Miscellaneous Tech News
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Polar Ignite review: Clever fitness perks marred by too many compromises
It's a powerful fitness watch, but the $229 Ignite misses the mark as a smartwatch.
Polar has had some catching up to do in the smartwatch space as Fitbit, Garmin, and Apple continuously improve upon and release new products. Polar has always had solid wearable options for serious athletes, but now the new Ignite smartwatch wants to reach a wider group of users. At $229, the Polar Ignite is more affordable than the Vantage M or V smartwatches, but it has more capabilities as a GPS watch than something like Polar's A370 fitness band. It's also more attractive and versatile thanks to a round, lightweight case and interchangeable bands. It seemingly provides a good balance of style and fitness prowess like Garmin's Vivoactive 3 or Fitbit's Versa does, but spending a week wearing the Ignite has proven that Polar should have paid more attention to small yet crucial details that can make or break a $229 smartwatch. -
Apple releases macOS 10.14.6 Supplemental Update to fix sleeping Macs
This is one of the last macOS updates we'll see before Catalina.
It was just over a week ago that Apple released macOS 10.14.6, but the company has already pushed out a Supplemental Update. Released today, the update fixes a heretofore not-widely-known issue involving sleep mode on Macs. Typically, when Apple releases an OS update, it updates its security page with details about security changes and fixes that it chooses to disclose. But there's no entry for that today—the only entry on the security update tracker for today is for iCloud for Windows 10.6.1. But even that "has no published CVE entries." -
Google confirms “Play Pass” subscription service for Android apps
Screenshots show $4.99 a month service for "hundreds" of apps and games.
Google is testing a new "Play Pass" subscription service for the Google Play Store. The company confirmed testing of the new service to Android Police, after the site was sent screenshots of the subscription service by a user.
Screenshots show the service would have users sign up right inside the Play Store, allowing them to pay a monthly fee for access to "Hundreds of premium apps and games." The promo mentions "no purchases, no ads, and in-app purchases unlocked" for "a curated catalog spanning puzzle games to premium music apps and everything in between." -
Google publishes sustainability plan for hardware, but its impact is uncertain
The tech giant added new sustainability targets, but their value is hard to gauge.
Google says it is embarking on new plans to make its hardware greener. Anna Meegan, head of sustainability for consumer hardware at Google, wrote a blog post outlining the company’s goals for improving the environmental impact made by its devices.
Google’s sustainability commitments include making 100% of shipments to or from customers carbon neutral by 2020 and including recycled materials in 100% of Made by Google products starting in 2022. The industry giant also wants to maximize the amount of recycled content wherever possible. The final commitment is a more general statement that Google “will make technology that puts people first and expands access to the benefits of technology.” -
8chan is all the way down—“It’s DNS. It’s always DNS.”
To find the what, why, and where of a dead site, you start with its DNS.
Earlier today in the Ars Technica staff Slack channel, a call went out—"is 8chan down for other people? I can't get it to load anymore." This brings up the interesting question of how to check where and why a site might be down, as well as whether it can even load for anyone.
But first a little background.
When Cloudflare finally had enough of 8chan and fired it, the site—notoriously a haven for mass shooters and their fans—immediately jumped ship for BitMitigate, the same CDN that hosts far-right white nationalist site The Daily Stormer. The site also changed DNS and Web hosting to Epik, which is the parent company to BitMitigate and the host of far-right social media platform Gab. -
I guess that's a step or two better than SMS messages, but really - no OTP option?
Now to see if they have already solved the single account issue (In the past I tried setting up a billing account and an admin account and was told by support that wasn't an option).
2FA without multiple accounts seems like a crazy risk.
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AT&T Workers Installed Malware on Company Network for Cash
A Pakistani man paid more than $1 million in bribes to AT&T workers, who installed malware on AT&T's internal computers so the man could unlock more than 2 million phones.
For five years, several AT&T employees were conspiring with a Pakistani man to install malware on company computers so that man could unlock millions of smartphones subsidized by the carrier, according to federal investigators. On Tuesday, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Muhammad Fahd for bribing AT&T employees at a call center in Washington state to pull off the scheme. According to the feds, Fahd allegedly paid more than $1 million in bribes to the AT&T employees during the conspiracy, which allowed him to fraudulently unlock more than 2 million AT&T phones from 2012 to 2017. Fahd allegedly partnered with businesses that offered cell phone unlocking services in exchange for a fee. These unnamed business would then supply him with the IMEI numbers of the phones bound to AT&T's network. -
Apple’s innovative virtual credit card is now available—but only to some people
The card will be available for everyone eligible by the end of the month.
Apple Card, the tech giant's innovative take on virtual (and physical, for that matter) credit cards, has begun rolling out to users who previously expressed interest by signing up to be notified on the card's website. Users Apple notifies of the card's availability can sign up for the virtual card from within the Wallet app on their iPhones, and they can also order the physical card from there, though that will obviously take a bit of time to arrive. Once you've signed up for the virtual card, though, you can start using it right away if approved. It's a gradual rollout, and Apple hasn't explained its criteria for selecting the first customers to receive the card—it seems it's random. But sign-ups for the card are expected to open up to everyone who is interested by the end of August. Well, it will open up to everyone in the United States, at least—the card isn't yet available in other regions like Europe or Latin America yet, though Apple is in talks with partners about making that happen in the future. -
11 Apps and Services to Help You Stay Safe on Campus
Don't take your safety for granted. These apps, services, and gadgets will help you communicate your location to trusted contacts and get help should trouble arise.
