Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

It's not all that long since Apple celebrated becoming a trillion dollar company, but then just last week it issued a profit warning and its value plummeted. Hot on the heals on this comes the news that Apple is cutting production of new iPhones for the current quarter by a significant amount.

The Nikkei Asian Review reports that Apple is slashing production of its current trio of iPhone models by 10 percent in the January-March quarter.

It feels like it has been a while since we've had any NSA-related news -- interest in mass surveillance has been overtaken by other concerns. After a series of Vault 7 leaks from WikiLeaks about the organization, the NSA is now planning to release its GHIDRA framework, designed to reverse-engineer malware and other software, later in the year.

The framework will be available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and it is set to be demonstrated and publicly released at the RSAConference in March. While it might seem like a bad idea to release a tool that can be used to break down malware and see how it works -- and, therefore, create other similar attack tools -- the idea is actually to help increase security.

Since Microsoft bought GitHub last year there have been a few changes here and there, but the company has just announced something pretty major. While it previously cost $7 per month to create a private repository, now it is possible to create an unlimited number free of charge.

There is a slight caveat, of course. Private projects are limited to up to three collaborators before a charge is applicable. Microsoft has also announced a new service, GitHub Enterprise, which brings together Enterprise Cloud (previously known as GitHub Business Cloud) and Enterprise Server (previously, and confusingly, known as GitHub Enterprise).

If you want to be part of the in-crowd, adding a dark mode to your software is essential. Google has already shown a lot of love for gothic hues, and it looks set to continue this with Android Q -- or Android 10, if you prefer.

Over on the Chromium Bug Tracker, Google worker Lukasz Zbylut appears to confirm that Android Q will feature a system-wide dark mode, with all preloaded apps offering the option natively.

Responding to a forum post that accused it of "fingerprinting users", privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo says that fears are unfounded and that it is not tracking its users.

The allegation was made after the Firefox extension CanvasBlocker showed a warning to users. The suggestion of fingerprinting -- gathering as much information as possible about a user through their browser to create a unique identifier that can be used for tracking -- is clearly something that would seem to sit in opposition to what DuckDuckGo claims to stand for. The company CEO says the accusation is simply wrong.

A number of complaints came to light recently from iPad Pro owners who were unhappy to discover that their expensive Apple tablets were bent. Apple responded to these complaints by saying that the iPad Pro's unibody design "meets or exceeds" all of its high standards.

Now the company has gone further, publishing a support page explaining the manufacturer and testing process of the iPad Pro, and explaining that the way the tablet is made is the reason some people see a bend. Apple insists, however, that an bend should be within a tiny 400 micron tolerance.

Back in late November, Marriott International went public with news that its Starwood Hotel reservation database had been hacked. At the time, the company suggested that up to 500 million customer records had been put at risk as a result, but now it has provided an update with a reduced estimate.

The company now says that it believes up to 383 million guests may have been affected; but the news is not all good. Marriott also reveals that over 5 million unencrypted passport numbers were stolen by hackers.

The Weather Channel app holds the accolade of being the most popular mobile weather app, but it is also facing accusations of misleading users into agreeing to allow the company to sell their location data to third parties.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this week alleges that the operator of the IBM-owned app -- TWC Product and Technology LLC -- sold user data to at least a dozen companies and failed to make details of this clear to users. The lawsuit says that the data was used to delivered targeted advertising and also to analyze consumer behaviour.

Microsoft Research is currently testing a new control panel which could enable users to manage the data the company collects about them.

Known as Project Bali, the tool is currently undergoing private beta testing. It promises to not only give users the option of managing and controlling the data collected about them, but also -- intriguingly -- the ability to monetize it.

After Apple issued a profit warning, indicating that it believed first quarter revenue will be lower than previously expected, shares in the company dropped by as much as 9 percent in early trading, and the effects were felt by other companies as fear mounted that Apple's troubles could spread wider.

Tim Cook issued a letter to shareholders, warning that "our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter". He cites a number of reasons for the revised figures, including the timing of iPhone sales, the strength of the dollar, market saturation, and lower than expected numbers of iPhone upgrades -- this being partly blamed on the high uptake of Apple's reduced-price battery upgrade program introduced a little over a year ago.

An increasing number of apps and websites are gaining dark modes, often simply for the sake of aesthetics, but also because of power-saving considerations. Having added eye-saving dark modes to numerous Android apps, Google has confirmed that it is doing the same for the Windows 10 version of Chrome.

While there is no particular time frame in which we can expect to see Chrome's dark mode, a Chrome developer has confirmed that the feature is in progress.

If you have enabled Windows 10's built-in administrator account, and upgrade from build 1803 to 1809 -- that is, the April 2018 Update to the October 2018 update -- you will find that a bug has been introduced that disables the account.

Microsoft says that it is aware of the problem, but the company does not plan on releasing a fix for it until the end of the month.

President Trump's partial shutdown of the US government is now well into its second week, with little sign of the impasse over funding for a wall on the southern border coming to an end. Large numbers of government employees are already feeling the pinch due to a lack of pay checks, and the impact is on the verge of spreading further.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that it will suspend "most operations" at midday on Thursday, January 3 "in the event of a continued partial lapse in federal government funding".

Facebook's track record with privacy is a rocky one, but the idea of giving up some personal data is seen by many users as an acceptable price to pay for using the social network. But an investigation by Privacy International has found that many Android apps are sharing data with Facebook about people regardless of whether they are logged into their Facebook account... or even have a Facebook account at all.

The findings of the investigation raise questions about Facebook's transparency when it comes to handling user (and non-user) data, and the privacy implications of profiling by the social networking behemoth -- particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Firefox users have expressed surprise, disgust and anger at the appearance of banner ads on new tabs in the browser. An advertisement appeared recently inviting users to make a booking via Booking.com.

The ad appears at the bottom of the new tab page, and makes use of Firefox's Snippet feature. Mozilla has explained that the "snippet was an experiment", insisting no user data has been shared with third parties. If you're concerned, however -- or just don't want to see even more ads -- you can disable them.