Five Easy Ways To Save Your [Mobile & Computer] Data

 
Things you should do right now to conserve your data.

Worry less about exceeding your data limit by following these five simple tips for Android users:
1. Reduce the data used by your Android mobile device or computer by turning on Chrome Data Saver Mode. From compressing web pages to removing images when loading a page on a slow connection, you’re able to save up to 70% more data.

2. Offline YouTube videos and watch them as often as you like without using data or buffering each time with YouTube Offline.

3. Whether it’s your neighborhood or a weekend getaway destination, there’s a way to use Google Maps without using any data. Download an area of the world and seamlessly use Maps features like turn-by-turn navigation and access useful location information without a network connection using Google Maps Offline.

4. Identify and remove data intensive apps by going to Settings > Data Usage on your Android device. You may be surprised to see data being used by apps you hardly touch!

5. Disable auto-updating apps on your Android device by opening Google Play and tapping the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) on the top left of the screen. Go to Settings > tap Auto-update apps > select Do not auto-update apps or Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi.

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The Windows 10 Store still isn’t working out for Microsoft

 

 

 When Microsoft launched Windows 10, the company emphasized the new operating system was the foundation for a brand-new Windows ecosystem. Going forward, Windows users could look forward to unprecedented compatibility between smartphones, tablets, PCs, and even the Xbox One. The Windows-as-a-service model meant that no one would be left behind on an ancient operating system. The Windows Store is vital to bringing this vision to reality, but developer feedback is anything but positive.

Digital Trends recently interviewed several long-time Windows developers, including Scott Peterson of Liquid Daffodil. Peterson has been writing applications for Windows since the company launched Windows 2.0, and he makes a living developing custom Windows software for oil and gas companies. Digital Trends describes him as a “steadfast evangelist.”

What Peterson and other developers like Gaurav Kalra of Next Matters see, however, doesn’t have them singing praises to the heavens. While the Windows 10 install base is theoretically much larger than the Windows Phone ecosystem — Nokia and Microsoft have shipped an estimated 110 million Windows Phone devices since 2011, while Microsoft reports over 200 million devices using Windows 10 in the past eight months — the vast majority of their revenue is being driven by mobile devices.

Microsoft isn’t very good at naming things.

According to Kalra, their NextGenReader application has been downloaded more than 300,000 times since it debuted on the Windows Phone store, but just 90,000 of those downloads were to a PC running Windows 8, 8.1, or Windows 10. Both developers are committed to the Windows platform, but neither believes they can honestly recommend it as a practical, money-making enterprise.

Are desktop paradigms killing the Windows Store?

When Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would feature an App Store, and that this represented the future of the company’s software design and distribution plans, user reaction wasn’t very positive. Gabe Newell and Valve built Steam OS as a defensive measure, designed to prevent Microsoft from requiring all PC games to be sold through their own store front, cutting Steam off at the knees. Others expressed concern about how the strict sandboxing requirements would impact application functionality.

It soon became clear that these fears were unfounded. The Windows Store launched alongside Windows 8 and quickly became known as a place where good apps went to die alongside shovelware and scams. A year after launch, it was still common to see third-party programs masquerading as official clients for major Web services and social media hubs. Microsoft has slowly dealt with some of these issues, but desktop and laptop users still don’t use the Windows Store much, if at all.

The original Windows 8.0 store: Now with extra Indian apps in an American market

The criticisms levied at the Windows Store are genuine, but they may not be the root cause. It’s at least possible that what’s holding the Windows Store back is the users themselves.

If you own a smartphone or tablet, the only official way to install new software is through Google Play, iOS, or Amazon. But desktop and laptop users have decades of experience in finding their own software, usually through various online repositories.

Here’s a simple example: If you watch movies or television shows on your PC, chances are you play them back with either VLC or an application like Media Player Classic. If you’re a gamer, you use Steam. If you use instant messenger services, there’s already a suite of applications that can handle them.

In the early days of the iPhone — at least after Apple unveiled the App Store in 2008, a year after launch — Apple showcased the phone by running the tagline “There’s an app for that.” In a way, that’s the PC’s problem: There’s already an app for that, and if you’ve been using the desktop for 10-20 years, you probably know which ones you like and which you don’t.

Microsoft has tried to offer compelling applications built around its new UI, but these applications are often handicapped by intrinsic limitations that their desktop brethren don’t share. Adobe Photoshop’s mobile version can’t use plug-ins, because Microsoft’s API doesn’t allow them for security reasons. Even applications as simple as photo viewers or video players expect all content to reside in a single privileged directory. The problem is, that’s not how most PC users maintain content libraries, especially over a 5-10 year period.

