Amazon refuses to settle with FTC over in-app purchases

SAN FRANCISCO: Amazon.com Inc is fighting US regulators' demands that it pay a penalty over its policies on purchases made by children on smartphone applications, according to documents seen by Reuters. 

Amazon, the largest US online retailer, faces a potential lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, which wants the company to enter into a settlement similar to the one reached with rival Apple Inc in January. 

At issue are in-app purchases, in which apps that are downloaded for free onto a smartphone or tablet then charge users for additional services through registered credit cards. Consumers say that children are susceptible to the practice, leading to large bills. 

In a draft complaint, the FTC said there have been thousands of complaints related to millions of dollars in unauthorized in-app charges by children on Amazon devices. The agency said Amazon only changed its in-app charging policies last month. 

Amazon, which has built a rapidly growing business around its Kindle mobile devices and last month unveiled its own smartphone, said in a letter to the FTC it has already met or exceeded the requirements of Apple's terms. 

"The commission's unwillingness to depart from the precedent it set with Apple despite our very different facts leaves us no choice but to defend our approach in court," Andrew DeVore, an Amazon associate general counsel, said in the July 1 letter. 

Purchases of digital goods — from extra game lives to special in-game tools — are key to the success of tech companies' app stores, which in turn drive usage and mobile device sales. 

In January, Apple agreed to refund customers at least $32.5 million and change its billing practices to ensure it obtains consent from parents before charging for in-app spending. 

The FTC is pushing Amazon to refund customers, give up any profits from inappropriate activity and to compensate for the FTC's costs. 

Many parents who discover the charges and want a refund face "significant hurdles to doing so," the FTC said in a draft of its complaint, adding that the process remains unclear, confusing and without clear instructions for obtaining a refund. 

Amazon said it was "deeply disappointing" that weeks of negotiations failed to sway regulators. 

In its letter, Amazon said it refunded customers who complained that their children made purchases they did not want. The letter said Amazon's app store included "prominent notice of in-app purchasing, effective parental controls and real-time notice of every in-app purchase." 

The FTC declined to comment, saying it "is focused on ensuring that companies comply with the fundamental principle that consumers should not be made to pay for something they did not authorize." 

"Consumers using mobile devices have the same long-established and fundamental consumer protections as they would anywhere else," the FTC said. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news. The Journal reported that the FTC said Amazon would need to make notices of in-app purchases more prominent, require passwords for all purchases and make refunds simpler and easier.

US government warns companies against 'Energetic Bear' attacks

BOSTON: The US government has asked critical infrastructure operators to review computer networks to see if they are infected with malicious software from the "Energetic Bear" hacking group, which private researchers say is tied to the Russian government. 

The Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT, issued the request after researchers with F-Secure of Finland and Symantec Corp of the United States reported that they believed Energetic Bear was behind a campaign to infect energy and industrial firms around the world with malicious software known as the Havex Trojan. 

ICS-CERT has advised critical infrastructure operators to tighten security, and provided them a list of specific steps to better protect their systems. It also asked them to check to see if their systems had been infected. 

"ICS-CERT strongly recommends that organizations check their network logs for activity associated with this campaign," DHS said in an alert on its website. "Any organization experiencing activity related to this report should preserve available evidence for forensic analysis and future law enforcement purposes." 

The request follows another alert last week on Havex from ICS-CERT, which said that the agency and F-Secure had learned that the malicious software was designed to send a map of the network infrastructure back to the hackers' command-and-control server. 

F-Secure, Symantec and the Department of Homeland Security declined to identify companies whose systems were infected, though they said they were in the energy and industrial sectors. 

Havex is a Remote Access Trojan, or RAT, that grants hackers control of an infected machine. While RATs are typically used for espionage, they can be used for other purposes, including downloading other malicious tools onto compromised machines. 

F-Secure and Symantec said they believed the malicious software had so far only being used for spying, but that it had the capability to be used for sabotage. 

"They are scanning and mapping out industrial control system networks," said F-Secure researcher Sean Sullivan. "They are probably passing on the ones that are of interest to other groups." 

The Energetic Bear gang was first identified in January by researchers with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which said the group was linked to the Russian government and was focused on espionage.

Symantec said 1,018 organizations across 84 different countries had been hit by the operation, though not all countries were known and some infections might be accidental. 

