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Users Noticing CarPlay Crashing With iOS 15 and iPhone 13

Charlotte Henry ·

Some people using iOS 15 and iPhone 13 are noticing issues with CarPlay, MacRumors reported. It seems to be crashing when users try and play music through services like Apple Music and Spotify.

Dozens of posts on Apple Support, the MacRumors Forums, and Twitter include users complaining that only on their new ‌iPhone 13‌ does ‌CarPlay‌ not work correctly. According to users, attempting to play music from any ‌CarPlay‌ app causes the system to crash, but it works just fine when they try on older iPhones.

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Phone Companies Must Block Carriers That Don't Follow FCC Rules

Andrew Orr ·

Phone companies must now block traffic from voice service providers that don’t comply with new FCC robocall rules.

Specifically, phone companies must block traffic from other “voice service providers that have neither certified to implementation of STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication standards nor filed a detailed robocall mitigation plan with the FCC.”

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Visa Announces Layer 2 Blockchain for Stablecoins and CBDCs

Andrew Orr ·

Visa has announced a Layer 2 project for cryptocurrency that aims to be a universal exchange hub for stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

The idea is to create a digital currency equivalent of the existing international payment experience—one that lets you pay for something in another country with a debit or credit card that draws funds from an account in your home country.

Also: “Visa, for instance, says the proposed base layer for its universal payments channel is Ethereum.”

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Twitch Adds Verification Tool as a Way to Fight Bots

Andrew Orr ·

Starting today, Twitch will let streamers require their viewers to verify their phone number via SMS before they can start chatting.

Twitch’s approach so far has been to offer streamers more control over who can and can’t chat. Streamers already have the option to make their chats subscriber-only, or slow down their chat so moderators can approve messages. There’s also the option to force all chatters to verify their email on Twitch. That hasn’t been enough, though.

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'FinSpy' Spyware is Adept at Hiding Itself With a Four-Layer Method

Andrew Orr ·

FinSpy, a well-known piece of spyware from German company FinFisher, is good at hiding. Researchers at Kaspersky have reverse-engineered the malware.

In addition to a four-layer obfuscation method, the spyware also now employs a UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) bootkit for infecting its targets, and it also encrypts the malware in memory, according to the researchers. The Kaspersky team’s research began in 2019, and they are finally sharing their findings today at Kaspersky’s online Security Analyst Summit.

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AirTag Zero Day Found That Could Steal Your iCloud Password

Andrew Orr ·

A security researcher found a zero-day bug with AirTag that could let an attacker potentially steal your Apple ID.

Apple’s “Lost Mode” allows a user to mark their Airtag as missing if they have misplaced it. This generates a unique https://found.apple.com page, which contains the Airtag’s serial number, and the phone number and personal message of the Airtag owner.

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Apple Should Scrap Leather if Its Serious About The Environment

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple is always keen to tout its environmental credentials. However, Adam Oram at iMore makes a really good point. If the company wanted to really improve the impact it has on the environment further, it would stop using leather.

One aspect of Apple’s product lineup no one appears to be looking at, though, is the use of leather. Environmentally, leather is extremely damaging, and it’s surprising to me that Apple has not pursued more eco-friendly alternatives. Apple has a long history with leather, having made a variety of accessories. Right now, in Apple’s product lineup, it has several leather items, including iPhone cases, folios, and sleeves, Apple Watch bands, iPad Smart Covers, MacBook sleeves, MagSafe wallets, and AirTag key rings. These are all supplementary to its hero products, but they are often sold as add-ons when picking up a new phone or tablet.

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So What is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization Anyway?

Andrew Orr ·

David Shuttleworth wrote a nice write-up to explain decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). These are blockchain-related entities where power is shared by everyone.

Ultimately, a DAO is governed entirely by its individual members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project, such as technical upgrades and treasury allocations.