Your Phone Number Shouldn't Be Your Identity

Brian Krebs wrote a good article on how our phone numbers have become security and authentication tools, and thus closely tied to our identity. But there’s a problem with that.

Phone numbers stink for security and authentication. They stink because most of us have so much invested in these digits that they’ve become de facto identities. At the same time, when you lose control over a phone number — maybe it’s hijacked by fraudsters, you got separated or divorced, or you were way late on your phone bill payments — whoever inherits that number can then be you in a lot of places online.

Facebook Can't Find Enough Local News for its Platform

Facebook is in a bit of a dilemma when it comes to news. Back in November it launched a feature called Today In, which would give people local news in their area. But the company is having trouble filling Today In with enough news, and this is because Facebook is a big contributor to the demise of news.

Today In may be live in 400 cities, but it’s unavailable across large parts of the country that perhaps most need it, namely, those with few or no local newspapers. Of course, Facebook contributed heavily to death of so many local news outlets as a large portion of advertising spending shifted from legacy media to the web, leading to dwindling newspaper revenue. Facebook isn’t the only reason hundreds of outlets have bitten the dust. Consolidation and mergers have played a role, but the likes of Facebook and Google have certainly been key factors.

Use iNaturalist to Identify Flora and Fauna

I’ve used iNaturalist for a couple years and think it’s a great tool. Two features that help the app stand out from competitors are 1: The machine learning it uses. Once you take a picture, it can automatically suggest what species you’re looking at. 2: With every photo you upload and tag with location and other metadata, you’re contributing to real science. iNaturalist shares data with scientific data repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

The app is a joint initiative between The California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society and works sort of like a Shazam for Nature in that it lets you snap a shot of something you come across and instantly get an answer for what that planet, animal, or bug might be.

Beto O'Rourke and the Cult of the Dead Cow

Beto O’Rourke is a Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential race. In a recent interview he revealed he was part of the Cult of the Dead Cow, the oldest hacking group in the U.S.

The hugely influential Cult of the Dead Cow, jokingly named after an abandoned Texas slaughterhouse, is notorious for releasing tools that allowed ordinary people to hack computers running Microsoft’s Windows. It’s also known for inventing the word “hacktivism” to describe human-rights-driven security work.

Watch 2019 March Madness on Apple Devices

Roger Fingas put together a brief guide to watching the 2019 March Madness tournament on your Apple devices.

For college basketball fans, the NCAA’s March Madness tournament is nigh — 2019’s games run March 19 through Apr. 8. Here’s how to follow along on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV if you’re not watching on cable or satellite.

Snapchat Gaming Platform to Launch Next Month

Reports suggest that a Snapchat gaming platform will launch next month, which is currently codenamed Project Cognac.

The new games initiative will be unveiled at Snap’s first-ever summit for content and developer partners in Los Angeles on April 4, the person said, adding that video initiatives like more original shows will also be announced. An invitation to the event that was seen by Cheddar includes the tagline, “Less talk. More play.” — a nod to the gaming platform.

Everyone seems to be trying to conquer gaming now. Facebook, Apple, Google, and now Snap.

Qualcomm Owes Apple $1 Billion Rebate Payment

A federal judge recently ruled that Qualcomm owes Apple almost US$1B in patent royalty rebate payments.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Thursday ruled that Qualcomm, the world’s biggest supplier of mobile phone chips, was obligated to pay nearly $1 billion in rebate payments to Apple, which for years used Qualcomm’s modem chips to connect iPhones to wireless data networks.

Facebook and YouTube Remove Footage of New Zealand Mosque Terror Attacks

Both Facebook and YouTube moved to delete footage of the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that resulted in the deaths of 49 Muslim worshipers in 2 mosques on Friday. Parts of the attack were live-streamed over the two platforms. CNET reported that Facebook had removed unverified footage and praise for the shooting. YouTube made a similar commitment in a tweet from its official twitter account.

Facebook told CNET it had removed the unverified footage and was also pulling down “praise or support” posts for the shootings. “New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we removed both the shooter’s Facebook account and the video,” said Mia Garlick, a Facebook representative in New Zealand. “We’re also removing any praise or support for the crime and the shooter or shooters as soon as we’re aware. We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues.

New Tesla Model Y Unveiled

Tesla unveiled its latest vehicle Friday, the Model Y. The Verge reported that CEO Elon Musk bragged that despite being SUV-like, the vehicle “will ride like a sports car.” It will be available in the fall of 2020, with prices starting at $47,000.