I still think better curation and presentation could solve this problem long-term — Steam’s gradual transformation from an online service everyone loathed to a cherished online gaming hub is proof that people really can change their opinions of a thing long-term. Before it can change people’s perceptions, however, Microsoft needs content worth featuring and then a way to feature it that doesn’t make users feel like they’re being groped at a dive bar by a 300lb used-car salesman.

[Insert nauseating sexual innuendo here]

It’s worth noting that Microsoft isn’t the only company with this problem. Apple’s OS X App Store has lagged far behind its online cousin, with fewer features and limits on OS X – iOS compatibility. Many of the problems MacWorld details within the OS X App Store are also issues with the Windows Store.

 

The difference between the two, of course, is that Apple’s massive mobile infrastructure dwarfs any minor problems it might be having with the desktop App Store. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying to bootstrap its mobile business by relying on its desktop strength. Things could start to turn around this year as Windows 10 matures, but it’s going to be a long, slow climb.

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25 best Android tips to make your phone more useful

 

 

 Android is the most popular computing platform in the world thanks in part to how fast it has evolved over the years. Google is always adding new features and making changes to existing ones, and OEMs like Samsung and LG can add their own stuff on top of that. It can be hard to keep up, but we’ve got the 25 best tips for Android right here.

Configure a secure lock screen

Android phones all offer various forms of secure lock screens. Most phones will prompt you to do this during setup now, and you should. The defaults are PIN, pattern, and password. Some devices also offer fingerprint security and device-specific things like LG’s Knock Code. To control your lock screen, head to the system settings, and find the Security menu. Some phones have a separate lock screen menu instead. You will need to have a secure lock screen to use features like Android Pay and factory reset protection.

Disable/uninstall bloatware

Most phones come with some apps pre-installed that you won’t want to keep around. Luckily, they can be dealt with these days. Some pre-installed bloat can be uninstalled normally by using the Play Store or finding it in the app settings menu. However, anything that’s part of the system image is non-removable. What you can do is disable it by opening the app menu from the main system settings and finding the app in your list. Right at the top will be a “Disable” button that removes it from your app drawer and prevents it from running in the background.

Set up adoptable storage (on some devices)

One of the cooler additions to Android 6.0 Marshmallow was adoptable external storage. It finally makes microSD cards first-class storage by merging them with the internal storage. To do this, you need a phone running Marshmallow with a card slot.



When you insert the card, you’ll be presented with the option of portable or internal storage. Internal storage will adopt the card as a part of the system, so important data can be stored there automatically and expand your total internal storage. The only drawback is that the card will be formatted and encrypted such that it only works in that device. To use it for anything else, you have to completely reset it and move all data back to your phone’s internal flash.

Add mobile data tracking

Data caps are common across mobile carriers, and data rates just keep getting faster. To make sure you don’t blow through your monthly allotment, visit the data usage menu in the system settings. Some phones call this something a little different, but it’s always right near the top. Here, you can set your plan reset date, create a warning threshold, and even have data automatically disabled when you’re about to incur an overage.

Choose Do Not Disturb settings

Android’s notification settings are a bit of a mess right now. Not only do OEMs often change the terminology, but Google itself has revamped it a few times in recent updates. You’ll find this feature either in your volume popup when you hit the toggle or by going into the system settings for notifications (usually Sound and Notification). It will be called Do Not Disturb on most devices. In this menu, you can choose when DND is toggled on automatically, what is blocked, and if any contacts are allowed to ring through anyway.

Enable Smart Lock

Turning on a secure lock screen as explained above is important to keep your data safe, but it can be a pain to input a code every single time you pick up the phone. You can avoid that with Smart Lock. You’ll find this feature tucked away in the security menu on most devices. It includes different methods of bypassing the secure lock screen automatically. You can keep your phone unlocked when you’re in a certain place (like home), when a device like a smartwatch is connected, or when the phone sees your face with the front-facing camera.



You can even have multiple Smart Lock modules active at the same time. So for example, you could force the secure lock method only when you’re away from home and the phone gets far enough away from your smartwatch to disconnect.

Make sure your photos back up automatically

There’s nothing worse than losing or breaking a phone only to realize your photos aren’t backed up. You can avoid this by simply opening the Google Photos app and following the prompts to enable auto-backup. The default mode is “high quality” and unlimited space. This compresses your photos, but they look surprisingly good. If you want to save the original image, you can opt to use your Drive storage space. You get 15GB free and can buy more.

Get started with “OK Google”

Google search is at the heart of all Android phones, and you can start searching at any time just by saying “OK Google.” This works on the home screen and in the search automatically, but if you go into the search settings, you can get OK Google working everywhere. In the search settings, go to Voice > OK Google detection.


