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Andrew Orr

Since 2015 Andrew has been writing about Apple, privacy, security, and at one point even Android. You can find him most places online under the username @andrewornot.

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Articles by Andrew Orr

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Google Photos for iOS Adds Video Editing, New Photo Editing Features

Andrew Orr ·

Google has added new editing features to its Photos app on iOS, including video editing. New editing features will be available exclusively to Google One members.

Starting today, we’re bringing some of the editing features currently available on Pixel to Google One members as a part of their membership. These effects transform your portraits using machine learning: with Portrait Blur, you can blur the background post-snap, and with Portrait Light, you can improve the lighting on faces in portraits. Both features work for photos just taken or images from the past — even if the original image wasn’t taken in portrait mode.

Cool Stuff Found

Apple TV+: ‘Servant’ S2E4 With M. Night Shyamalan

Andrew Orr ·

Apple shared a video on its YouTube channel with M. Night Shyamalan discussing the latest episode of his series “Servant.” In this special episode directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the audience is introduced to a new area of the Turner house: the attic. As the brownstone reaches new heights, will the family dynamics change along with it? “Servant” follows a Philadelphia couple in mourning after an unspeakable tragedy creates a rift in their marriage and opens the door for a mysterious force to enter their home.

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35 Companies Including Apple Hacked in Supply Chain Attack

Andrew Orr ·

Security researcher Alex Birsan was able to breach over 35 companies’ internal systems, including Apple, Microsoft, PayPal, Spotify, Netflix, and others. He did this through bug bounty programs and pre-approved penetration testing arrangements (aka, he’s one of the good guys). He earned over US$100,000 in bounties.

The attack comprised uploading malware to open source repositories including PyPI, npm, and RubyGems, which then got distributed downstream automatically into the company’s internal applications.

Unlike traditional typosquatting attacks that rely on social engineering tactics or the victim misspelling a package name, this particular supply chain attack is more sophisticated as it needed no action by the victim, who automatically received the malicious packages.

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Hackers Tried to Poison Florida Town’s Water Supply

Andrew Orr ·

Most security news I’ve shared involves purely digital hacking. This story from Reuters is a case of using hacking to affect the physical world, like an attempt to poison a town’s water supply.

The hackers then increased the amount of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, being distributed into the water supply. The chemical is typically used in small amounts to control the acidity of water, but at higher levels is dangerous to consume.

Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel said in a press conference on Monday that the affected water treatment facility also had other controls in place that would have prevented a dangerous amount of lye from entering the water supply unnoticed.

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Browser Favicons Can be Used to Track You Online

Andrew Orr ·

Software designer Jonas Strehle discovered that browser favicons can be used to give you a unique ID that can be used to track you across the web. It works even if you use privacy tools like a VPN, incognito browsing, deleting cookies/browser cache, and others.

To be clear, this is a proof-of-concept and not something that Strehle has found out in the wild. Strehle’s supercookie program (which uses a Cookie Monster favicon) is a proof of the concept described by the university researchers.

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Adobe Adds Document Collaboration to Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco

Andrew Orr ·

Adobe announced on Tuesday new document collaborations for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fresco.

The Invite to Edit feature in Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fresco allows asynchronous editing on all surfaces across the desktop, iPad, and iPhone (Fresco). Now collaborators can edit a shared cloud document, one at a time. Just save your. PSD or. AI files as cloud documents and send invitations for others to edit them. You can also edit files that have been shared with you. In addition, you can access your shared cloud documents on assets.adobe.com and the Creative Cloud Desktop app.

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Android Could Mimic iOS 14 App Tracking Transparency

Andrew Orr ·

A report from Mark Gurman suggests that Google could add the App Tracking Transparency privacy feature to Android. But it wouldn’t be as private since Google is ultimately an advertising company.

A Google solution is likely to be less strict and won’t require a prompt to opt in to data tracking like Apple’s, the people said […] To keep advertisers happy while improving privacy, the discussions around Google’s Android solution indicate that it could be similar to its planned Chrome web browser changes.

In other words, why even bother?

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Affinity Apps Updated With RAW Engine, Contour Tool, More

Andrew Orr ·

Serif has updated its line of Affinity apps to version 1.9. on Thursday. New features include a contour tool, a RAW engine, GPU acceleration, and plenty of other goodies.

A key feature which sets Affinity Photo apart from the competition is its non-destructive workflow, and that has been taken to another level again with the ability to add liquify adjustments as live, maskable layers. On top of that there are substantial improvements to its RAW engine, new linked layer functionality, path text, as well as a whole new mode to control the stacking of astrography images for stunning results.

Additionally, all Affinity apps are currently available with 50% discount as an initiative to support the creative community during COVID-19, from affinity.serif.com.