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AfterDawn: News

Apple Store looters faced with iPhone displaying "you are being tracked"

Written by Matti Robinson @ 03 Jun 2020 12:01

Apple Store looters faced with iPhone displaying "you are being tracked" The death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sparked protests around the nation's largest cities against police brutality and racial justice.

Peaceful protests have often turned violent as the sun goes down, and the riots have resulted in both private and public property damage as well as loss of life on the side of the police and protesters.

Perhaps the most often seen image of the riots are police cars on fire and stores being looted. Needless to say that many entrepreneurs and companies have suffered tremendously from looting.

Some companies are, however, better equipped against stealing of their products. One the more targeted brands is Apple but they are also the ones that are prepared for people stealing their very expensive iPhones.

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AfterDawn: News

Google hit with $5 billion 'private mode' lawsuit

Written by James Delahunty @ 03 Jun 2020 8:42

Google hit with $5 billion 'private mode' lawsuit A lawsuit is targeting Google over the collection of data while users are browsing in 'private' mode.

Google's Chrome browser has provided Incognito Mode for users for several years now. When browsing in Incognito Mode, a user's visited websites and other information is not saved to the web browser itself, or to the device that the software is installed on.

Surfing in 'Incognito Mode' does not prevent third-party websites from tracking users' activities however, including running Google Analytics code.

The lawsuit alleges that Google engages in the "covert and unauthorized data collection from virtually every American with a computer or phone." However, Google has denied the charge and says that it is very clear about the implications of browsing in Incognito Mode.

"As we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity," said Google spokesman Jose Castaneda, reports the BBC.

Indeed, a look at a new Incognito Tab does spell out the limits of Incognito Mode browsing.

Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this device won't see your activity. However, downloads and bookmarks will be saved.
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AfterDawn: News

'Remove China Apps' kicked from Play Store

Written by James Delahunty @ 03 Jun 2020 8:33

'Remove China Apps' kicked from Play Store Google has targeted an application that would check a device for installed software from China and aid in its removal.

Developed by One Touch AppLabs, which is based in India, the app specifically targeted "Chinese software" on mobile devices. It was available on the Play Store for ten days in which time it clocked up more than a million downloads. Its popularity was strongest in India, which is currently in an ongoing period of tension over Himalayan borders with China.

According to the developers, Google has removed the app from the Play Store, but did not elaborate on the exact reason why. It thanked its users for all their support while the app was online.

The app did cast quite a wide net in software it flagged as Chinese. For example, it highlighted the Zoom video conferencing software, which is actually developed in the United States. The fact that its founder was born in China seemed enough to lump it in with other Chinese apps.

Another popular app targeted was TikTok, which is owned by Bytedance, based in Beijing.

'Remove China Apps' gained popularity amid calls for boycotts against China following the movement of Chinese military personnel into a territory India claims as its own in the Kashmir region.




AfterDawn: News

Sony postpones PS5 event due to protests in the US

Written by Matti Robinson @ 02 Jun 2020 10:09

Sony postpones PS5 event due to protests in the US Sony's upcoming fifth-generation PlayStation gaming console is on the way but current situation in the United States has made the Japanese company second guess the release schedule.

In fact, Sony has decided to postpone a PS5 event date scheduled for June 5th due to the political situation in America. According to their statement they don't want to celebrate in these times and have decided to give room for "more important voices to be heard."

The statement itself doesn't say how much they are intending to postpone the event, we'll probably hear back from them after the situation has calmed down.

The event is still likely hold demos of upcoming PS5 games on the actual console. The launch, which is scheduled later this year, is likely not affected at all by the delayed event.

The suspected killing of George Floyd in police custody sparked protests around the country that have in many cities turned into violent rioting.




AfterDawn: News

Samsung has a new subscription service for smartphones

Written by Matti Robinson @ 01 Jun 2020 10:38

Samsung has a new subscription service for smartphones Samsung's has an upgrade program for smartphones, incidentally just like the one Apple has, for a while now. However, the company seems to have wanted a more comprehensive hold on their customers, and they've now introduces a new Access program.

