Report: Apple will reveal new iPhone next month

The news comes from All Things D, the Wall Street Journal-affiliated tech blog that has a solid track record for reporting inside Apple information.
Apple is believed to be working on a smartwatch and a TV, but neither of those products are expected to be ready for rollout at next month's event. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Likely to be called either the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S, the phone's release date would fit the schedule Apple has established since the first iPhone was released in 2007.
The company has released a new iPhone model every year, and the release dates have all been in the summer or fall. The iPhone 5 came out in September 2012, the iPhone 4S in October 2011, and the three versions before that in the summer months.
The release date is the most recent, and probably one of the most accurate, rumors that precede this Apple release.
The upcoming Apple event will come at a unique time for the tech giant, which has dominated the smartphone and tablet markets for almost as long as they have existed. Android-based phones like Samsung's Galaxy S4 have put a dent in iPhone sales, while some critics have said the latest updates to the iPhone and iPad lack significant innovation.
READ: How Samsung is out-innovating Apple
The new iPhone will run iOS 7, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, which includes new typography, redesigned icons and a new color palette.
Here's a roundup of some of the speculation swirling around the next iPhone. As always with such things, take it all with a grain of salt. Leaks along Apple's supply line have become more frequent, but that doesn't mean all of them turn out to be accurate.
--The new phone will likely be the iPhone 5S and keep the same design as the current iPhone 5. The iPhone 4 was followed by the 4S, which maintained the same form.
--The company will also roll out a cheaper version of the iPhone, largely for sale in emerging markets. Reuters reported that it will cost $99 and come in five or six different colors. It may or may not be called the iPhone 5C. Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller has tossed cold water on this idea, though Apple is known for misdirection in advance of new product releases.
--Since there will be a cheaper iPhone, Apple will discontinue production of older models.
--There will be at least one larger iPhone model, with a 4.7-inch screen, a 5.7-inch screen, or both to compete with big-screen rivals from Samsung, HTC and other makers.
--The new phone will have a fingerprint scanner for added security and other uses.
--As usual, it will have a faster processor, longer battery life, and an improved camera. Not much of a stretch there -- all of these upgrades are typical of any gadget update.
Again, it remains to be seen which of these rumors and reports pan out. And Apple can be counted on for at least a few surprises.

5-year-old boy hacks dad's Xbox account

(CNN) -- Hacking your Xbox: So easy, even a 5-year-old could do it?
A San Diego boy has the gaming world's attention after he exposed a security flaw that let him log into his dad's Xbox Live account, without permission, on the family's Xbox One console.
"I was like ... yeah!" young Kristoffer Von Hassel said to KGTV-10, a CNN affiliate.
Kristoffer's father, Robert Davies, noticed soon after Christmas that his son was logging into his account and playing games that weren't appropriate for his age. When he asked how, Kristoffer showed him a hack that seems simple in retrospect but is fairly impressive considering a 5-year-old found it.
Kristoffer would go to his dad's account and type in an incorrect password. That would take him to a password verifications screen, where he would simply tap the space bar repeatedly and then press "enter."
"How awesome is that?" asked Davies, who works in online security himself. "Just being 5 years old and being able to find a vulnerability and latch on to that. I thought that was pretty cool."
He told KGTV that Kristoffer has figured out three or four other "hacks," including getting past the lock on a smartphone by holding down the "home" key for long enough.
Dad reported the vulnerability to Microsoft. And Microsoft acted, issuing a fix for the vulnerability.
"We're always listening to our customers and thank them for bringing issues to our attention," the company said in a written statement. "We take security seriously at Xbox and fixed the issue as soon as we learned about it."
The company has even included Kristoffer's name on a list of security researchers who have helped make online Microsoft products safer.
For his discovery (or, more accurately, for reporting it with his father's help), Kristoffer will receive four games, $50 and a year's subscription to Xbox Live from Microsoft.
Whether a career in computer security awaits remains to be seen.

Google: Self-driving cars are mastering city streets

Over the past year or so, Google has been fine-tuning how the software running its fleet of automated vehicles handles the complexities of stop-and-go driving in heavily populated areas.
"A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area," Chris Urmson, the head of Google's self-driving-car project, said Monday in a blog post.
Urmson said engineers have improved the cars' software to recognize situations like pedestrian traffic, buses, stop signs held by crossing guards and hand signals made by cyclists.

And, he says, self-driving cars have the potential to handle all of that even better than we do.
"A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can't -- and it never gets tired or distracted," Urmson wrote. "As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the human eye is actually fairly predictable to a computer."
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Since 2011, when self-driving vehicles became street-legal in Nevada, Google has logged nearly 700,000 miles with the cars, mostly on highways. The only reported accidents have happened when one of the cars was being driven by a person, or they were the fault of another driver.
Autonomous cars are also now legal in California, Florida and Michigan, although all states still require a human driver behind the wheel.
Google has been testing the cars around its Silicon Valley headquarters in suburban Mountain View, California.
There's more to learn before testing them in another city, Urmson wrote, "but thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated autonomously."
The cars' technology includes a laser radar system and a laser-based range finder that lets software create detailed 3-D maps of the surroundings.
In a YouTube video also posted Monday, one of the cars is shown recognizing and changing lanes in a construction zone, negotiating a railroad crossing and making a right turn at an intersection crowded with cars, cyclists and pedestrians.
"With every passing mile we're growing more optimistic that we're heading toward an achievable goal -- a vehicle that operates fully without human intervention," Urmson wrote.