Hack Android and you could win $200,000.

There are essentially two types of hackers out there. Those who use their skills for good and those who use them for evil. Google has recently called upon the former group for an extremely important bit of research; to see if there's an exploit that can remotely affect a wide variety of android devices over the globe, with no information about the target devices given except the phone numbers and Gmail addresses.

However Google does not expect from the hackers to give up this information out of the kindness of their hearts. Google is offering $200,000 for the next six months to whoever finds such a flaw , while the second will get $100,000. Google already rewards people who find bugs and exploits in Google's software but this is on another level. Google's Project Zero team , on Google's blog posted about this contest. What makes this contest special is that before this , the most a person could win after finding a bug was $10,000.

Since there is a lot of money involved , google firstly advises researchers to submit each bug as soon as they find it , rather than waiting until several bugs are found and then strung together into an exploit chain. Google will only allow the person who first submitted the bug to use it as a part of their exploit chain later on. 

The exploit must work on Google's current flagships , The nexus 6p and 5, and they must be running any Android  (7.x) build. The contest includes users to begin with nothing but phone number and email addresses and then compromise that phone without having any kind of physical access to it. 

While the first and the second person to submit the complete exploit bug will win $200,000 and $100,000 respectively, there's another $50,000 to be won by people who come up with other clever bugs.

While many researchers will be down with Google's contest , there will also surely be people that realize that these exploits, to the right party, could mean a lot more than $200,000. Google has posted the rules for its contest on this site as well as a short FAQ. The contest will be over in March 2017, Specifically the 14th of March. Well then, get cracking!

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Google's Burrito-delivering drones tested.

We've got or first good look at Google's burrito delivering drone in action. We have some of the footage of one of the first test fly's of the drone under Project Wing.

This is run by X (formerly known as Google X) , and experimental lab owned by Google's parent company , Alphabet. The drones are currently being tested in Virginia , on the Virginia tech university campus. The very famous company Chipotle and X have teamed up to deliver burritos using the advance drone technology. Previous reports also state that X initially intended to deliver burritos from the food truck to students of the city via the drone. The test footage wasn't made by the best camera and the video only shows the prototype version of the drone but we could very be seeing advance drone tech like this in the near future. Have a look at the footage :

via GIPHY


Also note, Google isnt the only company testing out advanced drone technology. It seems that Amazon is also interested in the practical uses that a drone has. We could also possibly see our orders from amazon be delivered by drones.

We're definitely moving into the age of robots where we practically use robot such as drones to do all our work for us, But we've already seen what happens if we do that. yes that right, Fear Cybernet!

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Google patches two major Android security bugs - but are you still at risk?

As you all may or may not have known, Google has been working hard at patching some potentially serious Android mobile security flaws.

The company has thus fixed two major security issues that could have left millions of devices at risk of being hijacked by criminals.The flaw that i mentioned includes a variant of of the stagefright bug (which was uncovered last year and affected nearly a billion Android devices across the world). This flaw however is not the same as stagefright but but behaves similarly to it. This virus would allow hijackers to hack your device using a specially created j-peg image file , sent through Gmail and other Google services. This would allow the attackers to gain control of the device and have access to personal information or would also let them shut it down completely.

Users, who don't even download the image will be hit by the malicious bug . This means that anyone who even views the bug ( The J-peg image file) would be affected the by it. 

The other bug was similar to this bug. By the same process (the J-peg image file) hackers would gain control of the device and this would allow them to execute malware or gain access to personal information or programs on affected devices by escalated local privileges.

Know as CVE 2016-3861, Google says that it was designed only for research purposes but if in the wrong hands , could be used for some serious damage. The updates are included in Google's latest security patches ,which are available to nexus device users now , and will be rolling out to other devices very soon. However even users who have installed the update could find themselves being attacked by criminals. It seems that the Google Play store hosted apps that contain two nasty forms of malware. 

The offending apps have now been removed by google , but there's no word on how many times the apps were downloaded , meaning millions of android users could be at risk of being affected by the bug. 

Make sure that you only download the essential apps and report any app that seems fishy on the Playstore.

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Even if you delete Google Maps, you will still be tracked by Google.

Think you're safe? That you have your privacy? Well you dont. Research shows that Google, through its Google play store app, keeps track of our activities.

It seems Google is keeping a much closer eye on its android users than previously thought. 
Security researchers have recently found out that Google is able to track our location using our phone's Global positioning System (GPS). Th playstore seems to be at the root of the problem though. The service is constantly running in the background making it possible for Google to track your whereabouts. This can only be prevented by completely disabling location tracking all together.

The security researcher found this out as when he was entering a nearby McDonalds, The Google Playstore prompted him to download the McDonald's app. having thought that Google Maps was to blame ,as that is the app associated with tracking and locations, he immediately uninstalled the app. However the problem was still not solved. Thus he concluded that The Google Playstore itself and not The Google Maps app was to blame.

