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Apple has pushed the latest iOS update, including USB restrictions aimed at countering accessories that can crack passcodes.

Such USB accessories are sometimes used by law enforcement and others to allow for infinite guesses at a device's passcode, then cracking it by using brute force techniques. In order to counter this method, Apple said it would change settings in an update that disables USB accessories entirely after an hour without the phone being unlocked.

Previously, this time frame was set to a week. With the release of iOS 11.4.1, the USB restriction change is the default. However, you can also disable it. Under Touch ID, or Face ID, settings you will see a new option you can toggle on or off for "USB Accessories."

The description reads: "Unlock iPhone to allow USB accessories to connect when it has been more than an house since your iPhone was locked."

A second Erase Data option will erase all data on a device if ten attempts to guess the passcode result in failure.

Other things included in the iOS update are stability fixes and an improved Find My AirPod feature.

via: Engadget

The SD Association revealed the new SD Express standard this week, which brings PCI Express and NVMe interfaces to the SD interface for dramatic speed improvements.

Adopting the PCIe interface pushes top transfer speed to a theoretical 985 MB/sec. In addition, new SD Ultra Capacity (SDUC) cards bump the existing storage capacity limit of 2TB, to an eyewatering 128TB. You shouldn't hold your breath for an affordable and practical 128TB card any time soon though.

Still, the SD Express upgrade is significant and good for data transfer intensive operations, like capturing super slow motion video, RAW continuous burst mode, 8K Video capture and playback, 360 degree cameras/videos and so forth.

"With SD Express we're offering an entirely new level of memory card with faster protocols turning cards into a removable SSD," said Hiroyuki Sakamoto, SDA president.

"SD 7.0 delivers revolutionary innovations to anticipate the needs of forthcoming devices and content rich and speed hungry applications."

The SD Association has released a white paper on SD Express: SD Express Cards with PCIe and NVMe Interfaces (PDF)

Redbox has struck a deal with Warner Bros to offer DVD and Blu-ray rentals through kiosks on the same day as a film's retail release.

Previously, Redbox could only offer films released by Warner for rental seven days after they hit retail shelves. Redbox already has agreements to offer DVD rentals for films from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Lionsgate on their retail release date.

It does not have any deal with Disney.

"We're thrilled to announce this day-and-date agreement with Warner Bros. that provides the consistently strong slate of Warner Bros. titles to consumers at their earliest physical retail sell-through availability," Redbox CEO Galen Smith said, reports Variety.

Under the new deal with Warner, new releases will also be available through the online Redbox On Demand service.

A jury has awarded $25 million to an ex-partner of Dr Dre (Andre Young) and Jimmy Iovine over the Beats headphone brand.

Steven Lamar and his company Jibe Audio sued the Beats co-founders alleging they had breached a contract to avoid paying royalties. The lawsuit was seeking $130 million in unpaid royalties, but Beats insisted that Lamar's involvement was in the early stages and paid for already. Specifically, Beats claimed Lamar was only owed for the original Studio model and had already been compensated for it.

Lamar's lawyers argued that the claimant had been involved in the development of twelve models.

In a 9-3 margin, the Los Angeles Superior Court found that Beats had breached a contract with Lamar, and awarded him $25.2 million. While this clearly falls short of the $130 million sought in the lawsuit, Lamar's lawyer welcomed the decision.

"The jury really validated our theory of the case, that Mr. Lamar was involved in the founding of Beats," Lamar's attorney Stephen E. Morrissey said, reports the Associated Press.

"It's not everything we were asking for, but we're happy."

According to reports, non-premium YouTube users are getting the picture-in-picture feature on their Android devices.

The PiP feature will keep a small window showing the YouTube video playing even as users navigate across other apps on their Android smartphone or tablet. It was introduced last November but was only available for users paying for premium service on YouTube - YouTube Red and YouTube Premium - but now seems to be appearing for free users too.

So far the feature only seems to be rolling out to users located in the United States. Since the uploader of a video can exclude its user with PiP mode, most major music videos don't work with the feature.

The rollout also seems to be limited only to those running Android Oreo 8.0+. To check if it is available for you, check to see if the option has become available in the YouTube settings as a toggle-on-toggle-off button. Once switched on, simply use the Home button when playing videos to minimize the video to small rectangle and navigate through other apps as you normally would.

