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Only 44% of People Correctly Spotted Fake News on Facebook

Andrew Orr ·

In a small study (n=80) undergraduate students were fitted with a wireless electroencephalography (EEG) headset. They were then asked to read political news headlines as they would appear on a Facebook feed to determine their credibility. They overwhelmingly chose headlines that aligned with their political beliefs as true.

“We all believe that we are better than the average person at detecting fake news, but that’s simply not possible,” said lead author Patricia Moravec, assistant professor of information, risk and operations management. “The environment of social media and our own biases make us all much worse than we think.”

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Why You Got Weird Text Messages The Other Day

Charlotte Henry ·

Did you get a lot of weird text messages on November 7th? Popular Mechanics looks to have the answer. It seems a glitch meant old, possibly previously unsent, messages ended up going through.

If you’re one of those people, it looks like this (probably) wasn’t a hack. According to a post from 92 Moose, an FM radio station in Maine, U.S. Cellular confirmed that the ghost texts are the result of a glitch in telecommunications infrastructure, specifically to the “cross carrier messaging system,” which is a joint venture that the four major phone carriers committed to in late October. According to an October press release from Sprint that also involves AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, the “Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative” will “deliver the next generation of messaging to consumers and businesses” by developing a new messaging standard that the companies said would roll out in 2020. It looks like the point was to improve group chats across carriers when sending photos and videos. Think about all the green bubble people out there getting weird messages that iPhone users have “emphasized” a message in iMessage, which basically just repeats the text, but shows none of the animation that blue bubble iPhone users see, like fireworks, thumbs-up signs, and more.

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We're Still Waiting for Sign In with Apple to Take Off

Andrew Orr ·

Sign In with Apple is a private, convenient way for Apple customers to create accounts with apps and websites. But so far only a smaller number of developers have implemented it. Apple says that if apps include other single sign-on options like Facebook and Google, they have to include Sign In with Apple. April 2020 is the deadline and it can’t come soon enough.

While other companies such as Facebook and Google already offer their own sign in buttons, those options allow app makers to access more of users’ personal information…By comparison, Sign in with Apple only shares your name and an email address with the app maker, and using your real email address is optional.

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Amazon Ring Surveillance Cameras Leak Customer Data

Andrew Orr ·

Romanian security company Bitdefender found that Amazon Ring doorbell cameras were leaking customer data like Wi-Fi credentials.

Bitdefender researchers have discovered an issue in Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell Pro IoT device that allows an attacker physically near the device to intercept the owner’s Wi-Fi network credentials and possibly mount a larger attack against the household network.

At the moment of publishing this paper, all Ring Doorbell Pro cameras have received a security update that fixes the issue described herein.

You can view the whitepaper [PDF] here.

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Apple Gets Closer to 50% Share of Smartwatch Sales

Charlotte Henry ·

The Apple Watch absolutely dominates the smartwatch market. It sales made up nearly 48% of smartwatches solde in the third quarter of 2019, according to research by Strategy Analytics reported on by AppleInsider.

It is claimed Apple Watch shipments reached 6.8 million units in Q3 2019, up 51% from the 4.5 million believed to have shipped in the same quarter in 2018. To Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawson, Apple “remains a long way ahead of the chasing pack,” and “continues to fend off strong competition from hungry rivals like Fitbit and Samsung.” Wearables were a big help for Apple’s recent financial results, with it and Services helping plug a shortfall in revenue from iPhone sales to bring Apple up to $64 billion. In the period, wearables revenue rose year-on-year by 54% to $6.52 billion… In terms of market share, Apple makes up 47.9% of smartwatch sales in the quarter, up from 45% in Q3 2018, and edging ever closer to the 50% mark.

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This Website is Hosted on a Macintosh Color Classic II

Andrew Orr ·

This cool website is being hosted on a Macintosh Color Classic II at 33MHz. This Mac was sold from 1993 to 1995.

This website was formerly hosted on a Macinosh SE/30 – the SE/30 is a 16MHz computer built in 1989. Mine shipped with 2 megabytes of RAM, a floppy drive, and an 80-meg internal SCSI (“Scuzzy”) hard drive. It has recently been upgraded with a custom 32-bit ROM, 68 megabytes of RAM, and a 4,000-megabyte Solid-State Drive. She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid. I’ve made a lot of special modifications myself.

A neat look back in time. Sign the guestbook while you’re there. The creator shared some info about it on Reddit.

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Spanish Siri Brands Bolivian President a 'Dictator'

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple tries to steer clear of political controversy (not always successfully, as we saw with Hong Kong). It probably won’t have gone down well in Cupertino then that the Spanish Siri has been branding controversial Bolivian president Evo Morales a dictator. As Cult of Mac noted, it’s not the first time the virtual assistant has strayed into politics.

Morales recently won a controversial fourth presidential term in Bolivia. However, thousands of citizens have marched across the country decrying voter fraud. It seems that Spanish language Siri was spiritually among them. When asked in Spanish, Siri said that, “The dictator of Bolivia” is Evo Morales. Siri described Morales as president in the English version. The issue was rectified after Apple was notified about it by Reuters. This isn’t the first time one of Siri’s answers has caused problems. For years, users asking about abortion centers were directed toward adoption centers. Apple finally changed this in 2016. More recently, an issue with the Russian version of Siri seemingly resulted in it expressing homophobic sentiments

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Two Twitter Employees Charged With Spying for Saudi Arabia

Andrew Orr ·

A complaint unsealed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco revealed that two Twitter employees have been charged with spying for Saudi Arabia.

The complaint also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts. Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, and Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, were charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government.

I wonder if this is a separate incident from Saudi’s Twitter mole.

Cool Stuff Found

Trailer for Sneaky Sasquatch - Now on Apple Arcade

Charlotte Henry ·

The game Sneaky Sasquatch is now on Apple Arcade. It is a task-based game in which you need to complete challenges – the only rule is don’t get caught. Apple posted a trailer for the game on its YouTube channel. This game doesn’t appear to have the high production values of some of the others on the subscription service, but it still looks quite fun.

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Chirp Books Gives You Limited-Time Deals on Audiobooks

Andrew Orr ·

For several years now I’ve been using a wonderful service called BookBub. It sends you alerts when ebooks go on sale. You pick the genres you’re interested in and you’ll get an email or notification every day. Literally about five minutes ago I got an email from them about another service they have called Chirp. It gives you the same deals except for audiobooks.

To thank you for being a BookBub member, I want to invite you to be one of the first to access our new platform for audiobook deals, Chirp! Chirp offers audiobooks selected by the same BookBub editors you trust at up to 95% off.

I love listening to audiobooks on my daily commute, while cleaning up around the house, and even while exercising. With Chirp I can binge audiobooks and discover new authors without breaking the bank.

The best part is that there’s no subscription fee or commitment, and new deals are added daily!