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<keyword id="1354203" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Gmail-users">Gmail users</keyword> must be aware of it by now. And reacted accordingly. The <keyword id="2012900" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Gmail-Team">Gmail Team</keyword> has already sent a mass mail (it reached my <keyword id="1281393" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="mailbox">mailbox</keyword> in India on January 10), letting people know of the latest change and how it would befit them. On the face of it, the new feature seems a value addition of sorts and more inclusive than before. From now on, you can directly send e-mail messages to <keyword id="2012953" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Anyone-on-Google">anyone on Google</keyword> Plus even if you don’t have their e-mail IDs and vice versa. Unless, of course, you have adjusted your settings. However, your <keyword id="2012904" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="E-mail-address">e-mail address</keyword> won’t be visible to senders until you mail them back. Similarly, you can’t see their e-mail IDs until they respond. But for all practical purposes, every <keyword id="51500" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Gmail">Gmail</keyword> user now faces the risk of a massive <keyword id="2012908" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="E-mail-onslaught">e-mail onslaught</keyword> from a bunch of perfect strangers. 
 You will find this new feature when you start typing in your contact’s name in the ‘To’ field of an <keyword id="2012903" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="E-mail-message">e-mail message</keyword>. Matching contacts will appear at the top of the ‘suggestion’ list and the <keyword id="2012919" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-Plus-connections">Google Plus connections</keyword> come below that. According to the <keyword id="354776" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="search-giant">search giant</keyword>, the feature will be fully functional in a few days, but do we really need this new level of integration between <keyword id="699770" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-Plus">Google Plus</keyword> and Gmail? 
 The integration of the not-so-social networking service with other popular <keyword id="989743" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-products">Google products</keyword> has been a pronounced <keyword id="383688" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="business-strategy">business strategy</keyword> for some time now. Gmail saw first <keyword id="2012901" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-Plus-integration">Google Plus integration</keyword> in late 2011 that allowed automatic update of address book with a contact’s most recent information. <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> also added a widget to the Gmail sidebar to display a contact’s most recent <keyword id="2012922" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-Plus-post">Google Plus post</keyword> and allowed you to add them to your <keyword id="2012923" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google-Plus-Circles">Google Plus Circles</keyword>. 
 <keyword id="2012924" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pushing-Google-Plus">Pushing Google Plus</keyword> into the mainstream has continued since. But when the <keyword id="2012927" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="YouTube-comment">YouTube comment</keyword> system was integrated with it in November last year, it certainly created a worldwide uproar. The new system requires users to <keyword id="2012929" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Log-in-to-Google-Plus">log in to Google Plus</keyword> for commenting on videos, thus forcing the <keyword id="6355103" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="social">social</keyword> site down the throat of those who would not have it otherwise. <keyword id="693389" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> still maintains it is a goodhearted attempt at cleaning up <keyword id="10879" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="YouTube">YouTube</keyword>, but the latest move shows that the company would stop at nothing to spearhead its social network – even if it means compromising on <keyword id="1491669" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="User-privacy">user privacy</keyword>. 
 As one can’t ignore the <keyword id="2012952" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Privacy-implications">privacy implications</keyword> of the current feature, Google has come up with specific measures that can check the potential deluge of e-mail messages. When it comes to controlling who can contact you, you can choose from ‘Anyone on Google+’, ‘<keyword id="2012954" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Extended-circles">Extended circles</keyword>’, ‘Circles’ and ‘<keyword id="2012956" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="No-one">No one</keyword>’ (in the mail I got, it’s in that order). Going for the last option means one can continue as before. If you choose ‘Circles’ or ‘Extended circles,’ the network broadens considerably. ‘Anyone on Google+’ may not be a palatable option unless you aim to become a <keyword id="6370207" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="lion">LION</keyword> (that’s what they are called on <keyword id="28120" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Linkedin">LinkedIn</keyword>, the acronym stands for <keyword id="2012958" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="LinkedIn-Open-Networker">LinkedIn Open Networker</keyword>) and boast your <keyword id="2012959" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Network-size">network size</keyword>. 
 The new feature will also leverage Gmail’s tabbed interface that splits the inbox into sections such as <keyword id="60906" type="EVENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Primary">Primary</keyword>, Social, <keyword id="30372" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="promotions">Promotions</keyword> and more. Going forward, messages from contacts in your Google Plus Circles will appear under the Primary tab while e-mail from those outside your Circles can be found under Social. But in case you are still using the <keyword id="1659109" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Priority-inbox">Priority Inbox</keyword> interface instead of tabs, the additional load of messages will be extremely troublesome. 
 But at the end of the day, what we fail to understand is why Google has to be this <keyword id="1921615" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="invasive">invasive</keyword> to push just one product. Gmail users may or may not be looking at a huge network or a Web wide party. However, people are certainly not keen to be bombarded with uncalled-for contacts just because the service provider wants to take them to a big, jolly get-together of networkers where millions will mingle and be happy. In fact, it should be totally by choice. LIONS become LIONS by choice and one is free to choose the number of <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword> friends without any suggestion of invasion from these immensely popular networks. If Google is in too much of a hurry to dictate terms and amass unwilling followers at the cost of privacy and convenience, it is bound to spoil the party. 
 
