Sony phone app takes 3D clone snaps

Sony has revealed new smartphones that can created detailed 3D scans of almost any object using the phone's camera. The company said the innovation was possible thanks to the power of the processor in its latest handsets.

Giant spambot scooped up 711 million email addresses

The scale of the scheme appears to make it the biggest find of its kind. The addresses - and in some cases associated passwords - have apparently been gathered to help spread banking malware. Members of the public can check if their accounts have been affected via the Have I Been Pwned service. Its operator, Troy Hunt, acknowledged that some of the listed addresses corresponded to non-existent accounts. But he added that the number that had been collated still totalled a "mind-boggling amount". Hidden images The Spambot discovery was first flagged by a Paris-based security expert who calls himself Benkow.

Sarahah: Our experience with this app

Back in primary and secondary school, when an admirer, (or adversary) lacked the courage to openly say what they thought about you, they wrote it on the washroom walls, where you, and the entire school, could read it.

OUTLET FOR DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES

In there, in private, they would fungua roho, (speak their mind) with abandon, leaving the recipient to figure out who the sender was. Woe unto you if the faceless admirer/adversary, left a shaming or abusive message because you would become the schools laughing stock. Fast forward to today, there is now a more sophisticated way to do just that: send messages anonymously; the channel is an app called Sarahah, which has been the talk of town lately.

Uber drama fails to hurt its business, figures suggest

Figures published by news website Axios (which the BBC has confirmed are accurate) show the ride-sharing company's revenues are increasing, its losses are narrowing, and global bookings are up 150% on this time last year. It means the most talked-about company in Silicon Valley has been apparently unscathed by the unprecedented series of scandals that have engulfed the company in 2017. Uber posted revenue of $1.75bn in the three months to June, with losses dropping by 9% in the same period, to the still staggering figure of $645m.

China's Great Wall eyes Fiat Chrysler bid

A Great Wall official told Reuters it had "an intention to acquire" some or all of the world's seventh-largest car maker. However, Fiat Chrysler said it was yet to receive an approach from Great Wall - China's biggest SUV maker. Earlier reports said the Chinese firm had asked to meet Fiat executives to discuss buying the Jeep brand. Jeep, which celebrated its 75th birthday last year, is considered FCA's most valuable asset.

HERE'S WHAT REVIEWERS THINK OF ANDY RUBIN'S ANDROID DEVICE, THE ESSENTIAL PHONE

TheEssential Phoneis the first phone spearheaded by Androidco-creator Andy Rubin, and its shipping next week. Our review is pending, but heres what the rest of the tech press are saying.

Gorgeous, but a fingerprint magnet

Reviewers swooned for the Essential Phones design, which they characterize as truly beautiful and unique.The Verge writesthat its the most appealing of any phone [this] year, andCNET calls itgo rgeous.

The Essential Phones titanium body and ceramic back is sturdy without feeling unwieldy, according to some reviewers. Others werent taken with its glossiness Business Insiderwrites that its practically begging for scratches and fingerprint smudges.

MSI GT75VR Titan Pro and GE63VR, GE73VR Raider Gaming Laptops Launched in India

MSI has launched a new lineup of gaming notebooks in India. It has announced the GT75VR Titan Pro, GE73VR Raider, and GE63VR Raider notebooks for Rs. 3,24,990, Rs. 1,85,990, and Rs. 1,49,990 in India. All the three laptops feature the latest seventh generation Intel Core i7 processors, Nvidia's current generation GPUs, and are VR ready as well.MSI GT75VR Titan ProStarting with the most expensive GT75VR Titan Pro, it sports a 17.3-inch full-HD display with 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Core i7 7820HK CPU with over 4GHz overclock capability, 32GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, 1TB HDD, and Killer N1535 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipset. The GT75VR Titan comes with 3 GPU options: GeForce GTX 1080, GeForce GTX 1070 SLI, or GeForce GTX 1070.

Android creator's new phone is great, but is it Essential?

