feeds – Tech Today w/ Ken May

JSON Feed Announced As Alternative To RSS

Reader Anubis IV writes: With Slashdot recently asking whether we still use RSS, it may come as a surprise that something interesting has happened in the world of news feeds this week. JSON Feed was launched as an alternative to RSS and Atom, eschewing the XML they rely on — which is frequently malformed and difficult to parse — in favor of a human readable JSON format that reflects the decades of combined experience its authors have in the field. The JSON Feed spec is a simple read that lays out a number of pragmatic benefits the format has over RSS and Atom, such as eliminating duplicate entries, adding the ability to paginate feeds so that old entries remain available, and reducing the need for clients to scrape sites to find images and other resources. Given that it’s authored by the developers behind one of the earliest, popular RSS clients and a recently Kickstarted blogging platform, the format is intended to address the common pain points currently faced by developers when producing and parsing feeds. While it remains to be seen whether JSON Feed will escape the chicken-and-egg stage of adoption, several clients have already added support for the fledging format in the week since its announcement, including Feedbin, Inoreader, and NewsBlur. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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JSON Feed Announced As Alternative To RSS

APFS is coming soon: iOS 10.3 will automatically upgrade your filesystem

After many years and at least one false start , Apple announced at WWDC last year that it would begin shipping a new, modern file system in 2017. Dubbed APFS (for Apple File System), it is designed to improve support for solid-state storage and encryption and to safeguard data integrity. When released, it will finally replace the nearly two-decade-old HFS+ filesystem that Apple has been tacking new features onto since 1998. An early version of APFS was included in macOS Sierra as a beta for developers to experiment with, but it was intentionally limited in some important ways; it couldn’t be used as a boot drive, it didn’t support Fusion Drives, and you can’t back up APFS volumes with Time Machine. We weren’t expecting to hear more about a final APFS rollout until this year’s WWDC, but it looks like Apple is getting ready to start the party already: according to the beta release notes for iOS 10.3 , devices that are upgraded will automatically have their HFS+ file systems converted to APFS. From the release notes: When you update to iOS 10.3, your iOS device will update its file system to Apple File System (APFS). This conversion preserves existing data on your device. However, as with any software update, it is recommended that you create a backup of your device before updating. Apple’s stated end goal is to perform an in-place file system conversion for all its currently supported devices, including all Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches. iOS 10.3 will provide some early information on how reliable that conversion will be. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

All the major new additions in the iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 betas

Enlarge / Devices running iOS 10. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) As predicted yesterday, now that Apple has the iOS 10.2.1 and macOS 10.12.3 releases out the door, it’s turning its attention to larger updates. Apple is releasing the first betas of iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 to the public today and has given us a broad overview of the biggest changes that people will see when these are released to the public in a couple of months. The iOS 10.3 update is the more significant of the two. For starters, it adds AirPods to Find My iPhone to make them easier to find if you lose them, which, given how small they are, is bound to happen to AirPod owners eventually. Most of the other changes come in the form of small additions to existing features. SiriKit , which can already hook into compatible payment and ride-sharing apps, can now be used to pay bills and check on the status of payments. You’ll also be able to schedule a ride with Siri—calling an Uber to come at 2pm rather than “right now,” for instance. The weather icon in Maps can be 3D Touched on compatible devices (the iPhone 6S and 7 series, as of this writing) to show hourly forecasts and other information. The CarPlay UI picks up shortcuts for launching the two most recently used apps and can display EV charging stations in Maps. HomeKit now supports programmable light switches. Facemarks on the Chinese and Japanese keyboards have been shuffled around to make it easier to type, and the Conversation View that Mail picked up in iOS 10 has gotten some “navigation improvements.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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All the major new additions in the iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 betas

Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

Enlarge (credit: portal gda ) A virulent family of malware that infected more than 10 million Android devices last year has made a comeback, this time hiding inside Google Play apps that have been downloaded by as many as 12 million unsuspecting users. HummingWhale, as the professionally developed malware has been dubbed, is a variant of HummingBad, the name given to a family of malicious apps researchers documented in July invading non-Google app markets . HummingBad attempted to override security protections by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities that gave the malware root privileges in older versions of Android. Before Google shut it down, it installed more than 50,000 fraudulent apps each day, displayed 20 million malicious advertisements, and generated more than $300,000 per month in revenue. Of the 10 million people who downloaded HummingBad-contaminated apps, an estimated 286,000 of them were located in the US. HummingWhale, by contrast, managed to sneak its way into about 20 Google Play apps that were downloaded from 2 million to 12 million times, according to researchers from Check Point, the security company that has been closely following the malware family for almost a year. Rather than rooting devices, the latest variant includes new virtual machine techniques that allow the malware to perform ad fraud better than ever, company researchers said in a blog post published Monday . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

iOS 10.2.1 is all about fixing bugs and patching security holes

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham) After several weeks of beta testing, Apple has released iOS 10.2.1 to the public today. The update is fairly minor and includes no major improvements to core iOS apps or features. The release notes say only that it fixes bugs and includes security improvements. The security page for the update lists a number of vulnerabilities in the kernel, WebKit, and the Contacts app that have all been fixed. Apple also addressed a bug that could allow attackers to briefly access the home screen on an Activation Locked iPad that had been reset . The update is available for everything that runs iOS 10: the iPhone 5 and newer, the fourth-generation iPad and newer, the iPad Mini 2 and newer, both iPad Pros, and the sixth-generation iPod Touch. Small updates for watchOS 3 and tvOS 10 , both of which are iOS-based, have been released as well. The release of iOS 10.2.1 clears the deck for betas of iOS 10.3, which is likely to be the final major revision to iOS 10 before work begins in earnest on iOS 11. We don’t know much about what Apple plans to include in this next update, but older rumors suggest that it may renew focus on the iPad in advance of some new tablet launches in the spring. Hope also springs eternal about a dark mode for iOS. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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iOS 10.2.1 is all about fixing bugs and patching security holes

