News written by Petteri Pyyny (September, 2020)

In a row between Facebook and European Union over data portability between Europe and United States, the stakes are getting higher.

After the European Court's ruling in August that terminated the Privacy Shield agreement between United States and European Union, U.S.-based tech giants such as Facebook haven't been allowed to transfer their European users' data to their datacenters located in United States.

The court ruling simply stated that because United States allows its intelligence agencies to snoop on data located in U.S. -based servers, data transfers from Europe can't happen anymore, as European citizens' data could be compromised.

Now, after the ruling, Irish data authority, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) decided that Facebook must comply within three weeks and stop sending its European user data to United States.

Facebook has now sued DPC, stating if the data flow between two continents is banned, it can't continue in Europe. Meaning basically that services that rely on unified user database, namely, Facebook and Instagram, would shut down in Europe.

One of the very key problems with WhatsApp is the fact that very few of its users actually realize that their behavior can be tracked in real-time, no matter what.

Everyone using the popular messaging app knows the fact that WhatsApp shows your "last seen" status by default. And some also know that the "last seen" data can be hidden through WhatsApp's settings.

But you can't hide the "online now" status which appears whenever you open the app. And that particular information is available to all WhatsApp users, not just to your contacts. So, anyone who knows your phone number, gets the information when you're online.

Now, there are tons of apps and services available that hook into that data. Basically, you download one of those apps and tell which phone number you want to start monitoring. Then, the app tracks, anonymously, when the given phone number appears online and records that. And as the app "pings" the status every 30 seconds or so, you'll soon get a full picture of when the particular user was using his/her WhatsApp.

From that data, after, say two weeks' worth of monitoring, one can easily draw conclusions on user's sleeping patterns, when they might have been in night club, etc.

You know that feeling when you wanted to watch some good olde music videos from 1980s on YouTube, just to realize two hours later that you've spent the past hour watching conspiracy theories explaining how 5G networks caused liberal lesbians to invent coronavirus in order to replace all world leaders with lizards? Yeah. That feeling.

Now, how did you end up there? Nobody really seems to know. YouTube's recommendation algorithm has been in the spotlight of increasing controversy over the last few years, as it seems to prefer recommending user to watch as much weird and potentially dangerous stuff as possible. Videos about conspiracy theories, blatantly racist videos, anti-vaccine videos and even videos encouraging viewers to radicalize somehow (all the styles and genres are there, from far-left radical communism through far-right extremities to good olde jihadism).

Obviously, Google, who owns YouTube, wont tell, as the recommendation algorithm is one of its business secrets. But there's a word out there that even Google doesn't really know how it works anymore, as it is driven mostly by machine learning and some level of AI.

Mozilla, the foundation behind Firefox, now wants to understand how the YouTube's recommendation algorithm really works.

Back in the day, in 1980s, the world was mostly dominated by Commodore 64. But handful of countries, most notably, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Spain and Finland, had an alternative, too.

The system was called MSX, the first-ever standardized home computer platform. By standardization, it meant that any manufacturer that wished to build MSX-compatible computers, could do so. And the system actually worked: games and programs made for MSX platform worked pretty much perfectly on all MSX computer, whether they were made by Sony, Sharp, Canon or Spectravideo.

Later down the line, MSX standard evolved into MSX2, then to MSX2+ and finally, to MSX TurboR standards.

Now, as with most other popular computer platforms from 1980s, MSX is nowadays far from dead. It has decent hobbyist following that develops new programs, games and even peripherals for it.

And such dedication sometimes brings susprising results. This time around, it is 99% perfect port of super Mario World running on MSX2 platform.

World's largest robovac manufacturer iRobot introduced a new pair of robotic vacuums to the mid-price range today.

First of all, there's Roomba i3+ that brings a very desirable feature from the company's high-end models to the mid-price range. Roomba i3+ has the similar self-emptying dustbin feature that is found from company's high-end models Roomba i7+ and Roomba s9+.

Roomba i3+ is capable of emptying of its own, rather small, internal dustbin to a much larger dustbin, located in the charging dock, whenever it goes recharging itself. In our tests of i7+ and s9+, such feature means that the owner needs to empty the (docking station's) dustbin only every three or four months.

Obviously, iRobot has hindered some features in $599 Roomba i3+ in order to maintain the difference between that and its $799 Roomba i7+. Most importantly, the new Roomba i3+ wont have the smart mapping features of Roomba i7+. Meaning that owner can't tell Roomba i3+ to only clean kitchen today, as can be told to i7+. Instead, i3+ simply cleans the entire apartment and then goes back to the charging station and empties its dustbin.

iRobot also released a cheaper sibling to Roomba i3+, dubbed as Roomba i3. The $399 robovac is identical to Roomba i3+, except for the fact that it doesn't have the self-emptying capabilities (which can be purchased separately at later date, but costing more than the $200 price difference between the models).

The world is about to end? What would you do? That is the core question that Tinder's interactive adventure Swipe Night asks.

Launched back in 2019 in the United States, now the event has arrived to the rest of the world, too. It is basically am adventure show that you get choose how it goes forward, where every now and then the events are stopped and user is asked to swipe either left or right in order to decide how the plot continues.

Global launch of the Swipe Night was initially planned for March, 2020 but the global pandemic kinda changed the plans. But now Tinder seems to be confident that it is right time to bring the end of the world adventure to the rest of the world, too.

Speed is very important when playing the Swipe Night - user has only 7 seconds time to decide how to swipe when the story stops. After all the steps have been completed, the story ends, but also the results of how user swiped in each step will be added to the user's own Tinder profile.

Finnish WordPress developer company Seravo Oy has found a serious vulnerability in WordPress plug-in that is used by more than 700'000 websites globally.

Plugin, called WP File Manager, has a 0-day vulnerability that allows attackers to upload files to websites without authorization and execute code remotely on all WordPress instances that have the said plugin installed.

Basically utilizing the vulnerability, attackers can steal data, destroy sites or add their own code to websites, which could mine cryptocurrencies or distribute harmful code to website users' computers.

Both, the basic version of WP File Manager and also the paid-for version, WP File Manager Pro are affected. In total, these plugins have more than 700k active installations globally.

Developers were alerted of the issue and they released a updated version v6.9 that fixes the security problem. It is adviced to update WP File Manager to 6.9 or above - or uninstall it immediately.

More info: Seravo Oy press release

WordPress is by far the most popular publishing platform in the world, with millions of websites using it as their content management system and more.

As the relations between two huge countries, India and China, have been sour for most part of this year, the situation also has effects on digital world.

India has recently made it very clear that its attitude nowadays, especially with digital and consumer electronic products is that "everything that is made in China is bad". This has extended to digital products, such as games and apps. India just recently banned pile of Chinese apps from app stores available in India, including popular social media app TikTok.

Now, countryu has banned further 118 Chinese apps. One of those apps happens to be PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, an fps game that is currently the most popular app in India - and a huge success globally. Developer of the game is Chinese Tencent.