Yesterday Facebook released a statement about a security breach that had affected tens of millions of Facebook users. According to the social media giant the hackers got some user information from up 50 million users.
Facebook is investigating the hack with authorities, including the FBI, but currently it is not certain what type of information was leaked. At least the "View As" pages and basic information such as age and sex were leaked.
Some have argued that the access tokens that were used to gain access to View As pages would give access to other more sensitive information as well, but there's no official word on this yet.
Those 50 million affected have been logged out from their Facebook account which cut any illegitimate connections. This also means that you have to log back in to your account to access Facebook. Facebook also logged out another 40 million users as a precaution even though believes they were not targeted.
Currently seeing if you've been logged out is the only way to check whether the hack affected your account or if you were one of the 40 million users that were suspect of a "View As" lookup and thus precautionarily logged out.
It is advised that you don't enter any details on possible forms or sites that claim they can retrieve information on whether your account was hacked.
Facebook has just revealed that it has detected a security issue that has affected tens of millions of accounts.
The statement posted on Facebook's official newsroom details that a total of 90 million accounts might have been affected by the security exploit.
50 million of the accounts are the prime suspects that Facebook has determined to have been affected but another 40 million accounts have been logged out as a precautionary step as they've been suspect to a "View As" lookup in that past 12 months.
The issue has allowed logins to users without their knowledge or consent. Facebook has now logged all those users out and they will need to perform a new log in next time requesting access to Facebook.
The breach has been fixed last night and faulty access should no longer exist.
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook does not currently have information on whether the breach might have leaked any sensitive information like private messages. However, the hackers have gained access to users' "View As" profile information.
Facebook has removed "View As" pages temporarily.
The page shows what the user's profile looks like to someone else and could includes information such as age, sex, and home town.
Elon Musk, the visionary behind Tesla, SpaceX and most recently The Boring Company, has been sued by the U.S. government over tweets posted last month.
The Security and Exchange Commission is accusing Musk and his privatization tweet on August 7 of fraud by false statements that could hurt investors.
Musk's original tweet that now got him to hot water was "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." According to S.E.C. Musk had done no securing of the funding and was recklessly falsifying the state of privatization.
Later in the month Musk retweeted Tesla's tweet titled "Staying Public" linking to a statement by Musk himself explaining why he and the Board of Directors have decided to stay public.
The lawsuit is trying to bar Musk from serving as an executive or a director of publicly traded companies, obviously including Tesla. Tesla is the only one of Musk-lead companies currently public.
In response to S.E.C.'s lawsuit was Musk said: "This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed."
He continued to explain that he has always tried to pursue truth and transparency. It remains to be seen how the courts find the accusations.
Oculus VR, one of the foremost pioneers of virtual reality headsets, has announced a new product. Facebook-owned, since 2014, Oculus' new headset is called Quest.
At Connect 5 keynote Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to announce the new Oculus Quest. Oculus Quest is the social media giant's next-generation VR headset that offer wireless connectivity and familiar motion controllers.
The main improvement over the current generation is the ability to use the product in almost any situation thanks to the wireless nature of the headset. The location tracking is found in both the controllers as well as the headset with four wide angle cameras placed in each corner.
As there is no wires, Oculus Quest includes a battery and all the necessary computing units inside the headset. This also means that the processing power is nowhere near a PC powered VR headset.
Oculus expects over 50 games to be shipped with Oculus Quest but didn't name any games.
Oculus Quest will cost $399. They'll hit the market next spring, but Oculus doesn't have a firm release date for the headset yet.
Sony was ferociously attacked over Fortnite cross-platform for months, but the company did not budge. They've been adamant that crossplay between PS4, Xbox One and Switch is not something they want to do.
Now, something has changed since Sony has officially confirmed that cross-platform support is in fact on the way.
Perhaps Sony didn't realize how important it was to unite platforms with titles as massive as Fortnite. Perhaps they were flooded with bad press and unhappy Xbox and Switch users' critique (read: rage).
The new Google Chrome released early in September brought a few important changes, one of which was the updated user interface and look.
There also was a not-so-noticeable lesser feature change that Google has been getting lots of flack for.
See Google changed the Google account login so that when you log in to your Gmail or other Google products you'll automatically also log in to the browser. Previously browser log in was separated from whenever you used other Google services in the browser.
As you might imagine, people do not like when they are logged in to services without their knowledge or consent. And Google has done a 180 degree turn and agreed.
While Google originally argued, and still believes, that users do not always recognize that Chrome as a browser is different from their Gmail account, they've recognized the critique that this is not the best practice from security standpoint among others.
Google is still keeping the feature on by default but in the future version, upcoming Chrome 70, it'll allow users to disable automatic Chrome logins when logging in Google services with the browser.
One of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, Qualcomm, has aired out fairly serious accusations towards Apple. The first trillion dollars company has stolen some of chip manufacturer's secrets, Qualcomm says.
Qualcomm took it to the courts and is trying to prove that Apple, a chip designer themselves, helped Intel, a major competitor to Qualcomm, with their modems with code acquired from Qualcomm.
Obviously sharing details such as this is against the software licensing agreement between Qualcomm and Apple, Qualcomm claims.
Previously Apple has used both Qualcomm's and Intel's modems in their iPhones, lately preferring the former, but this year all three new phones from Cupertino has Intel's modem chips in them.
Apple's side of this debacle is that they've been trying to get rid of Qualcomm's modems exactly because of unfair licensing practices.
Qualcomm's contention is that Apple should pay a percentage share of the end product to them, instead of what Apple thinks, and perhaps the most others think, is fair, which is obviously the price of the product they bought.
While Qualcomm claims that Apple has constantly been sharing confidential information with Intel for them to catch up to Qualcomm, there is no concrete examples shown, at least to the public of yet.
Current generation gaming consoles have one slight difference in I/O support. Sony's PlayStation 4 supports both USB and Bluetooth keyboard and mice while Microsoft's creation has support for none of those, until now.
Microsoft has confirmed that support for mouse and keyboard input is in the works. In fact the company is developing peripherals with Razer so you can expect perhaps some flashy gamer gear type Xbox keyboards and mice in the near future.
Currently the feature is still in testing and you'll get access to it only in the Xbox Insider program, but expansion to all consoles should come soon. However, games will not allow mouse and keyboard controls by default, that is dependent on developers to enable.
And to bring the support on par with the toughest competition, Microsoft has revealed that both wired and wireless, that is USB and Bluetooth, keyboards are supported.
Microsoft and Razer will have more news on November 10.
Firefox might not be on the top of the world anymore, or hasn't been for years now, but they are trying all kinds of tricks to turn the ship. The latest is a virtual reality browser by the name of Firefox Reality.
Obviously, as the the name suggests, the browser is a Firefox version designed for the virtual reality, and to be used with VR headsets. Mozilla is planning on further developing Firefox Reality to be compatible with AR glasses as well, perhaps thus the name that doesn't exclude any type of extended reality.
Currently Firefox Reality is only available for specific VR platforms, including HTC Vive, Oculus and Daydream headsets. You can download it from the app stores of aforementioned platforms.
Future installments are planned to support at least Microsoft HoloLens as well as the new competitor to that, Magic Leap One.
Most of the web is obviously two-dimensional, so that will be displayed as a sheet of paper if you will, but Mozilla says the browser supports also immersive web content.
Firefox Reality supports both virtual keyboard input, which is never optimal, as well as voice commands. The version number is currently only at 1.0 so expect improvement in terms of bookmarks, 360 degree videos and others coming in the future.
Nintedo unveiled a surprising product in 2016, a retro gaming console called NES Classic. The tiny NES-looking machine is a gaming console with 30ish retro Nintendo games, and it was a huge hit.
Even Nintendo didn't expect it, and it sold out immediately, and a few times again. It came back in 2018, and Nintendo released a sibling, the SNES Classic.
The success of these cheap little retro consoles sparked the interest of Commodore who released the C64 Mini. And now it's Sony's time to enter the game.
Sony has now unveiled that they'll be releasing a PlayStation Classic, a tiny retro version of the original PlayStation. According to Sony, this tiny console is 45 percent smaller than the original and it includes 20 classic games from PS one.
Google released last year a family-oriented app, called Family Link, which allows parents to control their kids' phones.
