Saran999

iMessage, ok... but what about FaceTime? It is still secure?

That's amazing! But you must be in the line of sight to be able to get the signal, I think. There is no mention about the transmission distance? I'm waiting for further details... Very interesting news, Thanks for sharing this HM! Cheers

...waiting for the one in the 22nd century... This will NEVER change!

Nice!

That's REALLY funny! Thanks @freak, I'm happy you're back! Cheers

Hapaxanthous flowering only once @oobydooby that was very nice!

Hey caruga, nice to have you here in our community! Welcome to CyberPhoenix!!!! Pls, have a look at the rules http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/forum-21/announcement-2-rules-of-the-cyberphoenix-community-a-must-read and peruse our Newbies zone where you can find useful tips to get you started http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/forum/111-newbie-zone/

Twenty-five years ago this week, the action movie Die Hard opened and Bruce Willis uttered that famous line. But where does the yippee-ki-yay part come from? Let's break it down. The yip part of yippee is old. It originated in the 15th century and meant "to cheep, as a young bird," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The more well-known meaning, to emit a high-pitched bark, came about around 1907, as per the OED, and gained the figurative meaning "to shout; to complain." Yip is imitative in origin but probably also influenced by the 16th century yelp, which has an even older meaning of "boasting, vainglorious speaking." Yawp is even older, coming about in the 14th century, but now is primarily associated with Walt Whitman's late 19th century "barbaric yawp." The yips are "nervousness or tension that causes an athlete to fail to perform effectively, especially in missing short putts in golf." As we mentioned in a Word Soup column back in November, some sources, including the OED, cite the first known use of the yips as 1962. However, we found a citation from 1941: "The match consumed three hours and thirty minutes, most of it because Cobb, the tingling-nerved old baseball Tiger, got the 'yips' on many greens and would step back and line up his putts several times per putt." Yippee came about after yip. The earliest record of this exclamation of delight is from 1920 in Sinclair Lewis's novel, Main Street: "She galloped down a block and as she jumped from a curb across a welter of slush, she gave a student 'Yippee!'" Yippee beans, by the way, are amphetamines. Yippie with an -ie refers to "a member of a group of politically radical hippies, active especially during the late 1960s." The word, which originated in 1968, stands for Youth International Party and was modeled after hippie. Now how about the whole phrase, yippee-ki-yay? It seems to be a play on "yippie yi yo kayah," a refrain from a 1930s Bing Crosby song, "I'm An Old Cowhand." https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jo-pApe1Kd0 Do cowboys really say this? We're guessing probably not, unless of course they're single-handedly (and shoelessly) defeating a gang of bank robbers on Christmas Eve.

mmhh.... this smells me fishy... or better, scapegoat! and who else?

Exactly, like Star Wars.... a prequel that's a sequel, but is still a prequel

...continued from http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/212226-the-alien-backstory-you-didnt-see-in-the-after-earth-trailers-part-i/?do=findComment&comment=292855 243 AE - The Skrel attack Nova Prime for reasons unknown. Nova Prime was allegedly uninhabited when they landed, so this is a big WTF. The Rangers manage to protect the civillians. The Primus zealots have a field day. Note these are NOT the same aliens that crash landed on Earth. 350 AE - The Skrel return with a new look (see picture). No one has actually seen a real Skrel body yet — just the ships and Skrel drones. 576 AE - The Skrel return again, but this time to drop off the Ursa, a genetically engineered creature who's designed to kill humans. How the people of Nova Prime know that, since they have never met or spoke to a Skrel and this is the only other alien they've met, remains to be seen. Anyway, this Ursa creature evolves into an a better killing machine with each new generation. Think Resident Evil monsters, only not as fast. Ursa can only see humans based on our secretions caused by fear. Because that's how the Skrel made them — without eyes. But they can smell our fear. 651 AE - More Ursa are dumped on Nova Prime. Once an Ursa "imprints" on a human, it will hunt them until its prey has been killed. Which is basically the same thing that happens in Twilight. They have secret a black venom that paralyses victims. 726, 876, 951, 997 AE - Even MORE Ursa are unleashed, now mutated into super-fast killing machines. The Rangers struggle to save what remains of humanity. The Rangers' best defense is "ghosting," in which a Ranger becomes fearless, and thus can fight the Ursa without being smelled. 980 AE Is the first "official" Ghosting. OOOOOOH NOW those After Earth ads make sense! 1000 AE - Will Smith and his son are traveling somewhere with a Ursa who's been captured, in a big pod (pictured above). They crash land on Earth and NOW we are where the trailer starts. PHEW. Apart from explaining this wildly detailed and yet pretty vague backstory, the Rangers Manual has a bunch of images of their tech and doo dadery. Most of it was your usual scifi gadgetry (hologram maps, hologram instructions, but the LUNG GEL jumped out at me the most. Here is a shot of the Universal Air Filtration Gel, which coats the lungs, so they can breathe on the now fairly toxic Earth. It looks like hair treatment. And finally, here are a few shots of the more civilized parts of Nova Prime, a few decades after they first arrived. Along with a few shots of the Rangers' air base. It's actually pretty gorgeous. So there you have it — the secret behind M. Night's new world has been revealed. Does it make you want to see the movie now? Is anyone surprised there's a overly complicated backstory tied to this? Hey at least it's not a twist, unless... WE ARE THE SKRELS! Honestly we could be into a movie just about this backstory.

