Apple Replacing ‘Limited' Number Of iPhone 5s With Manufacturing Issue Leading To Battery Life Problem

Apple released a statement today to The New York Times noting that a manufacturing issue has caused shortened battery life in a ‘very limited' number of iPhone 5s devices. At its introduction, the phone was reported by Apple to have nearly identical life to the iPhone 5, and most tests have borne that out with reviewers seeing identical or slightly improved numbers. The statement, issued by an Apple spokesperson, indicates that a small number of the iPhones that Apple has sold so far are defective. Here's the statement given to the Times: "We recently discovered a manufacturing issue affecting a very limited number of iPhone 5S devices that could cause the battery to take longer to charge or result in reduced battery life," said Teresa Brewer, an Apple spokeswoman. "We are reaching out to customers with affected phones and will provide them with a replacement phone." The Times says that Apple's statement ‘implies' that this is only a few thousand devices, but Apple themselves gave no exact number. Apple sold 9 million iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and iPhone 4s devices in its launch weekend in September. iPhones do not have user replaceable batteries, making the life of those batteries of paramount importance. In general, iPhones get comparable battery life to other devices in the same size and thickness. Other devices from Motorola, Samsung and more have made design decisions that allow them to get greater battery life by packing in larger or thicker battery packs. If that reputation for decent, if not exhilarating, battery life is going to be maintained, Apple will want to make sure that they clamp down on this issue quick. Of course, the bad news about iPhone 5s battery life issues arrives ahead of iPad Air reviews, which are expected later today. Slick. We've reached out to Apple to see if it has any more information to share.

Baidu Reports Q3 2013 Revenue Growth of 42.3%, Net Profit Up 1.2%, But Mobile Monetization Still Lags Behind PC

Chinese search giant Baidu reported strong revenue growth in Q3 2013, but it is still investing aggressively in its mobile business, which continues to lag behind PC in terms of monetization. Baidu's total revenues in Q3 2013 were RMB 8.892 billion ($1.453 billion), a 42.3% increase year-on-year. Operating profit in Q3 2013 was RMB 3.338 billion ($545.4 million), a 1.2% increase from a year ago. Net income was RMB 3.048 billion ($498 million), a 1.3% increase from the corresponding period. Earnings per ADS were RMB 8.63 ($1.41). Baidu currently has RMB 43.3 billion in cash and short-term investments. The company said it expects total revenue in Q4 2013 to be between RMB 9.22 billion and RMB 9.48 billion, a 45.5% to 49.6% increase year-over-year. In Baidu's earnings call, Jennifer Li, Baidu's chief financial officer, said that Baidu's main expenses in Q3 2013 were related to the merging streaming video platforms PPS with iQiyi and the acquisition of app marketplace 91 Wireless, as well as increase in research and development costs and advertising for mobile. Selling, general and administrative expenses were RMB 1.384 billion ($226.2 million), up 115.4% from the corresponding period in 2012, primarily due to promotional expenses for mobile products. Research and development expenses were RMB 1.091 billion ($178.2 million), a 77.5% increase from the corresponding period in 2012, due to the hiring of more R&D personnel. Baidu's CEO Robin Li said that the revenue growth in Q3 2013 shows that the company's investment in mobile is on a solid trajectory. But mobile monetization still lags behind Baidu's PC business. “Mobile monetization has been growing very quickly over the past couple of quarters. Yes, it's not reaching the level of PC monetization yet. We certainly see the gap is quickly closing, but exactly when it will catch up is another question. Right now we think the highest priority is still to provide the best user experience so they will spend on the Baidu search app to get information and services,” said Li. In the next few quarters, Baidu will continue invest aggressively in its mobile products, said CFO Li. “We have our foot on the pedal to marketing. We're aggressively promoting our mobile products. The install rate for our core search app is growing 50% quarter per quarter and we will continue to use different channels to build our product's presence,” she said.

