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The ProtonMail iOS App is Now Fully Open Source

Andrew Orr ·

Since 2015 ProtonMail’s web app has been open source, and today the company announced that its iOS app is, too.

In addition to making our iOS app open source, we have also documented and published our iOS security model. This is important to us because raw code without documentation can be almost unintelligible sometimes, and a documented security model will assist in rigorous assessment and review of our code by the public. Our iOS trust model is also available on our Github page.

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How TikTok Broke Rap Music

Charlotte Henry ·

TikTok has 1.7 billion active users and features videos of teens and tweens lip-synching. And, according to Wired, it has broken rap music, infantilizing a genre once built on rebellion.

“Rap has always had a playful way of delivering lyrics. We’re seeing a renaissance of humour being put back into the music,” says Isabel Quinteros, senior manager of music partnerships and artist relations at TikTok. “TikTok is filled with light-hearted content from people having fun with their videos, and we’re excited to give these artists a platform to directly connect with their fans.” Since TikTok and rap music both grew out of a practice of remixing and re-contextualising music, it’s fitting that rappers seem to be profiting most from this new interaction. Lil Nas X’s completely clean and cowboy cosplay track ‘Old Town Road’ is still by far the most famous example.

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Analysts React to Apple's Latest Results

Charlotte Henry ·

Wall Street analysts were, as ever, quick to react as Apple revealed its latest round of results on Wednesday. Many of them focused on the growth in wearables. AppleInsider insider has a nice roundup of what many of the big names had to say.

Cowen and Company: Reiterating its “Outperform” rating on the stock the iPhone business is performing “better than market expectations in the near term.” The iPhone 11 product family “is being received well by consumers and this could drive a re-rating in shares,” the firm suggests, “especially as a potential low-cost SE2 in C1H20 and a 5G iPhone by C4Q20 could be additional catalysts in the coming year.” Rosenblatt Securities: The 1.58% year-on-year revenue increase is “mainly driven by the wearable segment” and primarily from AirPods, Rosenblatt claims, though this is of limited use to the company as it “does not bring much upside to iOS services” at all. “We believe the lack of upside to services from wearables is why the Street gives low multiples to wearable companies.”

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Twitter Leapfrogs Over Facebook and Bans Political Ads

Andrew Orr ·

I’m actually impressed with Twitter’s move. A corporation is willingly giving up the money it would make from political ads (Although it’s easy for them since these ads were a “small fraction of Twitter’s revenue). Still, kudos.

[Twitter CEO Jack] Dorsey touched on the conflict between hosting paid political ads and trying to fight the spread of misinformation.

“For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: ‘We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well…they can say whatever they want!'” Dorsey tweeted.

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Blockbusters Not Boxsets Might Decide The Streaming Wars

Charlotte Henry ·

As more and more streaming services are announced, a lot of the talk is on the boxset-style series that are available. It is though they will be crucial in attracting subscribers. However, Variety suggests the blockbuster-style might be more important in deciding who wins the streaming wars.

The pressure is only growing on the film front, particularly as Netflix has dramatically increased the quality of its feature offerings. After backing critically maligned productions such as the Will Smith fantasy “Bright,” Netflix’s feature division is overflowing with Oscar contenders this year. The company has generated rave reviews for the likes of Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” Fernando Meirelles’ “The Two Popes” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” That track record, along with its 2017 decision to enlist former Universal executive Scott Stuber to oversee its film division, has made the service a desirable destination for filmmakers looking for a home for their passion projects.

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AvengerCon: The Return of a Hack Convention for the Military

Andrew Orr ·

AvengerCon is a hacking convention for members of the US Cyber Command and government cyber operations community at the US CYBERCOM DreamPort facility.

AvengerCon is an event that is attracting the very best talent both from our DoD participants and also from some of the folks that are working with us outside of the DoD,” Luber said. “When you bring those very best cyber experts together, they get to learn, test out new ideas, and work in an environment that is hosted by and for DoD cyber operations community experts.

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The AI 'AlphaStar' Becomes a Grandmaster in StarCraft II

Andrew Orr ·

DeepMind’s AlphaStar AI has recently become a Grandmaster in the game StarCraft II.

StarCraft requires players to gather resources, build dozens of military units, and use them to try to destroy their opponents. StarCraft is particularly challenging for an AI because players must carry out long-term plans over several minutes of gameplay, tweaking them on the fly in the face of enemy counterattacks. DeepMind says that prior to its own effort, no one had come close to designing a StarCraft AI as good as the best human players.

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Apple Previews Upcoming 'See' Series on YouTube

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has uploading a two-minute featurette of See, a series in which everyone in the world has lost the ability to see.

Jason Momoa stars as Baba Voss, the father of twins born centuries later with the mythic ability to see—who must protect his tribe against a powerful yet desperate queen who believes it’s witchcraft and wants them destroyed. Alfre Woodard also stars as Paris, Baba Voss’ spiritual leader.

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Facebook Fined by UK Information Commissioner Over Cambridge Analytica

Charlotte Henry ·

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has fined Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The social media giant will pay a total of £500,000 ($630,240) and made no admission of liability, BBC News reported.

As part of the agreement, Facebook has made no admission of liability. The US firm said it “wished it had done more to investigate Cambridge Analytica” earlier. James Dipple-Johnstone, deputy commissioner of the ICO said: “The ICO’s main concern was that UK citizen data was exposed to a serious risk of harm. Protection of personal information and personal privacy is of fundamental importance, not only for the rights of individuals, but also as we now know, for the preservation of a strong democracy.” Harry Kinmonth, a Facebook lawyer, noted that the social network had made changes to restrict the information app developers could access following the scandal.

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The iPhone 11 Camera is Completely New

Andrew Orr ·

In Part 1 of a multi-part series, Sebastiaan de With wrote an article about the iPhone 11 camera and how it’s completely new.

It’s true: The great advances in camera quality for these new iPhones are mostly to blame on advanced (and improved) software processing.

I’ve taken some time to analyze the iPhone 11’s new image capture pipeline, and it looks like one of the greatest changes in iPhone cameras yet.