Think After Earth is just about Will Smith reconnecting with his son on a dangerous future Earth? WRONG. There's a whole baffling alien backstory, that you don't even know about. It's just not in the trailers. Journey with us as we attempt to untangle M Night Shyamalan's ridiculously complicated movie. And meet the Skrels, who kill humans! For unknown reasons! Spoilers ahead... Thanks to the movie companion book the United Rangers Corps Survival Manual, we now (kind of) understand the wickedly overcomplicated plot behind After Earth. Turns out, there are aliens in this movie — lots of them. Different species, in fact, which sound infinitely more interesting than a boy with a spear in the woods. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UdDWHOshKhI I've not been able to download it from here, perhaps due to my location http://kebisone.edublogs.org/2013/07/05/after-earth-united-ranger-corps-survival-manual-book-downloads/ but someone else will be maybe more lucky and make it available for all of us In order to fully explain it we're going to need to break down what leads up to the jungle adventure, year by year. 1908 - An alien ship crash lands in Russia. All collective world governments then keep this discovery a secret basically forever. (But they let smarties like Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein play with the remains). 2012 - NASA announces that they've invented WARP ENGINES. By secretly tapping into the alien spaceships knowledge of the universe's "dark energy." Tah Dah! 2071 - 2072 - Earth is all GTFO, humans. No one can live here any more, because it's poison for us, so 750,000 survivors leave on ARKS (one is named the Asimov). The Arks were created thanks to additional information pulled (over the years) from the downed spacecraft. 32 AFTER EARTH - The Rangers (who are basically the super militarized government now) invent a religion while on board the Arks. Because you gotta have faith. It's called Primus, after the band. This backfires horribly. 67 AE - Primus makes its own religious army, because of course they do. And they also decide to rewrite their rules, to make the head of Primus (also called Primus) the ruler indefinitely, until death. A few of the remaining Arks (some die out) start adopting the office of Primus. 100 AE - Only three out of the six Arks survive. But the rest of the folks land on their new planet Nova Prime. 222 AE - A Primus leader starts speaking out against science and industrialization on their new planet, because that's what got them all in this mess in the first place. Of Course They Do. After "much debate" the role of Savant is created to oversee the science side of the human race on Nova Prime. ...to be continued... see the second part @ http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/212226-the-alien-backstory-you-didnt-see-in-the-after-earth-trailers-part-i/?p=292855

mmmhhh.... first off, I'll point you to this topic... http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/211201-how-to-search-cyberphoenix-forums-for-content/ then, I may start with this, http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/57763-poll-which-file-hosting-sites-do-you-prefer-uploaddownload/page-3?hl=%2Bbest+%2Bfile+%2Bhosts&do=findComment&comment=104583 but I've performed for you this search on this forum http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&section=search&do=search&fromsearch=1 try and see if you find something... AutoCAD is a really generic term and there is a lot to choose from Let me know if this helps

