Satellite TV operator Dish Network to accept bitcoins

Satellite TV operator Dish Network said it would accept bitcoin payments from customers from the third quarter, joining companies such as Overstock.com Inc and Zynga Inc in accepting the digital currency.

Dish said it selected Coinbase as the payment processor for bitcoin transactions with customers who choose to pay their bills online with the bitcoin wallet of their choice.

Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not backed by any government or central bank and is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control.

Users can transfer bitcoins to each other online and store the currency in digital "wallets".

Coinbase, funded by venture fund Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator, is one such digital wallet.

In March, it launched its Instant Exchange feature, which will be used by Dish to convert bitcoins to U.S. dollars. Dish's third quarter starts on July 1.

While bitcoins may not be an alternative to established currencies, they can cut the cost of moving money around.

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that credit card companies charge around 3 percent in transaction fees and PayPal's commission can go as high as 4 percent. The same transactions via bitcoin firms such as Coinbase and BitPay are likely to be free.

However, there's skepticism about the future of bitcoin, with critics pointing to recent setbacks such as the Mt. Gox bankruptcy.

Mt. Gox, at one time the biggest bitcoin exchange, abruptly stopped trading in February after it lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its faulty computer system.

Iranian hackers use fake Facebook accounts to spy on U.S., others

In an unprecedented, three-year cyber espionage campaign, Iranian hackers created false social networking accounts and a bogus news website to spy on military and political leaders in the United States, Israel and other countries, a cyber intelligence firm said on Thursday.

ISight Partners, which uncovered the operation, said the targets include a four-star U.S. Navy admiral, U.S. lawmakers and ambassadors, and personnel from Afghanistan, Britain,Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The firm declined to identify victims and said it could not say what data had been stolen by the hackers, who were seeking credentials to access government and corporate networks, as well as intelligence on weapons systems and diplomatic negotiations. "If it's been going on for so long, clearly they have had success," iSight Executive Vice President Tiffany Jones told Reuters. The privately held company is based in Dallas, Texas and provides intelligence on cyber threats.

ISight dubbed the operation "Newscaster" because it said the Iranian hackers created six "personas" who appeared to work for a fake news site, NewsOnAir.org, which used content from the Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and other media outlets. The hackers created another eight personas who purported to work for defense contractors and other organizations, iSight said.

The hackers set up false accounts on Facebook and other social networks for these 14 personas, populated profiles with fictitious personal content, and then tried to befriend targets, according to iSight.

To build credibility, hackers approached high-value targets after establishing ties with victims' friends, colleagues, relatives and other connections over social networks includingFacebook Inc (FB.O), Google Inc (GOOGL.O) LinkedIn Corp (LNKD.N) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N).

The hackers would initially send the targets content that was not malicious, such as links to news articles on NewsOnAir.org, in a bid to establish trust. Then they would send links that infected PCs with malicious software, or direct targets to web portals that ask for network log-in credentials, iSight said.

The hackers used the 14 personas to make connections with more than 2,000 people, the firm said, adding that it believed the group ultimately targeted several hundred individuals.

"This campaign is not loud. It is low and slow," said Jones. "They want to be stealth. They want to be under the radar."

ISight said it had alerted some victims and social networking sites as well as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and overseas authorities. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

Facebook Inc (FB.O) spokesman Jay Nancarrow said his company had discovered the hacking group while investigating suspicious friend requests and other activity on its website.

"We removed all of the offending profiles we found to be associated with the fake NewsOnAir organization and we have used this case to further refine our systems that catch fake accounts," Nancarrow said.

LinkedIn spokesman Doug Madey said the site was investigating the report, though none of the fake profiles were currently active.

Twitter declined to comment. Google did not respond to a request for comment.

POST-STUXNET ERA

ISight disclosed its findings as evidence emerges that Iranian hackers are becoming increasingly aggressive in the wake of the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus attack on Tehran's nuclear program, widely believed to have been launched by the United States and Israel.

ISight said it could not ascertain whether the hackers were tied to Tehran, though it believed they were supported by a nation state because of the operation's complexity.

