Author: kenmay

Why You Definitely Need to Calibrate Your TV

When you drop hundreds on an HDTV, you expect it to work out of the box. Yet somehow, in 2016, we still have to tweak color settings, adjust brightness, and make other changes to get the best picture. How is it possible that with all the technical leaps televisions have made over the years, TVs still require calibration? Read more…

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Why You Definitely Need to Calibrate Your TV

400,000 GitHub Repositories, 1 Billion Files, 14TB of Code: Spaces or Tabs?

Here’s a debate that refuses to die: given a choice, would you rather use spaces or tabs? An episode of Silicon Valley last season had a bit on this. Now we have more data to analyze people’s behavior. A Google developer has looked into 400, 000 GitHub repositories — 1 billion files, 14 terabytes to find that programmers with interest in specific languages do seem to prefer either tabs or spaces. Spoiler alert: space wins, like all the time. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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400,000 GitHub Repositories, 1 Billion Files, 14TB of Code: Spaces or Tabs?

Apple to begin removing old, unmaintained apps from the App Store

Enlarge / Apple is cleaning its (app) house ahead of this fall’s big releases. Apple is making a few small tweaks to its App Store Review Guidelines for developers ahead of the release of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra this fall. The changes, which Apple is currently telling registered developers about via e-mail, are meant to cut dead wood out of the App Store and to make it easier for users to find better apps. These are the latest in a series of App Store changes implemented since Apple worldwide marketing SVP Phil Schiller was given the reins back in December of 2015. The biggest change is that Apple will begin to remove older, outdated apps from the App Store that no longer follow current review guidelines or that haven’t been updated to support new APIs or features. Removing old apps will also cut down on the number of apps that haven’t been updated for compatibility with newer iOS versions or iDevices. Apple isn’t saying exactly what criteria it will use to remove apps, just that it is “implementing an ongoing process of evaluating apps for these issues, notifying their developers, and removing problematic and abandoned apps.” People who have already downloaded these apps will still be able to download them , developers will be given 30 days to issue an update before their app is removed, and if their apps are removed they will still be associated with that developer’s account and other developers won’t be able to use the names for other apps. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple to begin removing old, unmaintained apps from the App Store

YouTube Stars Are Blowing Up Over Not Getting Paid (Update)

For the past year YouTubers have been trying to navigate a deluge of false copyright claims and a changing algorithm that rewards needlessly-long videos. Now, allegedly, the platform is starting to withhold paychecks. Read more…

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YouTube Stars Are Blowing Up Over Not Getting Paid (Update)

Staff Breach At OneLogin Exposes Password Storage Feature

River Tam quotes a report from CSO Australia: Enterprise access management firm OneLogin has suffered an embarrassing breach tied to a single employee’s credentials being compromised. OneLogin on Tuesday revealed the breach affected a feature called Secure Notes that allowed its users to “store information.” That feature however is pitched to users as a secure way to digitally jot down credentials for access to corporate firewalls and keys to software product licenses. The firm is concerned Secure Notes was exposed to a hacker for at least one month, though it may have been from as early as July 2 through to August 25, according to a post by the firm. Normally these notes should have been encrypted using “multiple levels of AES-256 encryption, ” it said in a blog post. Several thousand enterprise customers, including high profile tech startups, use OneLogin for single sign-on to access enterprise cloud applications. The company has championed the SAML standard for single sign-on and promises customers an easy way to enable multi-factor authentication from devices to cloud applications. But it appears the company wasn’t using multi-factor authentication for its own systems. OneLogin’s CISO Alvaro Hoyos said a bug in its software caused Secure Notes to be “visible in our logging system prior to being encrypted and stored in our database.” The firm later found out that an employees compromised credentials were used to access this logging system. The company has since fixed the bug on the same day it detected the bug. CSO adds that the firm “also implemented SAML-based authentication for its log management system and restricted access to a limited set of IP addresses.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Staff Breach At OneLogin Exposes Password Storage Feature

Get ready for simple USB-C to HDMI cables

More devices are starting to ship with USB-C connectors built-in, and today groups behind HDMI and USB announced another way to take advantage of it. That method is HDMI Alt Mode, which means cable manufacturers can build a connector that plugs directly from the port on your phone, laptop or other device into the HDMI port on a TV or monitor. With this spec, there’s no additional dongle or adapter needed in the middle. It’s all pretty simple, with just a USB Type-C cable on one end, HDMI on the other, but there are a couple of drawbacks. It supports the older HDMI 1.4b spec instead of the newer HDMI 2.0b . What that means for you is that while 4K video, 3D, HDMI-CEC and Audio Return Channel are all supported , it won’t be quite enough to send the newest Ultra HD 4K video with HDR . That’s probably not an issue if you’re just trying to play a video or two from your phone, but it’s good to know.

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Get ready for simple USB-C to HDMI cables

Half Of People Click Anything Sent To Them

Want to know why phishing continues to be one of the most common security issue? Half of the people will click on anything without thinking twice ArsTechnica reports: A study by researchers at a university in Germany found that about half of the subjects in a recent experiment clicked on links from strangers in e-mails and Facebook messages — even though most of them claimed to be aware of the risks. The researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, led by FAU Computer Science Department Chair Dr Zinaida Benenson, revealed the initial results of the study at this month’s Black Hat security conference. Simulated “spear phishing” attacks were sent to 1, 700 test subjects — university students — from fake accounts. The e-mail and Facebook accounts were set up with the ten most common names in the age group of the targets. The Facebook profiles had varying levels of publicly accessible profile and timeline data — some with public photos and profile photos, and others with minimal data. The messages claimed the links were to photos taken at a New Year’s Eve party held a week before the study. Two sets of messages were sent out: in the first, the targets were addressed by their first name; in the second, they were not addressed by name, but more general information about the event allegedly photographed was given. Links sent resolved to a webpage with the message “access denied, ” but the site logged the clicks by each student. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Half Of People Click Anything Sent To Them

An Email Scam Cost One of Europe’s Biggest Companies $40 Million

Earlier this month, Leoni AG, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wires and electrical cables, informed investors that the German company lost almost 40 million euros (or about $44.6 million) to online scammers. Today, we finally know how: According to investigators, the thieves simply spoofed emails to look like official payment requests, a tactic known as “ CEO fraud .” Read more…

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An Email Scam Cost One of Europe’s Biggest Companies $40 Million

Chicago official gets 10 years for role in dirty red light camera deal

Enlarge / A Redflex red light camera at the intersection of Sylvan and Coffee in Modesto, California as seen in 2013. (credit: Cyrus Farivar) A former Chicago transportation official has been sentenced to a decade in prison. He was found guilty in January on 20 counts of mail and wire fraud , bribery, extortion, and many other charges stemming from a corrupt contract involving Redflex, a major red light camera company. During the Monday hearing, US District Judge Virginia M. Kendall also ordered John Bills to pay over $2 million in restitution. According to the Chicago Tribune , “Bills’ voice broke with emotion as he acknowledged ‘ethical and moral’ mistakes, but he denied masterminding the massive bribery scheme in exchange for growing the city’s controversial network of red light cameras into the largest in the nation.” As Ars has reported previously, Bills, who was the managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation, helped steer a lucrative city contract  to Redflex. After Bills urged his colleagues to approve the deal, the city hired the embattled Australian firm to provide automated enforcement cameras, known formally as its Digital Automated Red Light Enforcement Program (DARLEP), from October 2003 until February 2013. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Chicago official gets 10 years for role in dirty red light camera deal