Boot up: you are the product, Nokia broke Ballmer, Samsung stops cheating, and more

Plus mother’s iPad remains locked, MetroTwit goes dark, London goes 4.5G, and more

Samsung's Android 4.4 'KitKat' software update appears to have stopped its phones cheating in benchmarking software. Photograph: Kim Hong-ji/Reuters

MetroTwit vanishes as Twitter restrictions claim another victim >> PCWorld

In a blog post, MetroTwit explained that it ran into Twitter’s “ access token limit,” which is Twitter’s way of making sure no third-party client becomes too popular. Essentially, more people wanted to use MetroTwit than Twitter would allow.

Twitter wants people to use its own mobile apps and website, and that has a cost.

Has Privacy Become a Luxury Good? >> NYTimes.com

In our data-saturated economy, privacy is becoming a luxury good. After all, as the saying goes, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product. And currently, we aren’t paying for very much of our technology.

Quite.

Microsoft’s Nadella Manages Legacy of Ballmer-Board Split >> Bloomberg

They were frustrated by his tendency to talk more than listen, the people said, and his reaction to the pushback on Nokia was for some the last straw. The board rejected the first deal as too expensive and complex, including not only the handset division but also a mapping unit Microsoft didn’t need. Even without maps, Fitch Ratings called the price “excessive” in a note yesterday, citing a deterioration in the user base for Windows-based phones.

Nokia was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back. If you were in any doubt whether Steve Ballmer was pushed or not, that should clarify things.

Samsung ‘Galaxy Glass’ wants to turn your hands into an augmented reality keyboard >> Pocket-lint

Samsung appears to be working on an augmented reality keyboard that virtually projects letters on to a user’s fingers for typing. This not only reveals a new input method but also adds weight to the rumour Sammy is working on a set of “Galaxy Glass” smart glasses.

A keyboard projected onto your fingers sounds like one of the most fiddly things to use in existence. It could answer the problem of how do you enter text into your smart wearable when you don’t want to seem like a burke talking to something strapped to your face.

EE rolling out even nippier LTE-A to whole of London >> Recombu

As if the rest of the UK didn’t hate London enough already, we’re now treating the M25 like a massive data moat. EE is rolling out its super-nippy LTE-A ‘4.5G’ service to everywhere inside the circular road from hell, with you Northern types having to make do with bog-standard 4G for a bit longer. So there.

Hold on there, most of us haven’t even picked up 4G yet, let alone 4.5G.

Samsung’s KitKat update seems to remove benchmark-boosting “shenanigans” >> Ars Technica

After applying the KitKat update, none of the apps behave any differently from any other application. Most of the time, the CPU cores are running at lower frequencies, and individual cores are often turned off. While running the tests, the CPUs approach their maximum clock speeds but are allowed to fluctuate as they would under actual use rather than staying artificially inflated.

Has Samsung finally realised a numbers game is pointless? It’s the experience that counts. The specifications and relatively toned-down Galaxy S5 certainly suggest so.

Apple security rules leave inherited iPad useless, say sons >> BBC News

After her death, they discovered they did not know her Apple ID and password, but were asked to provide written consent for the device to be unlocked.

The issue of a digital legacy is certainly a big one. How do you pass on things that are digital, password protected or even biometrically locked when you die?

San Francisco bar bans Google Glass for fear of secret recordings >> LA Times

A sign posted at the Willows at Folsom and 12th streets features a picture of the wearable computer with the familiar red circle and a slash over it, along with a message saying customers “have expressed concerns with being recorded while enjoying themselves.”

Quite. Who wants to be caught on camera while having a drink. Perhaps they should ban mobile phones while they’re at it?

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