According to Google, They need access to your location to keep your apps up to date and provide you with up to date information for example , deals in a nearby restaurant. However since Android Marshmallow, you can set individual permissions of a single app your self. Therefore you can attempt to bock Googles access to your location yby going to settings > apps > Google play store> permissions and disable the permission for locations.

Alternatively you can go to the nuclear option and delete the Play store as well as the Google Maps app. Google is rolling out several updated to its Google Maps app which enables it to constantly monitor your location and provide you with info like promotions at shops near you, deals at restaurants in your vicinity and even local clinics that are open and local pharmacies/Shops that sell a particular item. . 

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Is the nexus brand dead? Nexus launcher now the Pixel launcher.

We've all heard one thing or the other about the nexus branding to be dead and that Google will be launching its own Pixel brand with the two new Pixel Phones. This rumor now further cements that rumor. According to recent reports the Nexus launcher which was leaked a while back is now named the Pixel launcher.


This comes as no surprise at all as Google gave us several hints at its moving away from the Nexus branding. The new launcher ,by the name of Pixel Launcher, installs in the same way the nexus launcher did. You just sideload the app to install it. Nothing much has changed from the nexus launcher except the name. Just like previous versions of the nexus launcher , it gives you a circle based folder ui, the Google search button rather than the full bar and a slide up from the bottom to open up the app tray. The only major difference now is that the Pixel Launcher will modify the icon of the calendar app to show the correct date, a nice feature indeed.


You'll have to tweak some things here and there to have the Google now page when you slide left from the homepage. otherwise if you don't mind having the Google now page right at your disposal from the home page, you can just install he apk normally and enjoy the new experience.


Here are some screenshots of the Launcher



So, do you deem the Pixel launcher worthy enough to be the default launcher on your daily driver? Let us know down below in the comments section.



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Update to Google Play Store makes it easier to find App size.

Android is a very customizable OS and this is the key difference between ios and Android. MicroSD card expansion is one of the many features that iphones do not support. While many android users can use microSD cards to expand their internal storage, many do not have this luxury. Thus Google is testing out an update to the Play Store where the user can easily find the size of the Android Application.

The size of the app is shown directly on the cards themselves so the user ca decide if the app is worth their precious storage. Previously, you had to go into the app download page, then click read more and scroll all the way down to where it said "App size". This however makes it a lot easier.

Many android users can experience this feature but since this is a server side change, there's not much you can do if you are not one of the people that are seeing this feature.Its still unclear when Google will roll out this update to everyone more broadly, as this would be a nice feature to have. 

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Google Pixel Shown off in new set of leaked renders.

The iPhone 7 is out and it got its fair share of attention from tech geeks all around the world. However now that everyone's over the release of the new iPhone , everyone is anxiously waiting for October 4th, the date when Google is going to release its Pixel phones. There have been countless leaks of the phone over the past few months and this leak just adds to that.

New images have surfaced the net of the Google Pixel, aka sailfish. Being as they are full 360 renders of the phone, we get a pretty good idea of what the phone is going to look like. These renders were leaked by Android Authority and @Oneleaks , and they're ""factory leaks" which mean that they're base o factory CADs used to manufacture the device

From these renders we can see all the details that were previously leaked so this render matches the details of the phone. There is a glass panel in the back with the camera and a fingerprint reader . Antenna lines are also present on the bottom as well as on the metal sides of the phone.

From the front of the phone we can what must be the power/lock button and the volume button positioned on the right side of the device There is also a headphone jack on top (Thank God for that) and a USB type-C port in the bottom.

According to recent reports and rumors , the Google Pixel (Sailfish) and the Google Pixel XL (Marlin) will have the same design but the Pixel XL will just have a bigger display, thus having a larger overall footprint. It has also been suggested that Google will offer an aluminium version with a white front and possibly an electric blue model with a blue back and white front.

To recap the specs of the phones, The Sailfish is rumored to have a 5 inch 1080p display , a 12MP rear camera and an 8MP front facing camera, a quad core Snapdragon processor, 4 gigs of RAM and a 2,770 mAh battery which will be powering the phone. The Marlin will have similar internal specs but a larger 5.5 inch 1440p screen and a 3,450 mAh battery.

Are you looking forward to the release of the new Google Pixel Phones?

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Successors to Google's Nexus will be the Pixel and Pixel XL

A rumor arose earlier this week that the nexus brand may get a new successor. That now seems to be the case as another report just came in stating that the two new phones from google this year will be named under the "Pixel" brand and not the Nexus brand.

The smaller of the two phones , the Sailfish will be named "Pixel" and the 5.5 inch phone ,the Marlin, will be named "Pixel XL". Just to recap , google has already released its new software way before it released the successors to last year's Nexus 5x and 6p. Could it be that google has a new strategy and released the new software way before hand to give OEM's a taste of it? Is the Nexus brand dead? Comment on what you think down below.

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