Month: December 2015

The Lumia 950, and its larger sibling, the Lumia 950XL, have just received a software update, taking them from Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.0 to build 10586.29. This is a minor update to fix some bugs and improve some upgrade scenarios (and it's the update that will form the basis of our review of the operating system) but the content of the update itself is not really the important bit.

What's remarkable about the update is two things. First, that it exists and is apparently being rolled out by Microsoft, at Microsoft's discretion, on Microsoft's timeline. Second, and related, that this update has a corresponding update for Windows 10 on the PC: Microsoft's mobile and desktop systems are aligned. Windows 10 receives an update on Patch Tuesday and so Windows 10 Mobile receives an update on Patch Tuesday.

Windows 10 Mobile build 102586.29 was distributed to members of the Windows Insider program late last week, and opened up to Insiders using the 950 and 950XL, including AT&T units, yesterday. That much is unexceptional. The Windows Insider program, and before it, the Developer Preview program have for a few years now enabled Microsoft to push out new builds of Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile to any Windows device, even if it's carrier-branded and carrier-locked.

Both Wired and Gizmodo have claimed to have discovered the identity of "Satoshi Nakamoto," the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. Unlike previous attempts at identifying the Bitcoin creator, the story is backed by a mound of convincing evidence, which points to an Australian man named Craig Steven Wright.

"We still can’t say with absolute certainty that the mystery is solved," write Andy Greenberg and Gwern Branwen in their report for Wired. "But two possibilities outweigh all others: Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he’s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did."

The report is based on a trove of documents leaked to both Branwen and Gizmodo last month, as well as some publicly available evidence. The Gizmodo report, published about an hour after Wired's, includes copies of some of the documents. They include:

One of the shooters in last week's deadly attack pledged her allegiance to ISIS on Facebook the same day she and her husband went on a shooting rampage, killing 14 people in a San Bernardino County government building. In response, high-ranking Senators revived legislation Tuesday requiring the tech sector, like Facebook and Twitter, to report to the authorities suspected online terror activity.

"We’re in a new age where terrorist groups like ISIL are using social media to reinvent how they recruit and plot attacks," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, said in a statement about the legislation she is sponsoring with Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina. "That information can be the key to identifying and stopping terrorist recruitment or a terrorist attack, but we need help from technology companies. This bill doesn’t require companies to take any additional actions to discover terrorist activity, it merely requires them to report such activity to law enforcement when they come across it. Congress needs to do everything we can to help intelligence and law enforcement agencies identify and prevent terrorist attacks, and this bill is a step in the right direction."

The development comes nearly three months after Feinstein and Burr tabled the legislation because of a dispute with Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who had placed a procedural hold on the bill. Wyden again took issue with the reintroduction of the "Requiring Reporting of Online Terrorist Activity Act."