Just turn on the “From any screen” option and the phone will have you say “OK Google” a few times to learn your voice. Now you can use the hotword any time the device ID awake from any screen. Note: Some Nexus phones also support this when the screen is off.

Google Now on Tap (Marshmallow and higher)

If you’ve got a Marshmallow phone, you have Google Now on Tap. This is Google’s attempt to bring the power of Google Now out of the search UI. When you long-press the home button, On Tap reads the text on the screen and offers contextual actions. It might help you make a calendar appointment, look up restaurant reviews, or just perform a Web search. Give it a shot before you jump into another app to take care of things manually.

Try a different home screen

Most Android devices have a custom UI created by the device maker (eg. Samsung’s TouchWiz). That includes the home screen. This is an important part of the experience, and the default home often isn’t very powerful. Installing an alternative like Nova Launcher or Action Launcher can make your device much easier to use. You can use these apps to change the icons, assign navigation gestures, organize apps, and so much more. Any time you want to change between your installed home screens, just go to the Home menu in the system settings.

Use screen pinning

If you need to hand your phone to someone else, you don’t necessarily want them snooping around in other apps. This is easy to prevent — just pin the screen. This should be enabled by default on most devices, but if it’s not, check the security menu.



Tap the pin icon on any app in the multitasking interface and you can lock the screen to just that app. If you have a secure lock screen, you can require that unlock method to leave the pinned app.

Swipe input on the keyboard (most devices)

Tapping with your thumbs is okay as an input method, but most phones have swipe input built-in too. Give it a shot by dragging across the letters for each word. The accuracy varies by device, but you can also install a different keyboard that might suit you better. There’s the Google Keyboard for a clean but somewhat limited experience, and then more complex and powerful options like SwiftKey.

Use power saving modes

All Android phones have power saving modes of some sort — sometimes two or three of them. Head to the battery menu (usually just Settings > Battery) on most phones to see these settings. For example, Samsung offers a regular power saving mode that reduces screen brightness and slows the CPU, then there’s also an ultra power saver that locks the device to just a few essential applications. Most phones offer basic power saving modes like the former that can be turned on automatically when the device reaches a certain battery level. This is definitely something you should set up.

Enable system UI tuner (stock Android Marshmallow)

If you have a stock Android phone on Android 6.0 like a Nexus or Motorola device, you have a particularly cool new toy to play with called System UI tuner. This is an experimental feature of Android that lets you make changes to the Status bar and Quick settings. To activate, long-press on the settings icon at the top of your Quick Settings panel. This will add a new item in the main settings for the UI tuner.



You can use it to hide items like signal, clock, alarm, and so on from the status bar. You can also add a battery percent to the battery icon. There’s even an option to rearrange the tiles in Quick Settings. Some of this already exists on skinned versions of Android like TouchWiz, but this is the first time pure Android has supported it.

Manage default apps

Many actions on Android will ask you to set a default app, but what if you decide you don’t like that default anymore? Some phones have a dedicated default app settings menu (e.g. Samsung), but the surest way to clear out those defaults is to find the app in the app menu under the main system settings. When you look at the info page for an app, there will be a button toward the bottom to view and clear the defaults. That will let you select a new default the next time you perform an action.

Turn on Developer Options

Google hides some of the more advanced tools in a special Developer Options menu that you’ll have to enable to get at things like animation speed, USB debugging, and app standby (which I’ll get to momentarily). To turn on Developer Options, open the “About phone” menu at the bottom of the system settings and find the build number. Tap on that seven times and you’ll get a message that you are a developer. The dev options will now be at the bottom of your main system settings.

Activate guest mode for shared devices

If you want to let someone borrow your phone for a bit and screen pinning is too restrictive, you may have the option to enable Guest mode. All stock Android devices have this, as well as most phones running 5.0 or higher from OEMs like Samsung and LG. To switch to a guest account, tap the profile icon in the upper right corner of the notification shade and select the guest profile.



All your data, accounts, and apps will be hidden from the guest account. There’s also a Users menu in the settings of most devices to control what guests can and cannot do. Note, some carriers remove this option from the phones they sell for some (probably stupid) reason.

Make tweaks to App Standby and Doze mode (Marshmallow and higher)

Google introduced two new battery saving features in Android 6.0 called Doze and App Standby. Doze mode puts your device into deep sleep and blocks most apps from waking it up when it’s been sitting unused for a little bit. Meanwhile, Standby blocks apps you haven’t used recently from running background tasks. These both work fine on their own, but you can tweak things if you want.

