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They're called glasses, look it up

Dude. Imagine, like, if you had – bear with me – a smartphone, right? But, like, in your HEAD?!…

You didn't want to run that hot Cupertino code? Too bad, loser

Apple's iOS 14 is supposed to let people select third-party apps, such as Chrome and Outlook, as their default browser and email client. Yet, when the iThings are rebooted or powered back on, these choices are wiped, and the defaults reset to Apple's Safari and Mail.…

Online Apple store comes to India even as millions remain in containment zones

Apple will grace India with its online store, at just the moment that local bricks and mortar retailers need trade they can get.…

Go pivot on this

On Call Everyone loves a mystery so clamber into the On Call vaults for a good old-fashioned VAX-based whatdunnit.…

A unique and exciting detail of Hubble's new snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm moving at 560 kilometres per hour. This single plume erupted on 18 August 2020 and another has since appeared. From a report: While it's common for storms to pop up in this region, often several at once, this particular disturbance appears to have more structure behind it than observed in previous storms. Trailing behind the plume are small, counterclockwise dark clumps also not witnessed in the past. Researchers speculate this may be the beginning of a longer-lasting northern hemisphere spot, perhaps to rival the legendary Great Red Spot that dominates the southern hemisphere. Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet's southern hemisphere, is ploughing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. The Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red colour, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red. Researchers say the Great Red Spot now measures about 15 800 kilometres across, big enough to swallow the Earth. The super-storm is still shrinking, as noted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but its rate of shrinkage appears to have slowed. The reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.

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Pitches tiny 'cloud computer' that streams apps and OSes over WiFi and hooks up to USB-C displays

Alibaba has teased a tiny PC replacement that will stream apps from its cloud.…

Extortionware is bad but it never killed anyo... never mind

A woman in Germany died after a ransomware infection prevented her hospital from giving emergency treatment.…

As Mozilla kills off secure file transfer tool because – shock! – it was being abused

Mozilla’s mail reader, Thunderbird, has implemented a feature first requested 21 years ago.…

Floats industry plan that requires ramp-up of locally made components and complete tech transfer

Pakistan has proposed that foreign smartphone-makers entering the country will have to help it build a domestic smartphone industry.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: After searching through some of the tens of millions of encrypted messages pulled from Encrochat devices, Dutch police have launched a new investigation team that will look specifically into corruption, the police force announced on Wednesday. In some cases authorities are looking to identify police who leaked information to organized criminals. The news broadens the scope of the Encrochat investigations, which have focused heavily on drug trafficking and organized crime more generally. Earlier this year, French authorities hacked into Encrochat phones en masse to retrieve message content, and then shared those communications with various other law enforcement agencies. "Criminal investigations into possible corruption are currently underway and there are likely to be more in the near future. In addition to investigations into drug trafficking and money laundering, investigations into corruption are also given top priority," Chief of Police Henk van Essen said in a Politie press release. Encrochat was an encrypted phone company that took base Android units, made physical alterations to them, and added its own software. Encrochat devices sent messages with end-to-end encryption, meaning only the intended recipient was supposed to be able to read them. The phones also had a remote wipe feature, letting users destroy communications if they lost physical control of the device, as well as a dual-boot system that let users open an innocuous looking operating system, or the second one containing their more sensitive information. The phones were particularly popular with criminals, including drug traffickers and hitmen. There are indications Encrochat may have had legitimate users too, however. Other Encrochat customers are allegedly those involved in corruption, including police themselves, the press release suggests.

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Three days remain before definition of prohibited transactions drops

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has revealed that the Trump administration has not yet decided exactly what sort of ban it wants to impose on Tencent-operated messaging service WeChat, but that users of the service won’t be subject to any penalties.…

The Verge reports on the new rules Facebook is adding to slow the spread of misinformation and other harmful content on its Groups feature. From the report: Some of the new policies encourage more active administration of groups. If administrators step down, they can invite members to take their place; if nobody does, Facebook will apparently "suggest" admin roles to members, then archive the group if that fails. Also, if group members accrue a community standards violation, moderators will have to approve all their posts for 30 days. If the moderators repeatedly approve posts that violate Facebook's guidelines, the group could be removed. The health guidelines take a broader approach by focusing on an entire category of content, not specific rule-breaking behavior. Facebook says that although groups can "be a positive space for giving and receiving support during difficult life circumstances ... it's crucial that people get their health information from authoritative sources." Facebook also says it's continuing to limit content from militia groups and other organizations linked to violence. Groups that discuss potential violence will be removed, and it will soon down-rank even non-violating content in the News Feed.

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Nintendo has discontinued its 3DS handheld after about 76 million sales over a nine-and-a-half year period. The BBC reports: A notice on the Japanese firm's site says "manufacturing of the Nintendo 3DS family of systems has ended." The device had the ability to trick the human eye into seeing 3D images like those in some cinema screenings -- but without special glasses. However, its launch received a lukewarm reception and it only gained popularity later. The console's demise has long been expected. Last year, the company said it no longer planned to make any new first-party games for the system. It means the original Nintendo DS retains the title of being the bestselling mobile console. And the Nintendo Switch -- a hybrid handheld-and-home machine -- is the current focus of Nintendo's efforts.

