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Investor Roger McNamee Calls for Imprisoning Executives for Criminal Charges

Andrew Orr ·

Roger McNamee is calling for criminal probes into Facebook and imprisonment for executives. Specially, he believes investigations into six areas should happen, such as:

The US Securities and Exchange Commission should look at Facebook’s failure to disclose information about its business. Facebook allowed human trafficking on its platform and was “paid to enable it to happen.” Facebook’s management was “complicit” in the “Stop the Steal” campaign which led to the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.

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Apple Fitness+ Chief Hints at Content in More Languages

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple Fitness+ became available in 15 new countries earlier this week. The executive running the service, Jay Blahnik, has also hinted in an interview with O GLOBO, spotted by 9to5 Mac, that it could offer content in a wider range of languages in the future.

Jay Blahnik says that Apple is “open to the possibility of investing in Portuguese content with Brazilian professionals”…Whether English could be a problem for non-natives, Blahnik says they “talked a lot with users and I think people are really looking forward with the ability [to try] these practices and meditations in the instructor’s language. People want to hear their voice intonation and not a dubbed version.”

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Rare Apple-1 Going to Auction With US$20k Starting Bid

Charlotte Henry ·

A rare Apple-1 computer, hand-built by Steve Wozniak, is up for auction, AppleInsider reported. The sale will happen later this month, with bids opening at US$200,000.

The Apple-I, which is being put up for auction by John Moran Auctioneers and Appraisers, was hand-build by Steve Wozniak. The specific model in question is known as the “Chaffey College” Apple-I because it was purchased by an electronics professor at the school in 1976 and sold to a student. According to the auction listing, the computer is made up of an original “NTI” motherboard sporting Sprague 39D capacitors, original power regulators, and rare “Circle D” ceramic capacitors. In addition, the lot includes an Apple Cassette Adapter and is housed in an original ByteShop Apple-1 koa wood case with a Datanetics Keyboard, the connecting cable and power supply, a 1986 video monitor.

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iPhone Game Controller 'Backbone One' Announces Subscription for New Users

Andrew Orr ·

Backbone One is a game controller for iPhone that plugs into the device’s Lightning port. The company announced new features, which includes a subscription service called Backbone+.

Backbone+ gives players access to: Exclusive perks, like free months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, other service free trials, in-game items, and many more perks to come. Access to the revamped Backbone app, including the trove of new features above as well as future ones.

All new users will also automatically receive 1 year free of Backbone+ membership with their purchase of Backbone One. It renews after 1 year at $4.17/mo billed annually (about the cost of a latte).

Silly millennials, it’s only one coffee a month!

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M1 Mac mini vs. Mac Pro: a Surprising Outcome

Jeff Butts ·

Tech video blogger Max Tech decided to test how well the 2020 M1 Mac mini could stand up against a 2019 Mac Pro. The results are astounding, considering the Mac Pro costs $15,000 compared to the $899 Mac mini. While the Mac mini is beat out on most benchmarks, it held its ground in real-world tests. In fact, the Mac mini outperforms the Mac Pro in compiling Xcode projects. It’s also faster at HEVC video stabilization. When viewing and processing Canon R5 10-bit video footage, the M1 Mac mini blows away the Mac Pro. It’s also slightly more responsive in Lightroom Classic despite having to run the app through Rosetta. The Mac Pro does beat the M1 mini in many Final Cut Pro tasks, but it has much higher memory specs. In the end, Max Tech says, “For most video editors, the M1 is just fine in Lightroom.”

Update for Menu Bar Organizer ‘Bartender’ Supports MacBook Pro Notch
Cool Stuff Found

Update for Menu Bar Organizer 'Bartender' Supports MacBook Pro Notch

Andrew Orr ·

Bartender 4.1.12 has been released as a test build and it adds support for the notch on the 2021 MacBook Pro. “If you are using a MacBook Pro Notch, I recommend you use the Bartender Bar, as this removes the limit of the notch on the number of menu bar items you can have, you could also use Small menu bar item spacing to gain more room. You can update to the latest Test Build by clicking the button below, or from Bartender Prefercnes > Advanced, Check to Update your Test Builds then click the Check for Updates button.”

‘NordPass’ Update Brings Improved Autofill for Passwords
Cool Stuff Found

'NordPass' Update Brings Improved Autofill for Passwords

Andrew Orr ·

The latest NordPass update introduces improvements to one of its key features — autofill. Its form-detecting algorithm recently became more efficient. Before the update, developers had to manually improve the form-detecting algorithm. Now, it is based on machine learning technology.

The part of the autofill algorithm responsible for detecting the type of form now operates with vastly improved performance compared to its previous static iteration. The algorithm is now trained using artificial neural networks to be as accurate as possible. According to NordPass developers, the current accuracy of the algorithm is 99.6%.

‘Grammarly’ for iOS Adds Editor and Safari Extension
Cool Stuff Found

'Grammarly' for iOS Adds Editor and Safari Extension

Andrew Orr ·

The Grammarly app was recently updated to bring the editor to iPhone and iPad. Here are the new additions: Provides comprehensive writing feedback on long-form documents, along with personal statistics and milestones to help people improve along the way. Grammarly Editor is also compatible with hardware keyboards.  Grammarly’s Safari extension: Brings the best of Grammarly to any mobile web application. Grammarly Keyboard: Access Grammarly’s leading writing suggestions in any mobile application.

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Phlebotomy Training Specialists Exposes Student Data in Breach

Andrew Orr ·

Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor’s research team discovered a data breach from Phlebotomy Training Specialists.

Unfortunately, the company was storing the complete records of 10,000s of students nationwide on a single, open cloud account. In this case, Phlebotomy Training Specialists was using an Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 bucket to store data it collected from students, staff members, and people applying to its courses. S3 buckets are an increasingly popular enterprise cloud storage solution. However, users must set up their security protocols manually to protect the data stored therein.