Pranav Dixit

China Wants Its Own Homegrown OS To Replace Windows And Android

The Chinese computing market looks much like most of the world. Windows rules desktops. Android rules smartphones. Now, the Chinese government wants to challenge both giants by putting its own homegrown operating system on everything. A Reuters report says that a senior official with COS — The China OS project — appeared on the Xinhua…

Scientists Had a 10-Second Warning Before The Napa Quake Hit

Ten seconds before the magnitude 6.0 Napa earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday morning, the ShakeAlert system at the UC Berkeley already knew that it was coming. A ten-second warning may not seem like much, but think about it — it’s enough time for elevators to stop at the next floor and…

Google’s Testing Self-Driving Cars In a Matrix-Style Simulation

Somewhere in the Googleplex, Google has a digital simulation of the entire Californian road system to test its self-driving cars. This, says Google, allows it to perform “decades worth of testing” in just hours. Indeed, Google has such confidence in its system that is now lobbying the California’s government to certify these self-driving vehicles based…

Bad Guys Can Make Your Phone Automatically Dial Expensive Numbers

Here’s yet another way that bad guys can use your smartphone to do nasty things. A Copenhagen-based developer has just discovered a simple way to automatically make your phone dial expensive numbers. Let’s say you’re browsing the web in Safari on your iPhone and see a number. Safari presents the number to you as a…

Google’s Voice Search App Will Now Understand Five Languages At Once

When it came to choosing a language to do a voice search with in the Google Search app, you were spoiled for choice. You could speak over 50 languages — anything from Arabic to Italian — and Google would still understand you. The problem was, you could only choose one language at a time. Until…

Looks like the rumor mill was right. Windows 9 will finally be unveiled to the public on September 30 at a press event. Not only will Microsoft highlight the new features in the next version of Windows codenamed “Threshold” — virtual desktops! Cortana! A new Start menu! No more Charms! — it will also release…

Twitter Might Start Attaching Promoted Media To Your Hashtags

Seriously, what’s up with Twitter trying to actively piss us off? Since last week, it has been stuffing our timelines with tweets from people we don’t follow. And now, it might just use a hashtag in your tweet to attach promotional content to your message. A promotion for Selfie, ABC’s new TV comedy that premieres…

Here Are The First Images Of The Moto X+1

Behold the “X+1”, the sequel to Motorola’s critically acclaimed Moto X. These press images were leaked by retiring leaker @evleaks aka Evan Blass as a “retirement gift” and confirm the poorly-lit images we saw on Android Police last month. The X+1 seems to sport dual camera flashes, a wooden back option, and front-facing speakers like…

Swing Copters, Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen’s second game, is now live in both the Google Play Store and the App Store and somehow, it’s evenharder than Flappy Bird The aim is to steer a vague creature with huge eyes and a propeller on its head through a series of swinging gavels. It’s like Flappy…

Toyota’s New Cars Will Have a Nexus 7 Built Right Into the Dashboard

Having a 7-inch tablet slotted into your car’s dashboard just makes so much sense. It would be an elegant solution to craptastic GPS systems and clunky entertainment options. Toyota thinks so too. Its latest cars in Taiwan come with a Nexus 7 built right in. Toyota partnered with Asus-owned Unimax to create something known as…

Report: 30 Percent Of All Mobile Spam Is Sent Through iMessage

It’s not like we need more reasons to hate iMessage. But we don’t really have to look very hard. A security researcher has claimed that Apple’s messaging service is used to send over 30 percent of all mobile spam out there. “It’s almost like a spammer’s dream,” says Tom Landesman from security and anti-spam company…

Google is reportedly processing a million takedown notices from various copyright holders every single day. This is apparently up from just a few dozen notices a year a couple of years ago. TorrentFreak quotes RIAA executive Brad Buckles saying: “Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. We are using a…

Hackers May Have Stolen Credit Card Data From 51 UPS Stores In The US

Your friendly, neighborhood UPS store might have been hacked. UPS just confirmed that 51 stores across 24 states in the United States had malware capable of recording credit card information and sending it to third parties on its in-store cash registers. If you swiped your card at any of these, your details are probably being…

Twitter’s New BotMaker Cut Spam On The Network By 40 Percent

If you think you’re getting less spam on Twitter, you’re right. Twitter has just unveiled BotMaker, a system that lets the social network create anti-spam bot code on the fly. BotMaker can automatically take down pesky spammers, block suspicious links, and flag shady behavior — sometimes, even before the accounts in question have had a…

PayPal Just Made In-App Impulse Buying Way, Way Easier

You know how hard it is to buy anything from your smartphone. You need to look up your card details, tap them out precisely on the tiny screens and pray for the best. PayPal wants to make that process a snap. It has released One Touch, a new product that is an impulse buyer’s dream.…

Uber Now Has a Same-Day Delivery Service in D.C.

Let’s face it, same-day deliveries right to your front door are expensive. Amazon’s throwing money at it. So is Google, and smaller players like Instacart and Postmates. The latest player in the game? Uber. Uber’s delivery service, called “Corner Store”, allows you to order from a limited inventory of convenience store goods — toothpaste, diapers,…

Twitter Will Remove Images Of The Deceased At The Request Of Family

Right after Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda Williams, was bullied off Twitter after her father’s death, Twitter promised to do…something to improve its policies. Less than a week later, the social network has taken its first steps in that direction. Twitter will now remove images and videos of the deceased at the request of family members,…

Hot on the heels of Cincinnati Bell comes AT&T, which is launching a gigabit broadband service in Dallas. It’s the Google Fiber effect — and we’re loving it!

Snapchat Is About To Become A Service For “Disappearing News”

Snapchat isn’t the most obvious place you would head to for your daily fix of headlines. But that might soon change. Snapchat is about to become a service for disappearing videos, news articles and ads. The Wall Street Journal reports that the startup has been talking with advertisers and media companies about a service called…

Your House On Mars Could Look Like This

Your house on Mars could be a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with six-sided rooms laid out in a hex-based grid. It’s designed to shield against the cosmic radiation that humans would be exposed to under the Martian atmosphere using depleted uranium panels, and stay warm using water piped through walls and heated using an exothermic chemical…