iPad Air Review: Apple Makes Big Tablets Beautiful All Over Again

Apple introduced two new iPads this month at a special event in San Francisco on October 22, and the first of those to go on sale is the iPad Air, which is in stores and on virtual shelves this Friday, November 1. After a week with Apple's newest 9.7-inch device, it's clear there's a new champion of the large tablet market, and one that breathes new life into Apple's original slab-style game-changer. Video Review Basics 2048 x 1536 (Retina) 9.7-inch display 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB A7 processor 802.11n dual-channel Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 10 hours general use Wi-Fi surfing, 9 hours on cellular Starts at $499 Pros Thin and light design is a huge improvement over 4th-gen iPad No battery life sacrifices required Cons Hard sell over the iPad mini with Retina, which also now has A7 power Design The design is the star of Apple's iPad Air refresh this time around; the 9.7-inch Apple tablet has had the same form factor for two generations now, and that one actually made the design worse – it got heavier, and it got thicker. This new iPad mini-inspired look sheds both size and weight, giving the iPad Air a 43 percent smaller bezel, a 20 percent thinner case, and making it 28 percent lighter, at just one pound. ipad-air-back-flat ipad-air-back-low-angle ipad-air-back-speakers ipad-air-back ipad-air-camera ipad-air-hand-2 ipad-air-hand ipad-air-top-sleep ipad-air-volume ipad-air-vs-ipad-mini-side ipad-air-vs-ipad-mini-top ipad-air-vs-ipad-mini IMG_9509 View Slideshow Previous Next Exit It's a difference that you feel, all numbers and measurements aside. The iPad Air is much, much more comfortable to hold than the iPad 4th-gen it replaces; This isn't strictly a one-handed device, but it's as close as you can get with a tablet that still has a gorgeous, expansive 9.7-inch Retina Display. The aesthetics of the iPad Air are also improved: That smaller bezel better showcases the screen, for instance, and the mirror finish Apple logo is a nice touch. The silver version I reviewed is very nice, though I personally prefer the space gray finish in this device based on comparing them both at the Apple event itself. Plus, the speaker design is improved both in terms of looks and sound quality. Display The screen on the iPad Air is a Retina display, which means that when viewed from a standard distance, the human eye shouldn't be able to make out individual pixels. The actual pixel density of that 2048 x 1536 9.7-inch display is 264 PPI, which is much less dense than the iPad mini, but you'd have a hard time telling the difference when you're actually using the thing. In short, both are excellent, and lead the market in terms of quality when you factor in color rendering, viewing angle and other visual attributes. Having used primarily an iPad mini for the past year, there's no question that coming back to the 9.7-inch Retina display was an uplifting experience. It felt a little like getting your prescription adjusted and realizing you've been seeing everything poorly for a long time. Video shines on the iPad Air, as does image-rich content like comic books and photos. There's no question that coming back to the 9.7-inch Retina display was an uplifting experience. Not to mention that all that extra space makes for a much more comfortable browsing experience, and offers a lot of benefits when it comes to content creation. It doesn't feel arduous doing work on the iPad; you can start to remember why people touted the iPad as a PC-killer when it debuted, and it edges ever closer to being able to truly replace notebooks for the majority of everyday users. Features Apple's iPad Air has some new powers compared to its predecessor – chief among those is the new A7 64-bit processor, and the M7 motion coprocessor that goes along with that. This means that like its cousin the iPhone 5s, it's a “forward thinking” device, but it also brings benefits right away, thanks in large part to Apple's own redesigned first-party apps. When using the new iLife and iWork suites, performance is considerably bolstered by the 64-bit retrofits they got with their recent redesigns – everything feels faster and more responsive. 