Apple says Spotify wants ‘preferential treatment’ for iOS app
It didn’t take long for Apple to respond to Spotify’s claim that it’s using App Store approvals a way to handle competitors. In a letter obtained by BuzzFeed, Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell described the allegation as “troubling” and that Spotify was “asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers.” Sewell went on to say that the streaming service was “publicly resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service” with its statements about App Store policies being designed to squash competition.
Reports surfaced yesterday that Spotify’s counsel Horacio Gutierrez sent a letter to Apple last week to let the company know what it thought about a pending app update being held up. The streaming service is taking issue with the App Store’s 30 percent fee for use of its billing system for subscriptions that applies to all developers. In other words, if users sign up through Spotify’s iOS app, they’re charged $13 a month instead of the usual $10 to cover the fee. Sewell explained that Apple treats all app devs the same across games, e-books and both video and music streaming, and more specifically that those terms didn’t change when Apple Music launched and Spotify became a direct competitor.
“Ironically, it is now Spotify that wants things to be different by asking for preferential treatment from Apple,” Sewell said. He went on to reiterate that nothing about how the system is set up violates antitrust laws like Gutierrez argued in his own letter last week. What’s more, the Spotify app that’s currently available in the App Store actually violates the company’s guidelines.
“I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules,” Sewell said.
Neither Apple nor Spotify responded to Engadget’s request for comments on the matter.
Via: The Verge
Source: BuzzFeed
UN rights council condemns the disruption of internet access
The United Nations Human Rights Council has had enough of state-sponsored attempts to restrict internet access and punish people who use the internet as a space for free expression. The council on Friday passed a resolution that reaffirms and expands its previous stances upholding internet rights across the globe, noting, “The same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression.” Today’s resolution is non-binding, but it can be used as support in future cases of online human-rights violations.
The resolution condemns violations including torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and gender-based violence enacted against anyone expressing themselves on the internet. Additionally, the HRC “condemns unequivocally” any attempt to intentionally restrict access to information online and calls on all nations to halt such practices.
Recently, Vietnam was caught blocking internet access amid political protests and during Obama’s visit to the country. Other governments, including those of Russia, China and Turkey, have restricted the internet during times of political unrest or in an effort to block “scandalous” content. Turkey signed its name to today’s resolution.
This is the HRC’s third online-rights resolution since 2012 and the first to include language about blocking internet access, The Hill reports. The resolution also notes that online privacy is essential to realizing the right to freedom of expression, and it recognizes the need to remove disparities in internet access between women and men. Particularly, it stresses “the importance of empowering all women and girls by enhancing their access to information and communications technology,” promoting their digital literacy, and encouraging them to pursue careers in IT fields.
Good news today: @UN Human Rights Council affirms online rights, condemns internet disruption and shutdowns. #HRC32 pic.twitter.com/nuxvJxOJx8
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 1, 2016
Via: The Hill
Source: The Hill upload
Cybersecurity forecast: Heavy smug
When you think of rockstar hackers and infosec pundits, I’m sure it’s easy to imagine people who are humble, kind and patient, and never look down on anyone who would reuse a password.
Okay, maybe infosec isn’t known for doing benevolence all that well when they need to communicate with those not in the know about computer security. And when they do, they seem to prefer to do it from a stage and safely behind the title of “expert.” Case in point: the much-ballyhooed talk being given at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where professor at Rochester Institute of Technology Josephine Wolff is making a case today for punishing people when they’re not good at computer security.
For “Who Should Safeguard Our Data” Professor Wolff seems to think the sheep need to be taught a lesson. Specifically, she’s proposing to the elite thought leaders gathered at Aspen that the careless should be punished for getting hacked or for being in the vulnerability chain, even if unknowingly.
