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Andrew Orr

Since 2015 Andrew has been writing about Apple, privacy, security, and at one point even Android. You can find him most places online under the username @andrewornot.

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Articles by Andrew Orr

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Privacy, Parenting, and Monitoring Your Kids’ Electronics

Andrew Orr ·

Wired is publishing a series on parenting, and this article is written by a father who monitors his teens’ electronics.

Later, after discovering my daughter had secreted a contraband Chromebook in her room to watch late-night Friends, all devices would be sequestered in the master bedroom overnight.

And this rule was above all else: The devices all belong to me and my wife, and we are entitled to see anything and everything on them.

I didn’t get a cell phone until I was in college, so my parents didn’t have to worry about me blasting my teenage cringe online. At the same time, this guy sounds like the type to physically remove the door to his kid’s room so they can’t hide from him.

Moleskine Journey is an iOS Planner, Journal, and More
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Moleskine Journey is an iOS Planner, Journal, and More

Andrew Orr ·

The most recent app from Moleskine is called Moleskine Journey. It’s a multi-purpose app that serves as an iOS planner, journal, project manager, habit tracker, note-taker, photo diary, and food diary. Or whatever else you want to use it for because it seems flexible.

Designed for creatives minds, independent workers, audacious backpackers, and free spirits, Moleskine Journey is the first app that blends productivity tools with wellness tracking features to help you get stuff done and find inner balance every day. This minimal and intuitive app gathers together the many aspects of your life.

App Store: Free ((Offers In-App Purchases)

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Comcast Will Raise Your Price Even if You Don’t Use NBC’s Peacock

Andrew Orr ·

Two things will go live on April 15: Early access for NBC’s Peacock streaming service, and a price hike from Comcast.

The extra costs will not be readily evident to new customers as the rate increases mostly appear as hidden fees…For some customers, these price hikes have already taken effect as the company began the gradual squeeze in December. All totaled, subscriptions should increase by about 3.6 percent for most subscribers, whether they use Peacock or not.

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Britain Wants Strict Privacy Rules for Kids

Andrew Orr ·

Today Britain rolled out strict privacy protections for kids, like requiring tech platforms to turn on protections by default.

The new rules are the most comprehensive protections to arise from heightened global concern that popular online services exploit children’s information, suggest inappropriate content to them and fail to protect them from sexual predators. The British children’s protections far outstrip narrower rules in the United States, which apply only to online services aimed at children under 13.

Give Your AirPods Pro Nilfgaardian Armor With Native Union
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Give Your AirPods Pro Nilfgaardian Armor With Native Union

Andrew Orr ·

Native Union just released new cases for AirPods Pro, and one of them looks like Nilfgaardian armor from The Witcher series on Netflix. The US$19.99 Curve Case is textured silicon with a dust-repellent finish. Another one is a US$49.99 Italian leather case available in black, tan, navy, and green. These new cases officially go on sale today, January 22.

Featuring two designs carefully crafted from genuine leather and textured silicone, the new cases ensure hassle free access to AirPods Pro, charging port and controls. Both designs are compatible with wireless chargers and provide a seamless fit, adding unmistakable style to your everyday carry without compromising function.

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A $10 Million New York Lab Tries to Brute Force iOS Devices

Andrew Orr ·

Inside a lab in New York worth US$10 million, specialists are trying to brute force their way into iPhones and iPads.

What’s going on in the isolation room is important, if silent, forensic work. All of the phones are hooked up to two powerful computers that generate random numbers in an attempt to guess the passcode that locked each device. At night, technicians can enlist other computers in the office, harnessing their unused processing power to create a local supercomputer network.

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‘Altered Carbon’ Season 2 Arrives on Netflix February 27

Andrew Orr ·

Good news for sci-fi fans: Altered Carbon season 2 arrives on Netflix February 27, 2020.

Season 2 of the sophisticated and compelling sci-fi drama finds Takeshi Kovacs (Anthony Mackie), the lone surviving soldier of a group of elite interstellar warriors, continuing his centuries-old quest to find his lost love Quellcrist Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry).

I enjoyed watching the show so I’m excited for season 2. It’s been so long since I’ve seen season 1 that I forgot For All Mankind’s Joel Kinnaman was in it.

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Clearview AI Helps Law Enforcement With Facial Recognition

Andrew Orr ·

In a long read from NYT, Kashmir Hill writes about a startup called Clearview AI that works with law enforcement on facial recognition.

You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

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Your Online Activity is a Social Credit Score

Andrew Orr ·

Violet Blue has an interesting take, that of your online activity as a social credit score. The SCC is something we usually associate with China, but we’re seeing trends suggesting America is moving toward a similar system.

Combine this with companies like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and yes, Airbnb deciding what legal behaviors are acceptable for service, and now we’re looking at groups of historically marginalized people being denied involvement in mainstream economic, political, cultural and social activities — at scale.