Doze mode is accessible in Settings > Battery > (menu) Battery optimization on most phones. From here, you can make apps exempt from Doze, allowing them to operate even when the phone sits unused. This is only necessary if the app isn’t working right under Doze mode. Standby is found at the very bottom of the developer options menu where it’s labeled Inactive apps. This has a list of all apps on the device, some of which will probably be marked as inactive. Tap on any of them to toggle between active and inactive. Don’t worry — inactive apps become active again once you’ve opened them.

Screen casting

Do you have a $35 Chromecast or Android TV? If so, you can do more than stream video to it. Android devices can mirror the entire display onto your TV, and it’s essentially foolproof. On stock Android devices (and a few more) there is a Cast icon in the Quick Settings. Tap that and pick an output device to start mirroring your display. On other phones, just download the Chromecast app and use the screen casting feature included there.

Identify which app sent that notification

Android’s notification system is great, but sometimes it’s not clear which app produced a notification. Should you ever be confronted with a mysterious notification that you can’t identify, there’s an easy way to figure out where it came from.



Simply long-press on the notification and the parent app will be revealed. Tap the info icon to head to the app’s notification settings to disable it if you like.

Manage apps on the Web Play Store

Google includes the Play Store client on Android devices, but there’s also a version of the Play Store accessible online. For some people this is a no-brainer, but not everyone thinks to use the Web-based Play Store. You can do all the same things here that you do on your phone, but faster. Apps and games can be purchased and pushed over the air to Android. You can queue up multiple installs in a fraction of the time it takes on Android. If you’ve got more than one device on your account, you can pick where the app goes.

Adjust animation speed

Android Lollipop and higher includes a lot of flashy animations that help to cover some of the load times as you tap around, and can also help direct your attention to the right areas of the screen. If, however, you’ve got a fast phone and you don’t want the animations slowing you down, you can speed them up. You’ll need Developer Options enabled (see above), then just open that menu and find the settings for Window animation scale, transition animation scale, and animator duration scale. They all default to 1x, but you can turn them down to 0.5 for a snappier experience. Shutting them off is an option too, but I think that makes things look a little busted.

Use (and remove) factory reset protection

Android 5.1 added factory reset protection to Android, which is nice should your phone ever be stolen. The thief won’t be able to reset and log into the phone without first knowing your Google password. However, you might also accidentally lock the new owner out of your phone (or even yourself) if you sell it.



Factory reset protection is enabled automatically when you have a secure lock screen enabled in Android 5.1 or higher. Make sure you don’t reset your phone less than 24 hours after changing your Google password, or you’ll trigger a 72-hour anti-theft lockout. To disable reset protection for a new user to log into the phone, just disable the secure lock screen, enable OEM unlock in the Developer Options, or manually remove your Google account in the Accounts menu (this also factory resets the phone).

Sideload (safe) apps

The Play Store has plenty of apps, but if you want to branch out a little, there are safe ways to do that. First, head into the security settings on your device and enable “Unknown sources.” That will let you install APKs downloaded from outside the Play Store. Some of the popular ones are the Amazon Appstore, F-Droid, and APK Mirror. Amazon offers a fair number of paid apps for free, and F-Droid is for free and open source software. APK Mirror re-hosts free APKs so you don’t have to wait on staged rollouts and can get old versions of software.

Save offline maps

Google Maps includes support for saving maps offline, and the feature was recently expanded to be more powerful. It’s not easy to find, though. Find the area you want to save offline, then tap in the search bar at the top of the screen. Close the keyboard and scroll the the bottom and you’ll see the option to download.




The app will bring up an outline to indicate the area that will be downloaded and estimate how much space it will take up. The offline data will include streets, basic points of interest, and the ability to use turn-by-turn navigation.

And much more…

After all that, you should be a pro at using Android. This is just the beginning, though. There’s a lot more to discover in Android, and every device is a little different. So, don’t be afraid to poke around in the deep, dark corners of the settings and see what you can find.

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How to increase Wi-Fi coverage throughout your whole home or office

 

 

 Now that Wi-Fi is becoming an integral part of just about every new piece of consumer electronics, and even many appliances, it is more important than ever to have a usable wireless network throughout your home and office — and possibly your yard. Unfortunately, the typical ISP’s simplistic model of providing a single “all-in-one” modem+router+wireless gateway for your site quickly breaks down when faced with the real-world challenges of serving larger, or sprawling, homes or apartments. This is especially true for buildings with lots of wiring in the walls, lath and plaster walls, or metallic heating or air conditioning infrastructure in the floor or ceiling. The good news is that there are several ways to solve this problem, with varying costs and complexities. We’ll walk you through the available options and provide some perspective on which may be best for you.

