News written by James Delahunty (December, 2020)

Signal has expanded its end-to-end encrypted communications to include video group calls.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to embrace video conferencing software for everything from school classrooms to corporate meetings.

Earlier in the year, Zoom came under fire after it was found its video was not subject to end-to-end encryption as had been claimed. There were also other security concerns that hit the service, which grew significantly during the pandemic.

Now, encrypted messaging app Signal has added group video chats to its line-up and like everything else it offers, it benefits from end-to-end encryption.

"Today, we're launching group calls in Signal with the latest versions of our apps. Group calls are free, private, and end-to-end encrypted," Signal's announcement reads.

A video call button will now be added to the top of group chats. When you start or join a group call, Signal will display the participants in a grid view. You can also swipe up to switch to a view that automatically focuses the screen on who is speaking, and it will update in real-time as the active speaker changes.

Free group calls are available starting today as long as the Signal app has been updated to the latest version. You won't see the call button in your legacy groups, but your legacy Signal groups will start automatically updating to New Groups in the coming weeks.

The developer of the open-world, action-adventure RPG has apologized to customers who are experience technical issues and glitches.

Most of the problems seem to be limited to users of the previous generation of gaming consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, typically including choppy framerates and screen tearing. Reviewers had been given a PC version of the blockbuster, so the issues were not reported until after the release.

In an apology posted to its social media account, CD Projekt Red admitted it should have paid more attention to how the game performed on the older consoles and should have shown the game on the consoles before it premiered.

pic.twitter.com/jtF5WKCiro

-- Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 14, 2020

One of the largest adult entertainment websites has removed millions of videos from its platform.

Pornhub had been under fire since a New York Times report allegedly discovered illegal content mixed in with its millions of erotic videos. Following the report, MasterCard stopped processing payments for the website while rival Visa is also conducting an investigation.

PornHub had blasted the move by the payment processors at the time, pointing out that the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) had reported 118 incidents of child abuse material on PornHub, compared to 84 million reported by Facebook.

The new report did spark a major change in Pornhub policies, however. It decided that all uploaders of material would soon need to be verified. In line with that commitment, Pornhub has effectively removed millions of videos as it has suspended uploads from unverified accounts.

Most of the material on Pornhub is posted by unverified accounts.

It now says it is going further than any other platform in its trust and safety practices but also claims it is being targeted ultimately by groups that wish to abolish pornography outright.

"This means every piece of Pornhub content is from verified uploaders, a requirement that platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter have yet to institute," the company said in a blog post.

The discovery of a security bug that leaked user information to third parties has prompted the action.

Spotify is forcing some of its subscribers to change their passwords following the discovery of a security bug. The bug reportedly led to user information being incorrectly shared with third parties, and Spotify is contacting users of affected accounts.

Information shared unintentionally includes e-mail addresses, passwords, display names, and more. So far there is no evidence that the information has been used for nefarious purposes and Spotify has contacted third parties and ordered them to delete the data.

Affected users will have been issued a password reset, and so will be alerted by email to continue through the process to change their account password.

Affected users should also consider changing the password on other services if they had been using it for them also.

Pornhub highlights double-standards, concerns about income to models, following Mastercard, and Visa suspension.

Mastercard and Visa will no longer handle payments for massive adult entertainment platform. Coming just days after Pornhub announced strict new rules for its service, Visa and Mastercard have cut off the adult website.

Following a New York Times investigation that exposed exploitative and illegal content on the massive platform, along with deficiencies in monitoring uploaded content, Pornhub imposed new restrictions on users of the service.

It changes its policies so that users who upload content to the service will have to have their identity verified. Additionally, it banned the downloading of most content available on the service.

"Today, the use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated. Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content.... we continue to investigate potential illegal content on other websites," a Mastercard statement received by NYT's Nicholas Kristof reads.

After Mastercard's decision was revealed, Visa suspended Pornhub's acceptance privileges pending an ongoing investigation. Naturally, Pornhub is more than miffed by the moves and seemingly wishes to highlight double standards in its defense.

Apple has been targeted by yet another lawsuit alleging wrongdoing over its device limitations.

This time the plaintiff in the case is Cydia (also known as SaurikIT), alleging that Apple illegally blocked all competition for its App Store. Cydia was founded in 2008 and became a very popular third-party alternative for users of Apple devices that had been jailbroken.

To jailbreak a device is to modify it to circumvent technical limitations and allow it to be used in ways unintended by the manufacturer.

In this case, an iPhone jailbreak would allow for the device to install applications from locations other than the App Store, among other things.

Cydia is represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which has previously represented Samsung in disputes against Apple. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

It is not the first case against Apple this year over its App Store practices. Fortnite publisher Epic Games has sued Apple for removing the popular title from the App Store. In that case, Epic opted to use its own payment system to sidestep a 30 percent tally imposed by Apple.

Disney is increasing the monthly charge for access to Disney+ streaming platform.

U.S. users of the Disney+ streaming platform will have to fork out an extra dollar per month. The change will not occur until March next year and will see the Disney+ monthly price increase from $6.99 to $7.99.

This sets the annual cost of a Disney+ subscription at $79.99.

From March 26, 2021, the Disney Bundle including Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+ will be priced at $13.99 per month. By 2024, Disney is projecting 230-260 million streaming customers and more than 350 million subscriptions across all services worldwide.

The price increase announcements came as Disney announced a whole roster of new content including Loki and Falcon series.