Link

AMD Releases New Radeon PRO W6000X GPUs for Mac Pro

Andrew Orr ·

On Tuesday, AMD announced its line of Radeon PRO W6000X GPU series for the Mac Pro.

Built on groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 architecture, AMD Infinity Cache and other advanced technologies, the new workstation graphics line-up includes the AMD Radeon™ PRO W6900X and AMD Radeon™ PRO W6800X GPUs. Mac Pro users also have the option of choosing the AMD Radeon PRO W6800X Duo graphics card, a dual-GPU configuration that leverages high-speed AMD Infinity Fabric interconnect technology to deliver outstanding levels of compute performance.

Link

Australians Can Now Add Covid-19 Digital Certificate to Apple Wallet

Charlotte Henry ·

Australians who have received two doses of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines can add the relevant certification to their Apple Wallet, Tap Down Under reported. It follows the same development in the UK.

As of today, it’s now possible to add a copy of your COVID-19 digital certificate to your digital wallet of choice – Apple Wallet or Google Pay – making it easier to show proof of vaccination for which will undoubtedly become required sometime in the future. There are two methods to add it into Apple Wallet; You can go straight to my.gov.au, tap on ‘Go to Medicare’ in the COVID-19 vaccination status area, and then under the PDF link, there’s an Add to Apple Wallet button. The other method, is to use the Medicare app – which is handy to have regardless for other features like a digital Medicare card.

Link

Twitter Partnering With AP And Reuters to Tackle Misinformation

Charlotte Henry ·

Twitter is partnering with news agencies The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters in a bid to tackle misinformation. Curation chief Joanna Geary explained how it is going to work in a blog post.

Twitter’s Curation team will increase our capacity to add reliable context to conversations happening on Twitter. This joint work will increase the scale and speed of the current work…by:  Increasing and improving context sharing: Ensuring that credible information is available in real time around key conversations as they emerge on Twitter, especially where facts are in dispute or when Twitter’s Curation team doesn’t have the specific expertise or access to a high enough volume of reputable reporting on Twitter. For example, people on Twitter can expect more Trends with contextual descriptions and links to reporting from trusted sources more frequently. Anticipating and proactively identifying emerging conversation: Proactively providing context on topics garnering widespread interest including those that could potentially generate misleading information. Rather than waiting until something goes viral, Twitter will contextualize developing discourse at pace with or in anticipation of the public conversation. Improving the effectiveness of product features: Supporting product experimentation and existing initiatives where additional credible context could make our work better. For example, Birdwatch will use feedback from AP and Reuters as one way to assess the quality of information elevated by Birdwatch participants.

Link

The Rise of QR Codes has Privacy Experts Worried

Andrew Orr ·

The popularly of QR codes has risen due to the pandemic, since it enables touchless interactions. But they can be used for tracking and advertising.

But the spread of the codes has also let businesses integrate more tools for tracking, targeting and analytics, raising red flags for privacy experts. That’s because QR codes can store digital information such as when, where and how often a scan occurs. They can also open an app or a website that then tracks people’s personal information or requires them to input it.

Link

Ethereum’s EIP 1559 Upgrade Goes Live on August 4

Andrew Orr ·

A major update to the Ethereum blockchain known as EIP 1159 will go live on August 4. Reuters explains what it means.

EIP-1559 is a software upgrade that fundamentally changes the way transactions are processed on Ethereum by providing clear pricing on transaction fees in ether paid to miners to validate transactions and “burning” a small amount of those tokens. The burned tokens will be permanently taken out of circulation.

By reducing the number of tokens, the currencies that remain in circulation become rarer and more valuable.

Link

Hackers Leak FIFA 21 Source Code After Extortion Attempt

Andrew Orr ·

After a failed extortion attempt, hackers have leaked a 751GB cache of data stolen from Electronic Arts. The files include the source code for FIFA 21.

While initially, the hackers hoped to earn a big payday from the EA hack, they failed to find any buyers on the underground market, as the stolen data was mostly source code that lacked any value for other cybercrime groups, most of which are interested in user personal or financial data primarily.

After failing to find a buyer, the hackers tried to extort EA, asking the company to pay an undisclosed sum and avoid having the data leaked online.

Link

Airbnb Adds New Wi-Fi Speed Test Feature to App

Andrew Orr ·

On Thursday Airbnb announced it added a Wi-Fi speed test tool to its app to let Hosts easily advertise their speeds.

While Hosts have been able to manually add wifi speeds to their listing pages for some time, we’re now providing an easy and efficient in-app solution to allow them to measure the wifi speed in their listing using the Airbnb app.

Hosts can test their listing’s connection speed right within the Airbnb app, and easily have their wifi speed information posted on their listing page, making their listings more appealing to guests looking for connected stays.

Link

Uber Drivers to Receive Free Rosetta Stone Language Lessons

Andrew Orr ·

Uber announced on Thursday a partnership with Rosetta Stone to offer free language courses to drivers.

The deal is being extended to drivers and delivery workers in select markets where Uber operates. Rosetta’s digital language learning programs, which cover 24 languages, will be fully integrated into the Uber app used by its workers. And the company is working with Rosetta on developing language skills directly related to their work as ride-share drivers and delivery workers.