Previously Family Link has allowed parents to take control of their sub-13 year olds' phones only, now they've expanded the support to teenagers as well.
In a post-GDPR EU, where for example minors under the age of 16 can't have a Google account, the feature was obviously necessary, but elsewhere as well it gives long-awaited controls to parents of their offsprings' digital life.
Family Link was originally designed for minors under the age of 13 but with the new update teenagers are now included in the app as well. However, it does require both parties to accept the terms, but one could argue that should be easy to accomplish.
Since there is a bi-party consent, the teenager can break the connection at any point, but that will result in a 24-hour shutdown of the phone.
With Family Link the parents can monitor location and usage times on per-app basis, allow or ban downloads of specific apps, and even lock the device.
Google is also updating Assistant with Family Link features so you'll be able to ask Google Home or your Android phone's Assistant to lock your kid's phone or what have you.
Even the people that love Twitter the most have a few gripes with the service. One of the most common ones is of course not allowing users to edit tweets, but another, perhaps an even more common problem, is being fixed.
Twitter support has confirmed, reports TechCrunch, that the company is bringing back a chronologically, or more precisely reverse chronologically, ordered tweet feed. It must be one of the most requested features of the Twittersphere.
In 2016, Twitter started arranging tweets with their own algorithm that promised best Tweets first. This meant that some tweets, retweets and likes made it to the top and others seemed to disappear. Worst of all, the user doesn't really know the method to this madness.
Now, Twitter is bringing back the original idea which is to have a simple feed showing newest tweets first. You won't be seeing interesting things people liked promoted or anything like that. Which should be what people have opted in for when they unticked the setting for "Show the best Tweets first."
This wasn't entirely the case, though, but now the company is finally giving up the grand experiment, and letting users choose for themselves.
Google has officially apologized for an error that changed Android users setting without their approval. Users have noticed that their phone went on battery saving mode without any action.
A Pixel team representative has confirmed on a Reddit thread that it is indeed the case that Google had remotely changed some users' battery saving mode to on position. Obviously this is something that shouldn't happen, and many thought couldn't even happen.
According to the statement made on Reddit, Google had been testing battery saving features and it was mistakenly applied to users that are not part of the internal program. They've since rolled the changed back and users can now choose whether they want to have battery saving on or not.
Here's the statement:
Hi all, some of you may have noticed that battery saver turned on automatically today. This was an internal experiment to test battery saving features that was mistakenly rolled out to more users than intended. We have now rolled battery saver settings back to default. Please configure to your liking. Sorry for the confusion.
SpaceX has announced the world's first passenger to fly around the Moon on the upcoming BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), as well as detailing the mission and dating it.
At a conference on Monday evening, SpaceX detailed its first private passenger mission to the Moon. Yusaku Maezawa, a private Japanese citizen and entrepreneur, will be the first person to fly beyond the Moon since the early 1970s. If all goes well, he will be blasted toward the moon on board a giant BFR rocket and space vehicle.
Maezawa has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion since 2017.
"I choose to go to the Moon," Maezawa announced to the press present to applause. He spoke at the SpaceX conference about how he will invite artists from around the world to join him on the BFR mission, as he would rather not go alone. He calls the project #dearMoon. The mission is set for 2023 and between 6-8 additional artists will be flown to the moon as long as they commit to creating something inspired by the mission when they get back.
The crew will spend a week in space in the half million mile round-trip.
Apple's last week's iPhone event held in Cupertino included some highlights worthy of ovations, perhaps even standing ones.
The first ever over-the-counter ECG in form of a new and much improved Apple Watch was definitely one of them, and one could argue Smart HDR on new iPhones seemed like more than a simple evolutionary step in smartphone cameras.
Apart from Smart HDR, however, the new iPhone flagships very largely iterative upgrades over the previous year's iPhone X. And that was to be expected, after all it was the S year this time around.
Tim Cook and his buddies released the iPhone XR, that was expected as well. A middle of the road iPhone with a colorful aluminum design and powerful specs, including the new A12 Bionic chip found in the more expensive new iPhone models.
However, in all the attractive looks and promising tech there's a gaping hole in specs. The new iPhone XR comes with a large, completely 2018-ready 6.1 inch screen, but it is a LCD panel and a lousy one at that.
Netflix has been hit with a lawsuit by a photographer over the alleged unauthorized use of a supercell photograph in Stranger Things and How It Ends.
Sean R. Heavey is a photographer from Montana. In 2010, he tracked a storm for hours as it crossed into Montana, taking four vertical panoramic photos together into one photo. The resulting storm cell image has been used in publications all over the world.
While watching an episode of Netflix' hit show Stranger Things, Heavey noticed something oddly similar about a cloud formation that is shown. Later, in an episode of Beyond Stranger Things, a concept art photo appears to be built from his photo of the storm cell from 2010.
Heavey took to Facebook to show the following comparison and ask if others thought the cloud formation used in Stranger Things is his photograph.
Apple has responded to a tweet by a customer last week lambasting the company after three movies seemingly disappeared from his iTunes library.
In a tweet, Anders Gonçalves da Silva shared a support e-mail he received from Apple after he complained that three films he had previously purchased had disappeared from his iTunes library.
The response seemed to imply that because the films were no longer available in the iTunes store that the customer could no longer download them. Instead, he seemed to have been offered some free rentals.
Epic Games' smash hit Fortnite is being increasingly cited as a reason for divorce, according to figures from the UK.
Fortnite has become something of a cultural phenomenon for the games business. Fortnite Battle Royale attracted more than 125 million players in a year, and the title is generating hundreds of millions of dollars per month. Players have spoken of how addictive the game can be, and it has even generated compilation videos of "Fortnite Rage" where players lose their minds and smash up their equipment. To be fair, it's not the first title to generate such compilations.
It's not hard to imagine then that Fortnite could be a cause for the breakdown of a relationship. Excessive gaming has long been a factor in the breakdown of relationships between couples. In the UK, there are some figures to show that Fortnite can test the whole "til death do us part" thing.
Divorce-Online has reported that it received 200 divorce petitions that cite addiction to Fortnite, and to other games, as a reason that a divorce is being sought.
"These numbers equate to roughly 5% of the 4,665 petitions we have handled since the beginning of the year and as one of the largest filers of divorce petitions in the UK, is a pretty good indicator,"Divorce-Online said on its website.
A man who has admitted to downloading a bootleg copy of Deadpool and then sharing it online could face a prison term.
The Fresno, California resident downloaded a bootleg copy of Deadpool shortly after it debuted in theaters over two years ago and then shared it on Facebook. As a result, the copy of the film was viewed more than 6,386,456 times by Facebook users.
Following his arrested, the individual signed a plea agreement with the government in which he admitted to pirating the popular film and sharing it on the social media platform. He pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor which carried a maximum prison term of a year.
However, the government is recommending a six-month stint.
"[T]he government recommends the high-end sentence of six months' imprisonment, to be followed by a one-year term of supervised release, and a mandatory special assessment of $100," the sentencing position reads.
To justify the request, the government argues that the individual broke the law in a brazen and public manner. It noted, for example, that many users in the comments on Facebook pointed out to him that he was committing a crime, but he scoffed at the warnings.
"Defendant even created a Facebook group for the purpose of illegally sharing movies with others, posting 'EVERYBODY JOIN' in relation to the Facebook group he created called 'BOOTLEG MOVIES'," the government notes.
Another Tesla facility has experienced a fire and this time it is at the firm's ambitious Gigafactory.
Tesla's enormous (and still being constructed) Gigafactory in Nevada is used to make electric motors and battery packs for the company's all-electric Model 3 vehicle. Late on Saturday night, the local fire department responded to a fire at the facility.
Employees were evacuated and production was completely halted across the facility as a precaution. Tesla has said that nobody was injured in the incident, which is good news. Early on Sunday morning, the fire department turned the scene back over to Tesla for cleanup and repairs, and production resumed at the facility.
Last month, a Tesla factory in California also experienced a fire. The fire at the Gigafactory reportedly occurred in the cooling tube coating oven, which is on the third floor of the facility. Sprinklers managed to suppress it and the fire department made the facility safe.
