Believe it or not, but I’ve moved past the false claim by many that Apple products are immune from virus attacks. That claim just isn’t true, but like I said, I’ve more on.
Yes, viruses do attack Apple products, but at least the company is finally doing something about it.
Apple today removed more than 250 apps from its App Store that were using software from a Chinese advertising company that secretly accessed and stored users’ personal information. The firm, called Youmi, provided app makers with a software development kit that would glean which apps a user had downloaded, that user’s email address, and the serial numbers of their smartphone, according to mobile security company SourceDNA. The apps in total received 1 million downloads.
We were always told that iOS products were special for a number of reasons, but especially because they were impervious to virus and malware. Boy oh boy how times have changed.
Cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks has identified new malware, which it calls YiSpecter, that infects iOS devices by abusing private APIs. Most affected users live in China and Taiwan.
Once it infects a phone, YiSpecter can install unwanted apps; replacing legitimate apps with ones it has downloaded; force apps to display full-screen advertisements; change bookmarks and default search engines in Safari; and send user information back to its server. It also automatically reappears even after users manually delete it from their iOS devices.
Palo Alto Networks says YiSpecter is unusual for iOS malware—at least ones that have been identified so far—because it attacks jailbroken and non-jailbroken iOS devices by misusing private APIs to allow its four components (which are signed with enterprise certificates to appear legitimate) to download and install each other from a centralized server.
In the post, Palo Alto Networks’ security researcher Claud Xiao wrote that by abusing enterprise certificates and private APIs, YiSpecter is not only able to infect more devices, but “pushes the line barrier of iOS security back another step.”
I just checked, my account is still up and running. Whew! I started the account over 2 years ago and I’m yet to share my first post. I should really share something…
Photo-sharing app Instagram has removed millions of accounts believed to be posting spam, angering many legitimate users.
People who lost a lot of followers criticised the action, dubbing it the “Instagram Rapture”.
Like its parent company Facebook, Instagram routinely removes accounts to limit spam and prevent users buying followers to appear more popular.
Rapper Akon reportedly lost 56% of his followers in the cull.
Figures collated by developer Zach Allia – not affiliated to Instagram – totted up the impact of the purge on the site’s top 100 accounts.
The big losers were Justin Bieber (minus 3,538,228 followers), and an online marketing specialist called Wellington Campos, which lost 3,284,304 followers overnight.
One account, chiragchirag78, lost 99% of his followers – 3,660,460 – before he himself was deleted.
Instagram’s own account on the site lost 18,880,211 followers overnight.
‘Omg’
Instagram had warned its users that the deletion was coming in a blog post earlier this month.
“We’ve been deactivating spammy accounts from Instagram on an ongoing basis to improve your experience,” wrote chief executive and founder Kevin Systrom.
“As part of this effort, we will be deleting these accounts forever, so they will no longer be included in follower counts. This means that some of you will see a change in your follower count.”
I have a Note 3 and I’m already too accustomed to friends calling it “a flat screen TV!”
“How can you walk around with that thing by your ears,” they’ll asks, always laughing and joking about how big the thing is. “I can’t even fit it in my pocket” is often the next phrase and the jokes will continue. Then they’ll pull out their little iphones and the comparisons would start.
But I’m always the last one standing, because at the end of the discussion or argument in some cases, they all gravitate to my big screen, usually speechless by the quality of my pictures, high-definition videos, the exceptional processing speed and the ease at with everything flows. By this time, their little iphones with sub par processing and below average picture quality are tucked away in their pockets, hidden from sight.
All hail the Samsung!
So Apple unveiled their big screen iphone 6 and iphone 6 plus today, and a small screen smart watch because the big screen Samsung with their Galaxy and Note products is a big hit with consumers. People don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for a device they have to squint their eyes to see, so with today’s release Apple is finally getting with the times and attempting to cut into Samsung’s hold on the big picture.
The iphone 6 comes in with a 4.7 inch screen, a tad smaller than the 5.1 inch Samsung Galaxy S5 and the iphone 6 plus has a 5.5 inch screen. And they also unveiled a smart watch or “AppleWatch too!
