Category Archives: Technology

Bug leaves iPhones vulnerable to hackers stealing email contents

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Fault in built-in Mail app could allow attackers to read, modify or delete emails, say experts

A newly discovered bug in the built-in Mail app for iPhones could allow an attacker to read, modify and delete emails, researchers say.

Apple says it will patch the vulnerability in the next version of iOS, 13.4.5, and that users of the beta software are already protected. But until that update is made available to the general public, every other iPhone user is vulnerable to the attack, which can be used to steal the contents of emails.

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Need zing in your Zoom? Let Warhol and the avant-garde vamp up your video conferences

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It’s hard to make much of a mark in the strange, static world of video-conferencing. But we could all learn a trick or two from famous arthouse film-makers, from Jim Jarmusch to Andy Warhol

Of all the many weirdnesses of the age of lockdown, video-conferencing must be one of the weirdest. This is the first time many of us have used Zoom, FaceTime, Google Hangouts and Houseparty. And, invaluable as they are, few would disagree that they are a strange way to communicate. From the stilted family group chat to the strained business meeting, it all feels messy and unnatural. Video-conferencing is nothing like real-life conversation, nor is it like cinema or TV, even though it is essentially watching people on a screen.

However, for a certain strain of film-makers and artists, the unblinking, unmoving gaze of the webcam is familiar territory. Could the art end of cinema help ease our pain and anxiety? Could we improve our new social rituals by rethinking them as experiments in avant garde film?

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Welsh minister’s mic mistake broadcasts sweary rant to assembly

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Vaughan Gething heard decrying Labour colleague after leaving his audio live on video call

Wales’s health minister, Vaughan Gething, has learned the hard way about one of the risks of videoconferencing after he accidentally broadcast a sweary rant about one of his colleagues during a virtual session of Welsh assembly.

Having apparently left his microphone live after addressing the assembly, the minister could be heard loudly decrying his fellow Labour assembly member Jenny Rathbone.

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Fortnite owner gives up battle against Google Play store

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Epic makes its blockbuster game available in store, an embarrassing climbdown

Fortnite for Android is available through the Google Play store for the first time, almost 18 months after owners Epic Games tried to use the game’s popularity to break the app store duopoly.

The release is an embarrassing climbdown for Epic, which has sunk significant resources into building its own independent games service, and is sure to reignite accusations of anti-competitive behaviour on the parts of both Apple and Google.

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Court hearings via video ‘risk unfairness for disabled people’

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UK equalities watchdog warns move amid virus to focus on online sessions could hamper rapport and access to justice

Remote video trials could disadvantage people with learning disabilities, the equalities watchdog has warned, as courts switch to online hearings during the coronavirus crisis.

An interim report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has highlighed concerns about the impact of conducting cases without defendants being present in court.

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Amazon given €294m in tax credits as European revenues jump to €32bn

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Company says it made a loss last year due to investment and the competitive market

Amazon received €294m (£258m) in tax credits last year that it can deduct from future bills for its European business, as revenues at the online retailer rose significantly to €32bn.

The company said it received the tax credits because it made a loss last year due to its investment programme and the highly competitive retail environment across Europe and the UK.

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The good neighbour who wants to iron out the problems of the weekly wash

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A low-tech washing machine offers a way to wash where there is limited access to power and running water

With a plastic drum, plywood and a few secret components, a London-based engineer has created a rudimentary washing machine that he says will ease the workload for families with little power or water.

Nav Sawnhey has designed a £24 crank-handled machinefor people in places without reliable, affordable power.

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Hackers exploit coronavirus lockdown with fake Netflix and Disney+ pages

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Criminals seek rich pickings as viewers stuck at home flock to TV streaming sites

More than 700 fake websites mimicking Netflix and Disney+ signup pages have been created seeking to harvest personal information from consumers during the coronavirus lockdown streaming boom.

Netflix, which is expected to smash its forecast of 7 million new global subscribers when it reports first-quarter results on Tuesday, is the main target as millions of new potential customers seek entertainment while confined to their homes.

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Don’t click on the traffic lights: upstart competitor challenges Google’s anti-bot tool

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New charges for reCaptcha spur web security firm Cloudflare to develop its own identity-checking software

The days of clicking on traffic lights to prove you are not a robot could be ending after Google’s decision to charge for the tool prompted one of the web’s biggest infrastructure firms to ditch it for a competitor.

“Captcha” – an awkward acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart” – is used by sites to fight automated abuses of their services. For years, Google’s version of the test, branded reCaptcha, has dominated, after it acquired the company that developed it in 2009 and offered the technology for free worldwide.

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Apple launches smaller, cheaper iPhone

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Second-generation iPhone SE resembles older models, with prices starting at £419

Apple has launched a cheaper version of its iPhone SE as it attempts to continue normal business despite the coronavirus pandemic.

The second-generation SE resembles Apple’s previous design used for its smartphones between 2014 and 2017, complete with the traditional touch ID home button instead of face recognition. It costs from £419 in the UK and $399 in the US.

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People opened up because I’m the Beavis and Butt-head guy’: Mike Judge on his new funk direction

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The writer-director’s comedies – from Office Space to Silicon Valley – always sum up the spirit of their times. So why has he made an LSD-soaked cartoon about George Clinton and Bootsy Collins?

Few writer-directors have been as consistent and ruthless at capturing the moment as Mike Judge, although he never actually intends to do so. “It’s always a shock when something comes out and it feels so relevant,” he says, in his laconic surfer-dude tone, talking to me by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “But I tend to look at stuff that feels as if it’s everywhere, but nobody’s talking about.”