The security software maker said it believed the intended targets of the group were in the energy and industrial sectors. Geographically, the most activity was in Spain, followed by the United States, then France, Italy and Germany. 

IBM proposes to build first carbon computer by 2020

People often compare computers with our brains, but there are important differences between them. One difference, which the wider public seldom thinks about, is that computer brains are made of silicon while our brains are made of carbon. All known life is made of carbon, which is the most versatile element in the universe. Why should computers be made of silicon, even if it is the second most versatile element in the universe? IBM now thinks that the silicon age of computers is about to end, and that we might see the first carbon computer in just six years.

It is a bold statement, tempered with caveats, made more with hope than authority. Carbon nanotube chips would be not very different from silicon chips, only much faster. However, making them in large scale still requires significant technology advances. The year 2020 is around the time when silicon is supposed to hit a roadblock, yet again. 

It will be great to get nanotube chips ready by then. This is what IBM hopes for, and also a large section of the industry also hopes for. According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, an industry organisation formed by the leading semiconductor companies in the world, silicon chips would reach a feature size of four nanometers by 2020, which is three generations from the current 22 nanometers. No one has an answer to the intense technical problems that can crop up at this size. 

The industry wants to get a replacement technology by then, and carbon nanotubes seem to be its best bet at the moment. It is not a passing issue but a serious problem that can slow down the industry significantly. It could slow down global innovation too, as much of technology innovation is based on continual increase of computing power. According to the Linley Group, a technology consultancy, costs per transistor are set to rise from now onwards, after falling steadily for decades. 

The next generation of chips, of 14 nanometer size, may be expensive and not so widely used for a while. Technical problems and the cost increase as they shrink further. Currents leak. Chips get too hot. They resist mass production. The industry needs new materials for chips, and many have been tried. Nanotubes have performed very well, and they have the additional advantage of being technologically similar to silicon and yet being carbon, a smaller atom that may one day let us do many wonderful things. 

IBM's research gives us hope that nanotubes will work, as the company has made nanotube transistors already. But the nanotubes are not close enough to each other; it is a difficult problem to solve because we do not have the technology to do so. What if it is not solved by 2020? One factor we often forget, due to our obsession with Moore's Law, is that software has been advancing too, at least as rapidly as hardware has done. 

Advances in software can drive computing even if hardware grinds to a halt for some time. Let us look at how brains evolved. Between two million and 100,000 years ago, the human brain rapidly increased in size in two spurts. But it has decreased in size by 10% in the last 15,000 years. Does that mean that we are less intelligent than our ancestors? Probably not. 

After reaching a certain size, the brain may have learned to work more efficiently. The human brain needs a lot of energy, and it is always good to have it just at the right size. Chips can follow the same logic in reverse. As their size stands still, we can make them more efficient.

Sources: TOI

Over one lakh suicides in India every year, report says

NEW DELHI: Over 1,00,000 people commit suicides in India every year on an average. The number of suicides in the past decade has recorded an increase of 21.6 per cent, said a government report.

The number of suicides increased to 1,34,799 in 2013 from 1,10,851 in 2003, said the National Crime Record Bureau report titled Crime in India, 2013, released here this week.

The report showed that suicide rate has declined in the country after 2011.

The population has increased by 15 per cent during the decade while the rate of suicides has increased by 5.7 per cent in 2013 over 2003 (from 10.4 per cent in 2003 to 11 per cent in 2013), hence showing a mixed trend in incidents of rate of suicides during the decade, it said.

The highest incidents of 16,622 suicides were reported from Maharashtra in 2013, followed by 16,601 suicides in Tamil Nadu. Both account for 12.3 per cent each of the total suicides.

Andhra Pradesh (14,607 suicides), West Bengal (13,055 suicides) and Karnataka (11,266 suicides) accounted for respectively 10.8 per cent, 9.7 per cent and 8.4 per cent of the total suicides reported in the country, said the report.

These five states together accounted for 53.5 per cent of the total suicides reported in the country. The remaining 46.5 per cent suicides were reported from the rest of the 23 states and seven union territories.

Among the 53 mega cities, Chennai tops the list by witnessing 2,450 suicide cases in 2013, followed by Bangalore 2,033, Delhi 1,753 and Mumbai 1,322 cases.

These four metro cities have contributed more than 35 per cent of the total suicide reported from 53 cities, it said.

The report attributed family problems and illness to be the main reasons for committing suicides. The two reasons account for 24 per cent and 19.6 per cent suicides out of the total suicides.

