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Russian Spies Abuse VPNs to Target Organizations

Andrew Orr ·

On Thursday, U.S. and British authorities said that Russia’s military spy agency is using VPNs and Tor to attack governments and private sector targets.

The advisory did not identify any of the targets by name, saying only that they were mainly in the United States and Europe and included government offices, political parties, energy companies, law firms and media organizations.

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Russian officials routinely reject allegations that they employ hackers to spy on rival nations.

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This Man Wants to Decipher the Languages of Animals

Andrew Orr ·

Aza Raskin was the person who invented the “infinite scroll” feature we see often on social media. Now he wants to use machine learning to decipher animal language.

A library of all the different animal communication data sets that were machine learning ready. Everyone was working in their own silos, and we saw an opportunity to create a kind of perspective-changing machine: to look at the difference between humpback communication and elephant communication and sperm whale communication and bat communication.

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Apple PRODUCT(RED)Proceeds Going to COVID-19 Relief Throughout 2021

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple is to continue donating 100 percent of proceeds from its PRODUCT(RED) to COVID-19 relief until December 30, 2021. The decision was outlined in an announcement on its website, spotted by 9to5 Mac.

Last year, Apple extended this COVID-19 relief effort until June 30, 2021. As vaccines are slowly rolling out across the globe and new variants of the disease have been discovered, this fund is more important than ever. Apple updated its PRODUCT (RED) page in the US and around the world to note that all donations from sales of its PRODUCT(RED) lineup that normally go to helping fight HIV/AIDS will be temporarily redirected to pandemic relief (which will actually help keep HIV/AIDS programs alive). In April of 2020, Apple and (RED) starting giving a portion of eligible proceeds to the Global Fund for COVID-19 relief but now it’s being bumped to 100% for about six months.

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Israeli Wallet Company Says Apple Pay Is Killing Physical Wallet Industry

Andrew Orr ·

Israeli wallet brand Emmanuel Wallets is boycotting digital wallets like Apple Pay, saying it’s harming the physical wallet industry.

Classic wallets have accompanied the human race for centuries and serve as a practical means of maintaining a means of payment and a fashionable accessory. A wallet is the type of item one holds, such as a phone… so it’s part of its unique style and personal branding. No technological gimmick, not even one promoted by the world’s largest tech company, will succeed in reducing the popularity of a physical wallet.

“No digital wallet will succeed in reducing the popularity of a physical wallet.” Well then, what’s all the fuss about?

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Twitter Lets You Use a Security Key as Only 2FA Option

Andrew Orr ·

Twitter announced on Wednesday that it will let people use a security key as their only form of two-factor authentication.

Today, we’re adding the option to use security keys as your sole 2FA method — meaning you can enroll one or more security keys as the only form of 2FA on your Twitter account without a backup 2FA method. We know this is important to people because not everyone is able to have a backup 2FA method or wants to share their phone number with us.

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Ming Chi-Kuo: AirPods Pro Two Coming 2022

Charlotte Henry ·

New AirPods Pro 2 will debut in 2022, according to a note from analyst Ming -Chi-Kuo seen by iMore. Indeed, he expects Apple’s earbuds to ship 100 million units overall that year.

Kuo says that while Apple’s AirPods business will “decline in the short term (2H21–1H22)” he expects that to be rectified by the second half of the year. Short term, however, lower than expected demand is thought to mean Apple will ship up to 75 million units which is 10 million down on the previous prediction. In terms of AirPods as a whole, Kuo says that he expects Apple to ship more than 100 million units in 2022, even if the new products don’t feature an “innovative experience.” Such an experience has been talked about before — previous reports have suggested some form of health tracking could be added to AirPods Pro specifically.

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Apple Offers Free Downloads of OS X Lion, OS X Mountain Lion

Andrew Orr ·

Until now Apple charged US$19.99 to download codes for OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion. But now they’re free from Apple’s website.

Lion runs on Macs that came prior to the launch of Mountain Lion in 2012. Mountain Lion runs on the Macs below, but you may not be able to downgrade to it unless you completely reformat the drive. You can’t install an old OS on top of a newer one. Also, the oldest OS an M1 Mac can run is Big Sur.

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Parts of AT&T’s 5G Network Will Run on Microsoft Azure Cloud

Andrew Orr ·

Microsoft and AT&T announced a joint venture on Wednesday that will have the carrier run core parts of its 5G network using Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

The newer generation of networks, which AT&T began rolling out in 2018, is designed to rely more heavily on software and data centers for routing traffic rather than telecommunications specific gear.

Microsoft intends to use the newly acquired technology – plus the experience gained helping AT&T run the network – to build out a product it calls Azure for Operators, which it will use to go after core network business from telecommunications companies in the 60 regions of the world where it operates.

That sounds really cool to me that some phone traffic can run through data centers. I wonder if this move would make it easier for harder for government surveillance.

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New Slack Features Reflect the Changing Nature of Work

Charlotte Henry ·

Slack has unveiled some new features to helps businesses as some workers start to return to offices, some prepare to, and others stay working remotely. Techcrunch took a look at the new tools and how they reflect the changing nature of work. It all comes ahead of the messaging service’s acquisition by Salesforce.

Let’s start with Slack Huddles, the audio tool that lets you have a real-time conversation with someone in Slack instead of typing out all of your thoughts. This will be much easier for people who find typing challenging, but the company also believes it will allow more spontaneous discussion, which mimics being in the office, at least to some degree. “Huddles is a light-weight, audio-first way of communicating right in Slack. [It] recreates the spontaneous and serendipitous interactions that happen outside of scheduled meetings,” Tamar Yehoshua, chief product officer at Slack explained in a press briefing yesterday.