Image credit: Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images

Why
This New Gmail Feature Will Make You Furious

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Reddit users this week have been questioning whether Keith Gill was behind Roaring Kitty's recent social media posts.</li><li>The Roaring Kitty X account started tweeting for the first time in three years on Sunday, sparking a revival in GameStop stock.</li></ul>Meme stock aficionados want to know: Was that really Keith Gill behind the deluge of tweets that <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/meme-stock-rally-gamestop-amc-short-squeeze-gains-blackberry-sunpower-2024-5">sparked more than a 100% surge in GameStop stock</a> this week?<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gme_meltdown/comments/1cs94xh/the_plot_thickens_twitter_user_claims_to_have/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reddit users have been speculating and debating the question</a> since Gill's @TheRoaringKitty X account made its first post in three years on Sunday.Questions about who exactly had been posting to the account were heightened by the fact that Gill has not made any posts to his two other social media accounts on Reddit and YouTube, as well as the fact that all of the 58 tweets that have come from @TheRoaringKitty since Sunday are mostly compilations of movie scenes spliced together.If a message is being sent to the meme-stock faithful, it's pretty inscrutable. Reddit users wondered why Gill himself wasn't making an appearance, as he would during the boom times of 2020-2021 when he would post videos of himself discussing why he liked GameStop. But the real suspicion about who's behind the @TheRoaringKitty X account was sparked <a href="https://twitter.com/SHL0MS/status/1790151614096879713" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by a tweet on Monday</a> claiming Gill sold his X account to @SCHL0MS, a conceptual artist and crypto enthusiast who is known for pulling off stunts like blowing up a Lamborghini and spreading a far-reaching rumor that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-says-gmail-not-being-sunset-viral-fake-email-post-2024-2">Google was going to shut down Gmail earlier this year.</a>The user behind the @SCHL0MS X account posted a screenshot asking @TheRoaringKitty via X on April 24: "Would you be interested in selling this account? noticed you haven't posted in quite a while and would be willing to make a serious offer."In the screenshot, Gill responded to the message, saying "If you're serious then yes I would potentially entertain an offer," followed by his e-mail address. <div type="image" title="roaring kitty twitter account" height="746" width="575" msid="110184544" hostid="261"></div>Polymarket, a website that lets users bet on the outcome of events with crypto, replied to @SCHL0MS' tweet saying that it "can confirm" the transaction occurred and that it helped facilitate the sale of Gill's X account. But screenshots can easily be altered, and @SCHL0MS has a history of conceptual art designed to fake out the internet. Business Insider cannot confirm the validity of what was posted to X. "The theory that he sold his account makes as much sense as any other at this point but I'm going to need much stronger proof before I believe it," one <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gme_meltdown/comments/1cs94xh/comment/l44cxc2/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reddit user said</a> in response to the question. Polymarket told Business Insider the @SCHL0MS account "has been an experiment conducted by Polymarket alongside the Remilia Corporation. I cannot comment further on the status of who currently owns @TheRoaringKitty." Remilia Corporation is a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90756392/inside-remilia-corporation-the-anti-woke-dao-behind-the-doomed-milady-maker-nft" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decentralized autonomous organization and art collective</a>. Gill did not reply to a request for comment sent by Business Insider via his other social media accounts. Knowing @SCHL0MS history of artsy trolling, Reddit users have their guard up."Still, seems a little sus, so filing under 'Tinfoil Hat," one <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/amcstock/comments/1csa8ko/unverified_roaring_kitty_account_might_have_been/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reddit user said.</a>"Burden of proof his on him for this, he's the one sticking to his claim. Since he did blow up a lambo I don't doubt he has deep pockets to buy the account if an offer was entertained. I'm sure we'll the the truth of the matter of who's running the account soon enough," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gme_meltdown/comments/1csw705/comment/l47vvfx/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another Reddit user said.</a>A strategist this week noted that the huge rally in GameStop stock came on the heels of an unusual explosion of trading volume in GameStop options, with deep out-of-the-money call options seeing a burst of activity in the weeks leading up to RoaringKitty's Sunday meme post. "It's probably all legal, but someone played this beautifully," Interactive Brokers strategist <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/meme-stock-explosion-suspicious-option-trading-activity-gamestop-amc-gme-2024-5">Steve Sosnick said</a>.

Reddit users are questioning if it's really Keith Gill behind the memes that sparked the latest GameStop rally

Welcome to our new Payments Insider newsletter, a morning email with the top news and analysis on the digital payments industry, produced by <a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/welcome?utm_source=House&amp;utm_medium=Edit&amp;utm_term=PINSIGHTSutm_content=link&amp;utm_campaign=BIIMobile" target="_blank">BI Intelligence</a>. 
<a href="http://e.businessinsider.com/join/biipaymentsform" target="_blank">Click here to sign up for Payments Insider today, and receive it every morning in your inbox</a>.

THE TARGET DATA BREACH WAS THE HEATING GUY'S FAULT: Network security expert Brian Krebs has an excellent look at the Target data breach, and presents persuasive evidence that the initial intrusion into Target store networks was possible thanks to network passwords stolen from an air conditioning and heating contractor based in Pennsylvania, Fazio Mechanical Services. While not explicitly admitting that it was the channel for the breach, Fazio acknowledged yesterday that it had access to Target's network for electronic billing and project management purposes. It also acknowledged that it was part of the federal investigation. Once the hackers had accessed Target's network, they were able to upload their malware to cash registers within Target stores and gradually spread it a majority of Target's point-of-sale devices. It's estimated that the breach exposed 40 million debit and credit card accounts. (<a href="http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/02/target-hackers-broke-in-via-hvac-company/" target="_blank">KrebsonSecurity</a>)
QUOTE OF THE DAY - "Like Target, we are a victim of a sophisticated cyber attack operation." - Fazio Mechanical Services, a Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania-based heating and air conditioning company alleged to be the source of the Target data breach. 
PREVENTING POINT-OF-SALE ATTACKS: Online security firm Symantec has published a timely white paper on attacks on cash register systems. The report makes the point that stolen credit card information can sell for as much as $100 per account. (Symantec - <a href="http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/attacks_on_point_of_sale_systems.pdf" target="_blank">PDF</a>)
OPENTABLE MOVES INTO RESTAURANTS. San Francisco-based online and mobile restaurant reservation company OpenTable, announced yesterday that it would add payments to its app's functionality. The new feature is in a pilot phase for select restaurants and users in San Francisco. Below is a screenshot of the feature as it appears on a phone. (<a href="http://blog.opentable.com/2014/pay-your-check-with-opentable-mobile-pilot-payment-program-launches-in-san-francisco/" target="_blank">OpenTable</a>)
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
And OpenTable payments is live. Just in time for earnings call. <a href="http://t.co/ltnW7Tv3n2">pic.twitter.com/ltnW7Tv3n2</a>
- Rakesh Agrawal (@rakeshlobster) <a href="https://twitter.com/rakeshlobster/statuses/431545527721660416">February 6, 2014</a></blockquote>
 