Tesla has been working hard to push up its Model 3 production numbers and expects to produce between 50,000 and 55,000 vehicles in the third quarter. It also expects to turn a profit in the second half of 2018.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has been on the upswing for their entire five year lifespan. It began as the home of the "flagship killer" that provided very affordable smartphones with killer specs.
Now years later it has proven itself over and over again and gained a larger than its original cult following, especially in European markets. This year, the OnePlus 6T due in one month, OnePlus is bringing their smartphones first time ever to a major U.S. carrier, T-Mobile.
However, the company has even bigger, more radical, plans ahead.
The founder and CEO Pete Lau has posted at thread called "Intelligent Connectivity: Our Next Step Forward" on the official forums talking about a new product, and it's not a smartphone nor a tablet. In fact, it's doesn't seem to be anything mobile at all.
OnePlus' newest smart device will be a TV, they call it, aptly, OnePlus TV.
Unfortunately at this point Lau is not ready to reveal much about the device. Not even is it an actual TV or a media device like Apple TV, but the teaser photo seems to suggest it's the former.
The latest beta of Google Chrome provides access to fingerprint sensing hardware so it can be used by web services.
The Web Authentication API enables fingerprint sensing features for Chrome. This could be used, for example, for two-factor authentication by web services to enhance security.
In addition, the latest beta also adds "shape identification" which relies on multiples APIs to detect faces, barcodes and Latin text in images across the web.
Google has also beefed up its push for HTTPS by displaying a red "not secure" warning when a user enters an e-mail or password into a site without HTTPS enabled. It also will exit full-screen mode when dialog boxes appear. This change is designed to catch the attention of the user to ensure they get the proper context of the decision they are being asked to make.
SpaceX has signed up its first private passenger which it will fly around the Moon using its upcoming BFR rocket.
Previously the rocket-maker had planned to send two private tourists around the Moon this year in a human-rated Dragon capsule using its new Falcon Heavy rocket. However, SpaceX has since dropped plans for crewed missions using the Falcon Heavy as it shifts its focus to the BFR. It can ferry astronauts to the International Space Station using the Falcon 9 Block V which is currently seeking human rating.
On Monday, SpaceX will announce details of the BFR's first private passenger Moon mission and seems set to identify who is flying "and why". It will be the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since the 1970s if the mission goes ahead.
SpaceX' BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket, is am ambitious super-heavy-lift rocket/spaceship system that SpaceX hopes to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with. It can carry payloads large enough to open up Moon missions, and then Mars mission. It is also intended to be fully reusable. At the moment, only the Falcon 9 booster and the Dragon cargo capsule are routinely reused by SpaceX.
According to SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, the spaceship part of BFR could be ready for short hopper flights by next year. Test flights of the system will be a few years off.
Some Kodi users have been infected with a crypto-mining malware due to a malicious dependancy distributed with a popular add-on.
According to ESET, the malicious dependency had been distributed by a recently shut down add-on repository in the Netherlands called XvBMC-NL. However, it is likely that XvBMC-NL was an unwitting participant in its distribution as it seemed to originally show up on a repo for Bubbles, later renamed Gaia.
Specifically, the add-on affected is script.module.simplejson, which is a legitimate add-on that other add-ons depend on to work properly. The latest version of the add-on is v3.4.0, whereas the malicious version is v3.4.1. The malicious version reportedly showed up on the Bubbles repo back in December 2017 and was later removed from the newer Gaia report in April 2018.
The XvBMC-NL repo shut down in Holland was likely still serving the malicious version unwittingly. The problem arises when a user installed the repo and automatic updates installed the seemingly newer version, which was the malicious version.
You can easily check if you have the Add-On on your Kodi if you use the media center. In the Kodi 17 interface, open Add-Ons. Then click the Settings button (cog wheel). Open "Manage Dependencies", and then scroll down to see if SimpleJSON is installed. The version will be shown beside the add-on. If you have v3.4.1, then you have the malicious add-on and should install and run an anti-virus software to find and remove the crypto-miner it installs.
North Korea has responded to charges against a hacker in the secretive country by insisting that the identified man does not exist.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) charged a North Korean man in connection to the hacking of Sony Pictures in late 2014, and also with the spread of WannaCry malware last year. WannaCry affected business and government systems around the world. In the UK, thousands of health appointments had to be canceled as the malware affected computer systems in the National Health Service (NHS)
North Korea is claiming that the identified man doesn't exist at all and warns that the accusations against the country could have a negative effect on relations with the United States.
The man "is a non-existent entity, and furthermore, the act of cyber crimes mentioned by the Justice Department has nothing to do with us," North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement to North Korean news agency KCNA.
Sony Pictures was hacked in 2014 ahead of the planned release of The Interview, a comedy starring Seth Rogan that depicts a U.S. plot to assassinate Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
The YouTube Kids app now provides parents with more control over the content that their children can see.
The most important addition to the YouTube Kids app was initially announced in April. It is parent-approved content, and it allows parents to handpick every video and channel available to their child in the app. It is available today globally on Android and coming soon to iOS.
For parents who want to enable this feature, open settings, go to the child's profile and select "approved content only." Now they're ready to start picking videos for their kids.
If this mode is enabled, then children will be unable to search for content. Parents can still search for content and can choose any video, channel or collection of channels they like by tapping the "+" button.
Another addition is the option to set the app to filter content for Older children, aimed at those aged between 8 and 12. It includes additional new content, like popular music and gaming videos. Parents can change between "Younger," "Older" and parent-approved content at any time.
As always, YouTube encourages parents to block and flag for review any content that they deem to be inappropriate for a child.
The BBC says it has solved a common problem with live sports streaming that caused a lag between broadcast and web streaming.
During the world cup, BBC viewers reported that they often heard neighbors celebrating goals before they saw the goal on their feed. This is fairly common for live streaming of sports and other events. For example, Amazon's broadcast of the US Open recently saw delays of up to 45 seconds.
The issue is difficult to tackle because there are many factors, including the broadband speed of the viewer and the equipment being used to view the content.
According to the BBC, it has found a way to make smaller video segments that can be passed through the system more quickly, resulting in viewers seeing action "at the same time as they would see it if they were watching on TV".
However, the BBC's solution would require the co-operation of the whole broadcasting industry. It is on show at the International Broadcasting Convention in the Netherlands today, and the BBC says it could be ready for prime time for the World Cup in 2022.
A Windows 10 Insiders preview is apparently prompting users when they try to install Chrome or Firefox, pushing Microsoft Edge instead.
Those who are testing the Windows 10 builds noted that when they downloaded Google's Chrome browser or Mozilla's Firefox browser, they were prompted with a message when they tried to run the installers.
"You already have Microsoft Edge - the safer, faster browser for Windows 10," the prompt reads. It then provides the options to Open Microsoft Edge (in blue) or to Install anyway (in gray).
Microsoft has irked some Windows users in the past by pushing Edge over competitors in a variety of ways. For example, at one point Microsoft tried to force Windows Mail to open links in Edge.
Google is set to discontinue its Inbox app just four years after it launched to test new features for e-mail.
Inbox brought about new features like snoozing emails to later and AI-powered experiences like Smart Reply, Nudges and high-priority notifications. In the intervening years, Google has taken what has worked from Inbox and it has added it to its Gmail service to "help more than a billion people get more done with their emails every day."
"As we look to the future, we want to take a more focused approach that will help us bring the best email experience to everyone. As a result, we're planning to focus solely on Gmail and say goodbye to Inbox by Gmail at the end of March 2019." writes Matthew Izatt, product managGmailr GMail.
Popular Inbox features like Smart Compose were introduced to Gmail in April of this year.
Google has provided a transition guide for anyone who needs help to switch from Inbox to the newer GMail service.
Remedy Entertainment's 2010 hit Alan Wake may soon become its own television series.
Alan Wake is an Xbox 360 exclusive that was released in 2010, developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Games. It follows protagonist Alan Wake, a best-selling author, as he investigates his wife's disappearance in the small fictional town of Bright Falls in Washington state.
While looking for his wife, Wake begins to experience supernatural occurrences and event plots from the novel he is working on. He has no prior memory of writing the material.
The title took five years to develop and was created by Sam Lake. Now, Lake has signed on as executive producer for a television adaption of the story. Additionally, Remedy Entertainment announced on Twitter that Peter Calloway (Legion, Cloak and Dagger) will also work on the project.
