We have a deal on a lifetime license for Disk Drill PRO for Mac. This software is designed to make it easy to recover documents, music, photos, videos, or even whole partitions that have gone missing from your computer. Our deal is for $29.99, but promo code BFSAVE40 will save you another 40%, for a checkout price of $18.
Health Records, Offline Siri Update – TMO Daily Observations 2018-11-21
Host Kelly Guimont is joined by Charlotte Henry and Andrew Orr to talk about health records, an offline Siri update, and the new Apple ad.
iPhone Spyware Used to Attack Saudi Dissidents
The Saudi regime is known for attacking Saudi dissidents, and iPhone spyware could have helped them do so with the help of NSO Group.
JavaScript Attack Can Be Used to Spy on Browser Tabs
Besides the Amazon leak, here’s some more troubling news. Researchers demonstrated a side-channel JavaScript attack that made it possible for them to spy on your other browser tabs. And even Tor is susceptible.
This information can be used to target adverts at you based on your interests, or otherwise work out the kind of stuff you’re into and collect it in safe-keeping for future reference. The technique is described in a paper recently distributed through ArXiv called “Robust Website Fingerprinting Through the Cache Occupancy Channel.”
It doesn’t sound like there’s a fix for this at the moment.
Offline Siri Edges Closer to Reality With Silk Labs
Last week Andrew Orr wrote about a patent that Apple filed regarding more offline Siri capability. He thinks the latest news about Silk Labs provides stronger evidence for that.
Apple Wants to Give Veterans Their Medical Records
Apple would build the software needed, as well as offer engineering support to the department.
Amazon Leaks Users' Names and Email Addresses
Amazon is emailing customers to tell them it leaked their names and email addresses due to a “technical error.”
It then goes on to say, “The issue has been fixed. This is not a result of anything you have done, and there is no need for you to change your password or take any other action.”
None of which is terribly reassuring. Although it doesn’t include the customer’s name it doesn’t look like a phishing attack as there is no link and no call to action.
Amazon says there is no need to change your password but you should change it anyway. If they can’t protect emails and names, why would we trust them with our passwords?
Civilization VI Expansion Pack to Add Climate Change
It adds a ton of content to the game, like a Diplomacy victory, new civilizations, and climate change.
2Do Task Manager for Mac Lifetime License: $29.99
We have a deal on a lifetime license for 2Do, a task manager for the Mac. 2Do features color coded lists, the ability to add URLs, addresses, or Google searches to your tasks, and the ability to sync over Dropbox, Reminders (CalDAV), or Toodledo. The lifetime license is $29.99 through our deal.
New MacBook Air - the End For Configuration?
Following last month’s ‘There’s More in the Making Event’, there was a lot of speculation about the future of Apple’s Mac product line. In particular, people have focussed on the new iPad Pro and whether or not it can be a true laptop replacement. Now some time has passed, MacWorld’s Jason Snell highlights another issue – the new MacBook Air only comes with one processor option. Consumers can expand a new Macbook’s Air’s storage capacity to 1.5TB and its memory to 16GB. However, you still get the 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5 processor. Mr. Snell argues that this move might signal the end of configurable Macs.
This feels like the future of the Mac, certainly on the consumer end of the product line. With the new MacBook Air, Apple has picked a processor and stuck with it. Would any of us be surprised if it did the same with a future update to the MacBook? Or low-end iMacs? Looking a bit further into the future, if Apple starts building Macs with ARM processors, is it going to want to offer different classes of processors within those models? On iOS, Apple has steadfastly refused to do this. Every model-year of a given model is generally powered by the same processor across the board.