U.S. BANKING AUTHORITIES ASK HOW TO IMPROVE PAYMENTS, RECEIVE A DELUGE OF RESPONSES: The Federal Reserve Bank, the central banking authority in the United States, has been collecting feedback from the payments industry on what it would take to make the national payments system more efficient, secure, and accessible to a wider portion of the population. Payments companies were asked to identify gaps and opportunities in the payments system, and suggest how the Fed could help it improve. Responses from the industry - 188 in total - can be viewed at this <a href="http://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/user-submissions/" target="_blank">link</a>. Earlier this week Sandra Pianalto, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President, who heads the Fed effort, announced that the final recommendations would be published in the second half of this year. (<a href="http://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/wp-content/uploads/020414_response_consultation_paper.pdf" target="_blank">Federal Reserve Bank</a>)
WELCOME, INSIDERS: Don't forget to sign up and get Payments Insider every morning in your inbox. Please email johnh@businessinsider.com with news and tips.
ELECTRONIC BILL PAY PROVIDER TRIPLES VOLUME, RAISES $20 MILLION: Sunnyvale, Calif.-based billing company PayNearMe said its transaction volume tripled in 2013. The company has also received $20 million in a new financing round led by GSV Capital, with additional funds from August Capital, Khosla Ventures, Maveron, and True Ventures. PayNearMe allows customers to pay bills, buy tickets, and make purchases online by using cash at participating retailers. To make payments PayNearMe customers bring a payment code, usually in the form of a PayNearMe slip or e-mail with a bar code, to one of the 17,000 participating bricks-and-mortar locations across the United States. Participating retailers include 7-Eleven, Family Dollar, and ACE Cash Express stores. (<a href="http://www.paynearme.com/en/about#contact" target="_blank">PayNearMe</a>)
Credit unions are terrified of moving to real-time payments: Last fall the Federal Reserve said financial institutions should adopt real-time payments systems, which transfer funds virtually instantly rather than the standard multi-day lags. Credit union trade groups are up in arms about this for two reasons. First, adopting real-time payment systems could be very expensive, which would give larger banks a competitive advantage in that they could more easily make upgrades. Second, credit unions warn that real-time payments would increase fraud risks. We think the credit unions are using the risk of fraud as a crutch because their real concern is competition. While new technologies may increase fraud risk in the short-term, they will improve with time like all technologies and the result will be a better payments system. (<a href="http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/179_26/as-fed-pushes-for-faster-payments-cus-warn-it-labor-costs-will-rise-1065455-1.html" target="_blank">American Banker</a>)
APPLE IS CRACKING DOWN ON BITCOIN APPS: Apple has removed popular Bitcoin app Blockchain, which allows users to send and receive Bitcoins, from its App Store due to "unresolved issues," according to Payments Source. Two other apps that allow users to send and receive bitcoins, Coinbase and Gliph, were also removed from the App Store in late 2013. It's not clear what the reason is for the crackdown. (<a href="http://www.paymentssource.com/news/apple-removes-popular-bitcoin-program-blockchain-from-app-store-3016887-1.html" target="_blank">Payments Source</a>)
EMV MAY NOT BE UP TO THE TASK, BUT IT WILL DEFINITELY BENEFIT FIS: Jeffrey Greey, known as @epaymentsguy on Twitter, has an excellent take of what the hotly debated push for EMV chips on credit cards in the U.S. will mean for the domestic payments industry. In a nutshell, EMV chips - which are an added layer of security popular on credit cards in Europe and Latin America, but is a pretty old technology - will be good for payments giant FIS, which has a lot of experience with the technology. FIS, he notes, is also wading into mobile payments and "playing both sides of the fence," building capacity in emerging payments and legacy payments technologies simultaneously. (<a href="http://www.pymnts.com/briefing-room/security-and-risk/EMV/2014/emv-now-seems-assured-should-u-s-payments-firms-readjust-and-stick-to-their-roots?utm_source=February+6%2C+2014&amp;utm_campaign=January+8+NL&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank">PYMNTS</a>)
Here's what else BI Intelligence subscribers are reading...
<a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/three-developing-economies-where-direct-carrier-billing-could-catch-on-2014-2">Low Credit Card Usage Means Carrier Billing Could Catch On In Emerging Markets</a>
<a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/a-key-user-engagement-metric-on-twitter-declined-in-the-fourth-quarter-2014-2">Twitter Engagement Is Declining, And User Growth Is Slowing</a>
<a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/in-the-us-apple-took-market-share-from-every-competing-platform-in-the-fourth-quarter-2014-2">Apple Gains US Smartphone Market Share, While All Other Platforms Decline</a>
<a href="https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/news-is-the-most-popular-video-content-on-smartphones-movies-lead-on-tablets-2014-2">News Is The Most Popular Video Content On Smartphones, Movies Lead On Tablets</a>

Target's Data Breach Began With A Company That Does Heating And A/C Work On Its Stores