The underlying reason for swapping out the carrot for the stick is that, according to Wolff, the only way to get Internet users to take things seriously is to make them pay. Specifically, to create “concrete penalties and consequences” for what she calls our “liability” and “complicity” in “participating in bots, falling for phishing attacks, failing to install security updates, and other basics of computer hygiene.”
She explains more in a little pre-Aspen piece called Should the Careless Be Punished for Getting Hacked? that was framed with the subhead, “A computer security expert grapples with how to better protect us from cyberattacks.”
In a tone that’s not at all reproachful, Wolff suggests that botnet and ransomware victims, or those who click “links and attachments in those phishing emails and carelessly surrender their login credentials or the contents of their hard drives” might be well-meaning. Yet these witless yet earnest idiots, I mean, us, “play an enormous and devastating role in many (perhaps most) of the major cybersecurity incidents that occur today.”
Like, maybe instead of presenting Aspen attendees like Secretary of State John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden, and Mitt Romney with bad ideas for computer security policy, we could instead present the powerful upper crusts with innovations around teaching basic security practices to the greater public. Or we could talk about influencing enterprise decision-makers to allocate big budgets into security-savvy employee trainings.
Better yet, we could press the bigwigs at Aspen to push for digital privacy and security lessons in public schools. Because maybe, just maybe, it might be the jobs of computer security “experts” to make users smarter and safer, and places of heavy influence like Aspen might be a place for crazy ideas such as this. Rather than more of the smarter-than-you, smug, and dangerously reductive mentality that’s alienating hackers and infosec from the very people they’re supposed to be helping in the first place.
Unless it’s easier to adopt an us-versus-them mentality, and then throwing a user screwed by unknowingly becoming part of a botnet in jail becomes a pretty attractive way of waging someone’s perverse infosec class war. Wolff was clear to make a distinction between those who are targeted by “sophisticated” attackers, and everyone else whose mistakes earn her description of “stupid.” Because enforcement is challenging, she extrapolates, in her apparent class system of hacking victim crime and punishment. She’s not doing the growing perception of hackers, computer security “experts” and infosec academics as smug jerks any favors.
Don’t worry, Professor Wolff finds this all as distasteful as we do. “All of these are questions worthy of greater discussion and debate––as unpalatable as it may seem, at first glance, to contemplate the possibility of individual liability for unintentional complicity in computer crimes.”
Knowing the infosec “expert” juggernaut and how it rolls along, I’m sure there will be a good number of people who agree with the professor. There are definitely a lot of hackers and infosec personalities who might think punishment would be better than doing the work of figuring out how to actually help people who don’t know the first thing about security. I mean, when someone’s calling you an expert and giving you a sliver of fame or notoriety, it’s far easier to fall into lockstep with Wolff as she characterizes commoner, I mean users, as liable for being complicit with their “poor computer hygiene” and “stupid mistakes.”
Maybe I’m being harsh. But let’s not forget that for every Wolff, there’s a Facebook CEO, a Google CEO, and a Spotify CEO who make “stupid” mistakes and practice “poor computer hygiene” by reusing passwords, and got hacked. One has to wonder where these rich and powerful men would end up in Wolff’s world, though I doubt it would be the same as everyone else.
And that’s the problem here, isn’t it? Everyone’s getting hacked, and everyone’s security is critical. So it’s more urgent than ever to fight bullshit like Professor Wolff’s, because our security is just as important and equally as vulnerable to the same things as the richest and most powerful people in the world.
And you shouldn’t be punished for not being a security professional, especially by so-called “experts” who talk about pastoral responsibility while completely missing the point about who they’re supposed to be protecting.
US Senate finally dumps BlackBerry
The US Senate’s Sergeant at Arms (SAA) announced earlier this week that staffers would no longer be able to request new BlackBerry OS 10 devices for official work. That includes the Q10, Z10, Z30, Passport and Classic. In their place, the SAA is offering use of the Samsung Galaxy S6 on Android or the 16GB iPhone SE.
