Andrew Orr's photo

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.

Get In Touch:

Articles by Andrew Orr

Link

'Cash App' From Block Now Supports Bitcoin Lightning Network

Andrew Orr ·

Block, formerly known as Square, has added support for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network upgrade. This lets users send bitcoin to anyone around the world within seconds.

The Lightning integration is made possible by the Lightning Development Kit created by Spiral, which is funded by Block. Cash App customers will also be able to send bitcoin to any compatible wallet that accepts Lightning Network payments, without being charged fees.

Link

NSO Targets: A List of People Infected With Pegasus Spyware

Andrew Orr ·

Omer Benjakob has put together a helpful list of NSO targets that includes every individual believed to have been infected with the group’s Pegasus spyware.

So far, targets have been found across the world: from India and Uganda to Mexico and the West Bank, with high-profile victims including U.S. officials and a New York Times journalist. Now, for the first time, Haaretz has assembled a list of confirmed cases involving Pegasus spyware.

Link

ProtonMail Now Blocks Tracking Pixels and Hides Your IP address

Andrew Orr ·

ProtonMail now blocks tracking pixels and hides your IP address, the company announced on Wednesday. The web app is mentioned so these features may not be present in the mobile apps.

By default, ProtonMail on the web now protects your privacy by: Blocking tracking pixels commonly found in newsletters and promotional emails, preventing senders from spying on your mail. Hiding your IP address from third parties so your location remains private.

Update: A ProtonMail spokesperson confirmed that this is indeed only for the web app, and expanding it to the mobile apps is part of development plans.

Link

Twitter Misinformation Reporting Feature Expands to More Countries

Andrew Orr ·

Twitter misinformation reporting is a feature the company announced in August 2021. Now it’s rolling the tool out to Brazil, Spain, and the Philippines, reports TechCrunch.

The ability to flag tweets as misinformation allows users to more quickly and directly flag content that may not fit into existing rules, as well. But the reports themselves are tied into Twitter’s existing enforcement flow, where a combination of human review and moderation is used to determine if a punitive action should take place.

Link

'Wordle!' Developer Sells App Proceeds to Charity

Andrew Orr ·

The game Wordle has taken the internet by storm recently. But, there’s a similarly-named app named Wordle! and the developer speaks.

Cravotta chalks the sudden increase up to “major publications” failing to specify “that this was an ‘internet browser’ only game, so naturally people went to the App Store to search Wordle.” Even without that, though, the sudden spate of hard-to-parse, link-free tweets promoting the browser game probably got plenty of people assuming it was a reference to a mobile app.

Link

Hot Cakes Selling Like Microsoft's Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X

Andrew Orr ·

Sales of the Series X and S of the Xbox variety have been wildly popular, a report says recently.

The boss of Xbox discussed the commercial performance of the two consoles on a recent New York Times podcast. The Xbox Series X and S were released 14 months ago on November 10, 2020, and Spencer says that “at this point, we’ve sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes.”

Link

'TinyML' Wants to Bring Machine Learning to Microcontroller Chips

Andrew Orr ·

TinyML is a joint project between IBM and MIT. It’s a machine learning project capable of running and low-memory and low-power microcontrollers.

[Microcontrollers] have a small CPU, are limited to a few hundred kilobytes of low-power memory (SRAM) and a few megabytes of storage, and don’t have any networking gear. They mostly don’t have a mains electricity source and must run on cell and coin batteries for years. Therefore, fitting deep learning models on MCUs can open the way for many applications.

Link

Cloud Platform 'Cryptee' Now Warns You of Insecure URLs

Andrew Orr ·

The team behind Cryptee, an end-to-end encrypted platform for documents and photos, announced new features for 2022. One in particular caught my eye.

We’ve improved our URL boxes on mobile. Cryptee can now intelligently detect and warn you if your links are insecure. (i.e. using “http” instead of “https”) All insecure links are automatically highlighted yellow, and all secure links are highlighted green.

Link

FTC Oculus Probe Examines Meta for Potential Anticompetitive Practices

Andrew Orr ·

Bloomberg has a report (paywalled link) about an FTC Oculus probe launched recently along with multiple states. A paywall-free summary can be found in the link below.

The agency is seeking to explore how Meta may be using market power in the VR space to stifle competition – in particular whether the Oculus app store might be discriminating against third parties selling apps that compete with Meta’s software. The inquiry also includes a probe into sales practices and pricing for the Quest 2 headset, at $299 notably less expensive than many rival models, according to the report.

Link

Netflix Price in 2022 Rises For Customers in US, Canada

Andrew Orr ·

Netflix price in 2022 has risen for customers in the U.S and Canada, depending on the plan. This is the first price increase since October 2020.

The standard plan, which allows for two simultaneous streams, now costs $15.49 per month, up from $13.99, in the United States. The U.S. price of Netflix’s premium plan, which enables four streams at a time and streaming in ultra HD, was increased by $2 to $19.99 per month.

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash