Your Netflix subscription may soon cost more, or have fewer features. The streaming media company is reportedly considering a higher-price tier called Ultra with HDR video and HD audio support. Assuming the new tier does roll out (it’s in testing now), PhoneArena says it’ll cost US$16.99 which is $3 more than the current Premium plan. That isn’t too bad, but the change will likely see the number of simultaneously supported devices on each tier reduced as well.

Some Italian consumers say that based on promotional material they’ve received from the video streamer, the new Netflix lineup reduces the number of screens that can stream Netflix simultaneously with the Premium plan from 4 to 2. However, others in Italy who received information about the new Ultra tier say that the Premium service will continue to allow four screens to stream Netflix at the same time. If Netflix does cut the number of simultaneous screens in half for its Premium plan, that would be akin to a price hike for those who share the service with three other users.

There isn’t any guarantee the Ultra tier will survive its limited testing phase, but if it does there’s a good chance you’ll get less for you money on the current plans.

Page 2 of Particle Debris points to a nifty article by Dan Moren about how the Apple TV 4K could be improved. These are fairly obvious enhancements, but remain unimplemented. John continues the discussion with a theory about why that’s so.

Thousands of iOS and Android apps are leaking data. Over 113 GB of data have been exposed because of 2,271 misconfigured Firebase databases. Firebase is a service that Google offers that contains tools that developers use to create mobile and web apps. Cloud messaging, push notifications, database, analytics, advertising, and more are all tools that Firebase offers, which makes it a popular tool, at least among Android developers.

Starting with January 2018, Appthority researchers scanned mobile apps that used Firebase systems to store user data, analyzing the app’s communications pattern for requests made to Firebase domains.

After scanning more than 2.7 million iOS and Android apps, researchers said they identified 28,502 mobile apps (27,227 Android and 1,275 iOS) that connected and stored data inside Firebase backends.

The EU is considering a new copyright law, and critics say it could endanger parts of the internet. Everything from memes, music remixes, and even news would be affected. Italy Wikipedia shut down in protest because editors say “Wikipedia itself would be at risk of closing.”

Two particular parts of the new rules – articles 11 and 13 – have been the focus of much criticism online. Article 13 has been the most controversial, requiring websites to enforce copyright, even on content uploaded by users. Article 11 of the proposed law requires online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their news content.

Sharing photos with friends is cool, but not when your decides to send photos without your knowledge. That’s exactly what’s happening for some Samsung smartphone owners. Mashable says people are freaking out because the photos on their phones are being sent out to other people via SMS and they don’t even know it’s happening until the get a call or text from the recipient. From Mashable:

A few Redditors are claiming that their Samsung smartphones — in one case a Galaxy S9+ — sent photos from their camera roll to another person without their knowledge. And while this nightmare scenario has yet to be confirmed, you’d better believe that Samsung is looking into it.

Samsung is indeed looking into the problem, although it seems to be somewhat isolated. That isn’t, however, much of a consolation for Samsung smartphone users who’re dealing with photos randomly going out to people in their contacts list. Maybe it’s time for your Samsung-toting friends to delete those potentially awkward photos from their phones just to be safe.

The Apple TV 4K has been shipping since September, 2017. Now there’s a new competitor, Amazon’s Fire TV Cube. One might think that a later design might be seriously better than the Apple TV 4K, but as this review demonstrates, the Fire TV Cube is a long way from achieving that. Apple’s mighty little black brick packs some real punch while “the Fire TV Cube is simply last year’s Fire TV combined with an Echo Dot.” This is a good review.

Writing for AppleInsider, Daniel Dilger makes the argument that iPads are the new PC, and Apple isn’t targeting PC switchers anymore. The “What’s a Computer” commercial seems to be one of the most hated ads of all time. It sends a clear message that the iPad is the computer for the majority of people, and only people in specialized professions need a Mac.

This year, Apple again devoted massive new attention to macOS Mojave at its Worldwide Developer Conference. And fittingly so, because developing software for its massive mobile iOS platform requires a Mac. Apple’s macOS Mojave is still a work in progress, but the strategy is clear: Welcome to the Mac for iOS users.

Popular website StumbleUpon is closing down. First launching in 2002, it was a content discovery platform that helped people find cool stuff before the likes of Facebook and Twitter. I was a big user of StumbleUpon back in the day, and when I got my first computer the service was my main tool to explore the internet.

Creating StumbleUpon has been an amazing experience. It was the first project I worked on back in college in 2002. I have personally clicked the stumble button hundreds of thousands of times, and learned a lot in the process. But it’s now time to focus on the future, and create the next discovery platform that will uncover hidden gems we would never think to search for.

We live in our iPhone. Almost. And every day, we use the wireless communication technologies called 4G and LTE. But what do those terms really mean? What’s the difference between them? How do we interpret our iPhone’s display?  This article nicely explains it all. It’s an easy-to-read primer on the tech we use every day

Writing for FastCoDesign, Amber Case writes how the blue light that iPhones give off make us miserable by messing with our circadian rhythms. iPhones and Macs can counteract this with Night Shift, but is that enough? We should look to the military, which uses orange for dense information displays.

[Harvard researchers] found that blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours compared with 1.5 hours). And worse, it’s been linked in recent studies to an increased risk of obesity and some cancers.

Airplane cockpits, submarines, and other military-grade systems are specifically designed for information density, with primary, secondary and tertiary information sources. A key difference in all of these interfaces is color–by and large, many military displays are deep red or orange.

Apple wants its own Maps app and service to be the best there is, so the company is completely rebuilding everything from the ground up. Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue told Tech Crunch Maps is ditching its dependance on other mapping services and has been working over the past four years to make its own map data. Cue says the new Maps will be built from Apple’s own data and include much more information, get faster updates for new and changing roads, and offer a level of detail not found in other map platforms. Cue said:

We wanted to take this to the next level. We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up.

The new Maps is launching in California with iOS 12, and expanding out from there over the next year. I find all of the current map app options lacking in different ways, so bring on the new and better Apple Maps.

Writing for MacStories, Ryan Christoffel examines the Apple media platform and presents a Grand Unified Theory of the company’s strategy. We know that Apple combines hardware, software, and services into a profitable user experience, and Mr. Christoffel opines on how this is shaping Apple customers’ media consumption.

Apple has one unified goal, I believe, driving all its media efforts: it aspires to utilize hardware, software, and services to provide the entirety of a user’s media experience. If you consume media, Apple wants to provide the full stack of that consumption, from media delivery to media discovery. My aim in this story is to share an overview of how that goal is being fulfilled today.

Facebook has a patent application for a way to use your smartphone’s microphone to eavesdrop on you without your knowledge. The system triggers with a sound too high for humans to hear, records whatever your phone’s mic can pick up, and then sends the data back to Facebook. Don’t worry about that being creepy because Facebook says the patent is to stop other companies from spying on us, and they won’t ever use this tech on us. Or so they tell Mashable. If only Facebook didn’t have a history of abusing our privacy.

Smart home technology may add convenience to our lives, but there’s a darker side, too. The New York Times explores how domestic abusers are using smarthome devices to control and gaslight their victims. Reports of smart home devices in domestic abuse cases has been on the rise over the past year, too. From the report:

One woman had turned on her air-conditioner, but said it then switched off without her touching it. Another said the code numbers of the digital lock at her front door changed every day and she could not figure out why. Still another told an abuse help line that she kept hearing the doorbell ring, but no one was there.

It’s a stark reminder that abusers will find a way to turn anything into a weapon against their victims.