It is worth remembering that the show still needs to be picked up, and according to Variety, Calloway will begin shopping it around for an interested party in October.
Spotify has significantly increased the number of songs you can download to your mobile or other devices for offline listening.
The music streaming giant allows users to download songs and albums to be locally stored on devices for Offline playback. This is very useful for people who cannot stream Spotify music in certain locations, so they can still enjoy their playlist whilst paying their premium fee.
Previously, Spotify set a limit of 3,333 song downloads on each of three devices, which is quite a high limit. However, that didn't stop some users from eventually pushing up against their limit.
Spotify then quietly raised the song download limit to 10,000 songs per device and raised the device limit to 5. It isn't unlimited of course, but that should solve the problem for most users who ran up against a download limit.
"At Spotify, we're always working on improving the experience for our users. We can now confirm that we have increased the number of offline tracks per device -- from 3,333 on three devices to 10,000 tracks per device for up to five devices," a Spotify spokesperson confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Apple unveiled today the newest generation of iPhones. The flagship models carry the name Xs and Xs Max, and whatever you might think about the names they are beautiful craftsmanship, as you would expect.
We already went through most of the improvements on paper, but let's not kid ourselves, what matters to many is what the iPhones look like. Apple has of course released their own press photos that are aimed to show the new devices in the most glorious of lights.
The official high-resolution press photos of the new iPhone Xs and Xs Max showcase the new and improved camera, the Super Retina displays as well as some of the more important new software features.
Without further ado, here are the iPhone Xs and Xs Max in pictures.
Apple officially unveiled today the new iPhone Xs, and the Xs Max, the new flagship smartphone. But they also had in store one more iPhone, as expected, the iPhone Xr.
This cheap, or rather cheaper, iPhone features a 6.1 inch LCD (instead of OLED in the less affordable models) display that Apple calls Liquid Retina, which, let's be honest, is probably just marketin jargon.
The resolution is a standard Retina definition at 1792 x 828 at 326 PPI which is a far cry from the 458 on the bigger brothers, and there is no 3D Touch found on the iPhone Xr. However, Apple has implemented a longer touch with haptic feedback, called the Haptic Touch, which should work fairly similarly.
The camera is neither on par with the more expensive Xs models, and offers only a single 12 megapixel camera. This camera however does feature an OIS and can even do Portrait mode thanks to some Pixel-like software trickery.
Apple has today unveiled the new generation of iPhones lead by the flagship models iPhone Xs and Xs Max, as expected.
The new models offer upgrades in most respects but most significantly in display, processors and camera. The displays are 5.8 and 6.5 inches OLED panels that offer a resolution of 1125 x 2436 (Xs) or 1242 x 2688 (Xs Max) pixels and a 458 PPI pixel density.
The new displays, Apple calls them Super Retina, also support HDR in both Dolby Vision and HDR10 and include a 120hz touch sensor.
The processor side of things is upgraded by the new A12 Bionic system-on-chip that includes an improved six core big.LITTLE style CPU that provides 40 to 50 percent improvement in efficiency.
The GPU, nowadays Apple-made as well, on the other hand increases the performance up to 50%, and even the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) has been upgraded to 8 cores with improved performance.
The A12 Bionic performance was demonstrated by Bethesda and their new game, Elder Scrolls: Blades, among others.
Camera specs haven't changed much, after all its still mostly the same 12 megapixel dual camera from iPhone X, but Apple promises that the changed under the hood and to the software make it worth the upgrade.
Twitch streamer Dr Disrespect has to abruptly end his streaming after somebody fired a shot at his house.
Guy Beahm was in the middle of streaming his gaming on the Twitch service when he abruptly walked off. He returned visibly shaken and told his viewers that he had to end the streaming for the day because somebody just shot through a window in his house.
"Somebody shot at our house, broke the f*****g upstairs window. This is the second shot. Someone shot yesterday. Someone shot yesterday at our f*****g house, and someone shot again right now," he said.
"It connected with the house upstairs, right? You're driving by, right? You pussy! I gotta stop the stream."
A message on his Twitch page days, "Doc and Family Are Safe. Proper Measures are be taken while stream is down" Meanwhile, authorities confirmed to media that they are investing the incident at his home.
This video shows his reaction (profanity warning!):
TickBox TV has reportedly agreed to pay a $25 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged it promoted copyright infringement.
TickBox TV sells Android boxes, which are low-cost set-top boxes for televisions that run an Android operating system. Owners can install whatever they want on the boxes just like they could with a PC, including software that can allow you to stream unlicensed TV Shows and Movies.
Typically such boxes come with pre-installed software, including the Kodi media center software. Kodi itself is not developed for piracy but through third-party add-on support can be used for that purpose. Sometimes these devices are even advertised as "Kodi boxes", which forced the developers of Kodi to take some legal actions.
TickBox's website initially encouraged users to buy the devices so they could stop "wasting money with online streaming services like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime." After the lawsuit was filed, the language was changed on the website.
As part of an agreement, TickBox has agreed to pay $25 million and to an injunction prohibiting it from present users with options to download add-ons that enable piracy. This does not include Android browser apps including Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or Firefox.
If Google's upcoming Pixel event if all about the Pixel phones it'll certainly be a snooze fest for some significant part of the population. Now that Google even killed the Pixel Watch rumors, there's one less product we were expecting on October 9.
Thankfully Chrome Unboxed has come to lift our moods with some leaked footage of supposedly an upcoming Pixel product.
According to the headline of the video the device shown is either Nocturne or Atlas, both of which as codenames for different versions of Pixelbook 2 in development. If it was just this footage we might not be too hopeful about the prospects of Google unveiling such a thing in four weeks.
However, there are some pictures, including the ones pictured above, that have shown a different version of an updated Pixelbook design. Unfortunately we have no clue which one Google is preparing for the October event and which one (if any) is just a forgotten prototype.
Well, all we're left with is four weeks to wait or, better yet, try and find more evidence for Pixelbook 2. We'll keep you posted.
A popular Android application for pirate TV streams will shut down completely at the end of the month, its developer has confirmed.
In a notification pushed to the users of the app, Terrarium TV developer NitroXenon explained that the service will be shutting down completely at the end of the month. It was a very popular app that used file locker services to stream TV shows to viewers.
It didn't require any significant knowhow from users to watch content on the app, as is not always the case with some other forms of streaming options.
Dear all,
It has always been a great pleasure to work on this project. However, it is time to say goodbye. I am going to shut down Terrarium TV, forever.
I know this day will come eventually. I know it would be hard to let go. But it is really time for me to move on to other projects.
Thank you for all your support through the years. Thanks to all Terrarium TV supporters and communities. Thank you, Nic, and all the people around the world who care about this project.
Please note that you will not be able to open the Terrarium TV app after the end of September as the app will close itself automatically. Please NO NOT try to click the Update button because it will not download any new version of the app.
Rockstar has explained why its upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2 does not allow you to switch between multiple protagonists like Grand Theft Auto V.
The latest in the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA V, was released in late 2013. It allows users to switch on-the-fly between three separate protagonists whose stories criss-cross throughout the campaign. GTA fans were wondering if Rockstar's hotly anticipated Western, Red Dead Redemption 2, would feature the same multi-character setup.
Josh Bass, art director at Rockstar San Diego, has poured cold water on any multiple protagonist hopes.
"Sticking with a single character felt more appropriate for the structure and narrative of a western," Bass told the Hollywood Reporter.
"Arthur lives with and fights alongside the other members of the Van der Linde gang, and they are a group of fully realized characters with relationships to each other and to Arthur, but this is Arthur's story and we are placing players firmly in Arthur's boots as he and the gang deal with a rapidly changing world,' he added. 'We think people will really love the feeling of being in the gang. It isn't like anything we've done before."
The upcoming Nintendo Switch Online service won't support cloud saves for all games due to concerns about cheating.
The official page for the Splatoon 2 starter pack was found to have a message at the end saying, "this game does not support Save Data Cloud backup." Later on, more pages were found to have the same information, including FIFA 19, Dead Cells, Pokemon Let's Go! Pikachu, Pokemon Let's Go! Eevee and Dark Souls: Remastered.
Nintendo explained the lack of cloud save for some titles as follows.
