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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/microsoft-brings-android-ios-apps-to-windows-10/

Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft announced a four-pronged effort to bring developers and their apps to Windows at its build conference today. One of these prongs—a way for Web developers to present their sites as apps—was already announced at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year.

The second prong is logical but not altogether surprising. In Windows 10, developers will be able to specially prepare existing Windows apps, whether Win32, .NET WinForms, .NET WPF, or any other Windows development technology, and sell them through the Windows Store. Unlike the “traditional” Windows application installation experience, these apps will be guaranteed to install, update, and uninstall cleanly—one of the important things that Store apps do to ensure that users feel confident trying apps out and removing them if they don’t like them. Behind the scenes, virtualization technology will be used to provide this isolation and robustness.

Islandwood and Astoria

The next two prongs are the more surprising: Microsoft is going after Android and iOS developers. With Project Islandwood, iOS developers will be able to take their iOS apps and build them for Windows. Microsoft has developed an Objective C toolchain and middleware layer that provide the operating system APIs that iOS apps expect. A select group of third parties have been using the Islandwood tools already, with King’s Candy Crush Saga for Windows Phone being one of the first apps built this way. King’s developers had to change only a “few percent” of the code in order to fully port it to Windows Phone.

For Android, there is Project Astoria. Rumors of Android apps on Windows have been floating around for some time, and in Windows 10 Microsoft is delivering on those rumors. Astoria will allow Android apps to run in Windows. Specifically, Windows Mobile (and yes, that’s now officially the name for Windows on phones and sub-8 inch tablets) will include an Android runtime layer that’ll let them run existing Android apps (both Java and C++) unmodified. Unlike Islandwood, which will require developers themselves to recompile their software to bring it to Windows, Astoria will in principle work with any old APK, without requiring the developer to do anything but publish the app in the store—as long as the APK sticks to the APIs that Astoria will provide.

As we’ve written before, there are two aspects to Android: there is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) that’s a mix of GPL and BSD-licensed open source code that anyone can take and fork, and there’s Google Mobile Services (GMS), an ever expanding closed-source set of applications and APIs that Google develops. Applications that need GMS, for example for its geolocation capabilities or its in-app purchasing, will not run on a plain AOSP platform. They’ll need GMS.

When we spoke to Microsoft about Astoria, the company would not tell us what proportion of the AOSP and GMS APIs would be supported, but it did confirm that it wouldn’t be 100 percent; there will be APIs that Astoria does not provide, and accordingly, APKs that use those APIs will not run.

On the flip side, Astoria will offer some integration points with Windows so that Android devs can, with minor alterations, support features like Cortana in their apps.

The broader theme of Microsoft’s work is to make Windows 10 the platform for developers. It will give them one app platform that spans phone, tablet, PC, hybrid, and console, and thanks to the free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users, it should be much less fragmented than Windows in the past. The company has the incredibly ambitious goal of having 1 billion users on the Windows 10 family within 2-3 years of launch.

The underlying strategy behind the four bridges is to allow developers to use the code they already have. Microsoft’s intent isn’t to make a BlackBerry 10-style capitulation, where the answer to the app gap is “just use Android apps instead.” Rather, the hope is that developers will still make Windows apps; they’ll just be Windows apps that happen to share a ton of code with iOS or Android apps.

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E.L.O Everything Live On

http://www.everythingliveon.com/7-ways-to-stop-the-nsa-spying-on-your-nude-pics/

7 ways to stop the NSA spying on your nude pics

Some of you may have seen the British comedian John Oliver interviewing Edward Snowden recently for his late night program Last Week Tonight. Oliver interviewed some people on the street to demonstrate how little they care about domestic spying programs, but when he asked how they’d feel about the NSA accessing their d*** pics, suddenly things changed. If this bothers you (because it really should), here’s how to stop the NSA and other hackers from spying on your Android and all the ”junk” you’ve got stored in it.

Some pics were never meant for the government.

Get yourself a VPN

A Virtual Private Network is exactly what it sounds like: a private network connection for browsing the internet. VPNs like Hotspot Shield encrypt your incoming and outgoing data, so while it may still be intercepted, it is at least encrypted. Depending on the strength of your VPN it might just be enough to outsmart NSA analysts and other hackers that intercept your data. VPNs can also cover up your IP address, enable HTTPS security and more to keep your identity safe.

