Apple has unveiled new logos for its MFi Program. The Made For iPhone/iPad/iPod Program is a certification program used to indicate that third-party accessories meet Apple's standards for quality.

Having launched a new set of simplified logos, Apple is giving manufacturers 90 days to switch to the new designs. The change may seem minor, but there are three tweaks worth noting.

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As Windows 10 continues its trend of being a bloated and confusing mess (tighten it up, Microsoft!), Linux-based operating systems continue to be an excellent alternative. There are no shortage of great Linux distributions from which to choose either -- Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint -- you can’t go wrong.

For those converting from Windows, one great choice is Netrunner. This is a Debian-based operating system that leverages the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It is very reminiscent of the much-loved Windows 7. The OS comes pre-loaded with a lot of useful software, and Linux beginners will really benefit from that. Today, a new version of the distro becomes available for download -- Netrunner 18.03 Idolon.

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It is hard to get excited about a desk lamp. I mean, let's be honest -- they supply light and that's the end of the story, right? Well, no. Not necessarily. Actually, thanks to LED technology, there have been big advancements in both design and lighting capability.

Believe it or not, I am excited about a desk lamp, and there are many reasons why. It is from a company called TaoTronics and the product name is "LED Desk Lamp with Wireless Charger" (model number TT-DL036). As the name implies, it can wirelessly charge your compatible smartphones, such as the Galaxy S8 or iPhone 8. Actually, any device with Qi charging capabilities can be charged just by being placed on the lamp's base.

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Snapchat and Instagram have both temporarily removed GIPHY integration from their products following the appearance of a racist GIF. A statement put out by Snapchat says: "We have removed GIPHY from our application until we can be assured that this will never happen again."

Instagram made a similar move, and it's not clear when GIPHY will rectify the issue. (Warning: a tweet containing the GIF in question is featured in the article below).

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As a big fan of the GNOME desktop environment, I have long been a Fedora user. After all, that operating system uses GNOME as its primary environment. Since Canonical killed Unity and moved its focus to GNOME, I have a renewed interest in Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions, such as System76's wonderful Pop!_OS. I suspect I am not alone in my feelings.

Today, Ubuntu Linux 18.04 'Bionic Beaver' Beta 1 becomes available for download. Ubuntu 18.04 is significant, as it will be an LTS (Long Term Support) version. As was the case when Unity was the primary DE, GNOME is not available in this beta stage. Instead, there are other flavors from which to choose, such as Kubuntu with KDE Plasma and Xubuntu, which uses Xfce.

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My first-ever console was Atari 2600. My favorite game for it was Mario Bros. -- it was before the brothers became super on Nintendo Entertainment System. It was Super Mario Brothers on NES that made me -- and countless others -- huge video game fans, however. My love for Mario, Luigi, and the rest of the Nintendo world, remains strong to this day.

To celebrate Mario, an annual holiday has been established -- MAR10 Day. Get it? It is on March 10, as the abbreviation looks like the word "Mario." Well, Google is apparently getting in on the Mario love, as it is bringing the plumber to its Maps service for a limited time.

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Cloud platform Dropbox and leading CRM provider Salesforce have announced a new partnership to connect their platforms, allowing companies of all types and sizes to collaborate and connect with their customers across sales, service, marketing, commerce, and more.

Users will be able to create branded, customized Dropbox folders within Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud using a new digital asset engagement solution. Folders will be available to both internal teams and external partners.

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If you're a Chrome user, you may well have taken advantage of the password saving feature of the browser to make it easier to log into your various online accounts. However, it's not a perfect solution, and you may well have been considering one of the various password management tools that exist instead.

Until now, it has not been possible to extract the passwords and login data you have saved in Chrome ready to import into your new password database. This has now changed, so you can easily switch to a new password manager without having to retype everything by hand.

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It's long been known that the Chinese government has links to hacker groups, but new research into the country's national vulnerability database (CNNVD) reveals evidence of data being changed to hide influence by the country’s intelligence service.

Research by security intelligence specialist Recorded Future back in November finds that CNNVD is faster than the US national vulnerability database (NVD) in reporting vulnerabilities -- NVD trails CNNVD in average time between initial disclosure and database inclusion (33 days versus 13 days).

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Burnaware Technologies has released PDF Shaper Free 8.2, a major update to its freeware PDF toolkit for Windows users. PDF Shaper provides a series of tools for managing and optimizing PDF files, and is also available in Premium and Professional editions.

It’s the paid-for editions that get the most love in this new release, with the non-free Watermark tool gaining three new features. All versions gain support for system TrueType fonts, codepages and styles as well as an option to select specific pages when converting a PDF to an image file.

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Donald Trump's use of Twitter is well known, and it's also been the source of some controversy for one reason or another. As well as his seemingly ill-thought out ramblings causing delight, amazement, disbelief and horror in just about equal measure, it has been suggested that the president's decision to block people who criticize him is unconstitutional.

Now a district judge may have come up with a solution, avoiding concerns about potential violation of the First Amendment. She suggests that rather than blocking people, Trump should just mute their accounts.

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Microsoft has stopped a large scale malware distribution campaign that tried to infect almost 500,000 Windows PCs with a cryptocurrency miner.

Windows Defender antivirus software detected 80,000 instances of several Trojans with the payload known as Dofoil or Smoke loader, at noon PST on March 6.

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In an attempt to improve trust and transparency, ad-blocking tool Ghostery has gone open source. It comes after Ghostery was acquired by Cliqz last year and raised a few eyebrows with the business model it put in place.

As well as going open source, Ghostery is also introducing new ways of making money. Rather than selling anonymized user data to third parties, there are now two income streams: Ghostery Insights and Ghostery Rewards. The former is a premium product for which details have not been revealed, the latter an opt-in marketing system.

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For a large number of Twitter users, there is one question that crops up time and time again -- "How do I get verified on Twitter?". Once dominated by celebrities and politicians, Twitter eventually allowed anyone to ask for a coveted tick -- but then closed down open applications after problems with white supremacists.

A lot of users were stripped of their verified status, but gaining the tick still remains a goal for many. Now Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has some good news. The plan is to open up verification to everyone -- and Twitter will not be acting as judge and jury.

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If you like to travel internationally, you know that language differences can be a huge pain point. English speakers are lucky, as that language is often spoken as a second language. That isn't always the case, however, so communication can be a huge barrier. This isn't just an issue for those that travel for pleasure, but for business travelers too.

Luckily, technology has minimized this pain. Software allows convenient translation, making both communication and the consumption of foreign language media much easier. Microsoft translator is one such great solution, and today, it gets six new text-to-speech languages -- Bulgarian, Croatian, Malay, Slovenian, Tamil, and Vietnamese.

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