Wi-Fi Range Extenders: Cheap, easy, but you get what you pay for

The very simplest approach to extending your Wi-Fi network is to add one or more range extenders. These small units plug into an electrical outlet and then can be configured to repeat the signal from your current Wi-Fi source. They are a wonderful solution if you don’t need much bandwidth, and don’t want to take the time, or spend the money, to deal with a wired device.

For older or slower networks, particularly those with limited broadband speeds from their ISP, one or more wireless extenders may be perfect. However, if you’re getting broadband speeds upwards of 50 Mbps, you probably won’t be able to take advantage of all of it in the areas where you use an extender (many extenders have very large “faceplate” maximum bandwidth ratings, but in real world tests their performance is typically substantially less). I’ve used them mostly to fill in coverage gaps while sorting out a better long-term solution.

Hard-wired Wi-Fi Access Point options

By far the best way to get high-performance networking throughout a larger home or office is to deploy wireless Access Points throughout. Depending on your needs and budget, APs can be anything from an old router or inexpensive consumer devices to a well-organized mesh of purpose-built APs. We’ll walk you through some of the pros and cons of each option.

Using routers as Access Points

Many of us have older routers laying around. Most of them can be used as a wireless Access Point by simply only connecting the LAN port to your main router. Some routers, like Apple’s Airport routers, have a built-in bridge mode, in which case you’d connect the one that will be used as an Access Point through its WAN port to your main Apple router. Re-using a router used to be especially valuable when standalone APs were much more expensive than consumer-grade routers. More than once I’ve bought a router specifically to use as an inexpensive AP. However, now there are a number of reasonably-priced dedicated AP options, so unless you already own a router you can re-use, it probably isn’t worth buying a new one for this purpose.

One other nice feature of using a router as an AP is that routers typically come with a number of LAN ports — allowing them to double as hubs. Dedicated APs usually only have a single Ethernet port, so if you have some wired devices to connect at the same location, you’ll also need a standalone hub.

Using Powerline to get Ethernet to your access points

Often you’ll want to put an Access Point someplace where you don’t have wired Ethernet. There are a variety of products than can supply Ethernet over your existing in-home electrical wiring — a technology called Powerline. They are typically sold in pairs, so one can be used at the transmitting end, and one at the receiving end, and are sold by most networking vendors, including Netgear, Linksys, and TP-Link.

I’ve used several Powerline products, and for the most part they work fairly well, with two caveats. First, if you have a complex electrical system, you may need to make sure that your transmitter and receiver devices are on the same leg of the service, or not isolated from each other by some other components. They also typically can’t be plugged into a power strip. Some include a passthrough socket, so at least they don’t consume an outlet, but many don’t. Since you’ll also be plugging an access point in, you may run out of outlets. Second, they can sometimes drop connectivity and need to be reset. That’s a simple matter of unplugging and re-plugging them. But if they are in hard-to-reach locations, or you are relying on them for un-attended operation, that may be a drawback.

The good news is that Powerline adapters, when coupled with a reasonable access point, will often provide better performance than a simple Wi-Fi range extender. However, like range extenders, none of them actually measure up to their claimed performance. For example, the highest-performance model tested by our sister site PCMag.com, the D-Link Powerline AV2 2000, is rated at over a Gigabit, but benchmarked at just over 90Mbps.

Mesh of Access Points

If you’re willing to invest the time and money, and have wired Ethernet throughout your home or office, then a mesh-like solution of APs is the way to go. Mesh solutions can be administered from a single location, and provide the best options for optimum channel management to avoid interference between units. Until recently, mesh AP solutions were expensive, and a bit tricky to administer — because they have traditionally been marketed to larger enterprises. Now though, tech-savvy users can get excellent price-performance from products like Ubiquti’s Unifi wired Access Points.
Unifi Access Points come in a range of prices and performance levels, and can be powered over their Ethernet connection (using PoE). Unifi offers a powerful, centralized, management console, but it requires a little effort to understand how to use it properly if you’re not an experienced network administrator. The units do a great job of managing radio channels and handing off clients between each other — something that most of us have had to do manually until now. My only gripe is that they don’t offer any additional LAN ports, so if you need both to connect both wired and wireless devices in a particular location you’ll need to add a small hub.

For novice users, or for those who are setting up a new installation and also need routing and a firewall, startups Luma and Eero are launching mesh router/APs designed to be very easy to configure from your smartphone. You’ll pay a little more for the added convenience, and you won’t get the wide range of options you do with Unifi, but a 3-pack of either model is enough for most homes that are large enough to need a multiple Access Point solution.

How much performance do you need?