Existing BlackBerry users won’t be left high and dry, should they decline to transition to another OS. BlackBerry support will continue for the foreseeable future and replacement devices will be available for however the SAA’s current stock of 610 mobile devices last.
This is a significant moment in BlackBerry’s history. I mean, the company used to utterly dominate the mobile device market thanks to its focus on security, email (remember, this was before messaging and social media took off) and a physical keyboard (again, this was the era before Swiftkey).
iOS and Android did manage to catch up to the BlackBerry OS within a matter of years, resulting in the company’s precipitous decline and subsequent flirtations with bankruptcy.
But the wheels of government turn slowly — especially when it comes to the adoption of new technologies. Even after the general public — and the President himself — abandoned BBOS for competing systems, BlackBerry handsets persisted on Capitol Hill for more than a decade. But not anymore.
Source: Bomble
Alibaba announces new system to track and remove fake goods
If you’ve ever shopped at Alibaba, you know to tread carefully: the online marketplace has long had a problem with merchants peddling counterfeit goods. It’s given the site a bad reputation, creating tension between Alibaba and major brands. Today, the company announced a new program designed to smooth things out and help companies identify and remove fake products from Alibaba’s marketplace.
Alibaba’s new “IP Joint-Force System” seems to be an extension of the company’s existing good-faith take-down program — essentially a method of streamlining communications between rights holders and Alibaba staff. Brands with counterfeiting concerns, like Louis Vuitton or Apple will be assigned an Alibaba account manager and be given access to an online portal, which companies can use to quickly identify authentic or counterfeit product listings and flag them for removal.
Alibaba is hoping to foster an image of teamwork with the program, stressing that companies “complaining about each other or criticising each other” won’t stop counterfeit sellers — and Alibaba needs to stop the deluge of fake products. Earlier this year, the company was kicked out of the US-based anti-counterfeiting alliance after several major brands complained. Company founder Jack Ma is insistent that the fake products need to go, and that they have “no place on Alibaba.” With any luck, this new iniative is a step in the right direction.
Source: BusinessWire, Reuters
Greenlight: Taking car safety to the next level (Review)
Driving is not an option in our world. We rely heavily on vehicles to get us to where we need to go. Over the last few decades, we have seen huge leaps in car safety. Better seatbelts, airbags and even more secure ways to install a car seat for babies. We have tons of campaigns to encourage safer driving and discourage using our phones while driving. Fact is we know better and yet we still do it.
We have a major addiction to our phones. We feel the need for it to be by us at all times and since that’s not going to change the founders of Greenlight decided to create a way to use your phone to make us better drivers.
In the box
- SmartCradle
- iOS adapter
- Android adapter
- Greenlight button
- MicroUSB cord
- Cigarette lighter adapter
How it works
Once Greenlight is launched it begins recording on a loop. It will continually record the until you turn it off. When a trigger incident occurs, such as hard braking or quick take offs, Greenlight automatically saves the clip to your device and the cloud.
Design
The SmartCradle
There are two parts to Greenlight, the hardware, and the app. Let’s start the walkthrough with the hardware itself. Greenlight has a typical sized cradle that is similar to most cradles that hold phones or GPS devices. It has adjustable sides that can conform to any size phone, including phablets. A suction cup bottom teamed with a sticky adhesive ensures that the SmartCradle stays firmly attached to the surface of your dash.
It also features recording in portrait or landscape mode by simply turning the phone sideways in either direction you wish to place it in. The SmartCradle supports tilt adjustment by pressing a small green button and placing it in the most comfortable viewing position.
You have two adapters cords, one for Android and iOS each, that connect to the Greenlight button. The button lights up green when it’s ready to go. The button itself has two microUSB ports, one that goes to the phone and the other that goes to the phone charger. For the system to work all cords must be connected.