The firm said NewsOnAir.org was registered in Tehran and likely hosted in Iran. The Persian term "Parastoo" was used as a password for malware associated with the group, which appeared to work during business hours in Tehran, according to iSight.

Among the 14 false personas were reporters for NewsOnAir, including one with the same name as a Reuters journalist in Washington; six employees who purportedly worked for defense contractors; a systems administrator with the U.S. Navy; and an accountant working for a payment processor.

Exclusive: Security enthusiasts may revive encryption tool after mystery shutdown

A team of security experts may seek to restore and improve a popular computer encryption system after its developers mysteriously shut it down, claiming "unfixed security issues," a leader of the effort told Reuters on Thursday.

TrueCrypt, one of a number of programs that encrypt all of a user’s hard drive, had gained popularity after fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden praised it and law enforcement officials complained of their inability to crack it.

The software’s code has been publicly available for years, but its developers have not spoken publicly and their true identities are unclear. After Snowden’s revelations, supporters contributed some $70,000 to an effort to verify the security of the code.

TrueCrypt had passed the earliest testing, so it shocked many technologists Wednesday when the TrueCrypt website announced it would discontinue encryption support and urged users to move to rival software.

“WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues,” the notice said.“You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images.”

Speculation has mounted over the cause of the reversal, with some suggesting that the developers had tired of the decade-long project and others guessing that U.S. authorities had demanded a back-door key from the programmers, as happened with anonymous email provider Lavabit.

As that debate raged Thursday, an audit team funded by the $70,000 was preparing to announce that it would continue its quest to determine the security of TrueCrypt and would seek to fix legal issues with the license to the code, said Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor helping lead the effort.

If the license issues are resolved, the group could continue to develop and improve thesoftware, though Green said “we’re not going to commit to a `fork’ yet.” A fork is a split in development, where code can be steered in a new direction.

Intel: new tablets a big step toward reaching aggressive target

 New Intel-based tablets from major brands will start hitting store shelves in June, and senior executives at the chipmaker hope the offerings will move it closer to an aggressive sales goal.

Far behind rival Qualcomm (QCOM.O) in mobile devices, the upcoming tablets are the result of Intel Corp's (INTC.O) strategy to sell chips this year at a loss in a bid to stake out badly needed market share. Intel is betting that in the future, its customers will keep using Intel chips without the discounts.

Toshiba (6502.T) this week announced six tablets and PCs with detachable screens made with Intel chips, one of which runs the Android operating system and the rest Windows. More Intel-based tablets will start hitting U.S. store shelves in June and July for back-to-school shoppers, Erik Reid, general manager of Intel's Mobile Client Platforms unit, told Reuters in a recent interview.

"It will be a new high-water mark, to be eclipsed by another high-water mark at the holidays," said Reid, who is managing Intel's tablet push.

With the PC industry shrinking, mobile devices and other new markets have become a top priority for Intel. Most tablets are made with chips from Samsung (005930.KS), Qualcomm and other companies that use low-power technology from ARM Holdings (ARM.L).

Earlier in May, CEO Brian Krzanich told Reuters that Intel was well on its way to reaching his goal for the company to increase its sales of tablet chips this year to 40 million units.

After shipping 5 million tablet chips in the first quarter, Intel is on track to meet a target of 7.5 million such chips for the June quarter, Krzanich said.

"We're on schedule to hit that number and we'll see if we can do better than that," he said.

Global tablet shipments from all manufacturers in 2014 will grow 12 percent to 245 million, less than a previous forecast of 261 million devices, because people are keeping their devices longer, market research firm IDC said on Thursday. Intel sold around 10 million tablet chips last year.

Manufacturers have launched a handful of Windows tablets running on Intel's newest Bay Trail chips, but those chips have been slow to appear in devices running the popular Android platform.

On Tuesday, Intel announced a deal with Chinese chipmaker Rockchip to make components for entry-level Android devices aimed at local consumers in China.