“It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like a sports car,” Musk said. “So this thing will be really tight on corners.” The $47,000 long range Model Y will come first in the fall of 2020, and will have a range of 300 miles, Musk said. Tesla will also sell an all-wheel-drive dual motor version for $51,000, and a performance version for $60,000— both of which will also be available in fall 2020. The cheaper, standard range version with a range of 230 miles won’t be available until 2021, Musk said, and will sell for $39,000.

How Teens Turned Google Docs into the Must Have Messaging App

The days of bored teenagers passing notes around a classroom are long gone. However, it is not the likes of Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok that they now use to plot, gossip and flirt during class. According to The Atlantic, teens have turned Google Docs into the place to talk. The service is often used in the classroom and has a live chat function – quite a dangerous combination!

“We don’t really pass physical notes anymore,” said Skyler, 15, who, like all the other students in this story, is identified by a pseudonym. As more and more laptops find their way into middle and high schools, educators are using Google Docs to do collaborative exercises and help students follow along with the lesson plan. The students, however, are using it to organize running conversations behind teachers’ backs.

Security Expert Talks iPhones and Viruses

Security expert Maik Morgenstern talks about iPhones and viruses and how in theory an iPhone could get one.

“In theory, yes,” Maik Morgenstern, chief technology officer for AV-Test, told Digital Trends. “However, the practical hurdles are quite high, and it is unlikely for a normal user to get affected. But vulnerabilities exist that can be exploited by attackers.”

MWC 2019: 5G Announcements by Each Carrier

Digital Trends writes:

At Mobile World Congress, a spotlight usually shines on new and improved smartphones, and this year was no different. From the LG V50 ThinQ to the Sony Xperia 10, a number of handset announcements were made at MWC. But handsets are only part of the news from the show. Carriers made some big announcements too — especially when it comes to the deployment of 5G.

AT&T and Verizon are off to the races.

Spectre Camera 1.1 Adds More Stabilization Support

The developers of the Spectre camera app shared some news about their app. They added stabilization support for iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, and iPhone SE.

With Spectre 1.0, we only supported stabilization on iPhone 8 and later. Stabilization pushes your phone to its limit, and if it can’t keep up, it creates a noticeable drop in quality. We hoped to someday bring it to older devices, but wanted to under-promise and over-deliver.

Free Dropbox Users Now Limited to Three Devices

Dropbox has quietly updated the terms for its free Basic tier. Free Dropbox users are now limited to three linked devices.

If that’s too confining, you’ll have to shell out for a $10 Plus or $20 Professional subscription. You can keep any links you’ve already established, but you won’t get to add any more until you go below that three-device maximum.

As kind of an aside, because I use iCloud instead of Dropbox, I wonder how much Dropbox would be affected if Apple added the ability to share entire iCloud folders, instead of just individual files.

iPhone Crushed for Science

LONDON – For most people, having their iPhone crushed is the ultimate nightmare. Not for scientists at the University of Plymouth, Cult of Mac reported. The UK university put an iPhone into a high-powered blender to discover what chemical elements a handset is made up of. There’s a video too, if does cause you too much pain to watch.

The video does a good job of breaking down the precise quantities of elements which go into a smartphone. Where it gets particularly interesting, however, is looking at this figure in the context of the 1.4 billion mobile phones produced each year, Among other astonishing figures, that includes 52 tons of gold, 131 tons of silver, and a mind-boggling 10.2 kilotons of chromium. Unfortunately, a large number of these handsets are made using conflict minerals from various parts of the world.

Poor People Need Privacy As Much as Everyone Else

Elizabeth Brico writes how privacy might be turning into a luxury, and how poor people can’t afford the legal costs if their identity is stolen because of all the data breaches.

For her part, Gilman argued that many times, names and addresses can be enough to commit the types of identity fraud she has helped her low-income clients battle. “It can cost time and money to clean up the effects of identity theft because low income people are already living on the economic margins, any loss of funds can be catastrophic,” she said. “You have less privacy as a poor person,” Muentz added. “Privacy is becoming a luxury.”