Uncovered by the good folks at xda-developers, Samsung seems to have quietly added a new type of subscription service to their portfolio.

Samsung Access is a subscription service that allows you to every now and then switch to a new smartphone without having to pay for it separately. The service works similarly to Samsung Upgrade Program but has some new additions that might tempt you in.

It comes with Microsoft 365 subscription and 1 TB of cloud storage. This means that you can access Microsoft's wide variety of apps in Office Suite, including the likes of Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Teams. Another benefit is Samsung Premium Care, which allows the user to replace a broken phone for a $99 deductible up to three times a year.

Currently Samsung Access seems to be available only for the S20 family and starts at $37 a month for regular S20 and climbs up to $48 for the Ultra.

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AfterDawn: News

HP announced their next-gen VR headset: Reverb G2

Written by Matti Robinson @ 01 Jun 2020 9:36

HP announced their next-gen VR headset: Reverb G2 While HP isn't the one name you come up with when discussing VR, the company has been challenging more committed VR companies for some time now.

Their initial claim for VR fame was HP WMR that was released in 2017 but they stepped it up last year by introducing Reverb headset with visuals and features.

Now the company has come out with their newest VR headset. The second-gen Reverb, the Reverb G2. The company claims it offers the best resolution in a VR headset of this type, although it doesn't improve upon the predecessor.

Reverb G2 provides 2K resolution for both eyes like the originals Reverb, but they've improved upon the lenses which should provide much clearer picture.

It's been developed in cooperation with both Valve and Microsoft to seemlessly integrate with VR systems, including SteamVR and Windows Mixed Reality. This should make it a better fit for both platforms.

The size of the displays are 2.89 inches with a resolution of 2160 x 2160 and a refresh rate of 90 hz. The headset, also like it's predecessor, supports six degrees of freedom but is now tracked with four cameras mounted on the headset instead of two.

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AfterDawn: News

Microsoft rolls out new Windows 10 update with cloud reinstall and tons of improvements

Written by Matti Robinson @ 28 May 2020 11:34

Microsoft rolls out new Windows 10 update with cloud reinstall and tons of improvements Microsoft has yesterday announced that its long-awaited Windows 10 v2004 update has been given the green light.

While the May update, as they like to call it, includes numerous improvements, new features, and security buffs, one of the most anticipated upgrades is definitely the ability reset the operating system without using a local media.

Yes, Microsoft has officially released the cloud reinstall feature that it has been teasing us about. Reset this PC now has two options one of which is cloud download alongside local reinstall.

Obviously this requires an internet connection, and for the sake of it not taking longer than the same process in the nineties it should be fairly fast.

Windows reinstall was a meme before memes were even cool, and although Microsoft have reduced the pain of having to reset your computer over the years, this new feature can't come fast enough.

The update also includes an improved Windows Hello, new and improved Microsoft Edge browser, Cortana search with text, new DirectX features, WSL 2 for developers, and much more.

Windows 10 v2004 roll-out has begun but it might take days of even weeks for it to land on your device. You can check whether you are the lucky recipient by going to your Windows Update section and hitting Check for updates.




AfterDawn: News

Trump threatens social media with regulation after tweet fact check, Zuckerberg and Dorsey respond

Written by Matti Robinson @ 28 May 2020 10:28

Trump threatens social media with regulation after tweet fact check, Zuckerberg and Dorsey respond The United States President has attacked the social media after Twitter added the first fact check link to his tweet. President Trump threatened to regulate or even close social media if there isn't action to make them a better home for conservatives.

This comes after Trump tweeted about mail-in ballots being a hotbed for fraud. This was the first tweet by the president that was marked by Twitter for fact check link.

This linked to a custom Twitter page which highlighted opposing views to Trump's, headlined by the likes of CNN and other sources Trump probably considers "fake news."

Regulations on social media have been a hot topic for years now. Even the social media themselves don't know what to think. Many times they've welcomed regulation since it would make it easier for them to do business.

Facebook and Twitter often come on different sides of this issue, and this case was no different. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg made a statement that they wouldn't have acted in the way Twitter did.