Partly reflecting the financial incentives Intel is offering manufacturers to use its tablet chips, the company's mobile and communications group had an operating loss of $929 million in the April quarter on revenue of only $156 million.

As well as big PC brands increasingly making tablets, Intel expects small manufacturers making devices for China's domestic market to play a major part in reaching its 40 million chip goal this year, Reid said.

Union calls for German Amazon workers to strike again

Labor union Verdi has called on workers at online retailer Amazon.com in Germany to go on strike for two days as it continues efforts to negotiate a new pay deal.
"Amazon's refusal to speak about a wage agreement shows a lack of respect and that it doesn't value the performance of its employees," Verdi executive Stefanie Nutzenberger said in a statement on Thursday.
Staff at a distribution center in Bad Hersfeld have been called on to strike from the start of the night shift later on Thursday. Workers in Leipzig are asked to stop work at the start of Friday's early shift, the union said.
Verdi wants Amazon to raise pay for workers at its distribution centers in accordance with collective bargaining agreements across the mail order and retail industry in Germany and has organized several stoppages over the past year. The most recent stoppage was in April.
Amazon, however, has rejected the demand, arguing that it regards warehouse staff as logistics workers and says they receive above-average pay by the standards of that industry.
Verdi said that it recognized getting Amazon to implement a wage agreement would be a long process and that as a first step Amazon should increase wages. It said retail and mail order workers had a pay rise of 5.1 percent in two stages last year, while Amazon employees received an average raise of 2 percent.
The U.S. company employs a total of 9,000 warehouse staff at nine distribution centers in Germany - its second-biggest market behind the United States - plus 14,000 seasonal workers.

Deutsche Telekom willing to keep stake in T-Mobile-Sprint tie-up

Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG is willing to keep a minority stake in a deal to sell T-Mobile US Inc to Japan’s Softbank Corp, but other details such as price and financing remain to be worked out, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Softbank owns a majority of Sprint Corp S.N, the third largest U.S. wireless carrier. Deutsche Telekom owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, which has a market value of $27.6 billion and is the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier.
Earlier on Thursday, Kyodo news agency reported that Deutsche Telekom had agreed to a Softbank plan to buy T-Mobile.
But sources familiar with the talks told Reuters that while the two sides are keen to get a deal done, a transaction was complicated, including the issue of getting regulatory approval - it would reduce the number of major U.S. mobile competitors to three from four. The sources said no decision was imminent.
Representatives for Deutsche Telekom and Sprint declined to comment. T-Mobile US was not immediately available for comment.
Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son has long been eager to buy T-Mobile to merge it with Sprint, so that the new company can better compete with market leaders AT&T Inc T.N and Verizon Communications VZ.N. Son has said that AT&T and Verizon have a virtual oligopoly, leading to slower broadband speeds for consumers. He has said a Sprint-T-Mobile combination would create a player with enough money to make massive network upgrades and shake up the market with new services.
Two weeks ago, Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Timotheus Hoettges said he was open to any consolidation in the U.S. telecoms market. An exit from the U.S. would allow the German group to invest more in upgrading its network in its home market, as well as beef up its operations across Eastern Europe.
But the U.S. Federal Communications Commission chairman and the U.S. Justice Department chief have repeatedly raised concerns about such a tie-up, including the risk that it could lead to higher prices for consumers. U.S. regulators previously rejected AT&T's $39 billion takeover bid for T-Mobile US in 2011.
As a break-up fee from the failed deal, AT&T gave T-Mobile a chunk of cash and mobile spectrum, which rejuvenated T-Mobile and allowed it to start winning customers again. Regulators say T-Mobile's recent success shows that the market can sustain four companies.
DEAL TERMS
Sources familiar with the Softbank-Deutsche Telekom talks said any deal would depend on whether they can persuade regulators to change their minds.
The two sides have been chipping away at other issues.
One possibility is for Deutsche Telekom to retain a roughly 15 percent in T-Mobile US as part of a deal, the sources said. That would help reduce the size of the equity check that Sprint has to write for T-Mobile US, while giving Deutsche Telekom the chance to benefit from potential synergies from the merger, they said.
Deutsche Telekom may also be more accommodating with Softbank regarding a break-up fee than it was with AT&T, the sources said. That is because T-Mobile is likely to be the surviving brand and its CEO, John Legere, is likely to lead the new combined company, thus avoiding a loss of subscribers and momentum it had to contend with during the drawn out regulatory process with AT&T, two of the sources said.
Earlier this month, a source told Reuters that Sprint was also meeting with banks to work out funding for its bid for smaller rival T-Mobile US, carrying an estimated $50 billion price tag.
One event that will drive a decision is the looming spectrum auction in the United States, which is expected to happen in the first half of 2015, one source familiar with Deutsche Telekom's thinking said.
The auction offers carriers a chance to buy access to airwaves that are valued for their strength and reach. But the rules for the sale are dependent on the current competitive landscape, and if Sprint and T-Mobile were to combine, the FCC would have to rework them.
Deutsche Telekom shares were down 0.3 percent, while T-Mobile US shares were up 0.7 percent and Sprint's shares gained 1.7 percent.