A good VPN client like Hotspot Shield can be your covert best friend.

Hotspot Shield VPN & Proxy

Browse with Tor

Tor is the secret way to surf the internet. Tor hides your IP address and browsing history from the websites you visit, essentially putting you in ninja mode the whole time you’re on the web. While Tor comes in a convenient desktop download, there are also Android app versions like Orbot. Orbot bounces your internet traffic around different global servers, rather than pushing it directly to your destination, so your original location is obfuscated from anyone poking their nose in your business. You might also want to install a supported browser like Orweb or DuckDuckGo.

The Tor Network is a brilliant way to cover your tracks online.

Orbot: Proxy with Tor

Manage app permissions

A lot of apps ask for way too many permissions when you install them. Simple apps like games really don’t need a permissions list as long as your arm, so be careful when installing new apps. If an app has too much access to your phone and that app’s servers are hacked, then all that juicy info it’s collecting about you goes straight to the hackers. If you’re rooted, you can also install an app like App Ops to keep an eye on and manage the various permissions your installed apps have. Non-rooted versions like Advanced Permission Manager are also worth checking out.

Permissions Management should be a key part of your security concerns.

App Ops

Advanced Permission Manager

Use airplane mode more often

Airplane Mode isn’t just for airplanes, you know. When you turn on Airplane Mode all broadcasting capabilities of your smartphone are disabled. This means that you effectively drop off the radar when you turn it on. If you’re sitting on the subway reading cached emails, playing Sudoku or editing pictures on your smartphone, there’s no reason to be allowing those apps to constantly send data about you back to their servers (or ply you with ads). Airplane Mode can be used a lot more than you think, making you that much harder to track.

Airplane Mode also doubles as off-the-radar mode.

Encrypt your chats and texts

Many instant messenger apps don’t use end-to-end encryption. Until recently, Telegram was the most high profile messenger to offer this level of security. WhatsApp recently announced end-to-end encryption as well, bringing the world’s largest messaging network into line with the best security available for keeping your chats safe and secure from prying eyes. You can also make use of great encrypted text messaging apps like Whisper Systems’ TextSecure.

Only texts sent to other users with TextSecure are encrypted end-to-end.

TextSecure Private Messenger

Turn off GPS and location reporting

As you probably know, a lot of spying programs rely on knowing exactly where you are. This allows them to specifically track your location throughout the day. While cell towers can provide similar information, they aren’t anywhere near as specific as Wi-Fi networks, geo-tagging or GPS data.

Go to your Settings > Location and turn off location reporting if you’re at all paranoid about Big Brother tracking your every move. You can also turn off Wi-Fi until you actually need it: why have random networks pinpointing your location unless you’re actually using them? You can also turn off geo-tagging in your apps. The most common apps that use this information are camera and photographic apps, social networks and others that like to know your exact location (to then share it with the NSA).

Don’t want to be tracked? Easy, just turn off location reporting.

Call privately with Redphone

Encrypting your chats and emails is all fine and good, but what about phone calls: you know, that thing you use your phone for the most? That’s where Redphone comes in. Redphone lets you place and receive encrypted voice calls on your smartphone for free. Redphone works just like any other dialer on your phone, but calls are encrypted end-to-end because it uses 4G or Wi-Fi rather than your cellular minutes. If you’re serious about keeping your conversations private, this is a worthwhile investment.

Redphone lets you have end-to-end encrypted phone calls.

RedPhone :: Private Calls

What else can I do?

The more you look into it and the more seriously you take your privacy, the easier it is to make choices for the benefit of keeping your identity, data and habits secret. You can do simple things, like switch to an email service like ProtonMail or Hushmail, use more anonymous browsers like DuckDuckGo, use of incognito mode, install ad and pop-up blockers, avoid social networks that are known to hand over your information to anyone with a court order and log out of your accounts unless absolutely necessary.

These small steps add up to a much less visible digital footprint. Anyone trying to track your movements, access your browsing history, profile your associations based on calling activity and geo-location or those trying to steal your identity will have a much harder time of it. If you’re serious about not being spied on, you have to take your privacy at least as seriously as those invading it.