Since we’ve covered the hardware, let’s go to the software. There is an app for both iOS and Android. Here we will be covering the Android version. When installed you will go through a short tutorial and it automatically goes into recording mode. At the bottom of the main screen, you have the options to stop the recording, take a snapshot, or save which does exactly the same thing as the green button which will be explained later.
The hamburger menu gives you several options. View your media gallery where you can choose what to do with your clips. Configure your video setting, like the length of recording and quality. You can also choose where to upload your clips and your uploading preferences.
The overall design of the entire product, both hardware and software are clean and elegant. The SmartCradle and button operate properly, while the app is easy to understand and navigate.
Functionality
Let’s start this by saying this is a hard product to test safely. The very nature of it almost demands you to be in a wreck to trigger the camera. However, there were a few times when I took off a little quicker than normal, it was enough to trigger the saving of the recording.
The Button
There is also two other ways to trigger the save feature. Simply tap the button with the G on it and it will save the recording. You may also tap the save button at the bottom right of the screen in the app.
Speaking of saving the recording you probably wonder how that works. By the time it recognizes that you are in a wreck, wouldn’t it be too late to record the incident properly? Glad you asked!
The Greenlight app gives you four different recording lengths from 30 seconds to three minutes. For this example, we will say your recording is set for one minute. When an incident trigger occurs it will take the previous 30 seconds before the trigger and the next 30 seconds after the trigger and save that portion. Anything not in that time frame is automatically dumped and you don’t have to worry about your phone being filled up with the useless footage.
There are other settings that are available including three video quality options from 480p to 1080p, but 480 is plenty. You also can upload your videos to either your Google Drive or Dropbox accounts. And don’t worry about automatic uploads, the default setting requires you to manually upload them. However, you can upload them in WiFi only or when you have service.
When receiving a call or text you will be removed from Greenlight but once you’re done you can simply return by tapping the button.
Upcoming Features
Coming down the road they have some other cool features not yet available in the beta that I wanted to cover. First, they will collect your driving data like average speed, braking profiles and more to give you a look at where you can improve.
Next Greenlight will give you a driving score just like a credit score. They do this by comparing your data against the rest of their data and determine your driving score. You can then track and get tips on how to improve your score.
They are also working on accessibility to ensure you can use tools like maps, music, and communication safely without putting yourself and others at risk. There is still many places they can take this app. But it’s still in early stages, so they need to concentrate on the first final product.
Review
Greenlight offers a lot of great features and makes it a little easier to let go of your phone. It’s a plug and plays product, literally. Once you dock the phone it starts up. Now I have to mention the beta flaw that I have encountered with this product. I call it a beta flaw because that’s exactly what it is.
If you are in an area where temperatures are high, it’s very likely you could experience overheating of your phone. This can also happen with older phones as well. A simple adjustment like lowering the resolution of the recording to 480 can ease the strain on the processors which in turn reduces the heat.
Now I could have simply ignored this in the review, but that wouldn’t be very honest nor would it have given me the opportunity to give praise to the team behind Greenlight. How Jason responded to the problem and worked hard with me to solve this issue shows how much they care about their product.
Now you have to remember again what I’m testing is a beta product and shouldn’t show up on the final release. There is a lot of time between now and September.
Greenlight takes the best features of driving cameras and elements of snapshot, from places like progressive and combines them to make a great product. There is potential for this to save money on insurance if they choose to accept it once it proves to be accurate.
Summary
This is by far one of the coolest gadgets I’ve had the pleasure to review. It’s a safety oriented product that doesn’t feel gimmicky. It offers a simple to use product that works well. The team behind Greenlight is working hard to take safety to the next level. Greenlight doesn’t ship until September, but they are taking pre-orders right now. At $50 it’s a reasonable price and great time to get in on the ground floor.
Pre-Order Greenlight
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Amazon Prime members can now ask Alexa to buy things for them
Amazon continues to add little conveniences to its Alexa virtual assistant, and now you can place orders for select items through your Echo or other Alexa-enabled product. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can place an order on items like cloths and shoes using only your voice.
