We finally have the winner of our iPhone 16 Pro international giveaway! Congratulations to Oliver T., and a huge thank you to everyone who participated.
Twitter Tests Tweets That Disappear After 24 Hours
Twitter is testing a new feature called “fleets” which are tweets that disappear after 24 hours.
According to Twitter, an initial survey of users showed they would be more comfortable “sharing everyday thoughts” if they disappear after 24 hours.
Like tweets, Twitter fleets are based primarily on text, but you also can include videos, GIFs or photos in them. Users’ fleets will appear at the top of their home page and visible to their followers. Other users can reply to a fleet via private direct message or with an emoji.
It sounds like a good idea on the surface, but given that Twitter is a dumpster fire, you can imagine hateful tweets, political lies, etc. all disappearing from the public record. Of course, people can just screenshot them.
Someone Hacked J.Crew Last Spring and we Only Find Out Today
According to a notice [PDF] from J.Crew, someone hacked the company last year. For some reason we’re only finding out about it today, a year later.
“The information that would have been accessible in your jcrew.com account includes the last four digits of credit card numbers you have stored in your account, the expiration dates, card types, and billing addresses connected to those cards, and order numbers, shipping confirmation numbers, and shipment status of those orders,” J.Crew’s data breach notification explains.
You know, sometimes when I write about this stuff, like Facebook doing every bad thing under the sun with our data, I stop and think: “Am I just a cynical a**hole?” Then, when yet another idiot company has a data breach, I realize, no I’m just reporting reality. These companies deserve to be named and shamed.
Tello Value Prepaid 6-Month Plan: Unlimited Talk/Text + 2GB LTE Data: $49
We have a deal for the budget-minded looking for an inexpensive wireless plan, Tello’s Value Prepaid 6-Month Plan. This deeply discounted Tello wireless bundle includes unlimited talk & text plus 2GB/month of LTE data, for 6 months. It’s $49 through our deal.
Locked Apple Notes Aren’t as Secure as You Think
Forensic company BlackBag, a Cellebrite company, recently found that locked Apple Notes are temporarily stored in an insecure state.
Apple Updates App Store Review Guidelines to Cover Spam, Crime, and More
Apple updated its App Store review guidelines with some new rules to restrict certain types of app behavior.
Apple vs (Non-Computer) Viruses – TMO Daily Observations 2020-03-04
John Martellaro joins host Kelly Guimont to discuss Apple’s next moves regarding gathering thousands of people in San Jose (for WWDC) or not, and manufacturing logistics vs the current state of affairs.
U.S. Lawmakers Urge UK to Rethink Huawei 5G Involvement
Senior U.S Senators have once again urged the British government to not give Huawei any role in the development of the country’s 5G network, Sky News reported. In total, 20 lawmakers from both parties signed the open letter.
In a letter to MPs, the group of US politicians – including both Democrats and Republicans – expressed their “significant concern” with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to hand the Chinese company an infrastructure role. Critics allege Huawei has close links to the Chinese government and its equipment could be used for espionage purposes – something the company has always denied. US President Donald Trump has put trade restrictions on Huawei and previously suggested future intelligence-sharing cooperation with America’s “Five Eyes” allies – the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – could be put at risk if the UK worked with the firm.
Google I/0 2020 Not Going Ahead
Google has canceled its annual I/0 developers conference, the biggest event in the firm’s calendar, over coronavirus fears.
Police Chased Criminals Using 'Find My' App
We’ve heard a number of stories about how the Apple Watch has alerted people suffering from a heart condition, potentially saving their lives. Now it seems, Apple products are helping fight crime. The Sydney Morning Herald told the story of how the ‘Find My’ app helped police pursue two men, in what ultimately became a fatal police chase.
The victim opened his tracking app, which pinged the iPad, and he began following his stolen Triton. Police called him off before officers tracked the ute and iPad to the Glengala Hotel in Sunshine. The police air wing was called in, but when officers arrived at the scene the ute had been dumped. The iPad, though, began pinging inside the Toyota Kluger. Over the following two hours the men were traced heading to the Sunshine Motor Inn and across the suburb before a brief police pursuit on the Western Ring Road. Police then tracked the Kluger to Tullamarine, Epping, Mernda and Thomastown.
Bad Reviews of New Apple TV+ Show 'Amazing Stories' Have Disappeared
Reviews of forthcoming Apple TV+ show ‘Amazing Stories’ have disappeared from two websites, leading to the question – what happened to them?!
Cathay Pacific Fined £500,000 For Major Data Breach
Cathay Pacific was fined £500,000 by the UK ICO, the largest fine available pre-GDPR, for a data breach affecting 9.4million users.
Twitter Urges Employees to Work From Home
In an updated blog post, Twitter encouraged its staff to work from home in a bid to protect them from COVID-19. It became one of the first major U.S. firms to take such a step.
We are working to make sure internal meetings, all hands, and other important tasks are optimized for remote participation. We recognize that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. For those employees who prefer or need to come into the offices, they will remain open for business. Our Real Estate & Workplace team is increasing deep cleaning and sanitizing in all spaces, as well as more visual reminders for personal hygiene best practices and pre-packaged, pre-composed, and pre-plated food options. Working from home will be mandatory for employees based in our Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea offices due in part to government restrictions. Our criteria will evolve over time as we get more information, and we will communicate to affected Tweeps as appropriate.