Carbon nanotube transistors push up against quantum uncertainty limits

Enlarge / A diagram of the transistors built in this paper, next to a false-colored image of the actual hardware. Atomically thin materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes have the potential to provide significant benefits compared to today’s electronics, like smaller features, lower operating voltages, and more efficient performance. So, even though we’re struggling to figure out how to use them in bulk manufactured electronics, lots of organizations are spending money, brains, and time to work that out. Note the phrasing above—potential. Since it’s been incredibly hard to make transistors based on these materials, we aren’t entirely sure how all of them will behave. A group of researchers from China’s Peking University decided it was time to cut down on some of the uncertainty. The answer they came up with? Transistors made with carbon nanotubes and graphene perform so well that they’re pushing up against the fundamental limits set by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. That still doesn’t mean we can make a chip full of these things, but it does show it’s worth the continued effort to try to figure out how. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Carbon nanotube transistors push up against quantum uncertainty limits

Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes will launch on Android before iOS

iOS users will have to wait longer for Nintendo’s next major smartphone game release. Nintendo’s push towards smartphone gaming will continue on February 2 with the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes , a touch-only take on the company’s longtime tactical RPG series—and possibly the company’s most micro-transaction driven game yet. Like Super Mario Run before it, Fire Emblem Heroes will have a period of platform exclusivity—but in a surprise twist, that exclusivity is reversed. Android users will get first crack at Heroes on that release date, while iOS users have been told their version is coming “soon.” (For an estimate of how long the left-behind platform might have to wait, remember: Super Mario Run has yet to launch on Android over a month after its iOS release.) During this announcement, Nintendo did not mention Animal Crossing , the other series set to receive a smartphone port in the near future. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes will launch on Android before iOS

It’s shockingly easy to hijack a Samsung SmartCam camera

Enlarge Smart cameras marketed under the Samsung brand name are vulnerable to attacks that allow hackers to gain full control, a status that allows the viewing of what are supposed to be private video feeds, researchers said. The remote code-execution vulnerability has been confirmed in the Samsung SmartCam SNH-1011, but the researchers said they suspect other models in the same product line are also susceptible. The flaw allows attackers to inject commands into a Web interface built into the devices. The bug resides in PHP code responsible for updating a video monitoring system known as iWatch. It stems from the failure to properly filter malicious input included in the name of uploaded files. As a result, attackers who know the IP address of a vulnerable camera can exploit the vulnerability to inject commands that are executed with unfettered root privileges. “The iWatch Install.php vulnerability can be exploited by crafting a special filename which is then stored within a tar command passed to a php system() call,” the researchers wrote in a blog post published to the Exploitee.rs website. “Because the webserver runs as root, the filename is user supplied, and the input is used without sanitization, we are able to inject our own commands within the achieve root remote command execution.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Verizon purges unlimited data customers, targets those using 200GB

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Spencer Platt) Verizon Wireless customers with unlimited data plans who use more than 200GB a month will have to switch to limited plans next month or be disconnected, a company spokesperson confirmed today. Since Verizon stopped offering unlimited data to new smartphone customers in 2011, this change affects only longtime customers who were allowed to hang on to the old plans. Verizon could simply force all customers who aren’t under contract to switch to new plans, but instead it has periodically made moves that reduce the numbers of unlimited data subscribers. “Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month that they must move to a Verizon Plan by February 16, 2017,” Verizon spokesperson Kelly Crummey told Ars today. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Feds may let Playpen child porn suspect go to keep concealing their source code

Enlarge (credit: ullstein bild / Getty Images News) Rather than disclose the source code that the FBI used to target a child porn suspect, federal prosecutors in Tacoma, Washington recently dropped their appeal in United States v. Michaud . The case is just one of 135 federal prosecutions nationwide involving the Tor-hidden child porn website Playpen. The vast effort to bust Playpen has raised significant questions about the ethics, oversight, capabilities, and limitations of the government’s ability to hack criminal suspects. In United States v. Michaud , Jay Michaud of Vancouver, Washington allegedly logged on to Playpen in 2015. But unbeknownst to him at that point, federal investigators were temporarily operating the site for 13 days before shutting it down. As authorities controlled Playpen, the FBI deployed a sneaky piece of software (a “network investigative technique (NIT),” dubbed by many security experts as malware), which allowed them to reveal Playpen users’ true IP addresses. With that information in hand, identifying those suspects became trivial. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Feds may let Playpen child porn suspect go to keep concealing their source code