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AfterDawn: News

Spotify now integrates with Google Maps, both on Android and iPhone

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 01 Oct 2018 7:38

Spotify now integrates with Google Maps, both on Android and iPhone Spotify announced a new feature today, integrating the popular streaming service app to Google Maps navigation on Android and on iPhone.

Spotify has previously worked with Waze, providing an integration to the Wze's navigation user interface, but obviously, integrating to the Google Maps is significantly bigger leap for the Swedish company.

With the integration, users will see barebone Spotify buttons available in the Google Maps' navigation screen. The minimzed UI will show the currently played song, has next/prev buttons and play/pause buttons shown, too. Also, the Spotify playback mutes when navigation instructions are spoken by the Google Maps and will resume after that.

Spotify integrates with Google Maps


According to Spotify's data, more and more people are replacing their car radio, CDs and USB sticks with Spotify when driving a car. Thus, it seems that the most important feature in current car audio systems is the Bluetooth connection, everything else can be outsourced to the phone.

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AfterDawn: News

Were you among the hacked? Here's the only way to know if Facebook breach affected you

Written by Matti Robinson @ 29 Sep 2018 12:54

Were you among the hacked? Here's the only way to know if Facebook breach affected you Yesterday Facebook released a statement about a security breach that had affected tens of millions of Facebook users. According to the social media giant the hackers got some user information from up 50 million users.

Facebook is investigating the hack with authorities, including the FBI, but currently it is not certain what type of information was leaked. At least the "View As" pages and basic information such as age and sex were leaked.

Some have argued that the access tokens that were used to gain access to View As pages would give access to other more sensitive information as well, but there's no official word on this yet.

Those 50 million affected have been logged out from their Facebook account which cut any illegitimate connections. This also means that you have to log back in to your account to access Facebook. Facebook also logged out another 40 million users as a precaution even though believes they were not targeted.

Currently seeing if you've been logged out is the only way to check whether the hack affected your account or if you were one of the 40 million users that were suspect of a "View As" lookup and thus precautionarily logged out.

It is advised that you don't enter any details on possible forms or sites that claim they can retrieve information on whether your account was hacked.

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AfterDawn: News

Massive Facebook data breach affects 90 million accounts

Written by Matti Robinson @ 28 Sep 2018 2:21

Massive Facebook data breach affects 90 million accounts Facebook has just revealed that it has detected a security issue that has affected tens of millions of accounts.

The statement posted on Facebook's official newsroom details that a total of 90 million accounts might have been affected by the security exploit.

50 million of the accounts are the prime suspects that Facebook has determined to have been affected but another 40 million accounts have been logged out as a precautionary step as they've been suspect to a "View As" lookup in that past 12 months.

The issue has allowed logins to users without their knowledge or consent. Facebook has now logged all those users out and they will need to perform a new log in next time requesting access to Facebook.

The breach has been fixed last night and faulty access should no longer exist.

According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook does not currently have information on whether the breach might have leaked any sensitive information like private messages. However, the hackers have gained access to users' "View As" profile information.

Facebook has removed "View As" pages temporarily.

The page shows what the user's profile looks like to someone else and could includes information such as age, sex, and home town.

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AfterDawn: News

Elon Musk sued by the government over privatization tweet

Written by Matti Robinson @ 28 Sep 2018 11:56

Elon Musk sued by the government over privatization tweet Elon Musk, the visionary behind Tesla, SpaceX and most recently The Boring Company, has been sued by the U.S. government over tweets posted last month.

The Security and Exchange Commission is accusing Musk and his privatization tweet on August 7 of fraud by false statements that could hurt investors.

Musk's original tweet that now got him to hot water was "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." According to S.E.C. Musk had done no securing of the funding and was recklessly falsifying the state of privatization.

Later in the month Musk retweeted Tesla's tweet titled "Staying Public" linking to a statement by Musk himself explaining why he and the Board of Directors have decided to stay public.

