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Encrypted Cloud Storage Service ‘Cryptee’ Announces Massive Update

Andrew Orr ·

Cryptee is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service and announced a huge update on Sunday.

We’ve re-designed the entire platform, re-engineered everything from ground up, added hundreds of new features, and created an entirely new Cryptee experience for you. Along the way we’ve realized it’s going to be a massive leap forward, so we thought we should get a new logo too.

I think Cryptee is a great service and one that I’ve recommended in the past.

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Mysterious ‘Silver Sparrow’ Malware Confuses Researchers

Andrew Orr ·

Over the weekend we got news of a mysterious piece of malware called Silver Sparrow. It has infected 30,000 machines so far and there is a version of it built for M1 Macs. But security researchers can’t figure out its purpose.

Once an hour, infected Macs check a control server to see if there are any new commands the malware should run or binaries to execute. So far, however, researchers have yet to observe delivery of any payload on any of the infected 30,000 machines, leaving the malware’s ultimate goal unknown. The lack of a final payload suggests that the malware may spring into action once an unknown condition is met.

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Tim Cook Declares 2020 ‘Apple’s Top Year of Innovation’

Charlotte Henry ·

2020 was “Apple’s top year of innovation ever,” according to CEO Tim Cook. He made the comments in an interview with students at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, picked up on by AppleInsider.

“There’s no one formula for innovation,” Cook said. “What we do is we have a culture of creativity and a culture of collaboration. These two things together, when they intersect, create enormous innovation.” He said that diversity and inclusion foster an environment for innovation, that diverse people feed off of each other. Shijie commented on the iPhone 12 and congratulated Cook on the new devices and features. Cook responded by commenting on the innovations Apple released throughout 2020.

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NVIDIA Limits Ethereum-Mining on New Graphics Card

Charlotte Henry ·

NVIDIA has said it will make its GPUs less economical to cryptocurrency miners, reducing its efficiency in processing Ethereum transactions by around half. The chipmaker wants to make sure its products, “end up in the hands of gamers,” BBC News reported.

Nvidia said the software for its forthcoming GeForce RTX 3060 card will limit how efficiently it can process Ethereum transactions by about 50%. This will make it less economical for miners to use the card for mining Ethereum. Nvidia said it had focused on Ethereum because it “has the highest global mining yield for any GPU-mineable coin at the moment and thus is likely the main demand driver for GPUs in mining”. However, it has also decided to sell a range of crypto-currency mining processors (CMPs). Nvidia said the production of its CMPs would not impact the availability of its graphics cards.

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University Health Network Launches New Apple Watch Heart Study

Charlotte Henry ·

9to5 Mac has picked up on reports of a new Apple Watch heart study. It is being run by University Health Network (UHN) in Canada and aims to discover how the wearable “can drive better clinical outcomes for heart failure patients.”

The UHN Apple Watch heart study will be led by renowned Canadian cardiologist Dr. Heather Ross, of the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. The length of the study will be three months and will be done in collaboration with Apple to see “if remote monitoring with Apple Watch can help with early identification of worsening heart failure.” Notably, the new Blood Oxygen sensor and app is part of this study which means participants will be using the Apple Watch Series 6.

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Original COO Talks Steve Jobs and Apple’s Early Days

Charlotte Henry ·

Before Tim Cook there was Del Yocam. He was Apple’s first Chief Operating Officer, the role held by Mr. Cook prior to becoming CEO.  In a fascinating interview with Cult of Mac, he discussed mentoring Steve Jobs and Apple’s early days.

He also served as an early mentor to Steve Jobs, the young Apple co-founder who sometimes seemed out of his depth in 1979. “When I first got to know him, he was lost,” Yocam told Cult of Mac. “He was no longer involved in the Apple II and no one wanted him around, especially management. He didn’t care about money at that time. He was like an orphan, living away from home.” In many ways, Yocam was the proto-Tim Cook, a manufacturing and operations specialist who helped transform a dysfunctional startup into a massive, moneymaking leader of the early PC industry. He also helped take the rapidly growing company international.

Cool Stuff Found

Behind Episode 205 of Servant With M. Night Shyamalan

Charlotte Henry ·

The latest Servant ‘Behind the Episode’ video is now on the Apple TV+ YouTube channel. In it, creator M. Night Shyamalan begins to reveal Leanne’s childhood and looks at how the relationship with her mother also affects her relationship with Dorothy. Episode five of the second series of Servant is now available to Apple TV+ subscribers, with episode six set to land Friday.

‘Clean Text’ From ApiMac is the Closest Tool to TextEdit for iOS
Cool Stuff Found

‘Clean Text’ From ApiMac is the Closest Tool to TextEdit for iOS

Andrew Orr ·

I believe Clean Text is the purest expression of plain text editing for iPhones and iPads, like TextEdit on Mac. I’ve been gradually transitioning my notes into plain text. I still use Apple Notes for its rich text and support for images. But plain text is a great backup solution. Clean Text doesn’t try to force you into its own note-taking paradigm; in fact it’s not a traditional note-taking app at all. Unlike other note-takers I’ve used, Clean Text, as the name suggests, cleans your text. It has tools to fix line breaks, join paragraphs, remove empty lines, replace tabs with spaces, and lots more. When you’re done you can copy the text to another app or export it to Files. One note at a time without a subscription or in-app purchase. One up front purchase of US$0.99. I created a shortcut that copies text from the input (share a plain text file to it) and opens Clean Text where you can paste it. Good for quickly editing a text file from Files.