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/8069015202/">Flickr/JeepersMedia</a></div></div>In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00B9ZJ9U2/farnamstreet-20" target="_blank">New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change</a>, Winifred Gallagher writes:
<blockquote>
[O]ur fast-paced world invites us to see ourselves in yet another light—this time as nature’s virtuosos of <keyword id="6385724" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="change">change</keyword>, who are biologically as well as psychologically primed to engage with novelty.
</blockquote>
Our ability to respond to the new and different is part of what makes us human. We’re simply more interested in whatever is outside of that status quo. Generally, this interest serves us well. In an evolutionary context it has likely saved us from extinction several times.
While our affinity for seeking the new offered an advantage in a world without the Internet, it has never been tested in a world like today. The pace of information generation is crazy.
Gallagher fears the consequences of failing to become more discerning about our consumption.
<blockquote>
To survive, you must be aroused by the new and different. To be efficient and productive, however, you must focus your finite mental energy and attention on those novel sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings that somehow matter and screen out the rest. Just as arousal alerts and orients you to new things, the complementary process of adaptation helps you filter out the unimportant ones.
</blockquote>
<h3>Neophilia</h3>
Neophilia arises from the dual dynamic of seeking out something new and then getting used to it, which frees “and perhaps even spurs [us] to search for the next stimulus.” Put differently, neophilia is our affinity to novelty.
We’re attracted to the new and novel, often at the expense of “old” and status quo. We gravitate towards <a href="http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/08/we-should-read-seneca-not-lehrer/" target="_blank">narratively sexy</a> stories (derived from theories based on very little data) at the cost of knowledge.
“Like most behavior, neophilia occurs on a spectrum,” she writes. Our ability to survive and thrive derived from balancing “the sometimes conflicting needs to avoid risk and approach rewards.”
<h3><keyword id="54958" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="evolution">Evolution</keyword></h3>
We’ve been programed by evolution to think that vital information is likely to come from the new or unfamiliar. All living creatures do this to some extent.
<blockquote>
A swerving car on the highway, a jump in your bad cholesterol, or a drop in a stock’s value rivets your attention and jangles your nerves, which prime you to protect yourself from harm.
</blockquote>
Other things like an exciting IPO or the new coffee shop that just opened lure us in as well. They are new and unknown.
<blockquote>
Dodging risks and seeking rewards both make good evolutionary sense, but variations in nature and nurture incline individuals to prioritize them differently.
</blockquote>
Some of us are more risk taking than others. Most of us want “to be neither scared stiff by too much novelty and change nor bored by too little.”
To balance our risk tolerance and our need for security, we generally seek the new and different in our “intellectual, creative, and recreational pursuits than in domains that require continuity and familiarity, such as … close relationships or professional commitments.”
In other words, we follow Alexander Pope’s advice: “Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
<h3>Extremes</h3>
While not necessarily important to individual success, the extremes are important to the success of the group as a whole.
<blockquote>
Nature promotes a species’ survival and flexibility by ensuring diversity within a population, not an individual. Whatever the costs for a particular person …
</blockquote>
Some of us live fast and die young. By experimenting and exploring, these people push the envelope for the rest of us. The cautious among us, the other extreme, “might have avoided a major recession.”
Wherever you sit on the spectrum, you can more skillfully consider your response to novelty and change.
<h3><keyword id="6356826" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="environment">Environment</keyword></h3>
Our mental and physical environment helps shape our attitudes to novelty and change.
<blockquote>
Like individuals, societies struggle to balance the need to survive, which prioritizes safety and stability, with the desire to thrive, which requires stimulation and exploration. For most of history, this tug-of-war has inclined cultural change, like the biological sort, to occur not in a smooth progression but in an uneven, unpredictable process, of fits and starts that scientists call punctuated equilibrium. Something new, whether climate change, an important tool such as the plow or computer, or a political upheaval, prompts a period of innovation that takes a society to the next level. Like the Pax Romana, this stable plateau can last for a great while until, perhaps following an era of decline like the Dark Ages, there’s another leap forward, as in the Renaissance.
</blockquote>
<h3>Information Obesity</h3>
We are now in the age of <a href="http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/06/there-is-no-such-thing-as-information-overload/" target="_blank">information obesity</a>.
<blockquote>
At this point in our warp-speed information age, our well-being demands that we understand and control our neophilia lest it control us. We already crunch four times more data — e-mail, tweets, searches, music, video, and traditional media — than we did just thirty years ago, and this deluge shows no signs of slackening.To thrive amid unprecedented amounts of novelty, we must shift from being mere seekers of the new to being connoisseurs of it.
</blockquote>
<h3>Incomplete Thoughts</h3>
Information is abundant today and access is near frictionless. Novelty abounds. Gallagher calls this “a mental version of the perfect storm.”
We feel as if consuming more information makes us better off. Yet when the information we consume is novel, we lose track of what’s important.
Novelty is non-linear in dosage. What is good in small quantities is horrible in large quantities. In small doses the side effects are manageable. In large doses they take over.
It becomes harder to <a href="http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/05/noise-and-signal-nassim-taleb/" target="_blank">distinguish signal from noise</a>.
In the past, our consumption of information contained a much higher ratio of signal to noise.
As the difficulty to create, disseminate, and consume information reduced, the amount of noise increased at a pace that signal couldn’t match. The signal is still there but now more than ever, it’s getting lost in the noise.
We’re also confusing information for knowledge. And we’re psychologically wired to over-react to information (novelty and noise). One consequence is that we lose sight of meaning.
<h3>Over to You</h3>
Is it our ability to selectively focus on what’s important that’s helped us adapt? If noise is easy to produce and the demand to produce it is unrelenting, does this place more importance on our information consumption habits? What role does <a href="http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/03/the-filter-bubble-what-the-internet-is-hiding-from-you/" target="_blank">the filter bubble</a> play?

Our Obsession With New Things Helped Us Evolve, But Now It's Slowly Killing Our Brains