To my friends, welcome to your very own personal flatscreen TV! I doubt your resolution can compare to mine though! I’m pretty sure you will still be in awe, watching HiDefination programming on my TV Note!
I’m all for getting my stuff into iTunes more efficiently, aren’t you? Jordan Merrick is, too, and he’s come up with a brilliant way to do just that. He’s also got a great site full of clever tips there as well. Really, go check it out.
The default way, says Merrick, for media to get to iTunes is like this: drag and drop a folder full of music or a video you’ve converted from DVD to iTunes. iTunes takes said media, copies it, and places it into its own special folder structure.
What happens in this case is that you’re left holding two copies of that album or video — one in your iTunes folder and one wherever you pulled it from. That’s kind of silly, if you ask me, especially if you back up regularly. No one needs two copies of anything on their hard drive.
Luckily, there’s a cool folder in your iTunes folder that lets you add stuff directly to iTunes. Sadly, it’s pretty buried, but Merrick will show you a better way.
Open up the Finder, he says, and navigate to the Music folder in your Home folder. Open the iTunes folder, then the iTunes Media folder. You’ll see an folder called Automatically Add to iTunes. Drag this folder over to the sidebar in the Finder for easy access.
Now, every time you want to put music or video into iTunes, simply drag it over to the sidebar and into the Automatically Add to iTunes folder you’ve placed there. iTunes will then add it to its own system.
If it’s not a file that iTunes can handle, the app will place a folder called Not Added into the Automatically Add to iTunes folder that can clean out later.
The new iPhones look like the old iPhones. They sound like the old iPhones. They do the same things as the old iPhones. Just slightly better, more colorfully, and less expensively than the old iPhones. This might seem disappointing: even Apple’s phones are boring now. But this is an ideal state of affairs.
The original iPhone, released in June, 2007, gave birth to the modern smartphone era: browsing restaurant menus on a sidewalk, watching a movie on a bus, tweeting from the subway and posting photos of a newborn to Facebook the second it opens its eyes. What we can do now, six years later, has not fundamentally changed since then. It’s easier or faster—forty times faster, according to Apple—or higher resolution, or all of the above. To wit, the iPhone 5S has few genuinely new features, and those that it does have are nearly invisible. In order of importance, they are: a built-in fingerprint scanner to replace passwords, faster chips, a higher-quality camera, and a gold body. The iPhone 5C is essentially the exact same as the current iPhone 5, but shoved into a brightly colored plastic, rather than aluminum, shell and sold for a hundred dollars less than before.
Fundamental technology, like manufacturing processes for processors and imaging sensors and displays, have evolved to the point that the basic shape and sense of a phone—a thin rectangle with a four-to-five-inch high-resolution touch screen stuffed with a variety of sensors—is determined now largely based on its merits rather than its outright technical limitations, much the same way that the basic shape of a knife is defined by its function rather than our ability to produce it. (The biggest technical limitation for mobile devices now is battery technology, which has not seen a true breakthrough in decades.)
If you’re a fan of Apple, mark September 10 on your calendar. That’s when the company is reportedly unveiling the next iPhone.
According to All Things D, Apple is hosting an event next month where the company is expected to reveal its latest smartphone.
Naturally, the weeks leading up to the reported reveal have been filled with countless rumors on what consumers can expect from the next iPhone. Rumors range from a lower-cost model to appeal to more consumers to a device equipped with a fingerprint sensor.
The reported event arrives as Apple continues to cede ground to several strong competitors, most notably Samsung and its Galaxy S series as well as the army of devices running Google’s Android operating system. According to IDC, nearly 80% of the smartphones shipped last quarter ran on Android.
However, the introduction of a new iPhone could spark an Apple rebound. “With a new iPhone and revamped iOS coming out later this year, Apple is well-positioned to re-capture market share,” says IDC research manager Ramon Llamas.
Readers, what features would you like to see in the next iPhone?
Here’s something original. Barry made over $92,000.00 filing 122 false income tax returns using the information of dead people.
In other news, Republican Senator Rand Paul recently defended Apple’s decision to cheat the American Government out of billions in taxes, by shipping their income overseas. Paul was heard saying that everyone game the system in some way, so Apple did nothing wrong.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in a release John M. Berry Jr. of Dunkirk, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Buffalo to making a false claim against the United States. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who is handling the case, said between Sept. 3, 2008, and March 25, 2009, Berry filed 122 false income tax returns for the tax years 2007 and 2008 with the IRS.