One lesson I re-learn every few years is no matter what performance level you buy into, it eventually becomes obsolete, or at least superseded. We’ve moved through 802.11b to g to n to dual-band to 802.11ac. 802.11n is more than enough performance for most current devices (with stated maximum data rates between 300Mbps and 450Mbps depending on the number of device antennas — although actual data transfer rates will be lower). However, if you’re buying new equipment and have a reasonable budget, getting 802.11ac support probably makes sense. Most 802.11ac devices claim support for 867Mbps or more, although as usual, real world data rates are lower.

Upgrading to Gigabit (wiring & routers)

It won’t do you much good to upgrade your Wi-Fi to some outrageously great speed if your wired infrastructure throttles it back to 100Mbits. So you’ll want to check and make sure your router can at least switch your internal traffic at 1Gbps. Or you can supplement it with a small Gigabit switch or hub. If your ISP is providing you with more than 100Mbps, then of course you’ll have one more reason to make sure your router supports Gigabit Ethernet both on the LAN side and the WAN side.

Handy tip for upgraders: If you have in-wall Ethernet and find you are only getting 100Mbps over it, check to see how many wires are connected to each jack. 100Mbps Ethernet only required 2 pairs of wires to be connected, but 1Gbps requires all four pairs. If you have extra pairs available, upgrading your wiring to 1Gbps may be as simple as connecting them. That worked in our house even with 20+ year old in-wall Ethernet cables. For patch cables, Cat 5 or better is recommended, although in my experience many Cat 4 cables will also work with Gigabit Ethernet.

Picking the solution that’s right for you

The key here is to decide which connectivity solution will work best for you — simply relaying Wi-Fi with no wired connection, relaying Wi-Fi using Ethernet over your power lines, or using APs wired into your Ethernet. If you need performance and have the budget, and access to wired Ethernet, wired APs are the way to go. If you want as much performance as you can get, but can’t run Ethernet cables to your remote locations, then a Power line solution may be right for you. And if you just want the simplest way to get up and running, wireless range extenders can be installed and configured in a few minutes.

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Security Team Reportedly Collects $1M iOS 9 Bug Bounty

 
A team of unnamed security researchers are now $1 million richer.
The researchers apparently discovered a way to break into Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 9, netting them the huge payout from controversial Washington D.C.-based start-up Zerodium, which buys and sells security zero-day exploits. In a Twitter post Monday, Zerodium congratulated the winners of its Million Dollar iOS 9 Bug Bounty challenge, but kept the identity of the researchers — and details of the winning exploit — under wraps.

Our iOS #0day bounty has expired & we have one winning team who made a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b #jailbreak (untethered). Congrats!

— Zerodium (@Zerodium) November 2, 2015

Zerodium did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the winning flaw or team.
Zerodium launched the contest late last month, offering three $1 million rewards for remote iOS 9 exploits. The company promised $1 million to each individual or team that submitted an "exclusive, browser-based, and untethered jailbreak" for the OS powering Apple's new iPhones.

"Apple iOS, like all operating system[s], is often affected by critical security vulnerabilities," Zerodium said in its announcement. "However due to the increasing number of security improvements and the effectiveness of exploit mitigations in place, Apple's iOS is currently the most secure mobile OS.

"But don't be fooled, secure does not mean unbreakable, it just means that iOS has currently the highest cost and complexity of vulnerability exploitation," the company continued. "And here's where the Million Dollar iOS 9 Bug Bounty comes into play."

It's no surprise Zerodium is keeping mum about the flaw. The company's founder, Chaouki Bekrar, has a history of selling exploits to the highest bidder, rather than disclosing issues to the manufacturer.

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What Is 4K (Ultra HD)?

High definition has meant 1080p (1,920 by 1,080) resolution for years now, and it's ready for an upgrade. That's where ultra high-definition, or UHD, television comes in. You might have heard it called 4K. It's technically UHD according to the Consumer Electronics Association, but the two terms have become interchangeable. And now those terms finally matter a lot to your HDTV buying decisions, since 4K is finally a mature, accessible technology.
 
What Is 4K?A UHD or 4K display is one with at least 8 million active pixels. For televisions, that resolution has standardized to 3,840 by 2,160. Digital cinema 4K (the resolution in 4K movie theaters) is slightly higher at 4,096 by 2,160. However you define it, it's four times the number of pixels on a 1080p display, and over 23 times the resolution of standard definition television.

How Is 4K Different Than 1080p?For starters, 4K is obviously much sharper than 1080p. In the space that a 1080p HDTV holds a pixel, a 4K HDTV of the same size can hold four. That makes for a significant jump in clarity, assuming you have native 4K source material to watch in that resolution.

