Now Everyone Can Decide Which WhatsApp Groups They Are Added to

WhatsApp has given the ability to control who adds you to a Group to all users, Engadget reported. Previously it had only been available to users in India.

Anyone who relies on WhatsApp to communicate with friends, family, and everyone in between knows how easily people can add them to group chats without consent. This is why the Facebook-owned messaging giant in April introduced a feature that allowed some users to stipulate who can add them to a group. Before today, the privacy setting had only been available in India, where the company has been fine-tuning the feature ahead of today’s global rollout. It’s worth noting that with more than 400 million users, India is a big market for WhatsApp, but it is also one that has struggled with the spread of incendiary messages and fake news. WhatsApp has previously tried to address these issues with stricter message-forwarding restrictions.

Police Unveil Tape of Apple Store Robbery Worth $9k

Police in Tennessee released a surveillance tape that showed a major robbery in an Apple Store in Fraklin. In total, 17 Apple Watches worth $9k were stolen MacRumors reported.

Released surveillance footage shows the trio walking into the Apple Store in Franklin and then grabbing the Apple Watches from the display table. They were able to escape unimpeded. Police have asked anyone who recognizes the suspects seen on the surveillance video above to call Crime Stoppers. The phone number is (615) 794-4000. Apple Stores are regularly targeted by thieves. Seemingly every month, there is an incident in which criminals steal devices from stores. Often these are just snatch-and-grab robberies in which thieves grab as many display devices as they can and then bolt. Occasionally, as in this June at Valencia in California, thieves rob stores at gunpoint.

 

Facebook Says 100 App Developers Improperly Accessed Data From Groups

In another case of Facebook letting app developers access whatever data they want, 100 of them improperly accessed data from Groups despite Facebook claiming it restricted that access.

Today we are also reaching out to roughly 100 partners who may have accessed this information since we announced restrictions to the Groups API, although it’s likely that the number that actually did is smaller and decreased over time.

100 app developers you say? Why would 100,000 app developers do such a thing?

How Apple, Disney and Others Aim To Keep Streaming Subscribers

The streaming wars are getting ever more intense. Reuters published a good look at how all the various services, including Apple, aim to keep subscribers.

Besides spending millions of dollars on library content, media companies are using programming, promotions and other strategies to avoid cancellations, or “churn” in industry parlance, and retain subscribers who are costly to acquire and easy to lose. “Churning off of a service once meant finding the phone number of your cable operator, navigating an automated menu and waiting on hold,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners. “We now live in a world where with a couple of clicks of your finger on your phone, all of the friction from cancellation is gone.” Disney is the only streaming provider that has used a multi-year promotion to lock in subscribers. In August, the company offered new and existing members of its D23 fan club an annual rate of $47 for a three-year commitment to Disney+ – 33% off the standard price.

Google's OpenTitan aims to Create an Open Source Secure Enclave

Google wants Android phones to have a Secure Enclave chip like iPhones. Its OpenTitan project aims to help design an open source one.

OpenTitan is loosely based on a proprietary root-of-trust chip that Google uses in its Pixel 3 and 4 phones. But OpenTitan is its own chip architecture and extensive set of schematics developed by engineers at lowRISC, along with partners at ETH Zurich, G+D Mobile Security, Nuvoton Technology, Western Digital, and, of course, Google.

The consortium will use community feedback and contributions to develop and improve the industry-grade chip design, while lowRISC will manage the project and keep suggestions and proposed changes from going live haphazardly.

You can view the OpenTitan Github repo here, but it’s not fully fleshed out yet.

App Sale: Right Now Affinity Photo is just $9.99

Adobe recently released Photoshop on the iPad. If you’re not happy with it you might like to look at an alternative called Affinity Photo. Right now it’s 50% off at US$9.99, whereas after a 30-day trial Photoshop is US$9.99/mo.

Photo for iPad offers an incredibly fast, powerful and immersive experience whether you are at home, in the studio, or on the move. With meticulous attention to detail each tool, panel and control has been completely reimagined for touch. All rendering, adjustments, brushes and filters have been fully hardware accelerated using Metal. The result is an all-new way to interact with your images, with performance you will find hard to believe.

A Closer Look at Xiaomi's Apple Watch-like Wearable

Xiaomi has unveiled a wearable called the Mi Watch that is eerily similar to the Apple Watch. Cult of Mac broke down some of its rather impressive features. However, it is currently only available in China.

The device, which starts at $185, runs a skinned version of Google Wear OS. This is packaged into a form factor with the familiar rectangular display, digital crown and pill-shaped button of the Apple Watch. In terms of tech spec, the Mi Watch reportedly boasts a 1.78-inch AMOLED display and 36-hour 570mAh battery. There’s also 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor. In addition, users get NFC tech, Bluetooth, WiFi, eSim support, and a heart rate monitoring feature. Other health-tracking tech will include blood oxygen sensor, sleep and exercise tracking, “body energy monitoring” (whatever that is), and waterproofing for measuring your swims.

Jack Dorsey from TWITTER Mocks FACEBOOK New Branding

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey does not seem to be that impressed by Facebook’s new branding. He sent a rather mocking tweet, Bloomberg News noticed.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey poked a bit of fun at Facebook Tuesday morning by seemingly imitating the new “Instagram from Facebook” and “WhatsApp from Facebook” branding.

Facebook unveiled the new branding Monday that aims to make the Facebook brand recognizable in the products it owns.