During that time, Berry obtained the personal and identifying information for 122 recently deceased individuals and then used that information to file federal tax returns. The defendant created fraudulent income and withholding information for the dead taxpayers and filed the returns electronically, Mango said.
The 122 tax returns sought refunds totaling $217,520 from the IRS, of which the defendant received $92,462.12. The refunds were deposited directly into Berry’s bank account, Mango said.
“This case should serve as a warning that our office, working with our law enforcement partners, will not tolerate attempts to either steal the identities of individuals, or the money of the taxpayers of this country,” U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. “That this defendant would rob the identities of deceased individuals is concerning, and could have brought additional grief and pain for their loved ones.”
We all remember how surprising Apple’s decision last year to remove Google Maps as the default iOS Map was. We also remember the widespread criticism that followed, due to user non-satisfaction with Apple’s newly released Map. Well, this may have been just the beginning of a “war” for the dominion of the mapping technology market. In fact, on May 4 2013, the US Patents Trademarks Office published Apple’s new patent “3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation” which describes a product similar to Google’s street view technology.
Two major differences with Google’s street view seem to be:
The use of mobile devices integrated sensors to navigate at street level allowing users to physically move the device up/down/left/right in order to virtually turn at street corner, enter/exit building, move up or down streets, etc.
The possibility to expand the panorama by using more than one adjacent devices simultaneously. As it reads in the patent text: “For example, two adjacent electronic tablets can be arranged in a variety of portrait/landscape configurations. […] Although the overall layout is consistent, the relative orientations of the tablets to each other allow for a rich interaction, such as filtering, layering information, navigation information visualization, etc. Additionally, a 3D layout of multiple devices enables observing occluded or interior information. Some of the devices can be static while others can be moving .”
The publication of this patent follows the recent acquisition of WifiSLAM by Apple last March. WifiSLAM is an indoor-GPS company that aims to make indoor location as accessible as possible using integrated sensors and existing indoor Wi-Fi signals. The appropriate use of these technologies combined allows WiFiSLAM to pinpoint users’ indoor location more quickly and more precisely than what GPS alone could accomplish.
Even though we have no clue about when these technologies will be incorporated into Apple’s current Maps, this new patent (along with the recent acquisition of WifiSLAM) suggests that Apple is actively working on its mapping product and willing to get the competition to a new level. Google has dominated the mapping technology market for over 7 years, and, as one might has predicted, Apple will do nothing but improve its Maps and probably catch up with Google Maps… unless Google has some mind-blowing tricks in store. We shall see!
Sony is taking it to a whole new level, a level everyone expected to be pioneered by Apple, but Sony is leading the way. This is why I love Android. No hit to Apple products or Apple users, but Android devices and developers are showing why they must be recognized and reckoned with.
Here is another huge step forward for Android. A Sony cell phone capable of working and recording a fantastic video both on land and in water.
A few days ago, we told you about the iPhone 5 and the lack of interest the product was generating. The iPhone 5 even came in worst among the top smart phones. And now this. The company’s shares fell over 6% today.
Apple Inc. shares tumbled more than 6 percent on Wednesday, chalking up their biggest single-day loss in four years as fears grow about intensifying competition in the mobile device market.
The sell-off, fueled by a forecast by an influential research firm that the iPad maker is continuing to cede ground to rival Google Inc. Android gadgets, rounded off a bleak 10 weeks for the most valuable U.S. company.
The stock was one of Wednesday’s biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500, shedding $35 billion of market value as more than 37 million shares changed hands — blowing past the company’s average daily volume over 50 days of 21 million.
Apple’s shares, once among the most desirable of portfolio holdings, have headed steadily south since September on growing uncertainty about the company’s ability to fend off unprecedented competition. This year saw a surge in sales of Amazon.com Inc.’s cheaper Kindle Fire and Microsoft Corp.’s first foray into the tablet market with its Surface.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics continues to chip away at the iPad’s dominance with its Galaxy line.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