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackny/7033121879/sizes/c/in/photostream/">hackNY via Flickr</a></div></div></div>CHINESE <keyword id="11094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hackers">hackers</keyword> may get all the notoriety, but their cyber-security exploits against American targets are chickenfeed compared with the damage done by organised crime. This past week, a large metropolitan utility in the United States announced it had suffered a massive "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, knocking out its automated online- and telephone-payment systems and forcing 155,000 customers to pay their bills in person over the ensuing 48 hours.
At its peak, the utility's back-end computers that run its customer database were flooded with 5.7m spurious packets of data a second, bringing all legitimate transactions to a standstill. On the second day of the attack, the utility called in Prolexic Technologies. Based in Florida, Prolexic maintains "scrubbing centres" around America, Europe and Asia to suck up such malevolent deluges. The attack on the utility was identified as originating within the United States. Make no mistake, the attackers were not pranksters bent on causing mischief. Nor was the attack a simple "smash and grab" aimed at stealing a few passwords. The kind of perpetrators involved were hardened criminals who use rented "botnets" to extort money from their victims, or to steal intellectual property, industrial secrets and marketing plans for sale to rivals at home and abroad. This is big business now organised crime has access to automated exploit-kits and cloud-based software services that are every bit as sophisticated as (some say even more so than) those used by Fortune 500 companies. No longer do criminals need their own tame programmers. They can rent all the crimeware services they need to infiltrate a target's computer network invisibly, and remain undetected for months or years while siphoning off secrets for sale. How many firms pay the ransom or buy the phony "remedial solutions" to get their businesses back up and running is anyone's guess. Various figures circulate for the cost of doing business with cyber-criminals. Symantec, a large security-software provider famous for its Norton Antivirus products, estimates that global cyber-crime costs victims $110 billion a year in remediation and lost business as well as ransom payments. That is probably a reasonable guess (other security-software firms put the figure far higher). Shawn Henry, a former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Congress recently about how one company had all its data on a ten-year, $1 billion research programme copied by hackers in a single night. While it may make headlines, fears that attacks by the People's Liberation Army and other Chinese hackers could wreak havoc on America's critical infrastructure-especially, its oil and gas pipelines, electricity and water supplies, wireless networks, air-traffic control systems, even its missile defences-are overblown. The Chinese have far too much at stake to risk such provocation. What <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>'s cyber-crooks are focused on plain and simple is theft. They are out to steal all the industrial secrets they can from America's high-tech firms-especially those with advanced "fracking" technology for extracting natural gas and tight oil from shales and rocks deep underground. By all accounts, the authorities in Beijing are concerned that an energy-independent America could shift the global balance of power in a significant way. In a sense, though, the victims of such attacks have only themselves to blame. Many organisations have a false sense of security, complacency even, as a result of having invested heavily in security tools in the past. Yet "non-agile" defences like passwords, firewalls and antivirus software, as well as intrusion-detection and prevention systems have become less than effective now attackers have started using encryption and other tricks to evade them, notes Deloitte &amp; Touche, a management consultancy. Most websites keep usernames and passwords in master files that are "hashed" with software which encrypts both the username and the password together, so no one can see the plain-text version of either. When someone attempts to log in, the website automatically encrypts both the username and password entered. It then determines whether the hash matches the one stored in the site's user database. If not, a well-designed site will freeze the account after a limited number of unsuccessful attempts to gain access. That is why most cyber-criminals go "spear-phishing" instead. This involves targeting a low-level individual in an organisation using an e-mail scam that fools the hapless individual into visiting a tainted website. Once there, a malicious tag (called an "iframe") in the HTML code responsible for the page's appearance is injected into the visitor's browser. The inserted malware can be a virus, a Trojan or, most likely, a key-logger. This watches for the user's log on and password, and reports the keystrokes back to the attackers. It is then only a short step to stealing secrets from the victim's employer. Having gained access to the target network, attackers usually run the standard application for accessing databases known as SQL (Structured Query Language). A query is sent to the database masquerading as an innocent request for information, but is really a malicious command designed to reveal confidential data, such as credit-card names and numbers. Literally millions of databases that reside behind websites have been compromised by SQL-injection. But that is only the half of it. Over the past five years, web attackers have combined forces with botnet operators, who rent their armies of zombie computers to shady organisations responsible for spam, fraud and other nefarious activities. As Mary Landesman, a noted cyber-crime writer, has observed, organised crime has embraced the cloud with a vengeance, and begun delivering "malware as a service" through these powerful distributed networks of infected computers. Meanwhile, two particularly nasty pieces of crimeware have emerged from the hacking underworld. One is an exploit kit known as Blackhole, which invisibly redirects someone visiting a legitimate website to a compromised site where malware can be loaded. Meanwhile, the victim never knows his browser has left the legitimate site. Cyber-criminals can rent access to Blackhole software by the day or lease a Blackhole server for periods of three months to a year at a time. Today, it accounts for about a third of all detected threats, says Sophos, a data-security firm based in Britain. The other piece of crimeware to be aware of is a rootkit called ZeroAccess. Like all rootkits, ZeroAccess is capable of hiding its presence from all normal methods of detection, while maintaining privileged access to a computer's inner workings. Because it is effectively invisible to security software, cyber-criminals use it for secretly installing other malware, including Blackhole. With its invisibility cloak, ZeroAccess lets attackers exploit a compromised network for months or even years on end. There is no doubt that cyber-crime is on the increase. One reason is simply that the internet was conceived without any form of security in mind. Another is that social media like Facebook and Twitter have made it insanely easy to gather information about a person or a business-and thereby build persuasive scams that exploit human weaknesses to penetrate a network's outer perimeter. What is to be done? In a recent blog, Tyler Durden of Kaspersky Lab, a computer-security company with headquarters in Moscow and branches around the world, says that essentially it is a matter of impressing people, at a personal level, about the seriousness of the threat. "It's not about IPs, firewalls, ports and protocols any more... Building secure perimeters and adding corporate policies and certificates is great, but [such things] are starting to become useless." The trouble is people use their own devices-smartphones, tablets and laptops-for corporate as well as private tasks. They also use their social-media accounts and cloud services like Dropbox to send and receive important data. As far as company policies are concerned, the computer-security situation is out of control. Today is a paradise for attackers, says Mr Durden. The good news is that the threat of cyber-crime is being seen increasingly as a business opportunity. There are more venture start-ups in data security today than at any time in recent decades. Meanwhile, governments have begun to take the problem seriously. As Mr Durden notes, everyone at the recent RSA 2013, the computer-security world's annual shindig, was talking about Barack Obama's executive order-"in a good way". In his state-of-the-union address last month, the president decreed that America's cyber-defences should be strengthened by the increasing of information sharing, and the development of standards to protect the country's national security, its jobs and its people's privacy. The security industry waits to learn how these fine words translate into action. So, presumably, do the cyber-criminals.
Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

