Year: 2017

Verizon

Verizon announces “Verizon Unlimited” plan with 4G, talk, text, for $80.00 per month

Dan Uff February 13, 2017 0

On Sunday, Verizon announced that it has listened to customers and is announcing "Verizon Unlimited".

The announced plan includes unlimited Internet, 4G, talk and text for $80.00 per month. Any additional lines will run someone $45.00 per month.

The plan includes a "Mobile Hotspot" feature with 10GB of 4G LTE data. After the 10GB is consumed, speeds drop to 3G equivalent rates.

Calling and texting to Mexico and Canada are included in the plan, as is up to 500MB per day of 4G LTE roaming in either country as well.

Additionally, video streams are transcoded to 720p resolution. Audio streams will be compressed, according to the company as well.

For more information, watch the video below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YacWu0bi690]

How to enable Amazon Alexa Skills without the Alexa App

Dan Uff February 12, 2017 3

For those of us who have the Amazon Echo, we know that by going to the Alexa app own our smartphones that we can enable any skills that we choose.

But did you know that there is a way to enable such skills without using the app? Here's how:

Go to the Alexa Skills web page at http://www.amazon.com/skills
Choose the skill you wish to enable.
Click on the [GET THE SKILL] button on the right.
After the skill uploads to your device, you can say "Alexa, open [name of skill]".
That's it.

Another. way to enable skills is to just tell Alexa to enable a name of a skill. However, doing so may not work if the skill needs for a user to link an account to another service (such as the Pizza Hut app).

Get through your Mail in Apple Mail quickly

Dan Uff February 11, 2017 0

If you use Apple Mail for your email, you know what a pain it is to go through each piece and delete them one at a time.

With this little known trick, you can speed through that process.

Here's how:

Open Apple Mail as usual.
Let all of the email come in.
Highlight the very first email.
Now, hold down the [Shift] key while tapping the [Down Arrow].
Each mail will be highlighted and previewed on the right side.
When all of the mail is highlighted, press the [Delete Key].
Confirm if you want to delete ALL EMAIL.
That's it.

Researchers find iCloud storing Safari History and Google Search Data for years. Apple moves to solve that problem

Dan Uff February 9, 2017 0

Forbes reports that security researchers at Elcomsoft discovered that Apple was retaining an iCloud record that kept deleted web history "by accident." Using software developed by Elcomsoft only released today, researcher Vladimir Katalov downloaded his own data, and discovered records going back to Nov. 2015.

Other information retrievable by the forensics tool on an iCloud-synced iPhone with Safari history retention turned on, were full Google search terms back to 2015, and "cleared" Notes for the last 30 days.

According to an unnamed forensics expert contacted by Forbes separate from Elcomsoft, the retention isn't malicious. The second expert noted that the failure by Apple was related to preventing the data from being read by forensics tools like Elcomsoft Phone Breaker and not an outright failure to delete the information, as the data needs to be retained for a while by iCloud to properly sync changes across devices.

Forensics tools like the tool used to examine the iCloud data still requires access to a target's iCloud credentials, or the unlocked device itself to get at the Safari and Google information. Also, users choosing to not sync Safari data to iCloud are unaffected, as are private browsing sessions.

The same Elcomsoft iPhone forensics tool used to probe iCloud data on Thursday was reportedly used in the celebrity data thefts from 2014.

Shortly after initial publication of the security and privacy problem, Forbes was contacted by Elcomsoft and another source, noting that old records were being removed as a result of Apple taking swift action on the matter.

Katalov was at the core of the discovery in Nov. 2016 finding that phone numbers dialed on an iPhone were being retained. Apple has since dealt with that as well.

At the time of the phone number data retention, AppleInsider was provided with a statement by Apple, suggesting that users "select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication," which would have prevented data from being harvested in Thursday's exploit, had it not been rectified by Apple.

Source: AppleInsider.com