Facebook CEO told Fox News that he doesn't think social media companies, or more specifically platforms, should not act as an arbiter of truth.

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AfterDawn: News

OnePlus is returning to its roots with upcoming affordable smartphone

Written by Matti Robinson @ 27 May 2020 11:10

OnePlus is returning to its roots with upcoming affordable smartphone OnePlus has become one of the larger smartphone manufacturer, and for its size it has managed to gain significant momentum in the Android space. However, it all started in 2014 with an aggressive campaign that promised flagship killer specs for less than half the price.

Now years later, things are very different. Biannual price hikes mean that the current OnePlus flagship costs around $900, three times as much as the OnePlus One (pictured). However, the company has promised it hasn't forgotten where it initially started from.

In an interview with Fast Company, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has confirmed that they are working on a more affordable smartphone to accompany this years OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro. Not many details are shared about the product, but it should arrive soon in India and later this year in Europe and the United States.

This will be the first time since OnePlus has taken the approach since OnePlus X in 2015, when even their flagships were still very cheap. According to the rumors, the new affordable phone will be called OnePlus Z, which would make it seem definitely like a successor to the first cheaper OnePlus phone.

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AfterDawn: News

In an odd move, Netflix starts canceling inactive accounts

Written by Matti Robinson @ 27 May 2020 10:29

In an odd move, Netflix starts canceling inactive accounts As subscription services have become a mainstay in everything from music, movies, games and more, providers are trying to tempt everyone to join their monthly billed services.

Most companies offer some sort of starter perk, usually a free or discounted membership for months, others, namely Netflix, are promising to kick you off the service is you are too inactive. Wait, what?!

Yes, you read that right. Netflix has announced that it will start contacting inactive users whether they'd like to cancel their service, and if they don't answer, they'll just go ahead, kick them off the platform and say goodbye to their income.

The company's product innovations director Eddy Wu has announced in a press release that they will start asking members that haven't watched anything for a year whether they'd like to cancel their subscription.

Nice approach from Netflix, who acknowledge according to the press release that nobody wants to pay for a service they don't use. According to Wu, these account represent around half a percentage of total subscribers and are "already factored into our financial guidance."

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AfterDawn: News

Instagram for MSX released: instagr8

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 26 May 2020 8:27

Instagram for MSX released: instagr8 Yes, you read the headline right. The 8-bit computer back from 1980s is still very much alive. Sold mostly in Japan and in various European countries back in the day, the MSX hobbyist are making sure that the MSX will be relevant, also in 2020s.

So, to bring the almost 40 year old computer to modern times, there's now Instagram client for it: instagr8. Software itself works on both, the original MSX standard (dubbed nowadays often as MSX1) and on more modern MSX2 computers. As one might expect, the picture quality of Instagram photos is much better when used on MSX2 computers.

Here's a short demo of the software, running on original MSX1:



MSX1 specs aren't exactly top notch nowadays: mere 3.52MHz CPU (or, in modern terms: 0.00352GHz) and with 25kb of free RAM memory to run your own software. To make up this shortfall, most of the code itself has been shifted to server-side processing. Basically, the proxy server in between does most of the heavy lifting and converts the image to be better suited for the ancient computer model. But nevertheless, the project is quite awesome, as you can see from the videos here!

instagr8 is open source project and its code can be found from itse official Github page. As MSX1 standard doesn't include any form of network connectivity, the software also requires a cartridge called GR8NET that adds HTTP layer, network connectivity and more to the MSX1 device.

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AfterDawn: News

Microsoft open sourced its legendary BASIC intepreter

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 22 May 2020 11:10

Microsoft open sourced its legendary BASIC intepreter Microsoft's feeling towards open source community have taken a full U-turn during the past couple of years. Most notably, company acquired the beloved GitHub back in 2018.

Besides acquiring GitHub, Microsoft has also realized its own importance in history of technology and has open-sourced several of its historic products. Most notably, company released the source codes of MS-DOS operating system back in 2018.