In looking at the way that the internet is performing across the world in 2013, it’s very clear that many countries are hitting their stride and growing in terms of their adoption of broadband. However, that growth comes at a cost: according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for the second quarter of 2013. Overall, the number of unique IPv4 addresses has swollen to over 752 million — approximately 18 million more than the first quarter to create a 2 percent increase overall quarter-over-quarter. While it sounds like a small number in the grand scheme of things, Akamai noted that the number of unique IPv4 addresses is slowly dwindling. As major gains continue in developing nations like Tanzania and Mozambique, the IPv4 address pool is quickly becoming exhausted. While the size of the web is getting bigger, internet connections are also becoming faster. The global average connection speed saw a 5.2 percent increase quarter-over-quarter to 3.3 Mbps. Even more important is the number of countries that have a connection speed of less than 1 Mpbs, which has dwindled to just 11 from 18 in the fourth quarter of 2012. Overall, this indicates that developing companies are increasing their average internet connection speeds, and already-developed nations are improving their infrastructure. The Global average peak connection speed increased just 0.1 percent to 18.9 Mbps, but more countries than ever are passing the 10 Mbps connection speed mark. However, the increased sophistication of global internet networks has lead to the U.S. becoming outmoded in the top tiers of connectivity. While the U.S. remains eighth in average connection speeds, it no longer registers in the top 10 for peak connection speeds (which it has been left out of all year) and now rests at 10th in overall high broadband speeds. America is lodged in a flat period for broadband growth while smaller, developing countries to reach better connectivity. It’s high time to get gigabit networks deployed, or risk being left in the dust.

Last year, we heard the amazing story of Saroo Brierley, the Indian "lost child" who used Google Earth to find his way home after 25 years. This stirring video produced by Google features Brierley telling the story in his own words. It's pretty crushing. In the video, Brierly recounts how 1987, after a day of begging for money on the street, he boarded a train for home, but he never got there because he fell asleep and missed his stop. Instead, he ended up on the other end of the country. He was labeled lost, adopted and shipped off to Australia. But thanks to the Google, he found his way home—as if you needed another reason to love Google Maps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UXEvZ8B04bE

Hollywood likes to paint movie pirates as freeloaders without morals, but maybe those so-called dastardly downloaders are simply under-served. A new website called PiracyData.org tracks the most pirated movies of the week, as reported by TorrentFreak, and taps into Can I Stream It? to show whether file sharers could have bought or rented the movie online instead. As Piracy Data's chart below shows, four out of the 10 most pirated movies cannot be purchased legally online. Out of the remaining six movies, three are available for full-priced purchase, but not for rent. None of the top 10 movies can be watched through subscription streaming services such as Netflix. On its face, it looks like a missed opportunity for the movie industry. Viewers may feel pushed toward piracy when they can't purchase or at least rent the movies they want to watch. But it's also worth noting the release timing of these movies. Every single movie on the list came out this year, but is no longer showing in major theaters. With the exception of three films, most of these movies are now in an awkward stage where you can buy them on DVD, but cannot rent them online. DVD sales are plummeting. People are growing accustomed to pressing a button and streaming a movie instantly. The idea of withholding new movies from digital rental just to juice DVD sales looks increasingly antiquated as people move beyond the optical disc. For disposable films that people only want to watch once, a mandatory $15 or $20 purchase is undesirable as well. Of course, there are exceptions. People do have rental options for The Lone Ranger, After Earth and This is the End, yet they remain popular to download on BitTorrent. Unscrupulous freeloaders do exist, and are not going away. But when the only legal options are DVD or mandatory purchase, it's no surprise that potential paying customers will turn to piracy instead.

