Tech watch: Move over, selfie stick

Australian actress Ruby Rose took a break from her busy Hollywood filming schedule to celebrate the release of the Rova flying selfie camera in Sydney earlier this week.

Developed by Australian-listed company the IOT Group, the drone is small and light enough to take off from and land in your hand.

It takes photos and videos, connects to your mobile phone and has one-touch sharing to your social media.

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Circles.Life unveils largest no-contract data plan

Local digital telco Circles.Life unveiled on Tuesday the largest no-contract data plan in Singapore, as well as its plans to expand across Asia.

Its customers can now opt for a Data Plus option of 20GB for $20, believed to be the largest ever no-contract data plan under $50 available here.

The option comes on top of Circles.Life's base plan of $28 per month for up to 6GB of data.

This means that Circles.Life customers are allowed up to 26GB of data usage for $48 each month.

Circles.Life co-founder Rameez Ansar said that his telco was created to give the power back to the customers.

"We do this by creating an unparalleled customer experience and providing innovative products for data-savvy customers," he said.

Circles.Life, unlike traditional telcos, does not own physical distribution channels, but leases M1's network.

The digital telco has also finalised expansion plans into Indonesia and Hong Kong this year, as part of its goal to roll out in three to five markets in Asia over the next three years.

It has received numerous requests from regional telcos and is in talks to expand in their respective countries.

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Say goodbye to traffic jams with Airbus' Pop.Up 

Airbus has unveiled a new concept that could put an end to traffic jams.

Pop.Up, which was revealed at the Geneva international Motor Show, consists of a two-seater capsule that functions as a car, or can be carried to the rider's destination by a flying drone, reported The Daily Mail.

Once passengers reach their destination, both the air and ground modules will return to dedicated recharge stations, where they will wait to be summoned by the next customers.

Airbus said Pop.Up will be ready only after 2024.

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Technology the root of crimes today

High-tech crimes - such as document fraud, money laundering and online trading in illegal goods - are at the root of almost all serious criminality, Europe's police agency told Reuters on Thursday.

But traditional crimes also now rely increasingly on new technology, such as the drug trade's use of drones and burglars using computers to scout neighbourhoods online and track social media posts to see when people are away from home, Europol said in a study of organised crime that it publishes every four years.

Europol also said there are some 5,000 international crime groups under investigation, with members from more than 180 nationalities.

Drug trafficking remained the largest criminal market in the European Union, generating some €24 billion (S$36 billion) profit per year.

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WikiLeaks to share CIA'S hacking tools?

WikiLeaks will provide technology companies with exclusive access to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hacking tools so they can patch software flaws, founder Julian Assange said on Thursday, reported Reuters.

Wikileaks had earlier this week published details of what it said are wide-ranging hacking tools used by the CIA, reported the BBC.

The alleged cyber-weapons are said to include malware that targets systems such as Windows and Android.

The effort to compromise Samsung's F8000 range of smart TVs was codenamed Weeping Angel, according to documents dated June 2014.

They describe the creation of a "fake-off" mode, which fools users into believing that their screens had been switched off.

Instead, infected sets covertly recorded audio, which would be transferred over the Internet to CIA once the TVs were switched back on.