64-bit processing doesn't mean that every app necessarily gets a 2x boost in performance over those made for the traditional 32-bit architecture used in previous iPads, but it does mean that software made for those processors will feel even more instantly responsive than it has in the past. Also new to the iPad Air are dual microphones which help out with sound quality on audio and video FaceTime calls, and the motion coprocessor means that you'll start to see more activity tracking built into the iPad, too. It may seem an odd feature for a tablet, but the iPad is designed to go with you where you go, and it might be even more representative of your general activity level since it won't be triggered so easily as a phone worn close to the body. Cameras also get an update with the iPad Air, which is to be expected. The real gem here is the FaceTime HD camera that offers 1080p video calling instead of 720p on the last model, which does make a difference. It also has a new 5-megapixel shooter that gets bigger pixels on the sensor, which does lead to better photos. I feel no less ridiculous taking photos with a 9.7-inch tablet than I did before, however, but if that's the type of photography you go in for, you'll be better served with this device. Performance The iPad Air may be a lightweight device physically, but it's a heavyweight when it comes to performance. Benchmarks tell only one side of the story, and the one that most users will be more interested in is around how the tablet work under normal, everyday usage conditions. Put simply, Apple's latest iPad soars. Put simply, Apple's latest iPad soars. Other performance tweaks from the A7 include support for OpenGL ES version 3.0 graphics, which makes it possible to build effects into games that were previously only available on the desktop. This iPad is a really strong gaming advice I learned based on my testing with Batman: Arkham Origins on the tablet, and you really get the sense that developers are just cracking the surface when it comes to what they can do with these new graphics capabilities. The version I tested also supports LTE, and this iPad supports the most frequencies of that network technology than ever before. I was able to test out those claims right away, thanks to taking the device from San Francisco out to London. The iPad Air worked perfectly on both AT&T and on EE LTE, making this a world traveler's best friend and constant companion. Thanks to FaceTime Audio and third-party apps like Skype, this could easily operate as someone's international travel phone, letting people escape costly roaming charges. Battery The iPad Air's battery offers up to 10 hours of continuous usage, according to Apple's official published specs, and I've found that it easily matches up with the high bar set for power by previous generations. On average, I found myself getting around 10 hours of actual use on Wi-Fi, and slightly less on LTE networks. Standby time seems to have improved considerably with this generation, also, as the iPad Air seemed to positively sip battery life while unplugged but with the screen asleep. Part of the iPad's magic is the fact that you can put it down and forget about it for days, then pick it up and still have nearly a full charge. That's still the case, and it's made all the more impressive based on the physical changes Apple has made to the case design, which theoretically should leave less room inside for actual batteries. Cases Apple has two cases for the iPad Air, and they follow in the footsteps of those that came before. There's the Smart Cover, and the Smart Case, both of which feature a magnetic closure with a multi-panelled front. The Case, as its name implies, also has a back component, but the Cover just protects the screen. The Smart Case comes in leather variants, while the Cover is only offered in polycarbonate materials now, though both are offered in multiple color schemes. In almost every single instance where an Apple device is involved, I'm a fan of not using a case at all; the bumps and scratches that inevitably ensue help give the great design character, in my opinion. But if you're going to get a case, I'd opt for the Smart Cover, as it adds virtually no bulk and protects the part of the iPad that is most important to protect – the glass. ipad-air-black-case ipad-air-case-green ipad-air-case-stand ipad-air-case ipad-air-case-back ipad-air-case-green-2 View Slideshow Previous Next Exit The Smart Case makes the iPad Air feel quite a bit more bulky, in my opinion, and is fairly difficult to get off once its on. On the other hand, it's definitely more protective than the Smart Case, and it's still relatively svelte. Apple has also nailed its leather case designs in terms of putting out a product that feels very high quality, and that's what they've done here, too. Bottom Line The iPad Air is a huge improvement over the iPad 4th-gen, or the iPad 2, pictured in the gallery. Its form factor is the best currently available for a 10-inch tablet, and it provides a great blend of portability and usability that leans towards the media device end of the spectrum. ipad-air-ipad-top ipad-air-ipad-2-2 ipad-air-ipad-2 View Slideshow Previous Next Exit When Apple introduced the iPad mini, I feel in love and felt that I'd never be swayed back to the other side. The iPad Air makes the argument anew that there's still room for big tablets in people's lives, and it might just help usher in an era of computing where households own more than one kind of iPad, and PCs are harder and harder to find.