A small Swiss app developer has invented what it claims is a way to securely and anonymously transfer files between a browser and a mobile device without having to leave any traces of the user's identity, device ID or location. Marketed by creators Bitdrop as a way of defeating surveillance by the NSA and others - "zero knowledge privacy" - users simply initiate transfers from the firm's upload portal after scanning a QR Code using a dedicated app running on their mobile device. This code creates a unique and time-limited window for files to be transferred to the user's mobile (or shared with a third party that has a download code), secured using what the company calls 256-bit "variable encryption," essentially a way to randomise conventional symmetric keys for each transfer. BitdropBitdrop: Big on security, not so much on design. The keys themselves are sucked onto the sender's own mobile device during a temporary connection. Files can't be accessed by Bitdrop itself or any other authority because the encryption key is stored only on the sender's mobile device. In the event the files are not moved from the firm's servers to the mobile by a third party receiver within 24 hours they are destroyed. The location of the encryption key is critical. They keys are never retained on the sending computer, never sit on Bitdrop's servers and are never moved to third-parties receiving the files. Only the sender has these keys. The firm heralds the concept as a way of moving encrypted data around without it being tied to any identity; Bitdrop does not require users to register or reveal their email address. Neither the sender nor receiver can be identified. What about the security of the mobile app itself? According to Bitdrop, the identity of all contacts using the service is accessible only after entering an access code. It sounds like complex 'down the rabbit hole' security but it should be simple to use with an interesting extra advantage that although the sender needs to install the app to scan the QR code, the receiver does not, making it free of the friction of many secure file transfer systems that require both ends to use identical software. This is the kind of app that not long ago would have sounded like overkill but that was before the NSA and Edward Snowden alerted the security-conscious to the reality of state surveillance. This might or not bother US or UK users who trust their Governments but what about business users using their mobiles in other parts of the world; do they trust the Russian or Chinese Governments too? Undoubtedly these already have or will soon have systems similar to Prism. Explaining its architecture, founder 'Markus Kristian Kangas had this to say when contacted by Techworld: One slight issue is that the launch app is iPhone-only although an Android app is promised, as is a version for web-to-web transfers. The company is also a total unknown so issues such as longevity, support and security must be taken on trust. The app costs $4.99 (£3.20).

Ask a hundred entrepreneurs where they draw inspiration and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers, but few are likely to be as unusual as that of Marcus Weller. The CEO of Skully Helmets came up with his idea for a high-tech motorcycle helmet after smashing into a car on a street in Barcelona. he said. Weller thinks the accident wouldn’t have happened if he’d kept his eyes on the road, so he came up with a way to get navigation information projected onto a heads-up display in the rider’s helmet. With good directions, the rider wouldn’t need to spend as much time looking at road signs. The helmet’s other differentiating feature is a rear-facing camera that collects a 180-degree image of what’s behind the bike and feeds it to the same display. There’s also a voice control interface. SkullySkully Facebook.Helmets 2.0. Weller is due to unveil the helmet Thursday at the Demo conference in Silicon Valley, where attendees will be able to try it on. It will be the first time the helmet has been demonstrated in public. Information isn’t projected on the visor but onto a display that appears to the rider as if it’s about 6 meters ahead of them. It doesn’t interfere with the rider’s primary field of view and allows riders to lift the helmet visor without losing the display, Weller said. The display and associated electronics are powered by a built-in battery that lasts about nine hours. The helmet pairs over Bluetooth with a smartphone for the Internet connection needed for the GPS navigation and mapping service. The company plans to begin limited beta testing in the spring of 2014 and says it has yet to decide on a price for the helmet but that it will be a “premium product.”

It's that time of year again: The weather's getting colder, the leaves are changing colors, and rumors of an Amazon phone are emerging from their summer homes to terrorize the world once more. Both the Financial Times and Jessica Lessin are reporting that HTC and Amazon are pairing up to build the long-rumored Amazon smartphone. If the report holds any ounce of truth, the device is close to completion so it's only a matter of time before an Amazon employee leaves a prototype of the phone in a bar somewhere. If Amazon is building a phone with HTC then it's a definite win-win for both parties: Amazon's Kindle Fires are some of the most successful Android tablets out there and it would only make sense for the company to move into the phone space with its own flavor of Android. HTC has long been struggling and recently posted significant losses, but the partnership would almost guarantee that a boat-load of HTC devices make their way to the hands of consumers—especially if earlier rumors hold true and Amazon offers the phone for free. HTC declined to comment about the report, and both companies declined to comment to the Financial Times or Jessica Lessin, so right now we can only speculate on what sorts of deals are happening behind the scenes. An Amazon phone running the company's own version of Android could just be the fastest way to customer's wallets but the big question remains: Would it come with a free year of Amazon Prime?