Link

How Educators in Australia are Embracing Swift

Charlotte Henry ·
Some educators at schools in Queensland, Australia are embracing Apple’s Swift programming language. The company published a feature that includes some teachers and students sharing their experiences.
At Siena Catholic College and St Augustine’s College, two high schools in Southeast Queensland, teaching students the principles of app development using Swift is unlocking their creativity and allowing them to reach new levels of innovation and problem solving. “Our decision to choose Swift was clear and based on the simplicity, versatility, and limitless creativity the language provides,” says Paul Dionysius, who teaches technology courses at Siena Catholic College. “Every day we’re seeing our students develop enterprising ideas and designing real-world solutions to problems, building the essential skills for success in the 21st century. We have future blockbuster developers here today — I am certain of that and incredibly proud.”
Link

Mozilla VPN Expands to Seven More Countries, Increases Price

Andrew Orr ·

Mozilla has added seven additional countries to its VPN service, and raises the price for new users.

Mozilla’s virtual private network (VPN) service has arrived in seven more countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

It will honor the $4.99 a month price for customers from the US, Canada, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand, who signed up already. But from now on that price will only be available for customers who sign up for a year. Otherwise the fee rises to $7.99 a month for a six month deal or $9.99 for a month of access.

Link

Ukraine Authorities Seize Unencrypted Windscribe VPN Servers

Andrew Orr ·

VPN provider Windscribe said its servers were not encrypted, enabling authorities to create decoy servers and snoop on web traffic.

The Ontario, Canada-based company said earlier this month that two servers hosted in Ukraine were seized as part of an investigation into activity that had occurred a year earlier. The servers, which ran the OpenVPN virtual private network software, were also configured to use a setting that was deprecated in 2018 after security research revealed vulnerabilities that could allow adversaries to decrypt data.

Oh come on, VPN servers that weren’t encrypted?

Link

Twitter Tests New ‘Shop Module’ Feature for iOS Users

Andrew Orr ·

Twitter is piloting a new feature on Wednesday called Shop Module. It will let brands add a shopping section at the top of their profiles. The pilot is currently limited to iOS devices for people who use the service in English.

The Shop Module is a dedicated space at the top of a profile where businesses can showcase their products. When people visit a profile with the Shop Module enabled, they can scroll through the carousel of products and tap through on a single product to learn more and purchase — seamlessly in an in-app browser, without having to leave Twitter.

Link

1Password Reveals US$100M Funding Round

Charlotte Henry ·

Password management platform 1Password has revealed it has raised funding worth US$100m. Business is booming thanks to new at-home and hybrid working arrangements, VentureBeat reported.

According to 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner, while multiple factors have aligned to drive demand for password management tools, the single biggest change since its last fundraise has been society’s rapid transition from offices to remote or hybrid working. “Businesses — both large and small — were forced overnight to adopt a remote way of working,” Shiner told VentureBeat. “That switch meant that companies, most of whom were used to a centralized office, suddenly needed to support employees using their own devices, at home on their own potentially insecure networks. With the remote-hybrid shift came a proliferation of SaaS tools to help keep people and teams productive. Many of these tools are brought in to help specific teams solve specific problems, which means that across an organization, there can be hundreds of different software products — all requiring unique logins and access.” Helping workers stay on top of all their login credentials is where 1Password comes into play.

Link

Hackers Increasingly Using Discord to Spread Malware

Andrew Orr ·

Researchers found that hackers are turning to Discord to spread malware, such as password-hijacking and Discord chat bot APIs.

But the greatest percentage of the malware we found have a focus on credential and personal information theft, a wide variety of stealer malware as well as more versatile RATs. The threat actors behind these operations employed social engineering to spread credential-stealing malware, then use the victims’ harvested Discord credentials to target additional Discord users.

Link

Apple Wallet Supports Australian Health Insurance Cards Via HICAPS App

Charlotte Henry ·

Australians are now able to add digital health insurance cards to their Apple Wallet via the Health Industry Claims and Payments Service (HICAPS) app. 9to5Mac has a good explainer of how it all works.

In Australia, when you pay a visit to an Extras provider, the receptionist provides you with a bill and asks if you have health coverage. At that point, you can hand them your HIF membership card and they’ll swipe it through an electronic claiming terminal known as a HICAPS machine. Now, with the Apple Wallet integration, users can just double click the side button on their iPhone with Face ID or double click the Touch ID button to view the health insurance card on the Wallet. Then, they just have to select their health fund membership card from Apple Wallet and hold the iPhone or Apple Watch near the terminal reader.

Link

Oil Producer ‘Wesco’ Uses Excess Natural Gas to Mine Bitcoin

Andrew Orr ·

Utah-based oil company Wesco Operating Co. is using excess gas (natural, not Ethereum) to power a Bitcoin mining operation.

Rather than being “flared,” or burned, to eliminate it, the natural gas is burned to run electrical generators, which in turn power two mobile data centers that process Bitcoin transactions, Wesco representative Steve Degenfelder explained.

The company has connected with a Chicago-based firm, EZ Blockchain, to acquire the two Bitcoin “miners,” portable data processors tied to the Internet.