LG Electronics launches revamped G3 smartphone

 South Korea's LG Electronics Inc launched a revamped version of its flagship G3 high-end smartphone at a discount to its predecessor model on Wednesday and said it would ship more than 10 million units to improve its ailing handsetbusiness.

LG hopes the new G3 phone, which added metal film to the rear plastic cover to offer a polished metallic look, will pull its handset business out of the red and provide meaningfulearnings momentum in the coming quarter.

The new device has a 5.5-inch screen with almost twice the resolution of its G2 predecessor with 538 pixels per inch (ppi). The resolution is also better than the 431 ppi screen on Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy S5 431. The new LG phone also features a laser focus for the camera.

The G3's launch price of 899,800 Korean won ($880) is about 6 percent lower than the G2 in South Korea, highlighting the intensifying competition on both price and features among smartphone makers as market growth slows.

"Broadly speaking, business conditions should be better in the second quarter than the first quarter," Park Jong-seok, chief executive of LG's mobile business, told reporters during a briefing, citing the global launch of the G3 as a major factor.

Park declined to offer concrete earnings guidance and did not specify a time frame on the shipment target for the G3, which will be rolled out worldwide to more than 170 carriers.

While LG did not disclose shipment figures for the G2, industry officials estimate that more than 5 million units of the device have shipped since its launch in August 2013.

LG brought forward the launch of the G3 to May amid market speculation that Apple Inccould reveal its next iPhone in August.

LG's mobile division reported an operating loss of 9 billion won ($8.80 million) in the January-March quarter due to competition from Chinese rivals like Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] and Lenovo Group.

Google building self-driving cars with no driver seat, steering wheels

Google Inc is building cars that don't have steering wheels, accelerator pedals or brake pedals, in an ambitious expansion of the Internet company's efforts to develop self-driving cars.

The small electric cars, which seat two passengers, are currently prototypes that Google has been building through partnerships with automotive suppliers and manufacturers, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at the Code conference in Southern California on Tuesday.

Google aims to build up to 200 such cars in the near term and hopes the vehicles will be available in various cities within a couple of years, he said.

Google has been testing self-driving cars since 2009, incorporating laser sensors and radars into standard automobiles such as the Prius from Toyota Motor Corp and sport-utility vehicles from Toyota luxury car division Lexus.

While those vehicles require a human to remain in the driver's seat and to take over in certain situations, the new cars operate completely autonomously.

Brin said the cars could operate as a service, picking up passengers when summoned, and potentially even operate as fleets of interconnected "trains".

"Ten seconds after getting in I was doing my email, I had forgotten I was there," Brin said of his experience riding in one of the pod-like vehicles, which resemble a cross between a Smart car and Volkswagen Beetle. "It ultimately reminded me of catching a chairlift."

Brin declined to specify whether Google intended to build and sell the cars itself, saying only that the company would "work with partners".

