Wayne Williams

Ransomware is barely out of the news these days. We had WannaCry wreaking havoc not so long ago, and now it’s the turn of Petya/NotPetya. And those are just two of the better-known threats; there are plenty more forms of ransomware out there which, while maybe not as prevalent, can have just as devastating an effect.

If you’re concerned about the threat of ransomware, which is easily one of the nastiest forms of malware out there, we have a selection of ebooks and whitepapers you can download for free which will give you all the knowledge you need to avoid becoming a victim, and which can help you recover from an infection.

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It may seem strange now, but when the iPhone originally launched (10 years today, as if you didn’t already know by now), it wasn’t viewed as a smartphone in some quarters because of restrictions placed on the device by Apple.

Wireless industry analyst firm ABI Research’s definition of a smartphone was "a cellular handset using an open, commercial operating system that supports third-party applications", but Apple at that time was blocking third-party apps from the iPhone.

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On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. It was the usual quality presentation from Apple’s sorely missed boss, with some great moments of humor. Our first glimpse of the phone was in fact actually a mock-up of an iPod with a rotary dial in place of the usual click wheel. The audience clapped and hooted. Jobs then went on to show the real device, and it was pretty mind-blowing.

Here was a phone that looked nothing like a phone. It looked nothing like an iPod, for that matter either. It was pretty much all screen, controlled by touch using your finger -- or fingers, thanks to the power of multi-touch -- and was, according to Jobs, powered by OS X. The device could tell if you were holding it portrait or landscape, and knew when you were holding it up to your ear, and so prevent you prematurely ending a call with the side of your face. It came with a 620MHz processor, 128MB of memory and a 2MP camera. It was a magical device. This was the future, being shown right here. A device to be coveted by all. But I didn’t want one.

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The original iPhone went on sale ten years ago today, and in celebration I’ve been trawling through the BetaNews archives. Sadly we didn’t review the first iPhone, but we did gather together some of the best press and user comments following the device’s announcement, and they are amusing to say the least.

Below is the original story written by Ed Oswald, and underneath that are some of the best reader responses to it. Knowing what we know now, I think you’ll find it entertaining.

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When the original iPhone went on sale ten years ago today, there was a lot of excitement, and people queued up outside of Apple stores to get their hands on what was to be a game-changing device.

Trawling through the BetaNews archives I found two examples that best illustrate the excitement at the time, including a very illuminating first hand report from Tim Conneally. First up is a selection of photos from iPhone launches across the US.

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We’re back on the weekly release schedule, and after two jam-packed exciting new builds you might be forgiven for thinking the latest big Insider release would be a little light on new features and… you’d be wrong.

Build 16232 introduces some of the new security features which will be coming to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, including Exploit Protection, and Controlled folder access in Windows Defender Antivirus. It also introduces improvements for Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG).

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There are a lot of different types of cases for your smartphone, but many of them look cheap, or frankly, boring. Not so the cases in the RÖK collection.

These striking cases are made from real stone, and are unlike anything else you’ll have seen before. If you have an iPhone, a Samsung Galaxy flagship, a Google Pixel, or the LG V20, and are looking for a stylish case to protect it, then the RÖK range certainly fits the bill.

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Kodi itself isn’t illegal, but using third-party add-ons to watch copyrighted content is. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen some developers pull their add-ons in the face of legal action, and 'fully-loaded' Kodi boxes have been in the firing line for a while.

So far ordinary Kodi users have escaped scrutiny, but that could be about to change as a major anti-piracy organization has expressed its intention to come after end users in "the very near future."

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Windows Insiders on the Fast ring have received two major new builds recently, but as always it’s been much quieter for those on the Slow ring.

However, a new build is on its way, and in preparation for that, Microsoft has a released cumulative update KB4022716 to those on the Slow ring. Insider chief Dona Sarkar also reveals Insiders won’t get the forthcoming new build automatically.

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It’s not uncommon these days to see people complaining about how complex JavaScript development seems to have become. If you’re learning JS, it won’t take long for you to be exposed to the enormity of the ecosystem and the sheer number of moving pieces you need to understand (at least conceptually) to build a modern web application.

Package management, linting, transpilation, module bundling, minification, source maps, frameworks, unit testing, hot reloading… it can’t be denied that this is a lot more complex than just including a couple of script tags in your page and FTPing it up to the server.

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Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier today that the social network now has 2 billion users.

In celebration of that milestone, Facebook also shared some other interesting snippets of information, such as that over 800 million people Like something on Facebook every day, and 175 million people share a Love reaction. In addition, more than 1 billion people use Groups every month.

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Two months ago, in an effort to fightback against the WannaCry ransomware, Microsoft took the 'highly unusual' step of releasing a patch for Windows XP, the ancient operating system it stopped supporting back in 2014 (even though, as it turned out, it was really Windows 7, not XP, that was to blame for the spread of the devastating malware).

Then just two weeks ago, Microsoft included Windows XP and Vista -- another operating system it no longer supports -- in June's Patch Tuesday updates. Despite these recent actions, neither XP nor Vista are going to receive regular security updates from Microsoft, meaning users still running either OS remain at serious risk. However, the good news is there are a couple of tricks you can use to continue receiving security updates for both XP and Vista.

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Google has been fined a record €2.42 billion ($2.7bn/£2.1bn) by the European Commission after a seven year investigation sparked by Microsoft and other firms, found that the company had unfairly promoted Google Shopping above other similar shopping comparison services on its search site.

The ruling also states that Google has 90 days to cease its anti-competitive practices or it could occur further penalties, and they could really rack up.

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Windows 10’s File History feature automatically backs up your files to another drive and lets you restore them if the originals get lost, damaged, or deleted. It’s saved my bacon on more than one occasion and I wouldn’t be without it.

However, starting with the accidental Insider Build 16212 released earlier this month, the feature disappeared, and was still missing in Build 16215 which followed a week later.

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Somewhat controversially, Google has always scanned messages in Gmail in order to be able to present users with relevant, personalized adverts based on the email content. That’s something that has always worried people who are concerned with what personal information the company might be gleaning from their inboxes.

In a surprise announcement, the search giant today declares its intention to end the long-standing policy.

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