From TechCrunch:
Users with Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Tap or Fire TV can shop for new products by saying, say, “Alexa, order a Frisbee,” at which point the program will suggest a relevant Prime product and price. Likely some manner of flying disc.
The products that you order must be eligible for Prime delivery. Here is Amazon’s list of product categories from which you can order:
- Apparel
- Shoes
- Jewelry
- Watches
- Amazon Fresh
- Prime Pantry
- Prime Now
- Add-On items
After you’ve made your selection, Alexa will ask you to confirm your order, after which, of course, you’ll be able to track it until it arrives on your doorstep.
Amazon Echo
- Read our updated review
- Get the latest news
- Join the discussion
- Download the Echo app
Amazon
Nougat is officially Android 7.0
Seven comes right after six.
Conspicuously absent from yesterday’s Android Nougat announcement shenanigans was any mention of which version number we’d be jumping to next. If you’ve been following Android for a while, you’ll know that version numbers have been somewhat… inconsistent… in past eras (lookin’ at you, ICS/Jelly Bean/KitKat). And so there’s been speculation that Nougat might get a number other than the super-obvious 7.0.
Fret no more, Android fans: Google has let slip in (of all places) its YouTube video description for the Nougat unveiling that it is indeed Android 7.0.
“On June 30th, 2016 we unwrapped our latest treat, Android 7.0 Nougat.”
Which is the obvious choice after 5.0 in 2014 and 6.0 in 2015. (And it also tallies with a small uptick in traffic from 7.0 that we’ve been seeing in our server logs this month.)
So there we have it: Android 7.0 Nougat.
Android Nougat
Android N (currently in Developer Preview status) is now Android Nougat! It’s the 12th nicknamed version of Android and will be released to the public in the fall of 2016. Here’s everything you need to know so far!
- What’s new in Android Nougat
- All Android Nougat news
- Should you use the Android N Dev Preview?
- About the Android Beta Program
- Join the Discussion
Verizon is offering up to $300 in credit when you trade in your old phone
Verizon Wireless has launched another one of its trade-in promotion offers. Customers can bring in their older phone and get up to $300 in credit toward the purchase of a new phone.
The offer is for customers who are switching to Verizon, or current ones who are either upgrading or adding a new line to their service. The deal even includes older phones that have a cracked screen. Verizon says:
Trading in your phone is simple. The fastest way to score these savings is by visiting a Verizon store with on-the-spot credit for your trade-in. At Verizon stores, you can receive the immediate value when you trade in your smartphone in good, working condition and apply that value immediately as a down payment toward your new smartphone. Or you can also enjoy a Verizon account credit or gift card.
The trade-in can also be completed online at Verizon’s website. The new phones that are eligible to be purchased with the trade in credit include the HTC 10, LG G5, Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Motorola Droid Turbo 2 or Motorola Maxx 2. The offer will be available for a “limited time” but no specific deadline was revealed.
Sprint customers now can pay for Amazon Prime through their bill, get first 60 days free
Sprint has announced that customers can now sign up for Amazon Prime service through Sprint. This will allow customers to pay for the service on their Sprint bill for $10.99 per month.
From Sprint:
Sprint, the exclusive wireless retailer of Amazon Prime, offers customers the convenience of adding Amazon Prime to their monthly wireless bill for just $10.99. AND…for the month of July, customers can enjoy all the benefits of Amazon Prime on us (for 60 days). After that, they can continue with the monthly service or cancel at any time.
Customers wishing to add Prime to their Sprint bill can head over to Sprint’s Prime site, call 1-(800)-SPRINT1, or head to a Sprint store to sign up. You’ll get an activation link in a text message, which you’ll need to click to finish the process.
Sprint is also the official wireless retailer of Amazon Prime Day, a sales event during which Amazon will offer Prime members deals on a wide variety of products. Prime Day will take place on July 12.
AIVAnet 