Android users who want a custom ROM*, but are turned off by Cyanogenmod's attempts to go commercial, now have another option in the form of newly launched OmniROM. OmniROM comes from several of those involved in CyanogenMod, who lost interest when those in charge of the most popular replacement firmware committed the cardinal sin of trying to turn a buck, so now we have competing ROMs for Android devices – offering more choice than ever. Users place their supplied ROM (strictly speaking a ROM-Image) to enable additional features, or remove things their manufacturer has decided to include, or get a new version of Android working on old hardware which isn't officially supported any more. Both OmniROM and CyanogenMod are descended from the Android Open Source Project. Before the community congealed around Cyanogenmod there were a handful of alternatives, but most died off or at least shrunk as Cyanogenmod answered the needs of the niche community. At least until last month, when the team in charge of the project set up Cyanogen Inc with $7m in VC capital and a deal with handset-manufacturer Oppo to preload the OS into its handsets. That upset some of the community, who seemed to feel the new company was profiting from their volunteered efforts. Most notable was the camera application, Focal, which had proved a popular feature of Cyanogen but disappeared when the author was asked to license the app for commercial use. Focal's developer is now on the OmniROM team. OmniROM will be hoping to gather deserters from CyanogenMod, even if their first version only works on the Google Nexus range and a few Sony devices. The team over at Cyanogen Inc (and those VC backers who stumped up the $7m) are hoping that broad device support will make it viable as a commercial operation. Both are currently competing for a niche market at best, as most Android users are quite happy with the Google-backed ROM which comes pre-installed. Making money from a handful of hobbyists and hackers was always going to be tough for Cyanogen Inc, and OmniROM just made it a whole lot tougher.

Sending a Snapchat, at this point, is like sending a photo over regular text message. People you don’t want viewing your private pics are still going to see them — even the cops. For those unfamiliar, Snapchat lets users send photos called Snaps that expire after 30 seconds (once you’ve opened them), so you can share your private or embarrassing photos without leaving them out in the ether indefinitely. The company “revealed” — I put this in quotations because, to me, this is obvious — that unopened Snaps can and have been handed over to law enforcement as part of criminal investigations (as long as the cops have a warrant). This includes your photos, videos, and the company’s new feature – “Stories.” Stories can be pulled from a server even after they have been opened given that they expire after 24-hours. How can this be when Snaps are designed to disappear forever? Snapchat runs all your photos and videos through its servers before delivering them to the recipient. While waiting to be opened and viewed, Snaps sit on that server, accessible by a special tool only chief technology officer Bobby Murphy and Micah Schaffer, who runs Snapchat’s trust and safety department, have access to. There are over 350 million Snaps that run through the system daily, according to Snapchat, and a dozen requests for Snaps have been fulfilled since May 2013. That you can read below https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/717257-snapchat-law-enforcement-guide-12112-1.html It’s apparent that you can’t truly believe your Snaps will remain under lock and key. First off, the people you send your Snaps to can take screenshots of the photos, so they may not disappear at all. Beyond that there are even products made to save this content. Snaphack is one of these, as noted by NBC. That said, I doubt this kind of news will make even the smallest dent in the app’s usage. People sending pics of criminal activities may think twice, but otherwise Snapchat seems to have one thing really going for it: a strong community. A good number of my peers — mid-twenties young professionals — who use Snapchat say it legitimately keeps them in touch with friends and family. It’s a form of novel entertainment. None of them trust the service for its “privacy” merits; it’s just another social network that connects people through a funny premise: Send me a picture with your eyelids inverted and I’ll send you one of my double-chin. And hey, as long as they don’t mind those photos ending up just about anywhere — including the courtroom — then more power to them.

In a steamy tropical forest 46 million years ago, a prehistoric mosquito bit a critter, drew blood and was blown into a lake in what is now the northwestern state of Montana. Belly full, she died and sank. Flash forward to the present. Researchers found the minuscule female insect fossilized in a paper-thin piece of shale—which had sat in someone's basement for 25 to 30 years with other rocks— and concluded it still contains its last supper. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reports a first for biology: a blood meal found intact in a fossil. This image provided by the Smithsonian Institution shows a fossilized female mosquito in a paper-thin piece of shale. The 46 million year-old insect drew blood in its last meal, was blown into a lake in what is now northwestern Montana and sank, belly still full. It's a first for biology, a blood meal found intact in a fossil. While the scenario sounds eerily similar to the Michael Crichton book and movie "Jurassic Park," no new T. rexes will result. Unfortunately for would-be dinosaur cloners, the mosquito flew long after dinosaurs went extinct, and its meal was probably blood from a dino descendant, a bird. And an even bigger blow to the "Jurassic Park" scenario is that scientists have long known that DNA from other critters couldn't survive in insect fossils, said study lead author Dale Greenwalt, a retired biochemist who collects and analyzes insect fossils from Montana for the Smithsonian Institution. So this is more a scientific curiosity, a look-what-we-found, that starts out like early chapters of the sci-fi thriller. Greenwalt said. Using two different types of light-refracting x-rays that determine what chemicals are present, Greenwalt and colleagues determined that the female mosquito's belly was full of iron, a major feature of blood that gets oxygen to the rest of the body. Iron levels were higher than elsewhere in her body and anywhere on a non-biting male used as a control subject. Then the team found evidence of porphyrins, which are bound to iron in blood. Putting the two together makes "a definitive case" for blood, Greenwalt said. Outside expert Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University said while the study is exciting and significant, it is preliminary and she thinks Greenwalt's team didn't prove their conclusion that it is blood by ruling out all other possibilities.