Organized Crime Hackers Are The True Threat To American Infrastructure

<div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackny/7033121879/sizes/c/in/photostream/">hackNY via Flickr</a></div></div></div>CHINESE <keyword id="11094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hackers">hackers</keyword> may get all the notoriety, but their cyber-security exploits against American targets are chickenfeed compared with the damage done by organised crime. This past week, a large metropolitan utility in the United States announced it had suffered a massive “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) attack, knocking out its automated online- and telephone-payment systems and forcing 155,000 customers to pay their bills in person over the ensuing 48 hours.
At its peak, the utility’s back-end computers that run its customer database were flooded with 5.7m spurious packets of data a second, bringing all legitimate transactions to a standstill. On the second day of the attack, the utility called in Prolexic Technologies. Based in Florida, Prolexic maintains “scrubbing centres” around America, Europe and Asia to suck up such malevolent deluges. The attack on the utility was identified as originating within the United States. Make no mistake, the attackers were not pranksters bent on causing mischief. Nor was the attack a simple “smash and grab” aimed at stealing a few passwords. The kind of perpetrators involved were hardened criminals who use rented “botnets” to extort money from their victims, or to steal intellectual property, industrial secrets and marketing plans for sale to rivals at home and abroad. This is big business now organised crime has access to automated exploit-kits and cloud-based software services that are every bit as sophisticated as (some say even more so than) those used by Fortune 500 companies. No longer do criminals need their own tame programmers. They can rent all the crimeware services they need to infiltrate a target’s computer network invisibly, and remain undetected for months or years while siphoning off secrets for sale. How many firms pay the ransom or buy the phony “remedial solutions” to get their businesses back up and running is anyone’s guess. Various figures circulate for the cost of doing business with cyber-criminals. Symantec, a large security-software provider famous for its Norton Antivirus products, estimates that global cyber-crime costs victims $110 billion a year in remediation and lost business as well as ransom payments. That is probably a reasonable guess (other security-software firms put the figure far higher). Shawn Henry, a former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Congress recently about how one company had all its data on a ten-year, $1 billion research programme copied by hackers in a single night. While it may make headlines, fears that attacks by the People’s Liberation Army and other Chinese hackers could wreak havoc on America’s critical infrastructure—especially, its oil and gas pipelines, electricity and water supplies, wireless networks, air-traffic control systems, even its missile defences—are overblown. The Chinese have far too much at stake to risk such provocation. What <keyword id="1334" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="China">China</keyword>’s cyber-crooks are focused on plain and simple is theft. They are out to steal all the industrial secrets they can from America’s high-tech firms—especially those with advanced “fracking” technology for extracting natural gas and tight oil from shales and rocks deep underground. By all accounts, the authorities in Beijing are concerned that an energy-independent America could shift the global balance of power in a significant way. In a sense, though, the victims of such attacks have only themselves to blame. Many organisations have a false sense of security, complacency even, as a result of having invested heavily in security tools in the past. Yet “non-agile” defences like passwords, firewalls and antivirus software, as well as intrusion-detection and prevention systems have become less than effective now attackers have started using encryption and other tricks to evade them, notes Deloitte &amp; Touche, a management consultancy. Most websites keep usernames and passwords in master files that are “hashed” with software which encrypts both the username and the password together, so no one can see the plain-text version of either. When someone attempts to log in, the website automatically encrypts both the username and password entered. It then determines whether the hash matches the one stored in the site’s user database. If not, a well-designed site will freeze the account after a limited number of unsuccessful attempts to gain access. That is why most cyber-criminals go “spear-phishing” instead. This involves targeting a low-level individual in an organisation using an e-mail scam that fools the hapless individual into visiting a tainted website. Once there, a malicious tag (called an “iframe”) in the HTML code responsible for the page’s appearance is injected into the visitor’s browser. The inserted malware can be a virus, a Trojan or, most likely, a key-logger. This watches for the user’s log on and password, and reports the keystrokes back to the attackers. It is then only a short step to stealing secrets from the victim’s employer. Having gained access to the target network, attackers usually run the standard application for accessing databases known as SQL (Structured Query Language). A query is sent to the database masquerading as an innocent request for information, but is really a malicious command designed to reveal confidential data, such as credit-card names and numbers. Literally millions of databases that reside behind websites have been compromised by SQL-injection. But that is only the half of it. Over the past five years, web attackers have combined forces with botnet operators, who rent their armies of zombie computers to shady organisations responsible for spam, fraud and other nefarious activities. As Mary Landesman, a noted cyber-crime writer, has observed, organised crime has embraced the cloud with a vengeance, and begun delivering “malware as a service” through these powerful distributed networks of infected computers. Meanwhile, two particularly nasty pieces of crimeware have emerged from the hacking underworld. One is an exploit kit known as Blackhole, which invisibly redirects someone visiting a legitimate website to a compromised site where malware can be loaded. Meanwhile, the victim never knows his browser has left the legitimate site. Cyber-criminals can rent access to Blackhole software by the day or lease a Blackhole server for periods of three months to a year at a time. Today, it accounts for about a third of all detected threats, says Sophos, a data-security firm based in Britain. The other piece of crimeware to be aware of is a rootkit called ZeroAccess. Like all rootkits, ZeroAccess is capable of hiding its presence from all normal methods of detection, while maintaining privileged access to a computer’s inner workings. Because it is effectively invisible to security software, cyber-criminals use it for secretly installing other malware, including Blackhole. With its invisibility cloak, ZeroAccess lets attackers exploit a compromised network for months or even years on end. There is no doubt that cyber-crime is on the increase. One reason is simply that the internet was conceived without any form of security in mind. Another is that social media like Facebook and Twitter have made it insanely easy to gather information about a person or a business—and thereby build persuasive scams that exploit human weaknesses to penetrate a network’s outer perimeter. What is to be done? In a recent blog, Tyler Durden of Kaspersky Lab, a computer-security company with headquarters in Moscow and branches around the world, says that essentially it is a matter of impressing people, at a personal level, about the seriousness of the threat. “It’s not about IPs, firewalls, ports and protocols any more... Building secure perimeters and adding corporate policies and certificates is great, but [such things] are starting to become useless.” The trouble is people use their own devices—smartphones, tablets and laptops—for corporate as well as private tasks. They also use their social-media accounts and cloud services like Dropbox to send and receive important data. As far as company policies are concerned, the computer-security situation is out of control. Today is a paradise for attackers, says Mr Durden. The good news is that the threat of cyber-crime is being seen increasingly as a business opportunity. There are more venture start-ups in data security today than at any time in recent decades. Meanwhile, governments have begun to take the problem seriously. As Mr Durden notes, everyone at the recent RSA 2013, the computer-security world's annual shindig, was talking about Barack Obama’s executive order—"in a good way". In his state-of-the-union address last month, the president decreed that America’s cyber-defences should be strengthened by the increasing of information sharing, and the development of standards to protect the country’s national security, its jobs and its people’s privacy. The security industry waits to learn how these fine words translate into action. So, presumably, do the cyber-criminals.
Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

<a href="http://gizmodo.com/windows-8-1-review-little-changes-make-a-big-differenc-1446625571">Windows 8.1's recent update</a><inset id="1446625571"></inset> was a subtle but effective boost. Windows Phone's 8.1 power up follows the same cues. It's not mind-blowing, it's not world-changing, it's nothing to jump around and scream about, but it turns Windows Phone into something it's never quite been before: an OS that's totally good enough.
<h3>
	What Is It?</h3>

	It's Live Tiles: The Mobile Operating System. The brains behind the smallest screen in <a href="http://bit.ly/1mKPGsA" target="_blank">Microsoft's unified computing dream</a>. The newest version of the perpetually scrappy up-and-comer that hasn't quite up-and-come. A third pass at making Windows Phone great. Or at least perfectly adequate.
<h3>
	Why Does It Matter?</h3>

	While Android and iOS duke it out for dominance, Windows Phone has been huffing and puffing as it trots up from the back of the pack. It's far from a lost cause, though; WP has always been refreshingly unique in its design and style, a necessary innovator in a world of mobile operating systems that feel similar, even stagnant. It's been the software brains behind <a href="http://bit.ly/1nmqZ3d" target="_blank">some really interesting hardware</a>. The one thing it's never been is cohesive.
 Windows Phone 8.1 is Microsoft's chance to do for mobile what <keyword id="656949" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="40" keywordseo="Windows-8">Windows 8</keyword>.1 (and furthermore <a href="http://gizmodo.com/windows-8-1-update-hands-on-terrific-tweaks-for-the-m-1556697548">the Windows 8.1 Update</a><inset id="1556697548"></inset>) did for the desktop: to make an operating system that feels not just competent but complete. And frankly, it may not have many more goes before it gets left behind entirely.
<h3>
	Design</h3>

	At first glance, Windows Phone 8.1 is pretty much identical to Windows Phone 8. That's great! Windows Phone's signature style has always been a strong suit. Its visual identity is and always has been way more consistent and appealing than the competition.