Hosting Service MongoHQ Suffers Major Security Breach That Explains Buffer's Hack Over The Weekend

NoSQL Database hosting service MongoHQ, a Y Combinator alum, has suffered a major security breach that appears to be a major factor in an attack over the weekend on Buffer, the social media scheduling service. The MongoHQ intrusion is affecting customers of the hosting service and potentially also their S3 storage accounts on Amazon Web Services (AWS). MongoHQ Co-Founder Jason McKay, in an open letter on the company web site, wrote that they discovered the breach yesterday when they detected “unauthorized access to an internal support application using a password that was shared with a compromised personal account.” In other words, an employee was fooled into giving up their account credentials. To MongoHQ's detriment, the internal support application was exposed to the Internet. There was no virtual private network (VPN) to fully protect the back-end of the service. MongoHQ has now taken steps to put a VPN into place. On Hacker News, Buffer CEO Joel Gascoigne still took full blame, saying the tokens they used were not encrypted. If access tokens were encrypted (which they are now) then this would have been avoided. In addition, MongoHQ have provided great insights and have much more logging in place than we have ourselves. We're also increasing logging significantly as a result. The attack looks like it could have been a lot worse, said JumpCloud CEO David Campbell in a phone interview today. JumpCloud protects users through its management platform, which stores cloud server keys for administrators. The platform abstracts the password process, preventing attacks by dropping a small piece of software on the customer's cloud server. It is an agent-based approach similar to the way companies such as New Relic provide application performance management. The agent records the data from the server, monitoring it for unusual spikes in network loads and other unusual events. Luckily, MongoHQ used bcrypt, which is designed to slow down brute-force attacks using powerful computers or corrupted server clusters, Campbell said. In these attacks, there is a brute force attempt to crack passwords. These attacks can access systems fairly easily if there is not something to slow them down. That's why the LinkedIn attack last year was so significant. There were not the protections in place to slow the attacks. It is believed about six million passwords were stolen. The fact that MongoHQ appears to have been using bcrypt for customer passwords makes it exponentially more difficult for the attackers to exfiltrate the hashes and crack those passwords offline. Using a popular open source GPU based password cracking tool, we see that an average machine can only try 3788 possible passwords per second against bcrypt. This same machine can try 2 billion possible passwords per second against unsalted SHA1, which is what LinkedIn was using when it suffered its breach last year. Their big failing here appears to have been putting their administrative application on the public Internet, rather than putting it behind the VPN. They also appear to have failed to require 2FA for access to the app. It sounds like they're learning their lessons the hard way. Still, whoever accessed the accounts systematically went through the system, accessing customer accounts: Our support tool includes an “impersonate” feature that enables MongoHQ employees to access our primary web UI as if they were a logged in customer, for use in troubleshooting customer problems. This feature was used with a small number of customer web UI accounts. Our primary web UI allows customers to browse data and manage their databases. We are contacting affected customers directly. We have additionally determined that an unauthorized user to our support system would have had some access to our account database, which includes connection info for customer MongoDB instances. We've conducted an audit of direct access to customer databases and determined that several databases may have been accessed using information stored in our account database. We are contacting affected customers directly. If you have not heard from us individually, there is no evidence that your DB was accessed by an unauthorized user. MongoHQ has also taken l steps to invalidate the AWS credentials it stored for customers as part of backing up to S3. Customers that use the same credentials on AWS as they do on MongoHQ are particularly vulnerable. AWS has created “Premium Support” cases for all affected accounts, to assist customers with establishing new credentials, as needed. This is a major attack that reflects on the poor state of security in the startup community. It shows the need for services like JumpCloud and more emphasis on how companies enforce user management.

