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Grindr Shares Personal User Data With Advertising Partners

Charlotte Henry ·

Popular LGBT dating app Grindr shared personal user data with thousands of advertising partners. Bloomberg News reported that the data included users’ location, age, gender, and sexual orientation.

The service — described as the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people — gave user data to third parties involved in advertising and profiling, according to a report by the Norwegian Consumer Council that was released Tuesday. Twitter Inc. ad subsidiary MoPub was used as a mediator for the data sharing and passed personal data to third parties, the report said. “Every time you open an app like Grindr, advertisement networks get your GPS location, device identifiers and even the fact that you use a gay dating app,” said Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems. “This is an insane violation of users’ EU privacy rights.”

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Amazon Donating $690,000 to Australian Bush Fire Relief Efforts

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Sunday that, like Apple, his firm will contribute to Australian bush-fire relief efforts. The donation will total $690,000 dollars, CNBC reported.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, Bezos pledged 1 million Australian dollars ($690,000) on behalf of the tech giant — an amount that has faced criticism by some on social media. “Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires,” Bezos said. “Amazon is donating 1 million AU dollars in needed provisions and services.” The figure was derided by some online, with people comparing the sum with Bezos’ personal net worth.

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How to Avoid Online Scams With This Guide

Andrew Orr ·

Emily Long put together a guide on how to avoid online scams, like not clicking links in emails, not sharing passwords, and more.

The basic rule for surviving internet scams is simple: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A little common sense goes a long way to realizing that you aren’t going to suddenly win the Spanish National Lottery when you didn’t even know you had a ticket.

A useful guide.

Podcast

Tidbits Managing Editor Josh Centers (#6) - TMO Background Mode Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Josh Centers is the Managing Editor of Tidbits.com and has published many Take Control (TC) books. He’s the author of Take Control of Apple TV and Take Control of Home Automation. He’s been writing the Take Control books for iOS since version 8, and his latest book is Take Control iOS 13 and iPadOS 13.

In his sixth appearance on the show, Josh and I explored what’s in store for Apple in 2020. We started by looking at the iMac Pro and its possible fate. Then we turned to the mythical xMac, and continued with the MacBook Pro line. In part II of the show, we took a look at the HomePod. Is it a dead product? Then we looked at iPhone (2020) 5G wrinkles. We finished by wondering what new thing Apple might do in 2020.

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Regulatory Filing Indicates New MacBook Pro Coming Soon

Charlotte Henry ·

A recent regulatory filing indicated that a new MacBook Pro could be on the way in the coming months. Apple only released the 16″ model in November 2019. AppleInsider took a look at what’s in the document

The new filings with the ECC include just one new model number, A2289, which is identified as an Apple-branded portable computer and associated spare components. No other details are made public about the model, aside from it being capable of running macOS 10.15 Catalina. It is unknown what the model indicates, as this could refer to an update to any of the MacBook variants available to date. The model number is accompanied by filings for two Apple TV models, using numbers that relate to already-available models. These are most likely to indicate the use of tvOS 13 on the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K. Another line is dedicated to the rackmount variant of the new Mac Pro, which has yet to be made available to purchase by Apple.

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Chrome and Firefox Ending Notification Permission Pop-Ups

Charlotte Henry ·

Fed up of getting pop-ups from your web browser asking for permission to send notifications? Chrome and Safari are looking to end that, Wired reported.

Chrome project manager PJ McLachlan wrote in a blog post this week that the company would start limiting the notifications in one of the next versions of the browser, version 80. “Chrome 80 will show, under certain conditions, a new, quieter notification permission UI that reduces the ‘interruptiveness’ of notification permission requests,” McLachlan says. So what does this look like? If you usually block browser notifications, Chrome will put permission requests from websites behind a small notification symbol at the right end of your browser’s URL search bar. On mobile there will be a small alert at the bottom of your browser window, which vanishes after a few seconds, saying that notifications are blocked.

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Build an Apple I Replica With This $99 SmartyKit

Andrew Orr ·

Steve Wozniak built the Apple I computer by hand, and it sold at US$666.66 when it went on sale July 1976. And with a product called SmartyKit you can build a replica of it.

Besides a cool DIY project, the company behind SmartyKit also proposes it as an educational tool for those interested in knowing what are the main parts of every computer, what a processor is and how it works, how a video signal is formed and how a simple operating system works.

Cool Stuff Found

CES – OWC Mercury Elite Pro Thunderbolt 3 Dock adds RAID, Ports, and Power

Dave Hamilton ·

OWC Founder and CEO, Larry O’Connor, takes us through the details of their Mercury Elite Pro Dock. This is a Thunderbolt 3 Dock and Dual-Drive RAID all-in-one. RAID 0 or 1 is done in hardware, or you can configure it as a JBOD and manage it yourself. With seven ports, including Ethernet, two USB 3.1 Gen 1, DisplayPort 1.2, SD Card, and Gigabit Ethernet, this US$299.99 device might be exactly what you need to complete your setup.

Cool Stuff Found

14 Years Ago Steve Jobs Introduced the First MacBook Pro

Andrew Orr ·

14 years ago today Steve Jobs unveiled the first MacBook Pro at Macworld 2006. Most of the keynote is focused on other products, like Aperture, iLife, iMove, iWeb, iWork, and more. The MacBook Pro’s introduction came as a “one last thing” announcement. In this segment, he discusses the performance per watt of various Apple microprocessors like the PowerPC G4 and PowerPC G5. But Intel’s Core Duo processor was better at energy efficiency, and that’s what the MacBook Pro used.

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FCC Urged to Do Something About SIM Swapping

Andrew Orr ·

Lawmakers are urging the FCC to do something about SIM swapping attacks, which have been responsible for the theft of tens of millions.

SIM swapping is an insidious form of mobile phone fraud that is often used to steal large amounts of cryptocurrencies and other items of value from victims. All too frequently, the scam involves bribing or tricking employees at mobile phone stores into seizing control of the target’s phone number and diverting all texts and phone calls to the attacker’s mobile device.