	Giant, no-caps headings are still a terrific alternative to the tired and needlessly skeuomorphic concept of "tabs." Windows Phone's almost complete lack of borders in favor of cleverly utilized bands of negative space still makes it one of the best looking interfaces around. Live tiles are still colorful, and striking, and a somehow weirdly fun take on icons, even if an army of widget-squares maybe isn't quite as nice as having a proper notification hub.

	But wait! Windows Phone 8.1 has a notification center now! And that's the perfect place to start.

	

	If it looks relatively familiar and unassuming that's because it is. It's very reminiscent of the notification centers you'll find on Android and iOS, especially Android. It shows you stuff that happened and also has a few (customizable) toggles. There's not much special to the design but that's its biggest strength: it just works, and in a way that you're probably familiar with.

	In its own right it looks nice, though it doesn't quite fit with the Windows Phone aesthetic. It's trying, with colors that match your theme, and that same stark squares-on-black look. But it's one of the few (the only?) place where lines of plain text and colored squares mingle, and that looks a little weird. Not to mention the toggle buttons up top don't seem to adhere to live tile proportions, which can make you twitch a little when you notice it.

	In addition to the notification center, Windows Phone 8.1 offers some new options for how to pretty up your lockscreen, though that will come in the form of non-native-but-still-Microsoft apps we haven't had the chance to test out yet. Their arrival date is still a big question mark, as is what exactly they'll be able to do. That said, the images we've seen so far look sliiiiiick.

	

	And of course there's Cortana, the new digital personal assistant (read: Siri/Google Now analog) that pops up from the search button. Cortana's design is simple and straightforward-as it should be-again borrowing smartly from competitors. Like Siri, her landing screen is spare, but like Google now, she'll offer info on the weather where you are and some top headlines from popular news sites you might be (but probably aren't) interested in when you scroll down.

	When you open the app you're greeted by her wonderfully minimalist avatar, which fits perfectly into the stark, Windows Phone aesthetic. Her loading animation in particular is wonderful.

	All in all WP 8.1 one still has that Windows Phone style you know and love, but with subtle tweaks and additions that offer new users who are coming from another OS something a little more familiar. The real changes are under the surface, and finally solve WP's more systemic problems.
<h3>
	Using It</h3>

	The flashiest feature of Windows Phone 8.1 by far is Cortana. She's futuristic, she's fancy, she's a Halo nerd's dream come true. Whatever. She's not Windows Phone 8.1's best new feature. Not by a long shot. Let's talk notification centers. Awwwwwww yeaaaaaaaaah.
<h4>
	Notification Center</h4>

	Oh come on, you're thinking. Notification centers are boring. Yup. Windows Phone 8.1's notification center is nothing special, and that's exactly what makes it great. Whether the absence of a notification center until now was a design choice or just <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5956318/winpho-8-doesnt-have-a-notification-center-because-microsoft-ran-out-of-time?rev=1397408946">a symptom of time constraints</a><inset id="5956318"></inset>, its nonexistence was glaring. It was Windows Phone's most gaping hole.

	Windows Phone 8 had notifications, just no place to go look at them after they disappeared, which made you feel like you were missing something if you didn't catch every word on any given pop-up. Yeah sure you've got your constantly updated live tiles, but a mail icon with a "4" on it just isn't as convenient or informative as a drop-down list of more in-depth info. Better to have both, which Windows Phone 8.1 now does.

	Moreover, the notification center just works. It's boringly but conveniently familiar, complete with customizable toggles and a link to go to the settings menu. It's a lot less original than Windows Phone's previous "look at your live tiles!" approach, but there was no need to reinvent the wheel here. Besides, it's not like your live tiles have disappeared.

	But for as much as a notification center does to make Windows Phone more usable and convenient than ever before, it still has its issues. Where Android notifications will compress themselves depending on how many other notifications are around or how many notifications there are from the same app, Windows Phone 8.1 will not.

	The result is that one particularly heated Twitter conversation will devour your entire notification space and shove everything else off-screen. A minor inconvenience but one you'll probably notice.

	

	During workdays, I found that the constant deluge of pitch emails was enough to bury most other apps with more interesting and relevant update virtually all of the time. Instead of minimizing updates from apps that are blowing up, the WP 8.1 notification center sometimes feels like it's featuring them. Yes, phone, I am aware of my 999+ emails, but it's my single Facebook notification that's interesting.
<h4>
	Cortana</h4>

	And then there's Cortana.Cortana, like the notification center, addresses a basic need without breaking new ground. It, too, is basically a mash-up of other existing-and proven!-features from Android and iOS. She has a personality and likes to talk, much like Siri does, but she also tries her hand and giving you information before you need it, like Google Now.

	She's not quite as prescient as Google Now is (especially if you're steeped in the Google ecosystem, using Chrome and desktop search as you likely are) but she's not bad either. When you first set up Cortana, she'll walk you through a series of questions to gauge your interest in certain topics. and while that's not quite enough info for her to suss out what kind of "entertainment" stories you're into, it's enough to keep sports scores out of your feed if that's not your bag. And when it comes to voice-controlled anything, Cortana is a serviceable analog to either Google Now or Siri. When we ran some tests we found all three to be very much on par. That's especially impressive given that Cortana hasn't had as much time to marinate as its more established competition.

	

	That's not to say Cortana doesn't have any tricks of her own. In fact, she's got some good ones. Cortana's notebook feature offers some much needed privacy to paranoids and/or anyone else who is just a little uncomfortable uploading every single aspect of their lives to a company that likes to use that data to target ads by letting you specific what apps and what contacts Cortana is allowed to snoop on. maybe it's OK for her to read your work email, but not personal emails to your wife. She also lets you set up person-specific reminders that pop up depending on whom you're talking to. "Remind me to bring up the blood-pact next time I talk to Steve" will give you a handy notification the next time you call him or open up one of his texts.