Because the resolution is much higher, it requires more bandwidth to transmit. The HDMI 2.0 standard was developed to support 4K, and allows 2160p video to be displayed at 60 frames per second. Older HDMI standards could work with a 4K source to some extent, but not reliably or at that framerate. You can also stream 4K video over the Internet, which similarly requires a very fast connection; Netflix recommends a steady 25Mbps downstream speed to watch 4K content over its service.

If you don't have a 4K source video, a 4K HDTV can still make your movies and shows look better. All 4K televisions use some kind of upconverter to display 1080p and lower resolution video. These upconverters do more than just break each pixel into four identical pixels; they employ edge smoothing and noise reduction algorithms to produce, ideally, a sharper picture. When it works well, you get video that looks natural on a 4K screen (though it doesn't add any actual new details, just sharper lines and more even color and light). When it doesn't, the picture can look a bit blotchy, like a painting.

While some regular viewers struggle to see the difference between 1080p and 720p in smaller television sizes, it's much more obvious on 50-inch and larger TVs. 4K is another significant jump in terms of clarity and detail, especially as people are becoming more and more used to the incredibly tiny pixels displayed by today's Retina-style HD screens on mobile gadgets. This is a major factor for large HDTVs as well, since 55 inches has become a low boundary for just how big a big screen can get.

What 4K HDTVs Are Out There Now?4K HDTVs have been hitting the market for a few years now, and have finally become both affordable and functional. 4K no longer has the pricing premium of early adoption, and you can get a good-performing 4K HDTV for about the same price as a mid-to-high-end 1080p HDTV last year.

Vizio's M65-C1 $1,754.99 at Amazon stands out as an Editors' Choice with surprisingly good picture quality and a big 65-inch screen for a reasonable price. If you want to go smaller, Sharp's 50-inch LC-50UB30U$697.99 at Dell can be found for even less. You can still go all-out if you want a flagship HDTV and are willing to spend big bucks; LG's 65EF9500 $4,999.99 at Dell 4K OLED television and Samsung's UN65JU7500FXZA $2,134.35 at WalMart deliver fantastic image quality, but both cost a pretty penny.
The availability of such a broad range of 4K HDTVs indicates that the market has matured past the point of early adopters and technophiles, to suit a wide range of buyers looking for the best new tech.

Is There Even Any 4K Content You Can Watch on an HDTV?
Thanks to Amazon and Netflix, there's a surprising amount of 4K content you can watch if you have a fast-enough Internet connection. 4K has gone past the eye candy landscapes and tech demo phase that early HD content went through, and now you can find plenty of television and movies in the format, like Breaking Bad, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones. Both services are steadily adding more 4K content, and if that isn't enough, YouTube supports 4K video for anyone from studios to GoPro users.

Blu-ray will bring you 4K in the future, as well. The Ultra HD Blu-ray standard lets studios release movies in 4K on Blu-ray discs, though they're more advanced Blu-ray discs than the 1080p-capable ones you're used to. You'll need a UHD Blu-ray-compatible player, and you'll have to buy new Blu-rays in that format when they start coming out next year, but they'll offer another way to get commercial 4K video easily.

Bottom Line: Do You Need 4K?You probably don't need 4K quite yet, but now is a good time to consider upgrading to a 4K HDTV anyway. The technology has become standardized enough that you can be reasonably sure a 4K television you purchase now will be ready for the future (just make sure it has HDMI 2.0 ports), and it's affordable enough to be compared directly with 1080p televisions in price.

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How Businesses Can Make Sense of the Big Data Market

 
Businesses don't get any points for how efficiently their infrastructure runs or how high they can stack all the Big Data they collect. What does count is the quality of the analytics and intelligence that data produces.

Over the last several years, Hadoop is the word that's become most synonymous with ingesting, processing, and transforming data. This open-source framework for distributed data storage and processing has spawned its own enterprise space and integrated its way into all the major cloud platforms. Hadoop is far from the only Big Data technology worth talking about, but it's become the one on which many others are built.

The problem for businesses is the Hadoop space is full of distributions and tooling options, and as Gartner Research Director Nick Heudecker explained, many of them look the same. Heudecker, whose research covers information management including the Big Data and NoSQL spaces, said if you're looking at the general data processing options, a lot of vendors offer very similar features.

Breaking Down the Market
There are three main pure-play Hadoop start-ups—Cloudera, Hortonworks, and MapR—and they've all grown steadily in 2015. According to Gartner, each has approximately 700 customers, give or take 10 percent, putting the global market between 2,100-2,400 Hadoop customers worldwide. All three offer both a free tier and an enterprise tier of their Hadoop distribution, and each makes significant open-source contributions to projects under the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) banner.