Apple Suppliers Reportedly Gearing up For Next Generation of iPads and AirPods

Apple’s suppliers in Tawain are preparing to produce new iPads and AirPods. DigitTimes reported that Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are getting ready to mass produce the next generation of the devices. Those sources said that the new iPads and AirPods will also be unveiled art Apple’s March 25th event. It is though expected  that even will largely focus on services,

Flexible PCB firms Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are gearing up for mass production for Apple’s next-generation iPad devices, while Compeq Manufacturing and Unitech PCB supply rigid-flex boards for the forthcoming AirPods, according to industry sources….Both Zhen Ding and Flexium may see their shipments for Apple’s upcoming iPad models offset a slowdown in shipments for the iPhones in the first half of 2019, the sources noted. Meanwhile, the availability of Apple’s long-awaited AirPods 2 is seen as a boost to revenues at both Compeq and Unitech during the six-month period, the sources continued.

Was the Facebook Outage Linked to This Criminal Investigation?

Conspiracy theory time. Yesterday Facebook suffered its biggest outage in its entire history. Other affiliated services like Instagram and WhatsApp were also affected. Facebook is also under a federal criminal investigation over its data sharing practices. Do you think the outage had anything to do with law enforcement seizing some of the company’s servers?

“We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so.”

Apple's TV Streaming Service Faces Tough Competition: Disney+

Media Play News writes:

Disney’s pending subscription streaming video service is projected to generate wide consumer appeal – if it is priced right, according to new data from The Diffusion Group.

When asked about the likelihood they would sign up for “a Netflix-like service” that included movies from Disney, National Geographic, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm (Star Wars); Disney TV shows for children; and original content, 43% of survey respondents said they were likely to sign up, while 27% very likely to subscribe.

Can Apple equal that?

Apple Acquires Machine Learning Startup Laserlike

Apple has acquired Laserlike, a young startup founded by three former Google engineers. It’s a machine learning startup that could help Apple improve its recommendation algorithms in News, TV, Apple Music, etc (paywall).

An Apple spokesperson confirmed the acquisition of the four-year-old startup, which was founded by three former Google engineers, Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary and Steven Baker, and had raised more than $24 million from Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures, according to CrunchBase. Terms of the deal could not be learned.

I look forward to getting better recommendations.

iOS 12.2 Improves Audio Message Quality

In the latest iOS 12.2 beta Apple has improved audio message quality by switching to a different codec for files.

Details on the improvement in audio quality were shared on Twitter this morning, and we confirmed the change on our own devices. Apple previously used the .AMR file format for its audio messages, but in the beta, has swapped over to .CAF.

The Opus codec, coming in a 24000 Hz, is a big increase from the old AMR codec at 8000 Hz. Opus is used by other messaging services like WhatsApp, Telegram, and WebRTC.

Firefox Send Lets You Share Big Encrypted Files

Firefox Send is a free tool that lets you send encrypted files up to 1GB in size, or 2.5GB if you sign in with a Firefox account.

What sets Send apart is its ease of use. It works in any browser; just go to send.firefox.com. Upload or drag and drop files, and Send will generate a link that you can set to expire after a certain number of downloads—up to 100—or a certain amount of time, ranging from five minutes to seven days.

Being able to use any browser is probably the best part about this tool.

4G is Coming to the Tube, But Still no WiFi in London Underground Tunnels

LONDON – London’s underground Tube train network has WiFi, but only in the stations. Meanwhile, the likes of Tokyo, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Melbourne, all have WiFi connectivity in tunnels. The Tube will soon be getting 4G, but that does not mean there will be no restrictions.  Wired looked into why WiFi is still only in stations, and found multiple reasons, with cost and the shape of the tunnels high-up the list.

London’s failure to connect has multiple causes. First is cost. “Technically, it is straightforward, although expensive, to deliver Wi-Fi in stations,” says Matthew Griffin, head of commercial telecoms at TfL. To install it, individual access points have to be placed within the station ceiling or hidden in voids, with flat antennas providing the signal. While this sounds simple, it’s very expensive to lay cabling to reach all these access points.

iPhone Saves Man Shot by Arrow

We’ve heard stories about iPhones identifying heart defects. However, AppleInsider picked up on another way an iPhone has saved a life – the device blocked an arrow shot at it’s user!  Police in New South Wales, Australia, were called by a man reporting someone wielding a bow and arrow. When the victim went to take a picture of the assailant, they fired an arrow, which was absorbed by the iPhone.

The arrow struck the iPhone, with the arrowhead partially passing through the device but ultimately embedding the ammunition… This is not the first time a person has escaped major harm thanks to the company’s hardware. In 2017, a witness to a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport revealed a MacBook Pro in his backpack was hit by a stray bullet, one that could have caused serious injury.

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