Barnes & Noble Outs The $119 Nook GlowLight, We Go Hands-On

For better or worse the holidays are right around the corner, and that can only mean one thing: consumer electronics companies are slaving away on new hardware designs and trying to get those final products onto shelves in time for an annual feeding frenzy. Barnes & Noble is no different. Well, it's a little different - when I sat down with Digital Content EVP Doug Carlson earlier today he was eager to paint a picture of a savvy bookseller that's still aware of the human elements of peddling tomes (digital and otherwise). But it wasn't long at all before he got down to the business at hand and revealed the $119 Nook GlowLight, a new e-reader the company will start selling today. The news will come as little surprise to BN fans considering the company tellingly dropped the price of its previous GlowLight model back in August in a bid to clear out its supply channels ahead of today's announcement. I got the chance to play with the Nook GlowLight for bit, and - speaking as a Kindle devotee since the early days - it's a surprisingly compelling little package. The first thing you'll notice about it is just how light the thing is: at 6.2 ounces, it's almost like you're holding nothing at all. My e-reader of choice (and constant literary companion) has been Amazon's first generation Kindle Paperwhite, and it's considerably weightier than the device BN managed to put together. nook-glowlight-2 nook-glowlight-8 nook-glowlight-3 nook-glowlight-4 nook-glowlight-5 nook-glowlight-6 nook-glowlight-7 View Slideshow Previous Next Exit The other big draw here is the Pearl display, and the fact that the Nook engineering team managed to figure out how to do away with the full screen flashes endemic to e-ink panels. Naturally, BN wouldn't divulge exactly how it managed to get the job done, but it's quite a feather in their cap considering Amazon doesn't seem to have cracked that particular code just yet. It definitely doesn't hurt that the panel is awfully crisp (it packs 62% more pixels into the same display size as its predecessor) and the lights nestled around the edge of the screen provided even illumination… if not quite as even as the new Paperwhite. As it turns out, the Nook GlowLight really shines (ugh) when it comes to the little things too. That hefty bezel that runs around that display may turn some off, but my inordinately picky thumbs appreciated the size - there's just more room for my fingers to rest on the thing, something I can't say of my Kindle. And the new white chassis BN has run with (in a way BN's going in the opposite direction that Amazon has with its Kindle designs) provided a bit of visual resting space, almost like it's extending the margins of a page. While I'm talking about the chassis, it's also worth pointing out that the new GlowLight also has a silicone band that protects the edges of the device that feels rather nice. It doesn't seem to take much effort to pop off that bit of silicon trim off either, it wouldn't shock me at all if Barnes & Noble sold colorful replacements so users could customize their readers. And what of that human element? The Nook's recommendation system features insights from Barnes & Noble team of booksellers to help pump up the value of its results - to hear Carlson tell it, the algorithmic approach that Amazon takes to building a profile for recommendations means it'll never be able to make the intuitive leaps that lead to readers broadening their horizons. As always, I'll refrain from passing judgment on the thing until we get to take the final hardware for a spin, but Barnes & Noble has made plenty of thoughtful choices here. If I wasn't so invested in Amazon's vast, vast content ecosystem, I'd definitely consider making the switch - it's just that promising.

Senate Confirms Tom Wheeler As New FCC Chairman

The Federal Communications Commission finally has a new Chairman: Tom Wheeler. Yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz released his hold and Wheeler was unanimously approved. He will take over for Acting Chairwoman, Mignon Clyburn. As a former telecommunications lobbyist, there has been concern about what his priorities will be. Rather than join the speculation party, we'll wait until his first few interviews and actions give us a better indication of how he'll lead the Commission. More to come.

AWS Updates Big Data Analytics Platform With New Support For Hadoop And Its Ecosystem

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has updated its Elastic Map Reduce platform with a new version of Hadoop and updated support for its data analytics ecosystem. Elastic Map Reduce is AWS platform for processing large amounts of data. But unlike many vendors, AWS offers a hosted service. The challenge for AWS is to keep Hadoop and its accompanying ecosystem updated and in pace with the latest open-source platforms. In this latest update, AWS updated to Hadoop 2.2 and new versions of Hive, Pig, HBase, and Mahout, all accompanying technologies for Hadoop. In a blog post, AWS states that it cluster startup times have been reduced, the ability to augment data has been augmented and mapper M7 is now supported. MapR M7 is a premium offering for HBase, the NoSQL database built for Hadoop. The update to Elastic Map Reduce also includes supports for YARN, the next generation Hadoop MapReduce architecture. This is a major update for AWS. it's as much about Hadoop as it is about the ecosystem that has come so far in the past few years. Hadoop is a file-based system that need HBase for a database. Pig an analytics platform that is often used for ETL (Extract / Transform / Load) processing and Mahout is a machine-learning library. AWS has increasing support for its analytics technology. That's illustrated in the news last week that business intelligence provider Jaspersoft now supports Elastic Map Reduce. The company has a history with AWS, boasting 500 customers that use its service available on the AWS Marketplace.