Ever since the late 17th century, it's been understood that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's Newton's Third Law of Motion. But a group of German scientists recently came up with a trick that appears to break that law, one that lets light accelerate all by itself. And it could bring us faster electronics in the process. Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) This is not a simple trick. It involves fiddling with the mass of photons, particles that are believed not to have a mass at all, and requires a form of negative mass, a state that scientists believe does not exist. That's the trick part. And that's also why it merely appears to break Newton's third law. All that said, it's pretty impressive. Newton Third Law: A force is a push or a pull upon an object that results from its interaction with another object. What these German scientists basically did is create an optical diametric drive. The basic principle behind a diametric drive calls for an object with positive mass to collide with an object with negative mass causing both to accelerate forever in the same direction. In the 1990s NASA tried and failed to build one, because it would make an awesome spaceship engine. However—and that's a big however—diametric drives are difficult to build because there's no such thing as an object with negative mass, at least not one that scientists have observed. Bear with me here. To get around these basic rules of physics and quantum mechanics, our friends the German scientists used photons to create something called effective mass. This is what a particle seems to have when it's responding to forces, and there is such a thing as negative effective mass. So the scientists sent a series of laser pulses through a two loops of fiber-optic cable—one bigger than the other—that connect at a contact point. As the pulses are traveling through the different-sized loops at slightly different times, they share photons creating an interference that gives them effective mass, some positive and some negative. In this so-called optical diametric drive, the pulses accelerate in the same direction. Cool, huh? Complicated, but cool. This is an illustration of the "super-photon." Needless to say, the idea of laser pulses that accelerate continuously bears big implications for anything that uses fiber optic cables. This method could make computers, communications networks, and so forth to get faster and more powerful. Just remember that it's a highly experimental new technology; it's going to take a while before this makes your iPhone better.

Before the word wide web was a twinkle in Tim Berners Lee's eye, CERN had developed the Grid—a world-spanning network of computing power to help drive the progress of physics. In fact, the Grid is still very much in existence, and does rather more than just help share the reams of data the Large Hadron Collider collects. This video tells you everything you need to know about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cj8ZNgnzSSU