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schwit1 shares a report from NewsNation Now: The Justice Department has charged five Chinese citizens with hacks targeting more than 100 companies and institutions in the United States and elsewhere, including social media and video game companies as well as universities and telecommunications providers, officials said Wednesday. The five defendants remain fugitives, but prosecutors say two Malaysian businessmen accused of conspiring with the alleged hackers to profit off the attacks on video game companies were arrested in that country this week and face extradition proceedings. The indictments announced Wednesday are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to call out cybercrimes by China.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, announced that August 2020 ended in over 2 billion total searches via its search platform. While Google remains the most popular search engine, DuckDuckGo has gained a great deal of traction in recent months as more and more users have begun to value their privacy on the internet. DuckDuckGo saw over 2 billion searches and 4 million app/extension installations, and the company also said that they have over 65 million active users. DuckDuckGo could shatter its old traffic record if the same growth trend continues. Even though DuckDuckGo is growing rapidly, it still controls less than 2 percent of all search volume in the United States. However, DuckDuckGo's growth trend has continued throughout the year, mainly due to Google and other companies' privacy scandal.

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It starts with a backpack of $200 of electronics and poor Wi-Fi security

The US Department of the Interior (DoI) spectacularly failed its latest computer security assessment, mostly for a lack of Wi-Fi defenses.…

New submitter ragnar_ianal writes: Looking at the V-shaped formations of migrating ducks, scientists have long surmised that there are aeronautical efficiencies at play. Airbus is examining this in a practical manner to see if fuel efficiency can be enhanced. "Building on test flights in 2016 with an Airbus A380 megajet and A350-900 wide-body jetliner, [the Airbus fello'fly] hopes to demonstrate and quantify the aerodynamic efficiencies while developing in-flight operational procedures," reports CNN. "Initial flight testing with two A350s began in March 2020. The program will be expanded next year to include the involvement of Frenchbee and SAS airlines, along with air traffic control and air navigation service providers from France, the UK, and Europe." "It's very, very different from what the military would call formation flight. It's really nothing to do with close formation," explained Dr. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext, in an interview with CNN Travel.

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And Cloudflare customers get way better availability

The Internet Archive, repository for some 468bn webpages, has become a fail-over service for Cloudflare customers, which could improve website availability for everyone.…

Apple One, Apple's long-awaited services bundle, has arrived and The Verge's Chaim Gartenberg has crunched the numbers to see which subscription package, if any, is worth it. From the report: Let's start with the Apple One Individual plan. Offering a single Apple Music plan ($9.99 per month), a 50GB iCloud storage bucket ($0.99 per month), and access to Apple Arcade ($4.99 per month) and Apple TV Plus ($4.99 per month) for $14.99, it seems like it saves you money. But unless you're interested in subscribing to Apple Music and either Apple Arcade or Apple TV Plus, you're probably better off just saving the $4 and sticking with an $11 Apple Music and iCloud combo. (As a side note, Apple does grant everyone in your family plan access to Apple Arcade and Apple TV Plus, even if you subscribe to it through the "Individual plan," which may impact your calculus.) It's a similar story with the Family plan: a regular family plan for Apple Music costs $14.99 per month, and a 200GB iCloud bucket (which can already be shared across a whole family) is $2.99. Once again, if you want either Apple Arcade or Apple TV Plus on top of that, the Apple One bundle effectively gets you both of those services for the price of one, but if all you want is Apple Music and iCloud storage, Apple One doesn't really offer any benefits. The Apple One Premier plan is a slightly different story, though. At $29.99 per month, it's the most expensive of the plans. Comparing it to the unbundled costs, an Apple Music family plan is once again $14.99, while a 2TB iCloud plan is $9.99. If you were already paying for both of those plans -- which isn't unreasonable for a family that's heavily invested in Apple products -- then you're only looking at a $5 per month increase to gain access to Arcade along with the additions of News Plus and Fitness Plus (which, at $9.99 per month each, are among Apple's priciest subscriptions). "But in most cases, Apple One only makes sense if you're already subscribing to Apple's most in-demand services: iCloud storage, which is essential for backing up most iPhones given Apple's increasingly absurd (and stingy) 5GB allowance for new devices, and Apple Music," writes Gartenberg in closing. "And at the end of the day, Apple One doesn't make subscribing to those two key services dramatically cheaper -- it just provides a discount for subscribing to Apple's less popular services. It's a good discount, mind you, but one that still results in most customers paying more than they are right now."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: WeChat users who download the Chinese app for personal or business communications won't be targeted by President Donald Trump's executive order that will prohibit using the app for some transactions, the U.S. said. The U.S. Commerce Department plans to clarify by Sept. 20 which transactions will be prohibited. But it doesn't intend to define "the relevant transactions in such a way that would impose criminal or civil liability on such users," according to a government filing Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco. The U.S. WeChat Users Alliance is seeking a preliminary injunction against Trump's executive order. A hearing on the request is scheduled for Thursday. According to the WeChat users group, Trump's Aug. 6 order would sunder the primary and often exclusive channel many U.S. residents use to communicate with family and friends in both China and the U.S. WeChat is also used to run businesses and non-profit organizations, practice religion and as a source news. WeChat is so integral to Chinese and Chinese Americans' lives that a ban would be like "losing a limb" for some users, the group claims. "Having first failed to articulate any actual national security concern, the administration's latest 'assurances' that users can keep using WeChat, and exchange their personal and business information, only further illustrates the hollowness and pre-textual nature of defendants' 'national security' rationales," the group said in a court filing.

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