"In certain games, this feature would make it possible to, for example, regain items that had been traded to other players, or revert to a higher online multiplayer ranking that had been lost," the statement reads.
As for Splatoon 2, the lack of cloud saves was "to ensure that Save Data Cloud backups cannot be used to unfairly affect online multiplayer rankings."
Nintendo Switch Online is launching this month for a monthly fee of $20. It will be the only way to backup saves for Nintendo Switch titles.
A Kodi Addon developer in the UK may be facing a judgment of almost $2 million in a lawsuit brought against him by U.S. satellite provider Dish Network.
The developer, Shani, had been sued by Dish because his ZemTV addon offered unauthorized streams of television channels. While Dish claimed that the addon was responsible for the unauthorized broadcast of thousands of infringing works, it focused on just thirteen for the lawsuit.
It is not seeking a default judgment of $150,000 per work, amounting to $1,950,000. The request comes as the Kodi Addon developer has given up defending himself, citing high costs.
Last week, Dish Network dismissed its lawsuit against the founder of TVAddons.
"Defendant infringed DISH's copyrights on a massive scale by retransmitting the Protected Channels without authorization on ZemTV. Defendant transmitted the Protected Channels on ZemTV for at least 16 months from February 2016 through June 2017," Dish informs the Texas federal court.
"Defendant's clear willfulness and the strong need for deterrence, as shown by ongoing infringement in the face of numerous notices of infringement and intent to operate his service on the basis of stealing others' intellectual property, justifies an award of $150,000 per work. The Court should grant this motion and hold Defendant liable for damages in the amount of $1,950,000 and enter a permanent injunction, which is necessary to protect DISH's copyrights from further infringement."
Reports had suggested that the U.S. Air Force was looking into Elon Musk's marijuana use on a podcast with Joe Rogan on Thursday.
Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, which is a U.S. government contractor and has launched classified payloads for the United States government. As such, Mr. Musk has a security clearance. On Friday, news reports suggested that the U.S. Air Force was looking into Musk's marijuana smoking on Joe Rogan's podcast as its use is prohibited by those with government security clearances.
Musk joined Joe Rogan for an episode of the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience. During the podcast, Musk drank whiskey with the host and accepted an offer to take a hit from a blunt passed to him by Rogan. "I mean, it's legal isn't it?" Musk said before smoking. In California, it is legal but the federal level is a different story.
In a quite interesting podcast, Musk and Rogan talked about the dangers of artificial intelligence, the threat of digging ancient CO2 from the Earth and putting it in the atmosphere and oceans, the violent nature of chimpanzees, boring tunnels, the unsuitability of flying cars and so much more.
A fully redesigned Twitch Beta app is being rolled out to all Xbox Insides on Xbox One.
Among the new features and improvements for the designed app are:
Live video previews – check out live streams while you browse
Better support for past broadcasts – see chat on offline videos
Improved stability – the Twitch app has been rebuilt from the ground up to improve your viewing experience
If you are an Xbox Insider, you can participate by launching the Xbox Insider Hub (or install the Insider Hub from the Store first if you don't have it), navigate to Insider content -> Apps -> Twitch Beta. Select Join. Once the registration process finishes you will be redirected to the Store page to install the Twitch Beta.
Netflix users are complaining about problems with streaming media from the service today.
Some users have taken to social media to ask if others are having issues with the service when trying to stream certain films. For example, one Twitter user posted a screenshot of their Netflix app informing them that The Purge: Election Year is currently not available to stream.
Netflix' own 'Is Netflix Down?' site doesn't appear to be showing any problems. Oddly, the Downdetector service is showing the United Kingdom mainland, and parts of Europe, as experience outage issues.
Elon Musk's Boring Company has shown how it controls a massive boring machine with an Xbox One controller.
The Boring Company is digging tunnels underneath Los Angeles as Mr. Musk looks for ways to ease traffic congestion in LA. What started off as a kind of joke became an actual company that made headlines by selling a 'not a flamethrower' product to thousands of consumers some months ago.
Boring's latest giant machine can apparently be controlled by a standard Xbox One controller, which is kind of interesting. It also makes sense as the Xbox One controller can easily map controls to the gamepad, so there's no need to design a new gamepad.
Here's a video posted by The Boring Company showing how it looks.
Apple has confirmed that it has also removed Alex Jones' InfoWars app from its app store, citing community guidelines.
Last month, several outlets including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Facebook, and YouTube, removed Alex Jones' podcast content and associated accounts. The actions were clearly coordinated and the firms cited community guidelines and violations of rules as reasons for the actions.
At the time, InfoWars fans could still access the content by downloading the Infowars app from the App Store. Apple has now confirmed that it also removed the Infowars app permanently, citing community guidelines violations related to the content accessible in the app.
The Infowars Official app is still available to download from the Play Store for Android for the time being.
Last week, Twitter had also banned Infowars and Alex Jones from its platform. Initially, Twitter had not taken part in the coordinated actions, with CEO Jack Dorsey explaining that the accounts had not violated Twitter's rules. Some more recent tweets were seen to fall foul of the rules and Twitter reacted.
Biometric sensors have been one of the more innovated areas of smartphones in the past few years. Ever since we got fingerprint sensors, we have been looking at ways to unlock the phone with less effort, more precision and security.
Face unlock is one of the newer iterations of that development and can be either fast and not-so-secure or secure and no-so-fast. Also the latter configuration at this point requires quite a bit of notch space.
Fingerprint sensor would be nice, but you either have to place it in the back, or reserve space from the "chin" which isn't really up to par these days. Fortunately there's a new way to make a fingerprint sensor, and that is to embed it under the thin layer of display.
This application has been demonstrated by a few Chinese smartphone manufacturers, and even produced now in fairly high quantity for mostly their local market. However, it has not yet made its way to the West, and we aren't really expecting Google or Apple to change that with the new generation of smartphones.
Thankfully a Chinese manufacturer by the name of OnePlus, a lesser known entity here in the US but a growing force in the EU market, is bringing its upcoming OnePlus 6T to the US with a carrier partner, T-Mobile.
Mobile analytics firm tefficient has once again released its mobile data usage stats from all around the world. Monthly data usage continues to skyrocket, across the world. But there are massive differences between countries and operators.
The most mobile bandwidth hungry users can found from Finland, where all three major operators were ranked among the top 10 in terms of mobile data consumed per user. The #1 spot in the world goes to Finnish operator DNA. DNA's users used a whopping 19.8GB of data per user, per month, during the first half of 2018.
To put this into comparison, the top operator in the United States (in terms of mobile data used per month) was U.S. Cellular, whose users used, on average 2.1GB of mobile data each month.
After Finland's DNA, the number two operator in the world was Zain Kuwait. Zain's users in Kuwait used 15.7GB data each month, but that figure is based on 2017 data. The third place in the ranking chart goes to 3 Austria. 3's users in Austria used 18.4GB of data in H1 of 2018 (up from 15.4GB in 2017).
DNA, just like all other major Finnish operators, offers unlimited, unmetered mobile deals with fixed monthly fee. Typically only the bandwidth tier effects the price, with typical bandwidth tiers starsting from 100Mbps. As the monthly cost of mobile data connection is typically significantly lower than that of fixed DSL line, many people get mobile connections also as their primary home internet connections in Finland. Same is true also for most other countries making it to the top: fixed, relatively cheap prices and (virtually) no bandwidth or data caps whatsoever.
Roomba e5 is the latest robot vacuum cleaner from American iRobot. New line of Roomba robots promises better cleaning than its predecessors - and the problems with bristles getting stuck with rugs and carpets, shouldn't be a problem anymore.
iRobot launched the e5 and its more expensive sibling, Roomba i7+ just couple of days ago and shipments are starting on 12th of September, 2018. iRobot's Nordic partner sent us a test unit, which we will test in depth in next couple of weeks.
Roomba e5 is the cheaper one of the two new models, MSRP set to $449 in the U.S. Obviously, even at that price range, the e5 is much more expensive than some lesser known competitors. But as the term "roomba" is virtually a synonymous to the robot vacuum cleaners, it is also the device that all other robot vacuums should be tested against.
Despite the full in-depth review still in the horizon, we thought it might be a worth to take a quick look at Roomba e5 now that get our hands on it.