The lawsuit is trying to bar Musk from serving as an executive or a director of publicly traded companies, obviously including Tesla. Tesla is the only one of Musk-lead companies currently public.

In response to S.E.C.'s lawsuit was Musk said: "This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed."

He continued to explain that he has always tried to pursue truth and transparency. It remains to be seen how the courts find the accusations.

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AfterDawn: News

Zuckerberg unveils new Oculus Quest headset

Written by Matti Robinson @ 27 Sep 2018 12:59

Zuckerberg unveils new Oculus Quest headset Oculus VR, one of the foremost pioneers of virtual reality headsets, has announced a new product. Facebook-owned, since 2014, Oculus' new headset is called Quest.

At Connect 5 keynote Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to announce the new Oculus Quest. Oculus Quest is the social media giant's next-generation VR headset that offer wireless connectivity and familiar motion controllers.

The main improvement over the current generation is the ability to use the product in almost any situation thanks to the wireless nature of the headset. The location tracking is found in both the controllers as well as the headset with four wide angle cameras placed in each corner.

As there is no wires, Oculus Quest includes a battery and all the necessary computing units inside the headset. This also means that the processing power is nowhere near a PC powered VR headset.

Oculus expects over 50 games to be shipped with Oculus Quest but didn't name any games.

Oculus Quest will cost $399. They'll hit the market next spring, but Oculus doesn't have a firm release date for the headset yet.

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AfterDawn: News

Sony caves: Fortnite cross-platform support coming

Written by Matti Robinson @ 27 Sep 2018 11:28

Sony caves: Fortnite cross-platform support coming Sony was ferociously attacked over Fortnite cross-platform for months, but the company did not budge. They've been adamant that crossplay between PS4, Xbox One and Switch is not something they want to do.

Now, something has changed since Sony has officially confirmed that cross-platform support is in fact on the way.

Perhaps Sony didn't realize how important it was to unite platforms with titles as massive as Fortnite. Perhaps they were flooded with bad press and unhappy Xbox and Switch users' critique (read: rage).

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AfterDawn: News

Google promises: Forced Chrome login opt-out

Written by Matti Robinson @ 26 Sep 2018 1:51

Google promises: Forced Chrome login opt-out The new Google Chrome released early in September brought a few important changes, one of which was the updated user interface and look.

There also was a not-so-noticeable lesser feature change that Google has been getting lots of flack for.

See Google changed the Google account login so that when you log in to your Gmail or other Google products you'll automatically also log in to the browser. Previously browser log in was separated from whenever you used other Google services in the browser.

As you might imagine, people do not like when they are logged in to services without their knowledge or consent. And Google has done a 180 degree turn and agreed.

While Google originally argued, and still believes, that users do not always recognize that Chrome as a browser is different from their Gmail account, they've recognized the critique that this is not the best practice from security standpoint among others.

Google is still keeping the feature on by default but in the future version, upcoming Chrome 70, it'll allow users to disable automatic Chrome logins when logging in Google services with the browser.




AfterDawn: News

Qualcomm: Apple stole our chip secrets

Written by Matti Robinson @ 26 Sep 2018 11:25

Qualcomm: Apple stole our chip secrets One of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, Qualcomm, has aired out fairly serious accusations towards Apple. The first trillion dollars company has stolen some of chip manufacturer's secrets, Qualcomm says.

Qualcomm took it to the courts and is trying to prove that Apple, a chip designer themselves, helped Intel, a major competitor to Qualcomm, with their modems with code acquired from Qualcomm.

Obviously sharing details such as this is against the software licensing agreement between Qualcomm and Apple, Qualcomm claims.

Previously Apple has used both Qualcomm's and Intel's modems in their iPhones, lately preferring the former, but this year all three new phones from Cupertino has Intel's modem chips in them.

Apple's side of this debacle is that they've been trying to get rid of Qualcomm's modems exactly because of unfair licensing practices.