"Our data indicates that 44 percent of Hadoop use is currently unpaid," said Heudecker. "Is there a clear leader? I don't think so. They're all grabbing market share because it's a very new space."

In the last few months, much of the competition between the three has come down to competition over data analytics capabilities and creative ways of integrating Apache Spark, an open-source Big Data processing engine with use cases from real-time data streams to machine learning. MapR recently announced MapR Streams as part of a "converged data platform" integrating Hadoop, Spark-based stream processing, and analytics. Hortonworks rolled out an update to the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) with in-memory Spark analytics, and Cloudera offers a variety of open-source Spark integrations through its One Platform Initiative, along with offering Spark training classes.

"There's a lot happening in the information management and information infrastructure spaces, and it's not all Hadoop," Heudecker explained. "There's tremendous momentum behind Spark's speed and memory-centric data processing model, though Spark's development is still in its early stages. Spark will be another lingua franca in data processing, much like SQL today, and is definitely showing signs that it has some legs as more and more companies invest in it."

Heudecker also highlighted the importance of the cloud players in Big Data; the tech giants that have integrated Hadoop and other Big Data technologies into their existing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) uses its Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR) service for cloud-based Hadoop orchestration. Microsoft offers a whole host of Big Data services within its Azure cloud platform, partnering with Hortonworks on its HDInsight service for managing Apache Hadoop, Spark, HBase, and Storm, along with its SQL-based Azure Data Lake and Azure Data Analytics. IBM has both its on-premises IBM Open Platform offering for Hadoop and IBM BigInsights, an analytics package to run on top of it, along with managed Hadoop and Apache Spark-as-a-service in its Bluemix cloud. The list goes on, and businesses find the more applicable use cases in the cloud.

"We estimate that AWS alone has about 5,000 customers, so that's over twice the customer base of the pure-plays combined," said Heudecker. "One of the advantages of moving into the cloud is that you get an ecosystem. You can get the pure-play Hadoop distributions on any of the IaaS offerings. MapR is available in all the clouds you can think of, other than IBM's; same for Cloudera and Hortonworks.  We haven't seen cloud availability become too much of a factor when choosing between one vendor and another."

Choosing an Enterprise Data Strategy
For both small to midsize businesses (SMBs) and growing enterprise businesses, when investing in data processing and analytics solutions, Heudecker said the deciding factor is which platform can provide the highest level of service. The biggest challenge for businesses, according to Gartner, is the skills gap—figuring out who's going to manage the platform once it's installed and deployed.

"If companies are looking for a data platform partner, who's going to help them with data ingest? Who's going to help them build the analytical application? As far as the three pure-play Hadoop-ers, the evaluation criteria tend to be around the maturity of the management tools and consoles, the data governance tools, and the performance."

The other interesting aspect of choosing a Hadoop platform is a lack of loyalty. Companies re-evaluate their Hadoop platform as often as every 6-12 months to see if the data processing components are still the right fit, because of how rapidly the space is changing and how little the big players have differentiated themselves. Heudecker said 20 percent of the companies he's talked to have multiple Hadoop distributions running in their data centers or cloud, either letting different teams pick their platform of choice or diversifying intentionally to avoid getting stuck with only one Hadoop distribution.

This kind of diversified platform portfolio feeds into what Frank Buytendijk, a Gartner Research Vice President and Distinguished Analyst focusing on digital strategy, calls "information as an asset." Like you can't run a business without capital, labor, materials, and either physical or virtual facilities, Buytendijk said you can't run a business without information.

"We used to look at business in terms of the three flows: the primary flow was goods, the secondary flow being money, and tertiary flow was information to make sure the goods and money aligned. Now in most businesses it is the other way around. The primary flow is information, from identification and configuration to content marketing, etc. Whether you call that Big Data or not doesn't really matter."

"Big Data" Is Outdated
Buytendjik said he doesn't see Big Data as a separate technology for businesses, but as one theme or mindset within your overall digital strategy.

"I don't believe in having a Big Data strategy," said Buytendjik. "There is hardly a business strategy anymore without digital components, so I believe in having a digital strategy in which all kinds of technologies deliver critical capabilities. This includes mobile, social, cloud, IoT, smart machines, and Big Data."

Heudecker believes we'll start talking about "Big Data" less and less, because now it's just data. It's the way business is done. Massive volumes and high velocity of data are no longer as daunting.

"Big Data is becoming subsumed once again by information and analytics," said Heudecker. "The Big Data category is frankly not differentiating. We always get asked the size of the Big Data market, but what does that even mean? Big Data is not really a market, it's a concept. For a business, thinking about Big Data as something unique and special that's radically different than what you've done before is a mistake. At this point, data is just normal."

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