In technology industry, especially the smartphone part of it, the upcoming month will be perhaps the most important 30 days of the year.
Both Apple and Google are going to be introducing the newest generation of smartphones and probably some accompanying equipment like smartwatches and accessories.
While Microsoft is no longer really an entity in the smartphone race, and nowadays it just tries to spread its software wisdom as wide as possible, meaning both Android and iOS are getting more and more Microsoft-branded applications, it has squeezes itself in the 30 days period with its own hardware launch.
Redmond has sent out an invite proposing journalists and influencers give the company aptly a "moment of your time." They seem to realize that the press is going crazy after iPhones, iPads and Pixels over the next month, and they modestly just want a little bit of your precious time.
Microsoft's October event is held on October 2nd in New York City, just couple weeks after the iPhone launch and a week before Google's Pixel event. And it's not even that clear what Microsoft will unveil, although one could guess a new Surface Book 2 and a refreshed version of Surface Laptop.
Elon Musk sits down for a two and a half hour discussion with Joe Rogan, and it doesn't disappoint in the slightest.
It has been a strange few weeks for Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. He has come under scrutiny for disparaging remarks about a British cave diver, has been the subject of an SEC investigation over a tweet and is targeted in multiple lawsuits from short sellers who blame him for the loss of millions of dollars.
That made it all the more surprising when Elon announced earlier that he would join Joe Rogan on his podcast this week. The Joe Rogan Experience is a long-form podcast that routinely hits the three-hour mark with guests from all backgrounds and disciplines. Marijuana has certainly helped the cause for the host over the years.
It was no surprise when Joe Rogan sparked up a fat blunt during the podcast, but it was a surprise when he passed it to Elon.
"You probably can't because of stockholders, right?" Joe asked, to which Elon responded, "I mean, it's legal right?" and then proceeded to take a hit. It is legal of course, in California. Later on, Musk starts receiving messages from friends on his phone asking him why he is smoking weed on Joe Rogan's show live on the Internet.
The latest official YouTube app for Android has gotten a new Dark Theme and you can easily switch to it.
Google previously revealed that it will release versions of its popular mobile apps with a dark theme. This follows a trend of mobile apps turning "dark", but of course it won't happen by default when the app updates are pushed out. Instead, you may be prompted to try out the dark side when you get an update.
If you were prompted to try out Dark Mode but declined for some reason, you can very easily enable Dark Theme in the latest official YouTube app in just a few steps.
How to manually enable Dark Theme in YouTube for Android:
Step 1: Open the YouTube app and tap your account/profile icon in the top right-hand corner as shown.
Step 2: From your account/profile options, tap the Settings option as shown.
Step 3: Tap on General Settings.
STEP 4: Toggle On "Enable Dark Theme" as shown and the app will instantly turn Dark.
What if I have no option for Dark Theme? If the option to toggle Dark Theme on/off is not present in the Settings, then you are likely running an out of date version of the app. You need to have YouTube v13.35.51 for the Dark Theme. You can manually update directly from Google Play if an auto-update hasn't occurred yet.
Twitter announced today that it too has permanently banned Alex Jones from its platform, along with his Infowars media outlet.
Last month, Twitter came under fire for not joining a coordinated take-down of content and accounts related to Alex Jones and Infowars. Facebook, Spotify, and Apple all removed podcasts and accounts alleging terms of use violations and other things. At the time, Twitter was questioned for its decision to leave accounts belonging to Jones and Infowars on its platform.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explained simply that the accounts had not violated Twitter's guidelines and terms and service and so there were no grounds for their removal.
Citing recent tweets and content that violate Twitter's abusive behavior policy, both Alex Jones and his Infowars media outlet have been booted from the service permanently. The platform announced the action in a tweet from its Twitter Safety account.
Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts' past violations. https://t.co/gckzUAV8GL
Amazon has announced the new Amazon Fire HD 8 low-cost tablet with an 8-inch display and quad-core processor for $79.99.
The new Amazon Fire HD 8 packs an 8-inch widescreen 1280 x 800 high definition display and a quad-core 1.3 GHz processor under the hood. It also packs 1.5 GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. Through the use of microSD, storage can be expanded to up to 400GB.
This tablet introduces always-ready, hands-free access with Alexa. When connected to Wi-Fi, ask Alexa to play a song, read aloud an Audible book, launch an app, or control video playback.
Amazon markets the new tablet as providing up to 10 hours of reading, listening to music, watching TV shows or movies, browsing the web, and more. You can ask Alexa to video call a friend or family member, adjust the room temperature on your compatible smart home thermostat, or show your compatible smart home camera.
HTC has opened up its Viveport store to its biggest competitor in the VR field, the Oculus Rift.
Users of the Facebook-owned VR headset can now go to HTC's Viveport store and purchase apps and games that are compatible with their hardware. For now, that is not too many with only two hundred or so of the available apps and games in the Viveport digital store being compatible with the Oculus Rift.
Having another venue to purchase from is good for comparison shopping and for device compatibility with online digital retailers going forward.
It also means that Oculus Rift owners should be able to take part in the Viveport subscription model which allows access to unlimited games and apps in exchange for a monthly fee, with a 12-month plan setting you back $80.
Microsoft is making it possible to control your Xbox One console using Cortana and Alexa voice commands.
For Kinect users and those with compatible headsets, controlling an Xbox console with voice commands is nothing all that new. However, for those who never had Kinect and work with Alexa or Cortana-enabled devices, the new Xbox Skill will be welcomed.
It allows users to interact with Xbox One using voice commands through your Cortana and Alexa-enabled devices. Compatible devices include a Windows 10 PC, Amazon Echo, Harman Kardon Invoke, Sonos One, or Cortana and Alexa apps on iOS and Android.
For the time being, the Xbox Skill feature is only available to those who are part of the Insider preview. Once working, you could just say "Alexa, start Rocket League." and this command will automatically turn on your console, sign you in, and launch your game.
If the Digital Assistant setting is visible on your console in Settings -> Devices, then you are currently eligible to test the Xbox Skill.
To take part with Cortana, use this link from your Windows PC. For Alexa, use this link instead.
The U.S. Department of Justice is to charge a North Korean hacker with involvement in the 2014 Sony breach, and the WannaCry malware that spread last year.
The Justice Department also claims that the hacker is responsible for a 2016 breach of the central bank of Bangladesh.
In late 2014, a massive data breach at Sony Pictures resulted in the leaking of sensitive information and the destruction of some data. The U.S. alleged that the hack was in retaliation for the pending release of The Interview, which was about a U.S. plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Last year, a separate malware attack affected business and government systems around the world. The WannaCry attack has long been linked to North Korea. In the UK, thousands of appointments under the British National Health Service were canceled because WannaCry made computers nonfunctional.
Taking a screenshot is a good way to share stuff you encounter when browsing the net or social media. But every phone tends have different method for taking screenshots. In this guide, we'll explain how to take a screenshot with OnePlus 6 phone.
OnePlus 6 has two build-in methods for taking screenshots. We'll go through both of those methods here:
Screenshot using OnePlus 6's buttons
Probably the most common way to take a screenshot is to use phone's physical buttons. Here's how it works:
Ensure that all the content you want to capture, is visible in the phone's screen
Now, press both, the power button and the volume down button pressed for couple of seconds. The power button is located at the right side of the phone and the volume buttons are located on the device's left side.
Your phone's screen will now flash and the screenshot you took appears for short period in middle of the screen.
When the screenshot is visible on the screen, below it, there's the sharing symbol visible. By clicking that, you can directly share the taken screenshot to your contacts.
Taken screenshot will also be available in your phone's Photo Gallery, even if you didnät manage to share it at the time of taking the screenshot.
Three-finger gesture
OnePlus's latest models also include a support for so-called three-finger gesture for taking screenshots. Using this method should be available (however, if not, you can check the gesture's status in phone's settings).
More voices mount against proposed copyright law changes at the European Union level, with activist Cory Doctorow describing it as an 'extinction-level event'.
The European Parliament will vote on two controversial articles that it previously voted against fast-tracking amid concerns from activists. The articles - Article 11 and Article 13 - are part of a wider reform of the European Union's Copyright Directive which affects all 28 members of the bloc, soon to reduce to 27 with the departure of the United Kingdom.