Source: XDA-Developers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is trying to make e-mail more secure and private by helping webmasters deploy properly configured STARTTLS on SMTP servers.

E-mails sent over the Internet use the SMTP protol for the most part. SMTP is older than the HTTP protocol, and like HTTP it was not developed with encryption and data privacy in mind. As the online environment changed and called for more secure e-mail transit, STARTTLS was developed to add a layer of security to protocol.

STARTTLS provides for hop-to-hop encryption that means e-mails are not sent in plaintext in transit. It should be noted that STARTTLS does not encrypt the e-mail on the server itself, just while in transit.

While STARTTLS is deployed on most mailservers these days, unfortunately it is not always configured properly and has some problems. The EFF notes that most do now not validate certificates. Just like in HTTPS, certificates are what a server uses to prove it really is who it says it is. Without certificate validation, an active attacker on the network can get between two servers and impersonate one or both, allowing that attacker to read and even modify emails sent through your supposedly "secure" connection.

Uber users in London can relax because the service will continue to operate for at least 15 months following a Magistrate's decision.

Uber had been appealing to the Westminster Magistrates' Court this week after it was denied a five year operating license for London in 2017. Transport for London (TfL) claimed that Uber was not "fit and proper" when it refused to renew its license to operate in the British capital.

The U.S.-based taxi app continued to operate in London while it was appealing against the decision. In Court this week, Uber insisted that it has changed its company culture and its ways, and changed its policies toward key areas like the reporting of alleged crimes to police.

Westminster Magistrates' Court, Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said that Uber can now be considered "fit and proper" for service in London over the next fifteen months.

"We will continue to work with TfL to address their concerns and earn their trust, while providing the best possible service for our customers," Tom Elvidge, Uber's UK general manager, said while welcoming the Court's decision.

YouTubers have used VidCon to vent their frustration at YouTube over declining viewership due to subscribers not being notified of new videos.

Starting last year, many YouTubers began to notice their average number of video views falling dramatically. It emerged that YouTube wasn't notifying their subscribers as often about new videos, and wasn't promoting them to subscribers as prominently as before.

Some of the drops were significantly steep. King Russell, who goes by the YouTube name "Kingsley", counts three million YouTube followers. He noticed that his views per video declines to around 100,000, compared to over one million per video in the previous years.

"It's unacceptable," he said, reports Reuters. "It's tacky, rude and needs to change."

YouTube justifies its actions by explaining that YouTube viewers can become overwhelmed by too many alerts, but YouTubers remain unconvinced. Many videomakers have resorted to asking their subscribers to click/press the "bell" notification button beside the subscribe button to get more notifications. In theory, this should result in a user being notified of ever video upload, but some viewers claim this doesn't always happen either.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has introduced Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), providing wireless networks with their first major security upgrade in well over a decade.

WPA3 tackles some of the lingering vulnerabilities that have affected WPA2. For example, individualizes data encryption for each device protects against eavesdropping from within a protected network. Like WPA2, WPA3 comes in different flavors: WPA3-Personal and WPA3-Enterprise.

On WPA3-Personal, users will benefit from more resilient, password-based authentication even when users choose fairly weak passwords. Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) is also introduced, comprising a secure key establishment protocol between devices, to provide stronger protections for users against password guessing attempts by third parties.

WPA-Enterprise kicks up the security a bit further by providing the equivalent of 192-bit cryptographic strength. As suggested by its title, it is made for deployment when data is particularly sensitive, such as in government facilities or a corporate environment.

Also introduced is Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect, which comes about in time for the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart homes. It makes it possible to securely add devices to a WPA3 protected network even if the device has limited or no display capabilities at all. It achieves this by adding the device using another device with a more robust interface, such as a smartphone, by simply scanning a product quick response (QR) code.

The Official Charts Company in the UK will begin counting YouTube video views in its singles chart ranking from Friday.

User-uploaded videos and user generated content will not count, but offcial videos played on YouTube, or on Apple, Tidal and Spotify within the United Kingdom will be counted. The first chart including video streams will be published on 6 July, and the album chart will remain unaffected.