If you've learned anything in our media-saturated, 24-hour news cycle world, it's that life is inherently dangerous. People who seek to do you harm await at every corner, and you're probably helpless before the onslaught. First of all, stop dwelling on the doom and gloom—the world is less dangerous then ever before. But it doesn't hurt to be prepared—especially if you're heading off to school. Since you're a very modern person, there's a chance you've surrounded yourself with technology. Guess what? It can help. There are a number of ways to get quick assistance from authorities and friends using your tech. Here are a few readily available options, and a few you should consider investing in if you're really worried they're all out to get you. -
Amazon Scout Delivery Robots Headed to Southern California
Amazon will initially deploy a 'small number' of Scout devices to make deliveries Monday through Friday during daylight hours in the area.
Amazon's autonomous delivery robots are headed to a sunnier locale. After first letting them loose near its hometown of Seattle in January, Amazon is now bringing its electric-powered Scout devices to Southern California, the company announced Tuesday. There, Amazon will initially deploy a "small number" of Scouts to make deliveries Monday through Friday during daylight hours. "Customers in the Irvine area will order just as they normally would and their Amazon packages will be delivered either by one of our trusted carrier partners or by Amazon Scout," VP Sean Scott wrote in a blog post. "The devices will autonomously follow their delivery route, and initially be accompanied by an Amazon Scout Ambassador." -
YouTube Popularity It's Not a Content Contest
If you're looking for fame and fortune on the popular streaming video platform, likeability matters more than the topic of your channel.
YouTube popularity pays off. Its biggest stars earn around $20 million per year. But if you're looking to chase fame and fortune on the platform, the path isn't so clear. A Pew Research Center study shows there's no clear category that guarantees views. The largest portion of views went to videos about video games, but even then that accounts for only 18 percent of all views. And while it's true that the highest-paid list is dominated by gaming YouTubers such as the problematic PewDiePie, categories that get 3 percent of views have YouTubers that far surpass him in popularity and earnings. -
Microsoft changes tack, patches RDP bug after Hyper-V found vulnerable
After first dismissing a security researcher's findings of flaws in the built-in Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client in Windows, Microsoft has now issued a patch for the vulnerability after being told it could be used to break out of the Hyper-V hypervisor.
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The company said it had been taught "several lessons in security", including learning how the clipboard feature originally designed for local use works in new environments.
^ Really? How about some lessons on complacency?
Meanwhile back atArpeture LabsMicrosoft...
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Samsung Galaxy Note 10 vs. Apple iPhone XS Max: Big Phone Battle
Samsung just unpacked its new Galaxy Note 10 phablet. Let's see how it stacks up against Apple's iPhone XS Max.
Samsung just unveiled its newest flagship phablets at its Unpacked event in New York. The Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+ are the slightly bigger, stylus-equipped siblings of the Galaxy S10 and S10+ that came out earlier this year, packed with Samsung's most advanced smartphone tech and equipped with the latest S Pen stylus. The iPhone XS Max is Apple's phablet, lacking a stylus but equipped with everything else from Apple's own bag of mobile tricks. Comparisons between the two seem natural, so if you're on the fence between spending $1,000 on a new Apple or Samsung smartphone, we're here to help you understand the differences. -
Google Pixel 4 will reportedly jump on the 90Hz display bandwagon
Google would actually be ahead of a hardware trend for once.
The Pixel 4 rumor season never stops, even if Samsung is having a major smartphone launch. 9to5Google, which had its earlier Pixel 4 rumors confirmed by Google before the phone has even launched, has a fresh set of Pixel 4 rumors for us. First up: the Pixel 4 will supposedly have a 90Hz "smooth display" feature, just like the OnePlus 7 Pro. This means the entire interface should refresh at 90 frames per second instead of the usual 60, which—on the OnePlus 7 Pro at least—proved to be an absolute revelation for UI smoothness and making the phone feel fast and responsive. Until 90Hz displays came along, Google was the leader in Android UI "smoothness," so it'll be interesting to see what the company can do with a faster display. Quicker display refresh rates are rapidly becoming the next big upgrade for Android phones—as evidenced by the aforementioned 90Hz OnePlus phone and even a 120Hz OLED screen from Asus with the ROG Phone 2. At the Note10 launch, we were disappointed to see Samsung shipping a regular old 60Hz display on its $1,000 flagship, and now it looks like even Google is going to beat Samsung to the punch. -
How Often Can One Program Infect Another? Let Us Count the Ways
At Black Hat, experts from SafeBreach report on the many different ways a malicious program could infect another process with its own code. Spoiler alert: it's a lot.
LAS VEGAS—There's a reason we refer to computer viruses and devices or processes as being "infected." Back when viruses were new, and programs were compiled to COM files, infecting a program was simple. The virus appended its own code to the end of the target and overwrote the very first instruction with a jump to that code. The last instruction from the virus started the execution of the program's regular functions—a very early form of process injection. Fast forward to the modern world, and the possibilities are more complex and numerous. At the Black Hat conference here, a pair of researchers from SafeBreach, which contracts to assess and mitigate security risks, unveiled an exhaustive survey of all the ways one program can inject code into another. Their session isn't until Thursday, but we caught up with them ahead of the briefing. -
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@black3dynamite that's seriously complicated and messed up.
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@black3dynamite Wtf
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Dell’s new XPS 13 2-in-1—a notable redesign—goes on sale
A hardware redesign and 10th-generation Intel Core CPUs headline this update.
Today, Dell began taking orders in the US for the new 2019 version of the XPS 13 two-in-one convertible laptop. In this update, the XPS 13 two-in-one has seen a hardware redesign, with a different hinge and keyboard. And many people will be glad to hear that the laptop's formerly infamous webcam is now placed above the screen, not below. (That has been one of our main criticisms of this otherwise strong laptop in previous reviews of this product line.) -
@mlnews Meh...10th gen is really underwhelming.
