Netflix adds data-saving quality controls to its mobile apps
Back in March, Netflix revealed that it was working on a “data saver” feature for its mobile apps. Keeping its word, the streaming service announced today that the cellular data tool that allows users to adjust video quality to save data is available in its iOS and Android apps. In fact, we’re seeing the new feature in both Netflix apps here at Engadget HQ. By default, the software adjusts video quality to allow for about 3 hours of streaming per gigabyte of data. The company says that tests showed this to be the best balance of data use and quality when streaming over a cellular connection.
In addition to the default setting, there are options for low, medium and high quality streaming that allow for four hours, two hours and one hour of watching with 1GB of data. There’s also a setting for those with unlimited data plans, and if you don’t want to use any of that monthly allotment, you can opt to only stream movies and TV shows on WiFi. Netflix also offered the reminder that even if you choose higher quality in the app, your mobile service provider may place its own limits on bandwidth. Regardless of networks fiddling with quality, these new quality settings should help folks who enjoy an episode of House of Cards on the go, but regularly exceed their data caps.
Cops hacked the iPhone owned by ‘Shield’ actor’s murdered wife
It might not have gotten the same amount of press as the San Bernardino case, but authorities also hacked into the iPhone of Michael Jace’s wife with the help of an outside party. According to the court documents obtained by LA Times, the Los Angeles Police District has been trying to get into April Jace’s iPhone 5s since 2015. Michael Jace (Julien Lowe from The Shield) is accused of killing April, and investigators believe they argued via text before she was murdered.
April’s phone had a passcode lock, and as you probably know by now, a set number of incorrect attempts will wipe an iPhone clean. An LA judge apparently ordered an Apple technician to help cops figure out a way to crack the device open sometime in 2015. That didn’t seem to work, and for quite some time, the phone wouldn’t even switch on.
Authorities aren’t going after Apple again for this case, though, because they found someone else who could hack into the device, just like the San Bernardino investigators did. LA Times says the LAPD found a “forensic cellphone expert” on March 18th who managed to override the lock screen. The court documents didn’t mention whether the expert also exploited a flaw in the phone and its unidentified platform. If he did and authorities also paid for his services, they might keep that particular flaw a secret from Apple, as well. Let’s just hope it’s a vulnerability the tech titan already fixed.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Apple’s App Store experiences major search glitch
Starting early Thursday morning, users trying to access Apple’s App Store were met with a broken search tool and undiscoverable apps. According to Cupertino’s own system status, “all users are affected.” Apple is “investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available.” The outage began around 5 AM Eastern time and remains broken as of publication time.
Although Engadget was able to update at least one app on the desktop store, searching for common terms like “Google” returned no search results. Likewise, on the iOS app store, a search for “Adobe” returned unexpected results and How-To guides, but none of that company’s own apps. A search for “Spotify” surfaced Soundcloud as the top result.
The outage appears to be unrelated to Apple’s rumored App Store revamp.
BT pledges £6 billion for superfast broadband and 4G upgrades
In its first set of financial results since it absorbed EE, the UK’s biggest mobile operator, BT has made a fresh commitment to improving broadband and 4G connectivity across Britain. The company says it is to spend £6 billion on improving its services, which will include extending its superfast broadband coverage to 12 million homes and covering 95 percent of the UK by 2020.
If you feel like you’ve heard these upgrade promises before, you’re not wrong. Last September, BT CEO Gavin Patterson promised to offer minimum broadband speeds of at least 24Mbps to 95 percent of the population by 2017. BT is getting there — it’s recently begun upgrading entry-level Infinity fibre broadband customers to 52Mbps — but with Virgin now delivering speeds of up to 200Mbps, the UK’s biggest telecoms provider is still playing catch-up.
With G.Fast technology a mixture of fibre and copper delivered by small business broadband from woav — a mixture of fibre and copper — BT is on target to offer up to 300Mbps speeds to 10 million homes and businesses. However, it also plans to broaden its Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) infrastructure to 2 million additional premises — mostly new build houses, high streets and business parks in urban areas — where speeds can reach up to 1Gbps.
The announcement comes shortly after UK communications watchdog Ofcom said it won’t split BT and its Openreach broadband arm. The regulator said the company must improve the speed of its fibre broadband rollout and provide more opportunities for its broadband rivals, which are forced to lease Openreach lines, to deploy their own connections on telegraph poles and in underground ducts.
Sky was quick to blast Ofcom’s decision not to break up BT and Openreach and is now attacking its rival’s updated plans: “Today’s statement shows that BT continues to see copper as the basis of its network for 21st century Britain. Despite BT’s claims, it is clearer than ever that their plans for fibre to the premise broadband will bypass almost every existing UK home,” said Sky Group Chief Operating Officer Andrew Griffith.
“This limited ambition has been dragged out of BT by the threat of regulatory action, demonstrating once again why an independent Openreach, free to raise its own long-term capital, is the best way for the UK to get the fibre network it needs.”
An Australian carrier’s ‘free data’ day was totally abused
Mobile carriers rarely give anything away for free, so when Australian provider Telstra offered customers unlimited downloads for a whole day, they more than filled their pockets. To atone for a network outage last Tuesday, the operator turned its apology into a marketing stunt with the launch of “Free Mobile Data Sunday.” There were no restrictions on what could be posted, browsed, shared and streamed, allowing Telstra customers to gobble up a record 1,841 terabytes of data in 24 hours.
In a statement, Telstra says it counted more than double the traffic it would normally see on a Sunday, which equates to around 5.1 million episodes of Game of Thrones or 23 million downloads of Kanye’s latest The Life of Pablo album. It wasn’t all sunshine and downloads, however, as the volume of traffic reduced speeds in some parts of Australia.
People like Reddit user DrRodneyMckay will have likely played a part in that. Telstra’s 4G plans typically offer up to 8 gigabytes of data a month but on Valentine’s Day, this customer gobbled more than 421 gigabytes.
Freed from a 1.5 Mbps ADSL broadband connection, DrRodneyMckay claims to have downloaded all 25 seasons of How It’s Made, numerous other TV shows and backed up his entire Stream library (all 172 games) to offline storage via his tethered LG G4 (which peaked at 168 Mbps). Not bad for a day’s work.
Via: Mashable
AIVAnet 