Qualcomm's contention is that Apple should pay a percentage share of the end product to them, instead of what Apple thinks, and perhaps the most others think, is fair, which is obviously the price of the product they bought.

While Qualcomm claims that Apple has constantly been sharing confidential information with Intel for them to catch up to Qualcomm, there is no concrete examples shown, at least to the public of yet.

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AfterDawn: News

Microsoft reveals: Mouse and keyboard coming to Xbox One

Written by Matti Robinson @ 26 Sep 2018 11:09

Microsoft reveals: Mouse and keyboard coming to Xbox One Current generation gaming consoles have one slight difference in I/O support. Sony's PlayStation 4 supports both USB and Bluetooth keyboard and mice while Microsoft's creation has support for none of those, until now.

Microsoft has confirmed that support for mouse and keyboard input is in the works. In fact the company is developing peripherals with Razer so you can expect perhaps some flashy gamer gear type Xbox keyboards and mice in the near future.

Currently the feature is still in testing and you'll get access to it only in the Xbox Insider program, but expansion to all consoles should come soon. However, games will not allow mouse and keyboard controls by default, that is dependent on developers to enable.

And to bring the support on par with the toughest competition, Microsoft has revealed that both wired and wireless, that is USB and Bluetooth, keyboards are supported.

Microsoft and Razer will have more news on November 10.

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AfterDawn: News

Mozilla releases a virtual reality browser, Firefox Reality

Written by Matti Robinson @ 20 Sep 2018 12:03

Mozilla releases a virtual reality browser, Firefox Reality Firefox might not be on the top of the world anymore, or hasn't been for years now, but they are trying all kinds of tricks to turn the ship. The latest is a virtual reality browser by the name of Firefox Reality.

Obviously, as the the name suggests, the browser is a Firefox version designed for the virtual reality, and to be used with VR headsets. Mozilla is planning on further developing Firefox Reality to be compatible with AR glasses as well, perhaps thus the name that doesn't exclude any type of extended reality.

Currently Firefox Reality is only available for specific VR platforms, including HTC Vive, Oculus and Daydream headsets. You can download it from the app stores of aforementioned platforms.

Future installments are planned to support at least Microsoft HoloLens as well as the new competitor to that, Magic Leap One.

Most of the web is obviously two-dimensional, so that will be displayed as a sheet of paper if you will, but Mozilla says the browser supports also immersive web content.

Firefox Reality supports both virtual keyboard input, which is never optimal, as well as voice commands. The version number is currently only at 1.0 so expect improvement in terms of bookmarks, 360 degree videos and others coming in the future.

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AfterDawn: News

Sony's surprise release: Here's the PlayStation Classic

Written by Matti Robinson @ 19 Sep 2018 11:23

Sony's surprise release: Here's the PlayStation Classic Nintedo unveiled a surprising product in 2016, a retro gaming console called NES Classic. The tiny NES-looking machine is a gaming console with 30ish retro Nintendo games, and it was a huge hit.

Even Nintendo didn't expect it, and it sold out immediately, and a few times again. It came back in 2018, and Nintendo released a sibling, the SNES Classic.

The success of these cheap little retro consoles sparked the interest of Commodore who released the C64 Mini. And now it's Sony's time to enter the game.

Sony has now unveiled that they'll be releasing a PlayStation Classic, a tiny retro version of the original PlayStation. According to Sony, this tiny console is 45 percent smaller than the original and it includes 20 classic games from PS one.

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AfterDawn: News

Google's Family Link lets parents control their teens' phones

Written by Matti Robinson @ 19 Sep 2018 10:57

Google's Family Link lets parents control their teens' phones Google released last year a family-oriented app, called Family Link, which allows parents to control their kids' phones.

Previously Family Link has allowed parents to take control of their sub-13 year olds' phones only, now they've expanded the support to teenagers as well.

