Change your Dropbox Password NOW

Via Reuters –

An anonymous party has allegedly hacked 6,937,081 Dropbox accounts and gained access to email addresses and passwords in plain text. Hundreds of account emails and passwords have been posted online as proof, with whoever is responsible claiming that more will be shared after receiving Bitcoin donations.

Update via Cult of Mac: A Dropbox spokesperson has confirmed that its service has not been hacked and that the exposed logins were mostly expired and harvested from third-party services.

And yet Dropbox is advising all users to change their passwords! And enable two step authentication login!

Apple gets the blame for Finland’s credit downgrading!

“Ratings agency Standard & Poor has downgraded Finland’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, and its economic outlook from stable to negative – and it’s all Apple’s fault, according to Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb. Speaking to CNBC, he said:

“We have two champions which went down,” Alexander Stubb told CNBC Monday. As well as the technology firm Nokia, he explained that the paper industry in Finland had fallen on hard times […]

“A little bit paradoxically I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry.”

Crazy stuff. More at http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/13/finlands-credit-rating-downgraded-and-its-all-apples-fault-says-prime-minister/

Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales are going to be off the charts

Apple has already recorded record breaking first weekend sales of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones of 10m.

By the end of this month, Apple will have launched the phone in another 36 countries and by the end of the year, 115 countries will had witnessed the iPhone 6’s launch.

However, to put in perspective how important China is as a territory, it is rumoured that pre orders have already topped 20m handset sales, with the official launch day being this Friday.

Some awesome sales statistics.

Will.i.am to go head to head with Apple by launching his own smart watch

“Rapper and frontman for The Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am, is expected to launch his smartwatch on Thursday in San Francisco in direct competition with the new Apple Watch.
The device will have a Bluetooth capability for wireless internet connection and, unlike the Apple Watch, launched last month, it does not need to be linked to a mobile phone for full functionality.
The judge on the BBC’s talent show, The Voice, and tech entrepreneur said it will feature apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, leading to expectations it will run on Android software. It also boasts a music service believed to be delievered by UK firm 7digital.”

Competition is always a good thing. Let’s hope the watch looks good as well as performing effectively.

Source – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/11156909/Will.i.am-to-go-head-to-head-with-Apple-over-smart-watch.html

Amazon to create 1,000 new jobs in the UK

From BBC Business –

“Internet retailer Amazon is to create 1,000 new permanent jobs in the UK at its distribution centres.

The firm said it would add the jobs to its existing 6,000-strong workforce in its distribution and customer service centres “in the coming months”.

“As we see greater demand, we are able to rapidly grow our talented team across the UK,” said Amazon’s director of UK operations, John Tagawa.

Amazon currently has eight UK distribution centres.

The firm said it could not provide a regional breakdown of where the new positions would be created, but they would be across its distribution centres in Doncaster, Dunfermline, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay.

Amazon said it had already increased its UK workforce by 2,000 people over the past two years.

The online retailer said it had also made changes to the way its staff worked “for the benefit of its entire workforce”.

The changes made include staff now working four longer days a week of 10 hours per shift and share grants for staff who have worked for the firm for more than a year.

It said permanent staff started on an average of £7.39 per hour, and could earn up to £8.90 per hour after 24 months.”

But ask yourself, how many local companies have been pushed out of business. How many people are now unemployed versus employed at Amazon. And how tough are the reported working conditions at Amazon?”

Source – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29594289

Apple iPhone 6 Plus – Action shots from the Camera

I’ve been waiting for the weather to improve to take some action shots on my iPhone 6 Plus. Ideally you need bright sunshine but I decided over the weekend I would just try and take whatever shots I could. The light was dreadful. Dull and overcast. All the below photos have not been edited. To give you a better idea of the quality, I used the built in Photos app and cropped in on the movement.

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So the first shot above is of Fury demonstrating the long jump.

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And above we have Tiggy chasing Fury. It is worth noting that in real life this was incredibly fast. When Fury and Tiggy chase each other they are like bullets.

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Now George is about to show off the long jump. The lighting was so poor that if I was not using the burst mode on the default camera app, HDR was often chosen.

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So the last few are of all 3 dogs racing through the leat. Again in real time this whole sequence was over in seconds. All the shots were taken using the default camera app, just holding down the shutter to activate burst mode which is totally instantaneous. So let me know your thoughts.

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Anniversary Special – Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast – Please RT

As you know, I co-host a weekly podcast with David from UKMobileTech called Gav & Dave’s Tech Podcast. It is a light hearted tech podcast broadcast bi-weekly. To subscribe click here for iTunes or copy and paste this link into your favourite podcast app.

Episode 25 is now live for your listening pleasure.

This is an Anniversary Special. So enjoy 🙂

Our photo contest. First up is Dave’s shot of his dog.

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Next is mine of the Merrivale Stones on Dartmoor.

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Neither shot has been edited. Both taken using an iPhone 6 Plus. So choose your winner!