back in 2013, a magnetic filament of only 200,000 miles in length erupted, creating what NASA described as a "canyon of fire." Another filament in 2012 erupted in a way that caused anaurora to appear on Earth. The current filament could conceivably face the same fate, which would undoubtedly be spectacular. Otherwise, it might just fade away. Either way, it's a sight to behold.
Let your geek side loose this Halloween by using a Hack-o-Lantern kit to turn a regular pumpkin into a light-up boo machine.
This quick kit turns a pumpkin into a battery-powered jack-o'-lantern.LittleBits
Carved pumpkins are popular at Halloween. Sound-triggered electronic scare devices are also popular at Halloween. It's high time the two trends got together. LittleBits has put together a modular Hack-o-Lantern kit to combine your twin loves of fiddling with electronics and pulling the slimy, seed-laden mush out of a large orange squash.
The end result of the Hack-o-Lantern kit is a jack-o'-lantern that lights up an LED when it hears noise. It sits around, minding its own business, looking like its candle has burned out, until a trick-or-treater walks up to your door. Then it flashes on, illuminating whatever scary pattern you've carved into it. I would suggest a Dalek, Grumpy Cat or a bent iPhone 6 Plus.
To make it work, you put the circuit together and mount it inside the pumpkin. Set it on your porch and peek through your curtain to see if anybody notices. Combine it with one of those doormats that makes spooky noises when someone steps on it and you'll be well on your way to creating the proper Halloween ambiance for candy-seeking tykes.The kit includes all the pieces you need to cyborg-ify a pumpkin. It comes with a battery, battery cable, power module, sound trigger, bright LED and "shoes" that help hold the gear in place.
If you want your pumpkin to just stay lit, then you can remove the sound trigger. The kit is a limited-edition offering just for Halloween for $29. That converts to about £18 or AU$33.50 -- LittleBits ships internationally (more info here). The snap-together modular nature of the pieces makes this an ideal project for parents who want to get their kids interested in electronics. After Halloween is over, you can pull the kit apart, order different modular pieces and start creating new hacks. And that's probably the best treat of all.
In a Bloomberg interview, Microsoft co-founder says once Apple gets involved in a new technology -- in this case, mobile payments -- it has more chance of gaining critical mass.
Bill Gates believes that using your cell phone to perform financial transactions represents progress.Bloomberg screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk
You might be forgiven for thinking that all the major tech companies resent each other's existence.
Bill Gates, however, operates on a more exalted plane these days. His charitable work has involved a relentless insistence on solving some of the world's most vexing health and social problems.
He was specifically asked about Apple Pay (at the 7:05 mark in the video), Cupertino's new method for supposedly seamless and more secure mobile payments.
"Apple Pay is a great example of how a cell phone that identifies its user in a pretty strong way lets you make a transaction that should be very, very inexpensive," he said.
He explained: "So the fact that in any application I can buy something, that's fantastic. The fact I don't need a physical card anymore, I just do that transaction and you're going to be quite sure about who it is on the other end, that is a real contribution."
Some wonder just how inconvenient credit cards are. Is it really such an imposition to take a card from a pocket or a wallet to pay? Is Apple Pay solving a problem that isn't too much of a problem?
Gates, though, said that Apple's true role was in creating the market: "All the platforms, whether it's Apple's or Google's or Microsoft, you'll see this payment capability get built in. That's built on industry standard protocols, NFC. And these companies have all participated in getting those going. Apple will help make sure it gets to critical mass for all the devices."
Competitors realize that once Apple gets involved in a certain idea, there's more of a chance for everyone.
Apple has two advantages. It has a vast number of high-worth individuals in its ecosystem. It also has a talent for making its devices simple to use.
Currently, when I see people wave their phones at the Starbucks checkout, it seems to take longer than those who clutch cash.
Gates was a little uncomfortable when asked why Microsoft hadn't been involved in such technology when he himself had written about the idea 20 years ago. He turned the conversation to other Microsoft priorities, such as Office.
Still, it's refreshing when so many other industry leaders are ready to dismiss their rivals as clownishly ill-informed, Gates is prepared to concede at least a little of what others have achieved.
In an effort to increase the security level of iCloud accounts, Apple is now requiring app-specific passwords for some third-party apps.
Jason Cipriani
Apple has long offered two-step verification for iCloud accounts, but extra barrier for gaining access to your account was limited. The change was prompted after the recent celebrity photo leak. An unfortunate incident spurred Apple to secure users iCloud accounts using both two-step verification and app-specific passwords. The change requiring app-specific passwords was put into place on October 1.
For those unfamiliar, app-specific passwords are used when an app or service you're attempting to sign into doesn't support two-step verification. Instead of forcing you to enter your account password, you create a single-use app-specific password, eliminating any potential for your account to be compromised.
Signing into your iCloud account in Outlook, using the Email app on an Android device or a third-party calendar app are all examples of when an app-specific password is going to be required.
Apple's My Apple ID site where you create app-specific passwords.Screenshot by Jason Cipriani
To create a special password, you'll need to visit the My Apple ID website. Select "Manage your Apple ID," then sign in to your iCloud account.
Next, click on the "Password and Security" option on the left-hand side of the page.
Towards the bottom of the security options will be a new section with the title "Generate an app-specific password." Click on the link to create a password.
You'll be asked to give the password a label, or name, use something you can easily identify both the app and the device you used it on. Meaning if you're setting up an app on the new Moto X, use the app's name followed by "Moto X." This not only helps you remember what app you setup, but what device.
An app-specific password is hidden under the black bar.Screenshot by Jason Cipriani
Once the label is saved, a password will be presented. Enter it exactly as displayed, dashes and all. And remember, it is case-sensitive.
After you've created your first app-specific password, a "History" link will appear in the same section you used to create one. Clicking on it will reveal a list of passwords, represented by the label name you entered during creation, along with the date it was created. Revoking a password will sign you out of your iCloud account on the respective device you used the password on.