Another change will affect the weight given to premium streams versus free streams. As things stand, every 150 streams is counted as if it's the equivalent of a sale. Starting from Friday, this will change dramatically to 600:1 for songs streamed for free on ad supported services like Spotify, and to 100:1 for premium streams.

Some have called for free streams to be excluded completely but the official charts company has resisted those calls so far, citing the music tastes of the youngest users who rely on ad-supported services and low-income listeners.

More info on the changes: BBC News

Uber is appealing against a decision to deny the company a license to operate in London in a UK court.

Last year, the Transport for London (TfL) group denied Uber a license renewal in the British capital, citing public safety and security concerns. Uber filed an appeal and has been allowed to continue operating while the appeal is underway.

"I know we got things wrong and that we have more work to do. But I promise Londoners we will keep listening and improving as Uber moves forward in a new direction," Uber's UK general manager, Tom Elvidge, said in May.

Uber has begun making its case this week in the Westminster Magistrates' Court. The hearing is expected to last throughout the week. It is detailing to the court the significant changes it promised to make including improved procedures for reporting criminal offenses.

According to a memo sent from Uber to TfL, as many as 1,148 London-licensed Uber drivers ranging from dangerous driving to stalking.

Source: BBC News

Nintendo is blocking pirated games for the Switch console from accessing the Nintendo network.

According to posts on the SwitchHacks subreddit, Nintendo has already begun banning game cart certificates. Server-side checks can determine whether a copy of a game being run is legitimate, be it a game cart or a digital copy. It will provide an authorization token once authenticity has been established.

If the server-side checks determine that the software being run is an unauthorized copy, it will block the game from connecting to online play and Nintendo can also easily ban a console from accessing its online network entirely.

Pirated games can be run on Nintendo's Switch console because hackers discovered a flaw that could be exploited to run arbitrary code.

If you are waiting for a VR headset for Xbox One, you will be disappointed in Microsoft.

According to Mike Nichols, chief markering officer for gaming at Microsoft, the Redmond-based giant has no plans specific to Xbox One in the virtual reality and mixed reality spaces. He revealed as much in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

The revelation comes in contrast to past comments by Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who said the firm planned to integrate VR into Xbox One X.

"We don't have any plans specific to Xbox consoles in virtual reality or mixed reality," Nichols said.

"Our perspective on it has been and continues to be that the PC is probably the best platform for more immersive VR and MR. As an open platform, it just allows faster, more rapid iteration."

Sony's rival PlayStation VR sales didn't match the levels the Japanese consumer electronics firm expected, maybe prompting Microsoft to halt development of VR on their consoles for now.

Read Nichols' full comments at: www.gamesindustry.biz

Tesla has filed a lawsuit against a former disgruntled employee for allegedly committing acts of sabotage and data theft against the all-electric automaker.

Earlier this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an e-mail to the firm's employees revealing that a fellow employee had modified manufacturing operating system software, and had also stolen sensitive information. Following that e-mail, it has emerged that Tesla has filed a lawsuit against the individual accused.

Filed in a federal court in Nevada, the lawsuit alleges that the former process technician was angry after being reassigned to a different role at the company. The individual is accused of handing over videos and photographs relating to Tesla's manufacturing systems to third parties.

Tesla has suffered "significant and continuing damages" as a result of his actions, the suit alleges. Furthermore, Tesla also accuses the man of making false statements to the press about delays and other things.

The firm is seeking an initial $1 million in damages and other forms of relief, to be determined at trial.

The BBC will stream tennis matches from this year's Wimbledon tournament to some UK users in 4K resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR).

The national broadcaster is already streaming World Cup matches in 4K HDR from Russia which has been praised by viewers despite some technical glitches. For Wimbledon, it will also offer streams in 4K without HDR so that Sky Q customers and tune in.

As with the World Cup, the ability to access the very high-quality streams will be on a "first-come-first-served" basis as streams will be limited to "tens of thousands". This is to meet the high bandwidth demands that such streams have on both ends of the connection.

To access the content through iPlayer, you will need to be using a compatible set-top-box or smart TV. While not listed by the BCC, Sony's PlayStation Pro is also capable of streaming live World Cup games from iPlayer in 4K UHD, though not in HDR.

Here is a list of compatible devices: www.bbc.co.uk