The driverless cars are currently limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles (40 km) an hour, but Brin said there was no reason the cars could not go as fast as 100 miles an hour or more once they had been proven to be safe.

The front of the cars contain about 2 feet (61 cm) of foam and the windshield is made out of plastic instead of glass to make the cars safer, he said.

"Within a couple of years I hope we will surpass the safety metrics we've put in place, which is to be significantly safer than a human driver, and we will start testing them without drivers and hopefully you'll be able to utilize them at some limited cities," Brin said.

A handful of U.S. states, including California and Nevada, have passed legislation to allow testing of self-driving cars on public roads. Brin said he was optimistic that the new, passenger-only self-driving cars would be approved for testing in the U.S. and overseas in the future.

Amazon says quick end unlikely in dispute with Hachette

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is preparing for a long battle with Hachette Book Group over a contract dispute that led the U.S. online retailer to curtail sales of some of the publisher's books.

In a statement on Tuesday, Amazon said Hachette, a unit of French media company Lagardere SCA, has operated in "good faith" but the two sides remain at odds. The comments, the first by Amazon since the dispute became public in early May, didn't disclose details of the disagreement between the pair.

"Though we remain hopeful and are working hard to come to a resolution as soon as possible, we are not optimistic that this will be resolved soon," Amazon said in a statement posted online. 

Hachette didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment outside of regularbusiness hours.

Amazon has been buying fewer print books from Hachette and last week removed an option to pre-order Hachette titles that will be published in the future. These include "The Silkworm", an upcoming novel written by author of the Harry Potter series J.K. Rowling, under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

In recent weeks, authors and other publishing insiders have criticized Amazon for unfairly wielding its power as a major retailer to gain an edge in contract talks.

"What I don't understand about this particular battle tactic is how it is in the best interest of Amazon customers," author James Patterson said in a May 13 post on his Facebook page.

In a letter to authors posted on May 23 on the website of the Authors Guild, a group for book authors, Hachette chief executive Michael Pietsch said the publisher was looking for a solution "that preserves our ability to survive and thrive as a strong author-centricpublishing company."

In its statement on Tuesday, Amazon said customers looking to buy one of the affected titles should "purchase a new or used version from one of our third-party sellers or from one of our competitors."

The company said it would put up half the money for a fund to help offset the loss in royalties to Hachette authors as a result of the disagreement if Hachette pays for the other half.

Amazon has a record of being involved in combative negotiations. In 2010, the company blocked consumers from buying works published by Macmillan in a dispute over the price of e-books.

"When we negotiate with suppliers, we are doing so on behalf of customers," Amazon said in its statement. "Negotiating for acceptable terms is an essential business practice that is critical to keeping service and value high for customers in the medium and long term."

Edward Snowden says he was trained 'as a spy'

Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked details of massive U.S. intelligence-gathering programs, said in a U.S. TV interview he "was trained as a spy" and had worked undercover overseas for U.S. government agencies.

In an advance excerpt of his interview in Moscow with "NBC Nightly News" that aired on Tuesday, Snowden rejected comments by critics that he was a low-level analyst.

"Well, it's no secret that the U.S. tends to get more and better intelligence out of computersnowadays than they do out of people," Snowden told NBC news anchor Brian Williams.

"I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas - pretending to work in a job that I'm not - and even being assigned a name that was not mine."

Describing himself as a "technical expert," Snowden said: "I don't work with people. I don't recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I've done that at all levels from - from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top."

He said he worked undercover overseas for both the CIA and NSA and lectured at the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy "where I developed sources and methods for keeping our information and people secure in the most hostile and dangerous environments around the world."

"So when they (critics) say I'm a low-level systems administrator, that I don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say it's somewhat misleading," Snowden added.

Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong and then Moscow last year, is believed to have taken 1.7 million computerized documents. The leaked documents revealed massive programs run by the NSA that gathered information on emails, phone calls and Internet use by hundreds of millions of Americans.

He was charged last year in the United States with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified intelligence to an unauthorized person.