News written by Petteri Pyyny (February, 2018)

Popular open-source video player, VLC, has been updated to v3.0.1 version.

The new version is mostly a bug fix release after the player's major v3.0 release recently. This version improves HEVC video playback support on macOS, Android and iOS platforms. It also speeds up and fixes issues with Chromecast support on all platforms, including Windows.

Furthermore, MKV seeking is finally significantly faster. There's also bunch of minor bugs that have been fixed, like the one that caused the software to crash after closing it on some Windows versions.

You can download the Windows versions from AfterDawn's own download servers:

VLC for Windows
VLC for 64-bit Windows

Mobile editions for Android and iOS can be found from their respective app stores.

BitTorrent and its lighter version, uTorrent have a serious security flaw.

Google researcher found a technique that allows attackers to direct DNS requests to user's computer, allowing to spoof the download sources, download files, add them to startup folder and more.

All versions of uTorrent and BitTorrent are affected and bug is only fixed in latest beta.

"On December 4, 2017, we were made aware of several vulnerabilities in the uTorrent and BitTorrent Windows desktop clients. We began work immediately to address the issue. Our fix is complete and is available in the most recent beta release (build 3.5.3.44352 released on 16 Feb 2018). This week, we will begin to deliver it to our installed base of users. All users will be updated with the fix automatically over the following days. The nature of the exploit is such that an attacker could craft a URL that would cause actions to trigger in the client without the user's consent (e.g. adding a torrent).

BitTorrent was also made aware yesterday that it's new beta product, uTorrent Web, is vulnerable to a similar bug. "

While many people prefer to read the news via browser, some prefer apps instead. Thus, we've finally released our own AfterDawn news app for Android.

Our app supports all Android versions starting from Android v4.4 and behaves in both landspace and portrait mode, on phones and larger tablets. This app is for news consumption only: you can browse and read our news - latest news or even the really, really old news items back to the 1990s.

 

Google's Chrome web browser started blocking ads on February 15, 2018. It comes into effect for all of its billions of users, without any extensions, plug-ins or settings to tweak with. Ad blocking for all Chrome users, on by default.

This might sound weird given that Google is the largest ad company in the world: almost all of its massive revenue comes from ads. But there's a logic behind all of this. Google figured out that the reason why Joe Average ever installs a third-party ad blocker is because of the annoying ads, and not simply because Joe hates ads in general. He hates those that obstruct his web browsing and/or annoy him. The problem is that most third-party ad blockers, when installed, block everything from all the websites in the world. So you get frustrated because the hobby site you're visiting has auto-play, audio-on video ads in every corner and install a third-party ad blocker. The result? You block every ad from every site you visit. Sure, you could adjust the settings to allow ads through for specific sites, but only a handful of people ever do that.

Google's thinking is this: If we can remove the annoying ads, people will be happy with the remaining, non-obstructive ads. So, they developed their own ad blocker and built it directly into Chrome.

EA is now giving away the 2008 horror shooter classic Dead Space for free.

The offer is available only for limited time, but once you download the game, it will remain free forever. So, no gotchas there, other than the fact that you need to have an account with Origin in order to get the game.



You can download Dead Space from here.

Google plans to dramatically change the way email and your inbox works. With its AMP for Email project, Google is making email messages interactive, allowing users to perform various actions directly within the message.

With AMP for Email, each email message could have interactive features. One could, for example, book a flight directly within the email when receiving an offer from an airline. Or to reply to a discussion thread directly from within the email when receiving a notification about new messages in a subscribed forum thread.

Traditionally, actions such as these would require visiting an external webpage through a hyperlink. As Google focuses on making things as fast as possible, especially for mobile users, it makes sense to remove this additional step if you can.

The project is open source and obviously Google is hoping to get as wide support for it as it gained with its Accelerated Mobile Pages project. It is now open for developers and can be accessed/viewed if one has signed up for developer preview edition of Gmail.

According to reports, Google is developing its own game streaming service that would allow users to pay a monthly fee and play all the games available in the service. Basically a Spotify/Netflix meets gaming.

Streaming is apparently Google's choice rather than hopping into processing power competition against the likes of Sony and Microsoft. Games would be streamed over the internet and played with relatively cheap device.

Reports say that originally Google had thought about extending Chromecast to allow gaming, but now also the Android-based console is in the plans. Releasing its own Android-based console would put Google directly against the Nvidia's Shield and other Android-based gaming projects.

Project, codenamed Yeti, has been in works for some time now and was expected to be launched back in 2017, but has gone through series of rethinking ever since. Google recently hired a former Microsoft and Sony veteran, Phil Harrison to oversee the project.

Adobe has announced that there's a "Level 1" security vulnerabiltiy in Adobe Flash plug-in.

The vulnerability allows attacker to gain control of the host computer. Adobe said it will publish a patcj on 5th of February to fix the issue. Meanwhile, it is recommended to avoid using Flash.

Vulnerability affects all major platforms, including:

• Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime for Windows and Mac
• Adobe Flash Player for Google Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS
• Adobe Flash Player for Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 10 and 8.1
• Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime for Linux

Kids nowadays might not even remember, but most of the music was sold in physical format still back in last decade or so. Actually, in 2001, the U.S. CD sales peaked at 800 million copies sold - having collapsed to mere 89 million in 2017.

During the CD's heyday, Best Buy was one of the major CD retailers in the U.S. Now, Best Buy has decided to cease selling CDs altogether as they generate only $40 in revenue. In June, CDs will disappear from all Best Buy stores across the U.S.

At the same time, another large retail chain, Target, is pressuring record labels to agree to buy back the unsold CDs it cannot sell through its stores. Traditionally, the unsold inventory has been retailer's problem, not labels' problem, but as CD sales continue to plummet, Target wants to change that.

According to IFPI's global stats, physical records still generate appx 34 percent of the global sales and are still somewhat strong in certain geographical areas, like in Japan and Germany. But digital revenue, driven by Spotify and YouTube grew as much as 177 percent in 2016 and are unlikely to slow down.

So, the concept of owning a physical piece of plastic that has music on it, is about to end. Sure, vinyl records and CDs will be made also in future. But you wont find those from local convenience stores, supermarkets or gas stations anymore. You have to find a specialist record store - physical one or an e-commerce site - to buy one.