Day: September 17, 2020

US charges Iranian hackers for breaching US satellite companies

Three suspects were indicted, with one being a famous security researcher. …read more Source:: ZDNet


Google bans stalkerware apps from Android store. Which is cool but… why were they allowed in the first place?

Disclosed tracking, helicopter parenting programs are still kosher In an update to its Android Developer Program Policy, Google on Wednesday said stalkerware apps in its app store can no longer be used to stalk non-consenting adults.… …read more Source:: TheRegister


Mozilla Shuts Down Firefox Send and Firefox Notes Services

Mozilla is shutting down two of its legacy products, Firefox Send and Firefox Notes, the company announced today. From a report: “Both services are being decommissioned and will no longer be a part of our product family,” a Mozilla spokesperson told ZDNet this week. Of the two, the most beloved was Firefox Send, a free…


Ford teases its forthcoming electric F-150 – Roadshow

The new F-150 EV should be up and running by 2022. …read more Source:: CNet


A Utah Company Claims It Invented Contact Tracing Tech

In the fight against Covid-19, contact tracing apps have so far largely been disappointments — in the United States, at least. Proposed in the spring as a way to help quickly stifle viral outbreaks by tracking down potential exposures using smartphones, they were stunted by technical glitches, concerns over privacy, and the US’s fragmented, haphazard…


Video encoders using Huawei chips have backdoors and bad bugs – and Chinese giant says it’s not to blame

Telecom kit maker points finger in the general direction of Middle Kingdom’s complicated supply chain Hardware video encoders from multiple suppliers contain several critical security bugs that allow a remote unauthenticated miscreant to run arbitrary code on the equipment.… …read more Source:: Register


Into the Belly of the Beast with Placemon

No, no, at first we thought it was a Pokemon too, but Placemon monitors your place, your home, your domicile. Instead of a purpose-built device, like a CO detector or a burglar alarm, this is a generalized monitor that streams data to a central processor where machine learning algorithms notify you if something is awry….


NASA sees heartbreaking scope of US wildfires and storms in a single image – CNET

From California’s ferocious fires to Hurricane Sally’s heavy rains, a NASA satellite saw it all. …read more Source:: CNet


Voice Assistants Are Doing a Poor Job of Conveying Information About Voting

Kyle Wiggers, reporting for VentureBeat: Over 111.8 million people in the U.S. talk to voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant every month, eMarketer estimates. Tens of millions of those people use assistants as data-finding tools, with the Global Web Index reporting that 25% of adults regularly perform voice searches on smartphones. But while…


First Intel Tiger Lake Benchmarks Show Big CPU and Graphics Performance Gains

MojoKid writes: Intel formally announced its 11th Gen Core mobile processor family, known by the code name Tiger Lake, a few weeks back and made some bold performance claims for it as well. The company even compared its quad-core variant to AMD’s 8-core Ryzen 7 4800U in gaming and content creation. Today Intel lifted the…