He says - and I agree with him - that people are bored with the "incremental updates" offered by Samsung and Apple, and instead want a smartphone that really reflects who they are.

Mars 2020 rover to use smart techniques to find signs of life

LONDON: Nasa's Mars 2020 rover, which will look for signs of past life on the red planet, will use smart X-ray techniques originally developed to find the oldest life on Earth, according to a mission scientist. The Mars Exploration Program with a planned launch in 2020 builds on the success of prior rovers, to make coordinated measurements that could detect signs of ancient life or bio-signatures in their original spatial context. These techniques, known as spatially resolved bio- signature analysis derive from geochemical analysis of early life on Earth. Previous missions to Mars have used a relatively broad brush analysing average chemistry over roughly the size of a postage stamp to 'follow the water' and seek ancient habitable environments, said the mission's Deputy Project Scientist Ken Williford, from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

China cracks down on censorship loopholes

Five websites, including shopping giant Alibaba, have been asked to remove vendors that sell VPNs. It is the latest in a series of measures from the Chinese government to maintain strict control over content. Apple has previously been asked to remove VPN apps.

Fossilised dinosaur footprints found in China

Beijing: More than 200 fossilised dinosaur footprints have been discovered in Maotai town of China, the media reported on Wednesday.

It is believed to be the largest cluster of Sauropod footprint fossils ever found in China dating from the early Jurassic period, Xinhua news agency reported.

Sauropods were a group of huge, plant-eating, four-footed dinosaurs with long necks and tails.

Snap Second-Quarter Earnings: What To Watch123

Kathleen Chaykowski , FORBES STAFF I write about technology with a focus on social and digital media. 0:00 (Associated Press) Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. The company reports its second quarterly earnings on Thursday.stre Snap SNAP -0.37% reports its second quarterly earnings on Thursday after markets close. Wall Street is expecting a tepid quarter for Snap, as the communications app faces challenges boosting user growth and scaling its mobile advertising business. Analysts polled by Yahoo Finance expect an adjusted loss for the second quarter, ending June 30, of a $0.14 per share, up from a loss of $2.31 per share in the first quarter (a large amount of stock-based compensation contributed to the loss in that period). Analysts expect revenue of $186.8 million for the second quarter, up from $149.6 million in the first quarter, Snaps first quarter as a publicly traded company. For the full year, the same analysts expect revenue of $961.6 million, and a loss, excluding some items, of $0.56 per share. Snap reported 166 million daily users in the first quarter. The Street estimates the company added 10 million daily users over the second quarter.

Worldpay seals 9bn merger with US rival Vantiv

It comes after the firms announced an initial agreement last month. Vantiv shareholders will own a majority 57% of the combined group, while Worldpay investors hold the other 43%. "The combination of scale and presence the merger will bring is an exciting step in the creation of a truly global leader in payments," said Worldpay. Worldpay processes millions of payments a day in stores, online and on mobile phones.

Armoured tank-like dino used camouflage to hide

The exquisite specimen is a type of amour-plated nodosaurid ankylosaur. It was camouflaged which suggests that, despite its tank-like appearance, it hid to avoid predation. That such a large creature needed camouflage indicates the presence of even larger, keen-eyed meat-eating theropod dinosaurs. A new species of dinosaur named Borealopelta markmitchelli has been discovered from an oil sand mine in Alberta, Canada, and is described this week in Current Biology.

Apple's Autonomous Systems Ambitions Extend Beyond Cars, Hints CEO Tim Cook

Speaking at theApple's Q3 2017 earnings callon Tuesday,AppleCEOTim Cookhinted that Apple's experiments with self-driving cars may include ambitions that extend beyond cars. He said the company is making a "big investment" in autonomous systems.

"From our point of view, autonomy is sort of the mother of all AI projects," Cook said. "And the autonomous systems can be used in a variety of ways, and a vehicle is only one, but there are many different areas of it. And I don't want to go any further with that."