Both articles mount enormous challenges to the web the way it is now. Article 11 would create a "link tax" which would ban online services from linking to news services on their platforms unless they get a license to make links to the news. Neither "news service", or "link" is defined by the Article, meaning different states will have to interpret the meaning.
Article 13 is more of a shock to the modern Internet, however. It directly affects services that allow user-generated content to be uploaded and hosted. Such uploads would have to be run through a copyright enforcement algorithm to be compared to copyrighted works and censor the material if a match is found.
According to Pew Research, American Facebook users are responding to privacy concerns on Facebook in a variety of ways right up uninstalling the app altogether.
A survey of U.S. users between May 29 and June 11 has provided a look at how American Facebook users have responded to revelations like the Cambridge Analytica affair. More than half (54 percent) of Facebook users aged 18 and older have changed their privacy settings in the past twelve months.
The share of users who have decided to take long breaks away from the service (several weeks or more) is reported at around 42 percent. Just over a quarter of the users, 26 percent, say they have deleted the Facebook app from their mobiles devices.
Almost three-quarters of surveyed users (76 percent) say they have taken at least one of the above actions in the past year.
Facebook made it easier to download the data that they have collected on users, but only around 9 percent of respondents say they have downloaded their data.
More information on the survery, including methodology, can be seen at www.pewresearch.org (PDF)
Twitter chief Jack Dorsey has admitted to U.S. lawmakers that Twitter's algorithms have not always been impartial and that the social media firm has made mistakes.
Dorsey was answering questions from U.S. Senators amid allegations that Twitter has censored or reduced the visibility of conservative users and organizations on its platform. Similar sentiments have been expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
While Dorsey admitted that the platform had unfairly reduced the visibility of 600,000 accounts, including members of the United States Congress, it was not the result of a political ideology. Instead, Dorsey explained that a Twitter algorithm had punished some Twitter accounts because of the behavior of their followers, and that Twitter fixed the issue when it was discovered.
He could not say whether a majority of affected users were Democrat, Republican or otherwise. "Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules,"said Mr. Dorsey.
Allegations of censorship have been made against Twitter for a variety of reasons. Users have claimed that shadowbanning is common, as well as tweets disappearing from search results.
Netflix has released a teaser for the new House of Cards season that will not feature Kevin Spacey in the role of Frank Underwood.
In the 19 seconds-long teaser we see the fate of the character of Frank Underwood, who rose to the office of President of the United States through sinister means. Frank's wife, Claire, is seen addressing the grave of the now-former President. His grave is located alongside that of his Frank's father - the same grave he urinated on in the second season of the show.
Allegations of misconduct against Kevin Spacey resulted in the production of House of Cards being halted, but its final season is returning without him and with his wife assuming the office of President after his death.
Skype has added call recording to most of its latest versions enabling you to record audio and video calls.
Call recording is completely cloud-based and is now available on the latest version of Skype and on most platforms, except Windows 10. Call recording is coming to Windows 10 with the latest version of Skype releasing in the coming weeks.
As soon as you begin recording a call in Skype, all participants will be notified that the call is being recorded with a bar that appears on the app. The app also suggests that verbally notify users that they are being recorded to avoid legal hassles later.
Recorded calls are stored in the cloud for thirty days but you can download them for posterity if you wish.
On Desktop apps, the option to start recording is available when you click the + icon on the bottom right of the screen. Likewise, on mobile, tap the + icon and you get an option to Start Recording.
After the call, the recording is finalized and then posted to your chat where it is available for 30 days. You and everyone on the call can save the recording locally or share the recording to your contacts any time during the 30 days.
To save a call on Desktop, go to More Options and then select Save to Downloads. You can also select Save As if you want to choose the destination folder. It will save as an MP4 file. On mobile, just tap and hold the recorded call in the chat. When the menu is displayed, tap Save. The recording will automatically download and save to your device's camera roll as an MP4 file.
Instagram is working on a standalone shopping application according to a report by The Verge.
The Verge cites sources in reporting that the new app would let users browser collections of goods from merchants that they follow on the social network and purchase them directly within the app. According to the sources, it could be called "IG Shopping".
Instagram already started testing a shopping feature in November 2016 where merchants could tag posts with individual products and enable users to shop directly from photos.
According to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, more than 25 million businesses have Instagram accounts already with 2 million of them being advertisers.
The report did not suggest when such an application may launch as the development is still very much underway, and there is the possibility that it could be canceled outright before it is released.
Such a move would launch Instagram into the e-commerce market in direct competition with Shopify and others.
Once again, policymakers in the European Union will be voting on very controversial Copyright Directive that could drastically change the web.
During the summer, critics of the copyright reforms and advocates for free speech and expression scored a victory when Members of the European Parliament rejected plans to fast-track the new copyright directive. However, a new pivotal vote approaches on September 12 and rights' groups, tech firms, and others are sounding the alarm.
Article 13 in particular raised concerns because of its focus on content platforms that allow user-generated content to be hosted and accessed. It refers to such platforms as "information society service providers", or ISSPs.
In essence, it would turn those platforms into a kind of copyright police. Some critics go further than that in their analysis of its effects. For example, the Open Rights Group's Mike Morel says it would make those firms copyright enforcers and have them effectively policing speech.
This would happen because those platforms could become liable for user content, meaning they would have to introduce general monitoring for all user content and use automated filters. It would, undoubtedly, result in the over-blocking of user content.
Google's Chrome browser turned ten years old this past weekend, and Google is celebrating by revamping the browsers appearance and beefing it up.
New appearances for Chrome will be present across Desktop, Android and iOS. On all three, immediately evident is more rounded shapes, new icons and a new color palette. The shape of tabs has been changed so that website icons are more prominent for easier identification and switching.
On iOS, the toolbar has been relocated to the bottom of the screen. Prompts, menus and more have also been changed a bit on all platforms.
On the productivity and security side, Google Chrome now has stronger password manager functionality. Chrome can now more accurately pre-load your passwords, addresses, credit card information and so forth. This sensitive info is synced to your Google account. Chrome also will now generate a super-strong password for you when you sign up to a new website and keep the strong password in your account. This is to enhanced your security by discouraging the use of the same password for multiple services.
Another big change is to the Chrome search / url bar, which is called Omnibox. From now on, the Omnibox will display answwers to queries right in the suggestions. Searching for a website in the Omnibox that is already open in a tab will produce a "jump to tab" feature, which is wonderful news for tab hoarders.
Esports cannot be part of the Olympic Games because they are too violent, according to the President of the International Olympic Committee.
"If you have egames where it's about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values," Thomas Bach, said. He made the comments at the Asian Games, where Esports is being included as a demonstration event for the first time.
Esports has an estimated audience of 320 million and growing globally. It is projected to hit $1 billion in global revenue by 2020.
"It has to fit the spirit and the value of the Olympics. The content should not be violent," Bach said, reports the BBC News website. "Blood in video games is the problem. The line to violence can be blurry but when it comes to blood it's easy to define."
Mr Bach won a team gold medal for West Germany at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec.
Amazon has become the second firm to reach a $1 trillion market valuation after Apple reached the milestone a month ago.
The online retail giant's shares briefly reached a high of $2050.2677 as its total market value soared over $1 trillion. At the current rate, Amazon is set to overtake Apple which reached the trillion dollar valuation milestone on August 3 this year.
In the past 15 months, Amazon's stock price has doubled as investors have been impressed by the company's diverse business success. Amazon has pushed into almost every area of retail as well as digital streaming, financial services and cloud computing. Amazon's cloud services accounted for 20 percent of total revenue (55 percent of operating income) in Q2, 2018.
It took Amazon 21 years as a public company to reach a $1 trillion valuation, having gone public in 1997 at $1.50 on a split-adjusted basis. Jeff Bezos originally founded Amazon as an online book retailer in 1994 and ran it out of his garage.
Apple was a public company for 38 years before reaching last month's historic valuation. Amazon's revenue is expected to grow by 32 percent this year, ahead of a 14.9 percent prediction for Apple.
WhatsApp, the more-than-billion-users messaging app, updated its iOS version today. But this is the first update that wont be available to iPhone 4 users.
WhatsApp stated that the new update is the first that will require iOS 9 or newer, meaning that iPhone 4 is now officially one of the unsupported devices from now on.
