Is it possible to fall in love with an artificial intelligence?

Could you fall in love with Siri? OK, let's not say Siri in particular, since Siri is as dumb as a stump and doesn't understand anything you ask her. But what about a version of Siri that's a few generations away, one with not only better voice recognition but a real personality, one that learns and changes and gets to know you, one with which (whom?) you build a complicated relationship? Could you fall in love with that program?

That's the question that Spike Jonze's new movie Her seems to be asking. 

Check out the trailer: Read more>>

PayPal tests mobile payments using your face for verification

PayPal is rolling out a new trial for British consumers to see if they really can leave their wallets at home. Recently kicking off in London borough Richmond upon Thames, the test includes 12 different merchants set up to accept PayPal payments, according to the company.

Using the PayPal app for iOS, Android, or Windows Phone, shoppers can see nearby participating merchants highlighted on their mobile phones. They can then "check into" a certain store by clicking on its name and pay for an item by sliding an animated pin down the screen.

The person's name and photo then pops up on the store's payment system. After the customer agrees to pay for the item, the cashier clicks on the person's photo to send the payment through. The customer receives an alert via phone with the amount paid along with PayPal's usual receipt.

Though only a dozen retailers are part of the test, PayPal expects that more than 2,000 merchants will be able to accept the PayPal payments by the end of 2013, according to Sky News. And PayPal has grander ambitions beyond this year. Read more >>

Google engineer finds British spyware on PCs and smartphones

Two security researchers have found new evidence that legitimate spyware sold by British firm Gamma International appears to be being used by some of the most repressive regimes in the world. Google security engineer Morgan Marquis-Boire and Berkeley student Bill Marczak were investigating spyware found in email attachments to several Bahraini activists. In their analysis they identified the spyware infecting not only PCs but a broad range of smartphones, including iOS, Android, RIM, Symbian, and Windows Phone 7 handsets.

The spying software has the capability to monitor and report back on calls and GPS positions from mobile phones, as well as recording Skype sessions on a PC, logging keystrokes, and controlling any cameras and microphones that are installed. They report the code appears to be FinSpy, a commercial spyware sold to countries for police criminal investigations. FinSpy was developed by the German conglomerate Gamma Group and sold via the UK subsidiary Gamma International. In a statement to Bloomberg, managing director Martin Muench denied the company had any involvement.

Parallel research by computer investigators at Rapid7 found command and control software servers for the FinSpy code running in Indonesia, Australia, Qatar, Ethiopia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Mongolia, Latvia, and the United Arab Emirates, with another server in the US running on Amazon's EC2 cloud systems. Less than 24 hours after the research was published, the team noted that several of these servers were shut down. Read more >>