Mozilla criticizes Apple's iPhone privacy claims, launches online petition
Apple is one of the most privacy-focused tech companies. It has consistently protected its users, going so far as to defy the US Government by refusing to unlock an iPhone for the FBI. Conversely, Google makes a lot of its money from advertising and tracking users, while Microsoft has extreme telemetry in Windows 10.
And that's why it is so surprising that Mozilla -- another privacy-focused organization -- is criticizing Apple. You see, the Firefox-maker is calling out Apple for allowing advertisers to track iPhone users. Mozilla is going so far as to launch a petition, hoping to get Apple to change an important iPhone default setting.
iOS 13 could herald the arrival of system-wide dark mode, better multitasking and so much more
With the big reveal of iOS 13 thought to be mere weeks away, leaks and rumors now abound. So, what can iPhone and iPad owners expect this time around? Well, it's looking as though 13 could be a lucky number as much sought after features are on the cards.
According to sources, the long-awaited dark mode is said to be arriving, along with new gestures. Apple is also said to be bringing improved multitasking and a lot more besides.
New Kodi 18.2 'Leia' RC arrives -- download it now!
The Kodi Foundation released Kodi 18 'Leia' three months ago, bringing a number of big new features to the hugely popular home theater software, including a new Games area, updated and improved PVR backend clients, and a redesigned Music section.
A month later, a bug fix release candidate -- Kodi 18.1 -- arrived, and today there’s another new release available to install.
Cyber hygiene is at an all-time low
Well-known attacks and attack vectors remained successful because security personnel did not address vulnerabilities and apply patches according to a new report from cybersecurity and visibility business Ixia.
IT vendors created code or configurations that led to many successful security breaches in 2018, but IT operations and security personnel shared the blame due to ignorance of the latest patches and challenges in deploying patches in a timely manner.
Internet Explorer flaw leaves Windows users vulnerable to hackers -- even those who don't use the browser
A zero-day exploit found in Internet Explorer means hackers could steal files from Windows users. What's particularly interesting about this security flaw is that you don't even need to be an Internet Explorer user to be vulnerable.
A security researcher has revealed details of an unpatched exploit in the way IE handles MHT files, and the problem affects Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2. It leaves users vulnerable not only to having their files stolen by hackers, but also means they could be spied upon.
Microsoft email hack was worse than first thought -- some users' messages were accessed
Over the weekend we reported that hackers gained access to Microsoft's web-based email services for a period of three months. Microsoft tried to calm users' concerns by saying that only "your e-mail address, folder names, the subject lines of e-mails, and the names of other e-mail addresses you communicate with" had been accessed. But for some people, things were rather worse.
It transpires that some users have been sent a notification from Microsoft informing them that hackers were able to access the content of emails.
Before you watch Game of Thrones Season 8 premier on HBO, download these FREE PlayStation 4 avatars and theme
Tonight is finally the night! After two years, Game of Thrones finally returns to the airwaves. Unfortunately, the Season 8 premier excitement is bittersweet, as it is the final season. Sadly, there are only six episodes remaining in the series. With that said it will be rewarding to finally find out who becomes the ruler of the world. My money is on Theon Greyjoy to end up sitting on the Iron Throne, but I digress.
Believe it or not, in the USA, you can watch the Game of Thrones Season 8 premier for free. How? Simply sign up for a seven-day trial of the HBO Now streaming service -- just cancel before the trial ends to avoid being charged. That isn't the only free thing that Game of Thrones fans can get today. You see, Sony has launched a really cool PlayStation 4 theme to celebrate tonight's premier.
Facebook suffers huge outage, along with WhatsApp and Instagram
If you've had trouble accessing Facebook today, you're not alone. Users in the US, Europe and Asia struggled to access not only Facebook, but also the WhatsApp and Instagram services owned by the social media giant.
Facebook has said little about this incident which comes just a month after it suffered its worst outage ever, causing problems for users for over 24 hours. This weekend's outage led to #FacebookDown, #instagramdown, and #whatsappdown hashtags trending on Twitter, and numerous reports of problems were posted to Downdetector.
Leaked: Microsoft's Xbox One S All Digital console
The future of the Xbox console certainly appears to be a disc-less one. German website WinFuture has obtained images and details of the console which could be officially revealed in the coming days.
The name has already been spotted on packaging, so we can be fairly sure that it is the final name. As the moniker suggests, the Xbox One S All Digital eschews discs in favor of game downloads -- the packaging itself proclaims "disc-free gaming". The box also reveals some details about the hardware specs of the Xbox One S All Digital.
Microsoft reveals hackers gained access to its web email services for three months
Microsoft has confirmed that hackers were able to access customers' web-based email accounts for a period of three months at the beginning of the year. Between January 1 and March 28, unknown hackers hit the accounts of various Microsoft email services.
The company is in the process of sending notifications to those who have been affected by the issue and it recommends users change their account passwords. (Update: it's worse than first thought!)
In praise of the autoencoder
When you consider all the machine learning (ML) algorithms, you’ll find there is a subset of very pragmatic ones: neural networks. They usually require no statistical hypothesis and no specific data preparation except for normalization. The power of each network lies in its architecture, its activation functions, its regularization terms, plus a few other features.
When you consider architectures for neural networks, there is a very versatile one that can serve a variety of purposes -- two in particular: detection of unknown unexpected events and dimensionality reduction of the input space. This neural network is called autoencoder.
Chrome OS 75 has full USB support in Linux apps
Google has added full USB support for Linux apps in the dev build of Chrome OS 75. The new feature arrived in build 75.0.3759.4 of the operating system and helps to improve the experience of running Linux apps on a Chromebook.
While USB support is not a brand-new feature, anyone who has tried using Linux apps on a Chromebook will be well aware that it has been a bit, well, ropey to say the least. Now this changes.
Apple adds subscription confirmation to the App Store
Apple has added a new confirmation pop-up to the App Store when users opt into a subscription using Touch ID or Face ID.
While Apple has not said as much, the confirmation screen gives users a second chance to back out of a subscription. It also helps to avoid the problem of accidental sign-ups and mitigates against apps that try to trick people into starting a subscription.
Data center and server room considerations: What you need to know
In the rapidly-evolving data-hungry IT environment, data center management is becoming increasingly intensive and complex. Team that with the constant pressure to control costs while increasing efficiency and capacity, data center traffic is projected to more than triple by 2020, driven primarily by our dependence to do business, communicate, and entertain over the Internet.
The immense amount of data needed to support these activities requires not only a growing number of data centers, but new kinds of data center builds, which also necessitates new ways to manage them. In addition, green initiatives driven by power concerns and the implications of size and scale, coupled with the adoption of new technologies, are creating a confluence of often conflicting forces that require new and innovative data center management solutions.
The biggest data security risk? Downloading data to a spreadsheet
These days, it seems like every time you turn around another company announces a data breach. At the same time, organizations spend millions on their data warehouses, security solutions, and compliance initiatives. But all of that spend can instantly be rendered useless by the everyday business workflow of downloading data to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Of course, business experts aren’t looking to circumvent enterprise governance practices. They’re just trying to get the answers they need to make better business decisions. And because they lack the SQL programming expertise or extensive training required to work with data directly in most business intelligence (BI) tools, they are often powerless to answer the questions raised in the last meeting or email. So they turn to what they know best: the spreadsheet.
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