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Shadowserver Keeps the Web Safe. Now it Needs Help

Andrew Orr ·

A small nonprofit organization called Shadowserver helps keep the web safe. It scans almost the entire internet to create activity reports for network operators. It also hosts a database of 1.2 billion malware samples, freely accessible to everyone. But it needs to raise money to stay in operation.

For more than 15 years, Shadowserver has been funded by Cisco as an independent organization. But thanks to budget restructuring, the group now has to go out on its own. Rather than seek a new benefactor, founder Richard Perlotto says the goal is for Shadowserver to become a fully community-funded alliance that doesn’t rely on any one contributor to survive. The group needs to raise $400,000 in the next few weeks to survive the transition, and then it will still need $1.7 million more to make it through 2020…

I had never heard of Shadowserver but it’s clear the organization is important. You can become a sponsor to donate money here.

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No, Apple Isn’t Going to Buy Disney

Andrew Orr ·

Disney stock is dropping and analysts like Bernie McTernan from Rosenblatt Securities think that tech giants like Apple should consider buying it.

We believe those with long-time horizons, like mega-cap companies with large cash balances and whose equity outperformed Disney over the last three weeks, like Apple, could take advantage of the volatility. The upside from acquiring Disney would be securing their content/streaming strategy and potential synergies from adding the emerging Disney ecosystem to the iOS platform.

Apple could also look into buying a private island, renaming it Island+, and forming its own country. I don’t know about you but sign me up for a squircle-shaped house.

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'iPhone 12' With 'A14' Processor May be as Fast as iPad Pro

Charlotte Henry ·

It appears that the much-rumored ‘iPhone 12’ could be as fast as an iPad Pro. That’s according to Geekbench scores for the potential ‘A14’ processor, uncovered by AppleInsider.

It is expected that the “iPhone 12” will have improved performance, and these scores show massive gains year-over-year. Apple has been seeing huge gains in their chipsets despite the rest of the industry hitting a bit of a performance wall. New Geekbench testing, discovered by AppleInsider purporting to be from the A14 processor shows the first A-series processor to cross the 3.0 GHz mark. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has an A12X chipset with 8 cores and scores 1110 on a single core, and 4568 on the multi-core. The scores for the alleged A14 go beyond even that.

TMO Deals

Focus - Website and Application Blocker for MacOS Unlimited Plan: $29.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on Focus for Mac, a website and application blocker designed to help you stay on task. Focus sits in your menu-bar and helps you block distracting websites, domains, or apps. It also features schedules and timers, password protection, productivity stats, BASH scripting support, and more. An Unlimited Plan is $29.99 through our deal, but there are also less expensive plans called Productivity and Professional.

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R.E.M. 'It's The End of the World' Enters iTunes Top 100

Charlotte Henry ·

The R.E.M classic It’s End of the World As We Know It has entered the iTunes top 100 for the first time, 33 years after it was released, according to data from Pop Vortex. When the New York Daily News reported on the data on Friday the track was at number 73 in the chart. On Monday, it was up at number 39.

The spike in the 1987 song’s popularity likely comes in the wake of the World Health Organization declaring that the menacing coronavirus spread has reached pandemic levels. The tune, which name-checks the likes of cultural icons Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, rock critic Lester Bangs and conductor Leonard Bernstein, was positioned at No. 73 Friday evening — just a shade below its Billboard Hot 100 peak of No. 69 in 1987. The single was downloaded more times than Lizzo’s “Good as Hell,” “Lose You to Love Me” by Selena Gomez and even Taylor Swift’s “The Man,” according to Pop Vortex.