	And aside from those bonuses, Cortana works just fine if you try to use her exactly like Siri or Google Now, which for the most part you will.
<h4>
	 </h4>
<h4>
	Apps</h4>

	The idea that the Windows Phone Store is a wasteland is definitely outdated, but there's still some truth to it. It used to be that Windows Phone's app selection was like a plain hamburger sitting on a paper plate, offering the barest necessities but not much more. Now with apps like Vine and Instagram and Pocket, Windows Phone has filled out the fries and soda and condiments, and offers a totally acceptable meal.

	What's still missing though is dessert. The real zeitgiest-y fluff like Flappy Bird or Candy Crush. You don't need that, of course, but its an absence that can still make Windows Phone feel a little off-brand, especially after Android gets its delayed-but-inevitable port of whatever iOS app-de-jour.

	But you can find some really amusingly heinous rip-offs of Threes.

	
<h4>
	Everything else</h4>
 If you are into Microsoft services, Windows Phone 8.1 will treat you right. Just like Windows 8, OneDrive makes sharing data from your phone to your computer or vice versa a breeze. Far easier than iCloud or Google Drive. If your Outlook account happens to be where you hoard your contacts, you'll automatically be able to share your home Wi-Fi with all your contacts. And if you like <keyword id="6377887" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Skype">Skype</keyword>, you can make Skype calls directly from Cortana. At least in theory. I couldn't quite get it to work because none of my contacts had what Cortana considered a "VOIP number" and I couldn't figure out how to add one.

	Speaking of number types, Windows Phone 8.1 is maddeningly literal. One night I found myself struggling to figure out how the hell to text my girlfriend for roughly 5 minutes. Her number was listed as part of her contact information, but there was no option to send a text. Likewise typing her name into messaging app brought up no options either. I wound up typing in her number directly, like a peon.

	Turns out her number was listed as a "Home" number instead of a "Mobile" number over on her Google contact info I pulled in, so Windows Phone wouldn't let me try to text it because it is theoretically a landline. I get that that is ostensibly a feature, but it brought back flashbacks of being similarly frustrated at earlier versions of Windows Phone. Also, it might be OK if you were whipping up a new contact library from scratch, but considering you're probably working with an ages-old Gmail disaster like I am, it's not great.

	Elsewhere Windows Phone 8.1 doesn't quite pay enough attention to detail. Its built-in Maps app never actually steered me wrong, and worked great with voice commands through Cortana. But it STILL doesn't show the actual letters for New York City train lines if you're going by public transit. And if the directions take you to a station with more a half-dozen lines and you are in a hurry, that can be a big problem.
<h3>
	Like</h3>

	It bears repeating that the mere presence of a notification center works wonders to make Windows Phone 8.1 a more palatable alternative to anyone who has grown up on a different mobile operating system (i.e. pretty much everyone). Just like Windows 8.1 (and its ensuing update) throws a much needed-if also very late-bone to loyal Windows 7 users who just hate change, Windows Phone 8.1 throws a bone to Android and iOS users who have rightly become accustomed to certain features. Microsoft has finally shown up to the table with the ante.

	Likewise, Cortana is by no means revelatory, but she is a totally workable analogue to both Siri and Google Now, at least to the extent that you can ask her for things with your voice and she will provide.

	In addition to just "getting up to speed with the competition" Windows Phone 8.1 has some fantastic small features all its own. Many offer passive benefits, or just aren't the kind of thing you would use every day, but they add up.
<ul>
	<li>
		Cortana's ability to remind you to ask someone something the next time you talk to them (a feature which offers up notifications during calls and texts) is not an everyday necessity, but comes in super handy if you remember to use it.</li>
	<li>
		Wi-Fi Sense auto-login is wonderful if you routinely login to the same public Wi-Fi networks and don't want to agree to the same inane Terms of Service each time. And Wi-Fi Sense's sharing feature-which lets you extend your home Wi-Fi to Facebook friends and Outlook contacts without sharing the password-could be great for the frequent entertainer. If a lot of your friends have Windows Phone anyway.</li>
	<li>
		The new lockscreen apps-which unfortunately have no review builds-look great.</li>
	<li>
		Cortana's "Quiet time" mode complete with a list of exempt "inner circle" contacts. It matches up neatly with iOS's "do not disturb" mode, and makes Android seem behind by not having an equivalent.</li>
	<li>
		Cortana's ability to accept natural language as an analogue for more stilted commands can be amazing; "do I need a coat today" as a substitute for "show me the weather" comes off as a little gimmicky, but being able to say "yeah, whatever, close enough" instead of "yes" when she asks you to confirm a reminder with strange words that she didn't hear quite right is strangely wonderful.</li>
</ul>

	All in all, Windows Phone 8.1 is just so much more welcoming than any iteration before it. Because our 8.1 review phone took a Verizon nano SIM and I rock a T-Mobile micro SIM, I had to keep both phones in reach just to stay in touch. And when both chirped from the same notification, I found myself reaching for the Windows Phone not because ugh I guess I should use the review phone, but because I actually wanted to use it.

	I've never felt that way about a Windows Phone before.
<h3>
	No Like</h3>

	Windows 8.1 still has a lot of little fit and finish issues. Between the notification center's tendency to get flooded and 8.1's madding adherence to classifying different phone numbers by type, there are plenty of areas of improvement for Windows Phone still, even if now they're more along the lines of "fix this pet peeve of mine" instead of "add this feature everyone else has had for years."

	8.1 has brought Windows Phone to the point where switching to it from Android or iOS is more a lateral move than a step down. Typically mere adequacy isn't much to celebrate, but Windows Phone got off the starting line so long after the race already started that catching up is a serious accomplishment.

	Still, in and of itself, Windows Phone 8.1 doesn't offer much that would make you want to switch. Fine is great, but when you're spending your hard-earned money on a phone you shouldn't grade on a curve.
<h3>
	Should You Buy It</h3>

	There's not much in Windows 8.1 to make it appealing over other options, and if you're a true fanboy on either side of the iOS/Android divide, Windows Phone 8.1 offers little reason to switch.

	But! If you are OS-curious and Windows Phone hardware calls to you-specifically the 1020's camera magic-8.1 finally makes that a fling worth having. The inclusion of a notification center and voice assistant finally makes the entire operating system feel natural and full in a way it never did before. The update to 8.1 makes Windows Phone not only average, but inclusive to people who "grew up" with other operating systems in a way that's really promising for the future of Windows Phone, and the future of the mobile OS power-balance on the whole.

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