VSCO Adds a New Feature to Create Videos Called ‘Montage’
VSCO announced a new feature Wednesday called Montage. It’s a tool that lets users create multimedia videos.
Book Publishers Artificially Limit eBook Lending in Libraries
Major book publishers impose limits on how libraries handle ebooks, with short-term licenses and contracts.
Because only one reader can check out an ebook at a time, and because the cost of licensing an ebook is prohibitively high for libraries to invest in hundreds of copies for every new title, library-goers have become accustomed to long waits to check out ebooks, particularly bestsellers. For publishers, that’s the point. If you have to wait weeks to check out a new ebook, you might just cruise on over to Amazon and pay $14.99 to have it delivered immediately to your Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone.
Expensive college textbooks and dumb eBook rules are two good examples of how ripe for disruption this space is. It’s also shortsighted. The point of digital media is to make it so easy to access that people don’t feel the need to pirate anymore. But practices like this is partly what drives people to pirate.
Apple Subsidiary Launches Claris Connect
Claris launched its new Claris Connect workflow tool that aims to help small and medium businesses conquer automation challenges.
ARM Inside, NSA-brand Malware – TMO Daily Observations 2020-03-03
Charlotte Henry and John Martellaro join host Kelly Guimont to discuss malware bought and reused by the NSA, and the future of Mac processors.
Let’s Encrypt Revokes Certificates After Finding a Bug
Let’s Encrypt announced on Saturday, February 29 that it discovered a bug in its Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) code.
World Travel Plug Adapter with 6 Attachments:$24.99
We have a deal on the PAK-WS Travel Adapter Set. This world travel plug adapter comes with six different attachments that will allow you to plug in in 200 different countries. In addition to having a standard U.S. three-pronged A/C outlet and a two-pronged A/C outlet, it also has a USB-A, a USB-C, and a 3.1A USB port. It’s $24.99 through our deal.
The Apple Smart Ring Might Cover an Entire Finger
Apple’s much-rumored smart ring could be extended to cover an entire finger. That’s according to a new patent, granted on Tuesday and reported on by AppleInsider.
A smart ring has the potential to provide users with functionality similar to an Apple Watch, but in a smaller package that doesn’t take up space on a user’s wrist. While part of the challenge of designing a smart ring involves cramming components into a small space, there is also the issue of its size offering little in the way of opportunity for embedded sensors to be used due to a lack of surface area, as well as for users to accurately control it. In a patent granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday titled “Expandable Ring Device,” Apple suggests the size of a smart ring may not necessarily be static. While the name of the patent hints at a one-size-fits-all design, the filing actually refers to ways the ring could be expanded into a longer tube that covers more of the finger, including some knuckles.
Atari’s Missile Command Heads to iOS This Spring
2020 is the 40th anniversary of Missile Command and Atari is bringing it to iOS sometime this spring.
Missile Command: Recharged maintains the same perspective of the original game, in which missile silos battle incoming rockets to protect civilian structures. Recharged uses a neon-colored visual design, a la classic arcade game re-imaginings like Pac Man Championship Edition and Space Invaders Extreme. Gameplay has been remixed, with power-ups, an upgrade system, and an augmented reality mode that projects gameplay onto a “virtual arcade cabinet.”
Coronavirus Causing Shortages of Key Apple Products
The availability of a number of Apple products has been hit by the coronavirus outbreak, Bloomberg News reported. Products affected include the iPad Pro, AirPods Pro, and customized Macs.
The iPad Pro tablet is seeing limited availability at stores in major cities in the U.S., Australia and Europe, according to a review of Apple’s website on Monday. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro with 512 gigabytes of storage and no cellular connectivity is sold out at all Apple stores in the Los Angeles area. That model and other versions are sold out at many stores in New York City as well… AirPods Pro earbuds and built-to-order Mac computers are also continuing to show shipping delays, and some Apple Watch Series 3 and Series 5 models are listed as unavailable to buy online. The Watch Series 3 and in-demand AirPods Pro had been constrained even before the coronavirus. The latest iPhones and Apple’s non-Pro iPads are still widely available in the U.S., though some locations in Europe and Australia are showing the iPhone 11 as unavailable.
Apple Shares Best Night Mode Pictures Shot on iPhone 11
Apple has revealed the best images shot using Night mode on iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max.
Apple Premieres ‘The Banker’ at National Civil Rights Museum
Apple premiered its film The Banker at the National Civil Rights Museum, opening in select theaters March 6 and Apple TV+ on March 20.
YouTube Doesn’t Recommend as Many Conspiracy Videos Anymore
YouTube is working to cut the number of conspiracy video it recommends to users, but that number is slowly increasing again.
Researchers trained an algorithm to judge the likelihood that a video on the site contained conspiracy theories by looking at the description, transcript, and comments. They examined eight million recommendations over 15 months. They found that shortly after YouTube announced it would recommend less conspiracy content in January 2019, the numbers did indeed gradually drop—by about 70% at the lowest point in May 2019. However, the number of conspiracy videos YouTube’s algorithm recommends has steadily risen again since then. These recommendations are now only 40% less common than when YouTube started its crackdown.