Unemployment, debt and drug abuse are the other factors that compel a person to take one's life.

It pointed out that the number of married men (64,098) committing suicide in 2012 was double the married women (29,491).

"The incidence of married men committing suicide mainly due to family stress is on the rise," Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) president Kumar V. Jahgirdar told IANS Thursday.

Studies conducted by the CRISP said the married men committed suicide mainly due to alleged misuse of Section 498 (A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Domestic Violence Act of 2005.

Section 498 (A) deals with harassing a married woman.

"We are demanding setting up of national commission for men on the lines of the National Commission of Women to look into the problems faced by the married men," Jahgirdar added.

"When a married man faces the domestic violence in the form of verbal abuse, mental abuse and economical abuse, there is no provision in law to seek justice," said Save Family Foundation-Delhi founder member Swarup Sarkar.

On the analogy of the Lokpal Act, which has a special clause to punish those who misuse the law, there should a law to check misuse of Section 498 (A) and the domestic violence act, he added.

Sources: TOI

35 IAS officers transferred in UP

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government today transferred 35 IAS officers, including divisional commissioners and district magistrates, an official spokesman said here. 

Principal secretary, homeguard and civil defence Sanjiv Dubey has been relieved from the additional charge of Institutional Finance Department. 

Principal secretary, finance Rahul Prasad Bhatnagar has been given additional charge of Institutional Finance Department. 

Secretary, women and child welfare, Kamini Chauhan Ratan has been transferred to finance. Renuka Kumar, who was on the waitlist, has been posted as principal secretary, women welfare and director general, State Nutrition Mission.

Jitendra Kumar, who was also on the waitlist, has been posted as principal secretary handloom, the spokesman said in a statement. 

Principal secretary, Dairy Development, Anant Kumar Singh has been given additional charge of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries. secretary, Housing Rajiv Agarwal has been given additional charge of home department. 

Secretary, Rural Development, Sudhir Kumar Srivastava has been transferred as Divisional Commissioner Basti. Secretary, Home Sanjay Prasad has been shifted to Medical and Health Department. 

Secretary, Infrastructure and Industrial Development, Dheeraj Sahu has been transferred to Planning Department. 

Secretary, Irrigation, Rakesh Kumar Ojha has been transferred as Commissioner Gorakhpur, he said. 

Secretary, IT and Electronics, Prabhat Mittal, who was under transfer as Commissioner Devipatan Division, has now been posted as Commissioner, Rural Development. 

Secretary, Minor Irrigation Ravi Prakash Arora has been transferred as Commissioner Devipatan. Commissioner Mirzapur Brij Kishore Singh has been put on the waitlist and Commissioner Varanasi R M Srivastava has been given additional charge of Mirzapur. 

District Magistrate, Sultanpur K Dhanlaxmi has been put on the waitlist and Special Secretary Aditi Singh has been posted in her place. 

DM Gorakhpur, Ravi Kumar N G has been put on the waitlist and Special Secretary, Irrigation Ranjan Kumar has been appointed in his place. 

DM Shahjahanpur, Aparna U has been transferred as Special Secretary, Revenue. Special Secretary, Entertainment Tax, Shubhra Saxena has been posted as DM Shahjahanpur. 

Secretary vocational education Bhuvnesh Kumar has been relieved from the additional charge of director sports. 

Special Secretary, APC Branch, Abhay has been posted as Mission Director, Skill Development Mission. Director, Panchayati Raj, Saurabh Babu has been shifted as Special Secretary, Sports and Youth Welfare. 

Anurag Yadav, who was on the waitlist, has been posted as Director, Panchayati Raj. DM Hathras, Suryapal Gangwar has been put on the waitlist and Chief Development Officer, Aligarh, Shameem Ahmad Khan has been posted in his place. 

Special Secretary, Power Shiv Shyam Mishra has been transferred as Vice-Chairman, Gorakhpur Development Authority. 

DM Sambhal, Karn Singh Chauhan has swapped places with Special Secretary, Food and Civil Supplies Pawan Kumar. 

Executive Director, UP Employee Welfare Corporation, Arvind Kumar Singh has been put on the waitlist. 

DM Bhadohi, Ranveer Prasad has been put on the waitlist and Regional Food Controller, Kanpur, Narendra Shanker Pandey has been posted in his place. 