Judge, 57, is so beady at spotting what’s everywhere, his shows themselves end up becoming ubiquitous, the thing everybody’s talking about. It is impossible to imagine 90s TV without his seminal hits, Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, the former satirising the worst of youth culture, the latter fondly depicting gentle American conservatism acclimatising itself to the Bill Clinton era.

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Amazon fires two employees who condemned treatment of warehouse workers

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User experience designers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa say they lost their jobs after circulating a petition about Covid-19 risks

Amazon has fired two employees after they publicly denounced the company’s treatment of warehouse workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

The user experience designers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa said on Tuesday they had been fired after internally circulating a petition about health risks for Amazon warehouse workers during the Covid-19 crisis. Costa had worked at the company for more than 15 years and Cunningham had been an employee for more than five.

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TikTok is the social media sensation of lockdown. Could I become its new star?

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With families and couples filming themselves dancing or performing skits, the app has become even more popular in recent weeks. I asked its British stars to help me get started

Andy Warhol predicted a time everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. He was nearly right – it is actually 15 seconds. That is the maximum duration of a video clip with music (non-music clips can last up to a minute) on TikTok, the video-sharing platform that has taken the world by storm. Favoured by under-25s, who make up its core audience, TikTok this year surpassed Facebook and WhatsApp as the world’s most downloaded non-gaming app.

TikTok’s content doesn’t take itself too seriously, and ranges from food to fashion, pranks to pets – as well as the ubiquitous dance challenges. It is a perfect fit, in other words, for the lockdown, when many of us are stuck inside and in desperate need of some silly fun. This may be why, even if you haven’t downloaded it, you suddenly find, clogging up your social media, clips of Justin Bieber dancing to I’m a Savage by Megan Thee Stallion, or Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez swapping outfits to Drake’s Flip the Switch. It seems everyone from doctors and nurses in PPE to bemused parents quarantined with teenagers are flocking to the app – and sometimes going viral in the process.

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Growth in surveillance may be hard to scale back after pandemic, experts say

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Coronavirus crisis has led to billions of people around the world facing enhanced monitoring

The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented global surge in digital surveillance, researchers and privacy advocates around the world have said, with billions of people facing enhanced monitoring that may prove difficult to roll back.

Governments in at least 25 countries are employing vast programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes.

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Robots deliver food in Milton Keynes under coronavirus lockdown

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Starship Technologies’ small vehicles navigate pavements with no human driver required

A robotic delivery service in Milton Keynes could prove to be the future of locked-down Britain, as miniature autonomous vehicles bring food deliveries to almost 200,000 residents of the town.

Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery startup created in 2014 by two Skype cofounders, has been testing its beer cooler-sized robots in public since 2015. The small, white, six-wheeled vehicles trundle along pavements to bring small deliveries to residents and workers of the neighbourhoods in which they operate, without the need for a human driver or delivery person.

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Apple and Google team up in bid to use smartphones to track coronavirus spread

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The app will use a Bluetooth technology to trace every phone a person comes in contact with, raising concerns over privacy

Apple and Google announced Friday an unprecedented collaboration to leverage smartphone technology to help trace and contain the spread of coronavirus.

The collaboration will open up their mobile operating systems to allow for the creation of advanced “contact-tracing” apps, which will run on iPhones and Android phones alike.

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Amsterdam to Paris in 90 minutes? Dutch tout hyperloop as future of travel

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North Holland thinks unproven 600mph magnetic hovertrain could help replace air travel

Swifter than trains, safer than cars and far less damaging to the environment than planes, the Dutch province of North Holland believes the hyperloop might be the future.

Plans are being drawn up for Amsterdam to be connected to other European cities by the futuristic high-speed mode of transportation comprising a magnetic hovertrain in an air-free tube able to travel at speeds of over 600mph due to the lack of friction and drag.

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‘Beginning of a new era’: how culture went virtual in the face of crisis

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The rise of Covid-19 has forced cultural institutions to explore alternative digital spaces with online exhibitions and a rise in virtual reality

It’s a terrible time for going out. Since the emergence of Covid-19 and resulting self-quarantine, thousands of museums, cultural institutions, festivals and global happenings have temporarily shuttered operations, leaving behind empty streets and a restless public. In a sector that thrives on in-person connection, the loss of an audience is disastrous, yet resilient performers, institutions, galleries, even entire art fairs, are moving to the digital arena, using streaming services and virtual reality, manifesting live concerts on the gaming app Twitch, organizing Instagram dance parties and launching online-only spaces.

During his popular 2015 Ted Talk, the immersive artist, entrepreneur and director Chris Milk suggested that virtual reality could someday become the “ultimate empathy machine” but despite an initial burst of interest in 2015 during the launch of the Oculus Rift headset, immersive media have primarily remained niche. Now, with social distancing, the technology is experiencing something of a renaissance.

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Influencers among ‘key distributors’ of coronavirus misinformation

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Study suggests mainstream news outlets struggling to compete with celebrities’ and politicians’ reach

Celebrities and politicians with large social media followings are proving to be key distributors of disinformation relating to coronavirus, according to a study that suggests the factcheckers and mainstream news outlets are struggling to compete with the reach of influencers.

The actor Woody Harrelson and the singer MIA have faced criticism after sharing baseless claims about the supposed connection of 5G to the pandemic, while comments by the likes of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, playing down the scale of the crisis in the face of scientific evidence have attracted criticism in recent days.

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NSO Group points finger at state clients in WhatsApp spying case

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In court filing, Israeli spyware company says it does not operate technology it provides

An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses, according to court documents.

NSO Group – whose technology is reported to have been used against dozens of targets including Pakistani intelligence officials, Indian journalists and exiled Rwandan political activists – also claimed in legal documents that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.

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