Samsung is causing much angst among its SmartThings customers by shutting down support for its original SmartThings home automation hub as of the end of June. These are network-connected home automation routers providing Zigbee and Z-Wave connectivity to your sensors and actuators. It’s not entirely unreasonable for manufacturers to replace aging hardware with new models. Read more about Samsung Bricking Original SmartThings Hubs[…]
A few days ago, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) came out with a 5-0 unanimous vote on its position on right to repair. (PDF) It’s great news, in that they basically agree with us all: Restricting consumers and businesses from choosing how they repair products can substantially increase the total cost of repairs, generate Read more about US FTC Weighs in On Right To Repair[…]
On May 31 last year, 25-year-old Safarain Herring was shot in the head and dropped off at St. Bernard Hospital in Chicago by a man named Michael Williams. He died two days later. Chicago police eventually arrested the 64-year-old Williams and charged him with murder (Williams maintains that Herring was hit in a drive-by shooting). Read more about Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI[…]
If you’ve returned to the restaurants and bars that have reopened in your neighborhood lately, you might have noticed a new addition to the post-quarantine decor: QR codes. Everywhere. And as they’ve become more ubiquitous on the dining scene, so has the quiet tracking and targeting that they do. That’s according to a new analysis Read more about QR Menu Codes Are Tracking You More Than You Think[…]
Nvidia’s Shield TVs are some of the best streaming video boxes on the market, but following a recent update to Android TV, Shield TV users are starting to see ads on their home screen and they aren’t happy about it. The latest update to Android TV on Shield TV devices began rolling out earlier this Read more about Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV – wtf are manufacturers doing advertising on products you actually own?[…]
iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens has exposed how companies including Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft manipulate the design of their products and the supply chain to prevent consumers and third-party repairers from accessing necessary tools and parts to repair products such as smartphones and laptops. ZDNet Recommends The best old phones to buy Why last Read more about iFixit CEO names and shames tech giants for right to repair obstruction – not sustainable at all[…]
Law firm Campbell Conroy & O’Neil has warned of a breach from late February which may have exposed data from the company’s lengthy client list of big-name corporations including Apple and IBM. The breach, which was discovered on 27 February 2021 when a ransomware infection blocked access to selected files on the company’s internal systems, Read more about US legal eagles representing Apple, IBM, and more take 5 months to inform clients of ransomware data breach, will only offer support if social security number was in data[…]
Researchers have released technical details on a high-severity privilege-escalation flaw in HP printer drivers (also used by Samsung and Xerox), which impacts hundreds of millions of Windows machines. If exploited, cyberattackers could bypass security products; install programs; view, change, encrypt or delete data; or create new accounts with more extensive user rights. The bug (CVE-2021-3438) Read more about 16-Year-Old HP Printer-Driver Bug Impacts Millions of Windows Machines[…]
the UAE is now testing a new method that has drones fly into clouds to give them an electric shock to trigger rain production, the BBC and CNN have previously reported. The project is getting renewed interest after the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology recently published a series of videos on Instagram of heavy rain in parts of the Read more about Cloud seeding in UAE: Artificial rain with drones, electricity[…]
A new video investigation by the Wall Street Journal finds the key to TikTok’s success in how the short-video sharing app monitors viewing times. Why it matters: TikTok is known for the fiendishly effective way that it selects streams of videos tailored to each user’s taste. The algorithm behind this personalization is the company’s prize Read more about How TikTok serves you content you love – simple, actually[…]
Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google will now show its search engine users more information about why it found the results they are shown, the company said on Thursday. It said people googling queries will now be able to click into details such as how their result matched certain search terms, in order to better decide if the Read more about Google is starting to tell you how it found Search results[…]
We take for granted that the water coming out of the kitchen faucet is safe to drink, but that’s not always the case in other parts of the world. So researchers at the University of Cambridge are developing a new approach to testing for contaminants using a device that billions of people already use every Read more about Normal Touchscreens Can Also Detect Contaminated Water[…]
[…] The threat actors are offering Saudi Aramco’s data starting at a negotiable price of $5 million. Saudi Aramco has pinned this data incident on third-party contractors and tells BleepingComputer that the incident had no impact on Aramco’s operations. “Zero-day exploitation” used to breach network This month, a threat actor group known as ZeroX is offering 1 TB of Read more about Saudi Aramco data breach sees 1 TB stolen data for sale[…]