Now, the trend continues, as Microsoft has decided to release the source codes for GW-BASIC, the BASIC programming language intepreter that originally shipped with MS-DOS 2.0, back in 1983. Intepreter has been developed with 8088 assembly, meaning that in order to tinker with it, you need to know assembly - not high-level programming languages, like C or Java. But the source is there, so anyone can get it and start developing even better BASIC intepreter, if they feel like it. And of course, the source code is available through GitHub. Obviously.

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AfterDawn: News

Zoom valuation surpassed seven largest airlines, combined

Written by Matti Robinson @ 20 May 2020 10:30

Zoom valuation surpassed seven largest airlines, combined COVID-19 has been destructive on both the health of people of the world as well as the health of most economies. Obviously some have gotten it worse than other, and this is true in both realms.

In business, not many businesses have had it harder than the airline industry, and, as we all know, Zoom has become the new Kleenex of video conferencing. Merging financial data from these companies brings us to a very interesting tidbit.

An infographic shared on Twitter expands upon the market cap difference of Zoom and seven of the largest airlines. According to it, Zoom has outgrown all seven combined with $47.47 billion.

The largest of the airlines is Southwest with a market cap of $14.68 billion and it's followed by Delta at $12 billion, United at $6 billion, as well as IAG (including British Airways), Lufthansa, American Airlines and Air France with peanuts.

Figures have been calculated using May 15 stock prices, and even though Zoom's stock has gone up, so have the airlines, and they've overtaken Zoom eve so slightly.

At the time of writing this the combined value of the seven airlines is at just over $53 billion while Zoom's market cap is a pitiful 48.45 billion.

Although Zoom's rise has been impressive one wouldn't expect competition between Zoom and seven largest airlines to last much longer as travel rules are loosening.

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AfterDawn: News

Nintendo targets Switch hack products with lawsuit

Written by James Delahunty @ 20 May 2020 8:02

Nintendo targets Switch hack products with lawsuit Nintendo of America has filed two lawsuits targeting products that circumvent the technological protection measures of its Nintendo Switch devices.

It filed two lawsuits last week in the United States. One lawsuit filed in Los Angeles targets the operator of a website called UberChips, while a second lawsuit filed in Seattle targets anonymous defendants from numerous different websites.

At the core of the complaint are mod products created by the group Team Xecuter. In the lawsuits, Nintendo described the infringing products as providing an "unauthorized operating system." This OS circumvents the device's protection against unauthorized access and copying.

Makers of video game console devices tend to use systems that prevent or limit the running of third-party software. This prevents the devices from being tricked into running pirated copies of video games or to do other things like interfering with a running video game for the purposes of cheating and unauthorized modifications.

These systems can be breached by hardware or software modifications once a weakness is found. Team Xecuter is one group that has long developed modchips and tools that enable the modification of software and hardware video game devices, enabling them to execute what would otherwise be restricted.

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AfterDawn: News

Joe Rogan Experience to move exclusively to Spotify

Written by Matti Robinson @ 19 May 2020 3:12

Joe Rogan Experience to move exclusively to Spotify The media personality, stand-up comic, UFC commentator and perhaps nowadays most importantly podcast host Joe Rogan has shared a huge announcement on Instagram. The host of Joe Rogan Experience has announced that the show will be soon on Spotify.

What's crazier, after the initial move on September 1 to Spotify in addition to other channels, JRE will become Spotify exclusive starting at some point late in the year. No more YouTube videos of JRE, except for short clips he assures are to stay on Google's video platform.

Both audio and video versions of JRE will be moved to Spotify only but Rogan made it clear in the post that Spotify will have no editorial control, he's not an employee of Spotify, and the show will remain free as always. No changes to the show are expected, except for the platform it is hosted on.

There's no word on how large of a purse full of gold coins the Swedish streaming giant had to offer Rogan in order to secure the licensing deal but it must be an all-time most influential move on the podcast market.

Joe Rogan Experience guests this year alone have included Elon Musk, Bill Maher, Robert Downey Jr. and host of other high-profile experts, comics, leaders, actors and other guests.

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