The next version of Google's platform, Android 4.4 KitKat, is set to arrive any day now. After three helpings of Jelly Bean, we would hope that the Nestle-inspired build should prove to be a larger update, but so far signs point to minor enhancements. Until recently, Google has done a great job keeping KitKat under wraps. Officially, Google has only said that its goal with KitKat is to "make an amazing Android experience available for everybody." Some posit this to mean we could see new Android-powered devices such as game consoles, smartwatches, smart TV, and laptops. Others look for a kinder, gentler platform that plays nice with older hardware. This past weekend proved to be the biggest break in regards to what Android 4.4 looks like as well as some of its potential features. Some changes and details may include tweaks to the app launcher, notification bar, and dialer. Nothing too crazy, of course, but rather a color adjustment here or a transparency there. When it might be announced Some rumors suggest that Google has lined up the KitKat introduction for as soon as October 15, but I suspect an invitation for an official event instead. At the least, I expect that Google would dish the new feature set in a live YouTube broadcast. Assuming it plans to introduce new Nexus 5 hardware, which it should, then we might look for at least one day's notice before the big announcement. Other dates tossed around of late indicate that the end of October might also be in order. Should that be the case, there's still time to send out a few "save the date" e-mails and blog posts. The software we could get So far, leaked images like those in the gallery above point to minor, cosmetic changes, rather than a massive overhaul. The application drawer could move away from the all-black background in favor of a transparent bar. The pervasive notification area also appears to get the same treatment; a few screenshots show the top bar as having the see-through effect. In a related note, a 9to5Google report shows the notification bar with colors that match or complement various apps. The dialer app, for instance, brings up a blue bar, while the Hangouts app has a green one. It's possible that these particular apps were designed with their own colors and that the transparency is otherwise still present. According to Italian Android blog TuttoAndroid, the lock screen will include shortcut to the camera application. The move would make sense as most custom launchers and lock screens have moved to integrate the oft-used feature. The Android 4.4 lock screen could include quick access to the camera. A slightly more meaty addition, TuttoAndroid site also claims the "always listening" functionality employed in the Motorola Moto X can be found in the Android 4.4 experience. Should this prove true, users can expect quick access to Google Now and searching without having to touch the phone. An Android Police report from this weekend suggests other changes could come in the area of app folders and widgets. According to their findings, folders are no longer limited to 16 shortcuts and will simply scroll if there are more. Widget placement moves out from the app drawer and back to the more traditional long-press method on the home screen. Speaking of which, users may soon find that the stock Android 4.4 experience allows for more than five home screen panels. The stock camera experience should see a number of adjustments as well, including options to apply filters, borders, and effects. While Google+ already allows for photo editing and manipulation, it asks that a user have already uploaded the image to the cloud. Other tweaks to the shooter could yield straightening, mirroring, and color balance. If the final product resembles the leaked images we saw, then the app itself could get a makeover. Tweaks could come in the form of streamlined UI with quicker access to flash settings, timers, and image size. As we discovered in a recent leak, other changes may include the option to save images locally in PDF format, export images in a variety of sizes and quality, and apply built-in filters and effects. Native printing could be built into Android and may allow for options such as paper size, number of copies, orientation, and choosing between color or black and white. From the sound of it, Google might simply include Cloud Print at an OS level instead of relying on its standalone application. We might also see wireless display support (via Miracast) in this next version of Android. One area where Google has struggled to gain traction, mobile payments, could be rolled into the Android 4.4 platform. Screengrabs show a "Payments" option, but it's unclear what its role could mean for people. Presumably this is simply the place where one manages their Google Wallet account. Perhaps the thought is that by including it in the standard Android experience, it gains a larger awareness. The more you know it exists, the more likely you might be to use it. An updated app suite As far as the Pure Google app experience is concerned, we may see Drive, Keep, and Quickoffice come preloaded by default (right now they're optional downloads or bundled with one carrier or manufacturer experience). As many of you know, this trio of products and services work seamlessly with other Google properties and adds a layer of productivity. To get a sense for how Android 4.4 KitKat might look in action, be sure to check out the video below. Again, the details are not all that obvious and easy to overlook. However, the experience seems to be one that is smooth and fluid. This is to be expected; Google will continue pushing for performance optimizations across the board. You might miss it the first time around, but the messaging app is nowhere to be found in the video. As the standard app for sending and receiving SMS and MMS, it's possible that Google is transitioning to Hangouts for its communications. We have long expected to see a unified chat and messaging service from Google; this could be the sign of such an animal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2ksOJl0PDDg When KitKat could land KitKat is expected to ship with the Google Nexus 5 smartphone first, and then later come to other Nexus devices via over-the-air updates. If history is an indicator, the most recent Nexus 4, Nexus 7 2013, and Nexus 10 devices, as well the previous generation Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7 2012 to pick up the release first, maybe a few weeks after the launch. In terms of all other devices, I suspect the same rules still apply; newer and more popular models will get priority seating aboard the S.S. KitKat, like the LG G2 and HTC One. Note that phones that use custom interfaces (that's most of them) will take longer to get the update. Handset makers are becoming ever more vocal over social media so look for OEMs to detail specific devices in blog posts and status updates. Realistically, if you are running 4.1 or 4.2, you might expect some Nestle love this winter. What's missing? Taken as a whole, the 4.4 KitKat version of Android looks like it's a minor, not massive, step forward. But, given this is still a version-point update and not a full 5.0 release, we should keep our expectations in check. Is there something in Android that you see as lacking at the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean platform level? Which features in other smartphones that you would like to see come to Android? I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.