WhatsApp has also stated that the messaging platform's support for iOS 8 and iOS 7 will cease completely by February 1st, 2020. This means that while users of iPhone 4 and earlier models can still install previous versions of WhatsApp, even those will cease working in 2020.
The latest WhatsApp for iOS version is now v2.18.90. New version adds warnings about suspicious links, bigger preview for GIF animations and ability to search from status updates.
Skype is working to simplify the user experience again by removing new social media-like features that didn't catch on with users.
Over time, Skype expanded from being a voice call service to adding support for video chats, group chats and more. It also incorporated features similar to social media giants like Snapchat and Instagram. For example, "Highlights" resembled Snapchat's Stories.
However, these features didn't really resonate with many Skype users. Those who would be interested in such features were probably already using them on other platforms and saw Skype as a messaging, voice and video chat service exclusively.
Skype has cut the features in its latest update, though users have until September 30 to download their Highlights if they want to. On Mobile, the new update focused on the fundamentals of why most people use Skype--to make a call (often with video) and/or send a message.
"Our new navigation model removes redundant and underused features that create clutter--making it much easier to find the people you want to talk to and contact them in an instant. On mobile we are moving to three buttons at the bottom of the app--Chats, Calls, and Contacts. Removing Highlights and Capture provides a cleaner and more efficient user interface (UI) that is easy to navigate while still providing all the functionality Skype customers want."
Microsoft has confirmed that the next major update for the Windows 10 operating system will arrive in October this year.
This is a month later than had been predicted, which isn't so bad. The update will be Windows 10 OS version 1809, with the official name being "Windows 10 October 2018 update", unsurprisingly.
Among the known feature changes or additions in the forthcoming Windows 10 update are a cloud-powered clipboard which will synchronize content copied to the clipboard across multiple devices.
It also introduces a dark-theme for File Explorer and improvements to the Windows Game Bar and Microsoft Edge web browser.
There will of course be fixes for common issues, such as the green screen error reported on logout or shutdown reported with some versions of the OS.
Development of the update is scheduled to finish in September.
It may be the biggest selling games console in history, but Sony Japan has finally said goodbye to the PlayStation 2.
The PlayStation 2 (PS2) console was released in Japan in March 2000. Production of the classic console ceased fully in 2012, but in Japan Sony was still servicing the aging console for its customer base at the PlayStation Clinic center in Iwate Prefecture.
Recently, Sony reached out to PS2 owners in Japan to fill out online forms by August 31 to have their console fixed one last time. Customer support for the PS2 officially ended the same date.
PS2 consoles that do not arrived by September 7 will not be serviced.
Given the PS2 is now 18 years old, it is admirable that Sony centers in Japan kept up repair and servicing operations until now.
The music industry has its sights set on the high number of websites and mobile apps that enable users to download the music from YouTube videos.
Such sites and apps can take a YouTube URL and provide a download link directly for an MP3 file. These tools can be used to make unauthorized copies of music from music videos on the world's largest video portal. Some sites include support for others including SoundCloud, DailyMotion and Vimeo.
Last week, MP3Fiber was one such service that shut down due to legal threats, but many options are still available. Services an apps tend to carry advertising, which some in the industry say allows them to earn money by enabling copyright infringement.
"Although coordinated action by the record industry is delivering results, with major platforms like YouTube-mp3 closed down, we must continue to act against illegal sites that build huge fortunes by ripping off artists and labels," Geoff Taylor, head of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), told The Independent.
"We hope that responsible advertisers, search engines and hosting providers will also reflect on the ethics of supporting sites that enrich themselves by defrauding creators."
Redbox has been blocked from selling digital download codes for some of Disney's movie releases.
Last week, a federal judge sided with Disney in a dispute with Redbox. The firm has clashed with Disney in court in the past over sales of Disney's download codes for digital copies of films. Initially, Disney argued that Redbox was engaged in copyright infringement by encouraging customers to make unauthorized copies of its films.
Redbox acquired the download codes in coupons after it mass purchased Disney DVD combo packs. It would sell the digital download code separately. Disney protested that the DVD boxes come with a clear message that the codes are not for re-sale or for transfer.
In February, Judge Dean Pregerson found that the wording on the packs was not explicit enough to prohibit Redbox from re-selling the codes after it purchased the DVDs.
With the release of Black Panther, Disney has updated the wording to assert that Disney owns the digital copy and licenses it to the buyer of the DVD only. On Thursday, Judge Pregerson granted an injunction against the resale of the codes.
Apple has quietly added a new page to their support site which issues a replacement program for iPhone 8 devices. The callback is issued specifically for a small percentage of normal-sized iPhone 8 models suffering from a defect in the logic board.
According to Apple, a very small percentage of iPhone 8 devices, not including any iPhone 8 Plus devices, contain logic boards with a manufacturing defect. The company will fix, by replacing, the faulty devices for free.
Devices with faulty logic board may experience sudden reboots and freezes or might not turn on. Apple's assessment about the percentage is easy to believe since we haven't had a massive outcry on social media about such problems.
If you've bought your device between September 2017 and March 2018 in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, or the U.S., you should head to the support page where you'll be able to enter the serial number to check whether yours might be affected by the defect.
Google's upcoming Pixel event has yet to be announced officially, so there is still time for some rumors and speculation. We of course already know that Google will unveil the new Google Pixel 3 phones, but what else might we be getting?
Rumors from few months back have suggested that Google would be releasing the Pixel Watch, a smartwatch to accompany Pixel smartphones. This wouldn't be a surprise at all, especially since Apple is planning to announce new version of theirs in less than two weeks.
Apparently this isn't the case after all. Google has put down the rumors for good in an interview with Tom's Guide. Google's Miles Barr has said that Google is not going to unveil their own smartwatch this year, and instead is just focusing on developing Wear OS.
Wear OS is of course Google's mobile operating system for wearables, so mainly smartwatches, activity trackers, and such.
According to Barr Google is not ready to join the race because there doesn't seem to be a way to make a single product for everyone. Reading between Barr's lines also seems to reveal that Google might want a more advanced Google Assistant before jumping into smartwatches.
Apple's upcoming iPhone launch event has been confirmed for September 12, and in fact we've already seen the first pictures of the upcoming iPhones.
However, there are more than iPhones to be released. Apple is preparing the launch of a new Apple Watch and perhaps even new iPads. The latter we haven't seen yet, but a leaked picture revealed what the upcoming new generation of Apple Watches has in store.
The picture doesn't reveal everything about the new device but it does give us a few details about the smartwatch. First of all is the most obvious difference: the display. Apple has enlarged the display to more or less meet the edges unlike the previous generations.
This means probably not only larger display but better resolution which is why the watch face looks so much more busy. There will be other watch faces, as we know, but thankfully this one gives us a glimpse of a new feature that we haven't seen before.
Apple seems to have implemented a UVI gauge into the watch face. UVI stands of course for UV index, or ultraviolet index, and measures how much ultraviolet radiation reaches the surface of the earth at any given time or place. UVI is an important tool to determine when it is necessary to apple sunscreen to avoid sunburn.
Microsoft is preparing another significant update to its desktop operating system. According to Microsoft's appearance at Berlin's IFA conference the update should be shipping in October.
The version, formerly known as Redstone 5, has been named, well what do you know, October 2018 Update. The aptly named update will be bringing all kinds of changes to Windows 10, including new features, some UI updates, and of course plenty of fixes.
We, of course, are most interested about the new features. Those include a long-awaited cloud-based clipboard, that helps you store clipboard contents and move them across devices. Another new feature is the dark theme for File Explorer, which is probably going to make a lot of people happy.
The Snipping Tool and Microsoft Edge will also get major updates, and the Xbox Game Bar will be improved with new performance details.
Microsoft has also already started developing the update after this one, which is codenamed 19H1, and is thus expected in the first half of 2019, aimed for a April release. There are, however, no details about what that might bring along.
Yesterday Facebook released a statement about a security breach that had affected tens of millions of Facebook users. According to the social media giant the hackers got some user information from up 50 million users.
Facebook has just revealed that it has detected a security issue that has affected tens of millions of accounts.
Elon Musk, the visionary behind Tesla, SpaceX and most recently The Boring Company, has been sued by the U.S. government over tweets posted last month.