In a post-GDPR EU, where for example minors under the age of 16 can't have a Google account, the feature was obviously necessary, but elsewhere as well it gives long-awaited controls to parents of their offsprings' digital life.

Family Link was originally designed for minors under the age of 13 but with the new update teenagers are now included in the app as well. However, it does require both parties to accept the terms, but one could argue that should be easy to accomplish.

Since there is a bi-party consent, the teenager can break the connection at any point, but that will result in a 24-hour shutdown of the phone.

With Family Link the parents can monitor location and usage times on per-app basis, allow or ban downloads of specific apps, and even lock the device.

Google is also updating Assistant with Family Link features so you'll be able to ask Google Home or your Android phone's Assistant to lock your kid's phone or what have you.

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AfterDawn: News

Twitter finally succumbs, brings back chronological feed

Written by Matti Robinson @ 19 Sep 2018 10:36

Twitter finally succumbs, brings back chronological feed Even the people that love Twitter the most have a few gripes with the service. One of the most common ones is of course not allowing users to edit tweets, but another, perhaps an even more common problem, is being fixed.

Twitter support has confirmed, reports TechCrunch, that the company is bringing back a chronologically, or more precisely reverse chronologically, ordered tweet feed. It must be one of the most requested features of the Twittersphere.

In 2016, Twitter started arranging tweets with their own algorithm that promised best Tweets first. This meant that some tweets, retweets and likes made it to the top and others seemed to disappear. Worst of all, the user doesn't really know the method to this madness.

Now, Twitter is bringing back the original idea which is to have a simple feed showing newest tweets first. You won't be seeing interesting things people liked promoted or anything like that. Which should be what people have opted in for when they unticked the setting for "Show the best Tweets first."

This wasn't entirely the case, though, but now the company is finally giving up the grand experiment, and letting users choose for themselves.

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AfterDawn: News

Google admits to accidentally changing Android phone settings without users' knowledge

Written by Matti Robinson @ 18 Sep 2018 11:09

Google admits to accidentally changing Android phone settings without users' knowledge Google has officially apologized for an error that changed Android users setting without their approval. Users have noticed that their phone went on battery saving mode without any action.

A Pixel team representative has confirmed on a Reddit thread that it is indeed the case that Google had remotely changed some users' battery saving mode to on position. Obviously this is something that shouldn't happen, and many thought couldn't even happen.

According to the statement made on Reddit, Google had been testing battery saving features and it was mistakenly applied to users that are not part of the internal program. They've since rolled the changed back and users can now choose whether they want to have battery saving on or not.

Here's the statement:

Hi all, some of you may have noticed that battery saver turned on automatically today. This was an internal experiment to test battery saving features that was mistakenly rolled out to more users than intended. We have now rolled battery saver settings back to default. Please configure to your liking. Sorry for the confusion.

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AfterDawn: News

SpaceX reveals identity of private Moon passenger, dates and details the mission

Written by James Delahunty @ 17 Sep 2018 10:05

SpaceX reveals identity of private Moon passenger, dates and details the mission SpaceX has announced the world's first passenger to fly around the Moon on the upcoming BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), as well as detailing the mission and dating it.

At a conference on Monday evening, SpaceX detailed its first private passenger mission to the Moon. Yusaku Maezawa, a private Japanese citizen and entrepreneur, will be the first person to fly beyond the Moon since the early 1970s. If all goes well, he will be blasted toward the moon on board a giant BFR rocket and space vehicle.

Maezawa has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion since 2017.

"I choose to go to the Moon," Maezawa announced to the press present to applause. He spoke at the SpaceX conference about how he will invite artists from around the world to join him on the BFR mission, as he would rather not go alone. He calls the project #dearMoon. The mission is set for 2023 and between 6-8 additional artists will be flown to the moon as long as they commit to creating something inspired by the mission when they get back.

The crew will spend a week in space in the half million mile round-trip.

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