Year: 2017

Equifax Hacked yet again – Distributes Fake Adobe Flash Plugin

Dan Uff October 12, 2017 0

“We were already positively dumbfounded when Equifax reported that a security breach resulted in the personal information of over 140 million Americans — including social security numbers – has been stolen via a website security vulnerability,” Brandon Hill reports for HotHardware. “What was even more unfathomable is that the attack went undetected for months, and that it took a few more months for Equifax to disclose the magnitude of the breach.”

“Now we’re learning that Equifax has done it again. Just when we thought we couldn’t think any less of the company, Randy Abrams, an independent security analyst, discovered that the Equifax website has been hacked again,” Hill reports. “When visiting the Equifax website to inquire about some rather fishy information that showed up on his credit report, Abrams’ browser was redirected to a malicious website that offered to update his version of Adobe Flash Player (which is a much-hated piece of software in its own right).””

Read more in the full article here.

Apple Maps vs. Google Maps

Dan Uff October 12, 2017 0

“Once upon a time, Google Maps was the go-to maps provider for Apple’s iOS. That was until iOS 6 in 2012, when it was announced that Apple was creating its own rival service – and Apple Maps is now the default option on iPhones and iPads,” Lewis Painter reports for Macworld UK. “In this article we compare the state of these two services, five years on.”

“The days of major gaffes are long behind Apple Maps, and in most respects you will find it as or close to as accurate as Google Map,” Painter reports. “But while road maps seem to be as accurate as Google Maps, there are still a few inaccuracies – mainly with regards to business markers being very slightly in the wrong place (occasionally in the middle of a road instead of on one side, for example). It also got very mildly confused about which part of a town a postcode was in – directions were fine, it simply used a name that is applied to an area a couple of miles down the road. No harm done, really… Indeed, Google does have similar problems on occasion – but less often, in our experience. And it tends to be better at offering useful, up-to-date information up front, such as the date when a public library is scheduled to reopen.”

“The centrepiece in a plethora of features in both Google & Apple Maps, turn-by-turn navigation has negated the need for a traditional (and usually expensive) satnav in many people’s lives. While both are easy to set up and both boast audio prompts for every step of the journey, there are some subtle differences,” Painter reports. “Throughout testing, we expected to find that Google trumped Apple in every category, as it did when we first compared the two in 2012. But this isn’t entirely true: Apple Maps has vastly improved since it was first launched and we now feel the turn-by-turn navigation is better than Google’s offering.”

Read more in the full article here.

Apple facing production delays as it gets closer to the release of the iPhone X

Dan Uff October 12, 2017 0

“‘For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’ These words by Shakespeare could well be applied to Apple Inc.’s iPhone X,” Debby Wu reports for Nikkei Asian Review. “A tech executive familiar with iPhone X production told Nikkei Asian Review on Thursday that manufacturers are still struggling to perfect 3-D sensors and in particular dot projectors in Apple premium handset’s TrueDepth camera system, though the person could not pinpoint exactly the problem.”

“The dot projector makes up part of the transmitting module, dubbed ‘Romeo,’ of iPhone X’s new facial recognition function that allows users to unlock phones and make payments, according to the executive,” Wu reports. “The receiving module is fittingly named ‘Juliet.'”

“The executive’s comments were confirmed by Jeff Pu, an analyst with Taipei-based Yuanta Investment Consulting, who also identified the dot projector as the troublesome component holding back mass production of iPhone X,” Wu reports. “Nonetheless, Pu stuck to his view voiced late September that iPhone X will enter mass production in mid-October and begin to be shipped from China in the third week of this month. He is, however, cutting his forecast of the volume of iPhone X that will be produced this year, from 40 million units to 36 million.”

Read more in the full article here.

Entertainment

DirecTV Now announces online local and Sports Network Lookup Tool

Dan Uff October 11, 2017 0

Early Wednesday, DirecTV Now announced it has an online look up tool where customers can find out what local and Sports Networks they can get in their area.

To see it, click here.