DM Etawah, Vidya Bhushan, who sustained injury during a swimming session recently, has been put on the waitlist and Special Secretary, Irrigation, Nitin Bansal has been posted in his place.

Sources: TOI

Bombay HC orders CBI to probe Bollywood actor Jiah Khan's death

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Thursday transferred the probe into the death of Bollywood actor Jiah Khan to the Central Bureau of Investigation. A division bench of Justice VM Kanade and Justice PD Kode asked the CBI to carry out further investigations on whether Jiah's death was a case of "suicide or homicide".

The court clarified that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the allegations and asked CBI to conduct an "independent and impartial" probe.

The 25-year-old actor had reportedly hanged herself on June 3, 2013. Suraj Pancholi, son of actor Aditya Pancholi, was arrested and charged for abetting his girlfriend Jiah's suicide.

The high court slammed the CBI for opposing the transfer of investigations with its claim that it did not have adequate manpower and machinery. "If the CBI takes such a stand one wonders where a citizen of this country's supposed to go when the state machinery is found deficient in protecting its citizens," the judges said while expressing "displeasure" at the agency's statement. The court has asked the CBI to carry out further probe and submit its report to the court.

The HC was hearing a petition filed by Jiah's mother, Rabia who blamed police for a shoddy probe and claimed Jiah may have been murdered. She attached photos of Jiah's body as well as a report by an independent forensic expert who opined that the possibility of the death being a homicide cannot be ruled out. The petition further claimed that Aditya had used his political clout to influence the probe.

Rabia claimed some circumstances supported the homicide theory: no stool was found in the house, questioned the police case that Jiah hung herself from a ceiling fan which was at a height from the floor; there were injury marks on her face and her arm as if someone had held her tightly; the ligature marks did not support the case that she hung herself and the forensic expert raised doubts that the depth of the marks could have been caused by the soft muslin cloth which police claimed Jiah used to kill herself. Rabia also claimed that police failed to probe a blood patch which she claimed to have found in one of the rooms.

Suraj Pancholi, son of Bollywood couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, has been charged for abetting Jiah Khan's suicide

Sources: Times Of India

How do I reset my Moto X?

In the unlikely event that your device becomes unresponsive, frozen, blank or black screen, or will not respond to the power button, you can perform a force restart or reboot on the device by following the steps below.

Press and hold the Power button for 7 - 10 seconds, the device will restart and go through the boot-up sequence.


Notes:

• The forced restart or reboot will not delete any Data on your phone.  

Factory Data Reset is a tool used to remove everything that was imported, added or installed on the device. Keep in mind, when using this feature everything is deleted.

To reset your device:

1.  Touch 

2.  Touch Settings

3.  Touch Backup & reset

4.  Touch Factory Data Reset

5.  Touch Reset Phone

Note: If you have customized your Moto X on Motomaker you will have the option to remove your personalized content. If you want to remove your start up message or wallpaper, check the Erase all personalized content box.

External Reset

If you are unable to access the phone's menu to perform the standard reset you can attempt an external factory reset.

Notes:

• When using this feature; everything is deleted from the device. If you have customized your device on Motomaker, your personalized message and wallpaper will not be deleted.
• Reset will require a minimum battery level of 25%. If you are unable to perform a reset, please charge for 20-30 minutes and try reset again.

1. With the phone powered off, press the VOL DOWN KEY for 2-3 seconds then POWER key then release.

2. The device will display different BOOT OPTIONS

3. Use the VOL DOWN Key to SCROLL to Recovery and VOL UP Key to select

Tip: If the device reboots, you may have waited to long to make a selection, you will need to begin the process again. 

4. The device will display the Motorola logo and then the Android in distress ( logo with Exclamation mark)

5. Press and hold the VOL UP key for 10-15 seconds. While still holding the VOL UP key tap and release the POWER key

Tip: You can try this step, holding the phone in landscape. If you are stuck on step 6, try a force reboot by pressing the Power key and Vol Down key, and start the process again.

6. The device will display additional menu options (Text will appear in BLUE) 

7. Use the VOL DOWN Key to scroll to Wipe data / factory reset and the POWER Key to select this option

8. Use the VOL DOWN key again to select YES - delete all user data and press the POWER key to CONFIRM

9. Once the Formatting is complete, press the POWER key to confirm a REBOOT

10. The device will reboot and start the normal power up sequence