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Apple is no longer number 1 in phishing attempts

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Apple has been one of the innovative tech giants in the world, due to which they are regularly attacked by malicious software and a lot of phishing attempts to steal their data. Apple has been on the number one spot when it comes to phishing attempts. However, it’s not the same case now, and the number spot from Apple has shifted to other popular brands. Apple ID credentials have been on the top of the list for phishing attempts and hackers using fake websites and e-mail.

However, it seems that the layer of security used by Apple is hard to get by, due to which this year, Apple has just faced a mere 2% phishing attempts, which the number spot for the same has gone to Amazon and Google with 13% of phishing attempts on each. As per experts, the pandemic has been a major reason for the same. As people are under lockdown and were using Google cloud services to work from home, these services’ usage rose to a very high level, making them the perfect target for phishing attempts and stealing the login credentials.

Similarly, Amazon has also seen a large increase in phishing attempts on online shopping. The good things were that both the browser companies and web hosting companies responded quickly to this deceptive website and could suspend them. The list of top ten companies which were a target for phishing attempts this year are:

  1. Google
  2. Amazon
  3. WhatsApp
  4. Facebook
  5. Microsoft
  6. Outlook
  7. Netflix
  8. Apple
  9. Huawei
  10. PayPal

Companies suggest their customer check the link of the website or the link provided in the email before logging into the account. As soon as they log in through these platforms, their login credentials will be compromised, leading to loss of information and money. The users can also face an issue where their account is either suspended or closed. The users will generally get an e-mail or an ad on the website, providing an offer at low prices, which is too good.

Microsoft Team coming up with lots of new features

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Image credit: thestatesman.com

Microsoft has been busy with the development of new features being added to its multiple products. Today, Microsoft has made yet another announcement where they added a new set of features to Team, including a feature that scales the meeting to 20,000 participants. The feature will be made available to all the users in the current week and is specially meant for the organization to connect multiple employees from the main office to the home office across location and time zones.

The feature can be accessed by initiating a one-on-one call and later adding a large group of colleagues to the platform. The feature will be a great addition for companies who would like to have a conference and large events virtually. Apart from this feature, many other features have been added to the Team. One such feature allows the employees to use phone numbers to make and receive calls with anyone, from both office and home. The feature will use the cloud-based phone system of the Team to connect people.

The list of features also adds a new team display, where dedicated Team devices will use the ambient touch screen, High-quality calls, and video and hands-free calls using Cortana. The Team will now also offer extended support for Skype for Business phones after 2023. The Team will continue to support core calling on SIP phones from Yealink, Cisco, Polycom. The support for SIP phones will be made available in 2021. Lastly, Microsoft will be offering a new range of Team phones with new features such as physical button, core calling, and high-quality audio.

The USB phones will have a dedicated Team button and out of the box usage. The device will be compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems for use, made available for sale in late 2020.

Mobeewave acquired by Apple for $100 million

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Image Credit: mobilesyrup.com

Apple is always on a lookout for new companies that promise to bring new and innovative technology in the market and companies that could be a great addition to a new feature or service they are planning for the future. Recently, Apple has acquired Mobeewave, a Canadian startup that is working on converting iPhones into mobile payments terminals. The details of the deal were reported by Bloomberg, where it is found that Apple acquired the company for $100 million.

The technology, when fully developed, will help merchants to use Apple Pay much more easily. The technology that they use for this feature is the NFC chip, where the users have to tap the smartphone or credit card to another device for processing payments. NFC is one of the most common features that exist in all the iPhones after the iPhone 6 was launched with this feature. Good news for Mobeewave is that Apple has retained all its employees, which is around 100, and they will be working from the Montreal office location. No changes will be made to the office as well.

The company has also partnered with Samsung last year to develop a payment technology, which resulted in 10,000 downloads of Samsung’s POS app. With Apple acquiring this company, we can soon expect to see this feature being integrated into the iPhone with more features and functions than what we could see in Samsung. The company will be working in the same way as before, something Apple did not want to interfere with to maintain the team’s creativity.

WhatsApp brings in the new “Search the Web” and “Reverse Image Search” feature

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Image Credit:9to5google.com

WhatsApp is, without a doubt, one of the most popular messaging apps of all time. The app provides unlimited messaging capabilities to its users, giving it an advantage over the normal messaging services through mobile networks. However, the unlimited messaging feature also became one of the most known drawbacks of the app. Whatsapp is very popular for spamming people with fake news and videos, due to which even WhatsApp had to limit the number of users to whom you can forward messages.

Although the restriction is partially removed, users get irritated by fake news and videos that often act like spam in the app. WhatsApp has now introduced a new pilot feature, which allows the user to search if the information received through WhatsApp is fake or real. The assertions made in the messages can now be directly searched on the internet. The services are currently available in Italy, the UK, Brazil, Ireland, Spain, Mexico, and the US.

whatsapp search image 1

Once someone sends you a message on WhatsApp, you will see a magnifying glass in front of the message. It applies to messages and images that have been at least forwarded five times. Once the user clicks on the magnifying glass icon, the assertion will be searched on the internet to verify it. The feature allows the user to upload the text and images via browser, due to which WhatsApp never uploads the data or messages to themselves. The feature will soon be rolled out in other countries as well.

It is expected that the feature will take a few more months before it is released in a stable version. The step has been taken due to the increasing spread of misinformation, especially in this pandemic. Due to their changes in message forwarding features, the forwarded message on the platform went down by 70%.

Google Finally reveals Pixel 4a

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Image Credit: firstpost.com

As promised by Google they have finally revealed the Google Pixel 4a on Monday, which is supposed to be their new affordable Pixel smartphone. The Pixel 4a has been launched at a starting price of $349 with a single variant of 6GB + 128GB in the US. The Phone is said to launch in India in the month of October where the price will also be revealed. The Pixel 4a is a direct successor to the Pixel 3a which was one of the most popular Pixel phones. 

The smartphone comes with a 5.8 inch OLED display and has a premium black finish. This is the only color available for Pixel 4a and the beautiful matte finish protects the phone from any kind of fingerprints. The entire phone is colored in black and the only highlighted point in the phone is the Power button in mint color. As per Google, the phone is now available for pre-order in the US through Google Store and Google Fi. The phone will be available to purchase through Google Store, BestBuy.com, Amazon, and other platforms in the US. 

As per the camera module that is said to be the best feature of Pixel phones, the phone still has the single-camera setup which has Sony’s 12MP IMX363 sensor. It might look a bit outdated compared to phones which have a quad-camera setup in the same range. However, it’s not the hardware that makes the camera perfect in Pixel 4a, it’s the software. The pictures taken through this phone can bring quad-camera setups to shame with its excellent software image processing, something Google has always highlighted. 

The camera has HDR support with dual exposure, Topshot, Portrait mode, night shots, and astrophotography capabilities, which is the best any camera has to date. The camera also provides video stabilization with optical image stabilization. The front camera is 8MP and the phone has a Snapdragon 730G chipset. The smartphone also comes with a 3140mAh battery and 18W fast charging support out of the box.

Chinese apps ban continues in India as they block Baidu and Weibo from the App Store and Play Store

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Image Credit: Indiatvnews.com

Chinese apps are facing a lot of heat from countries globally, where many of them have been blocking or banning apps due to security issues. India has decided to block both Baidu and Weibo, which are one of the most popular and biggest apps from China. This step from India comes after they have already banned multiple apps originating from the country. These apps have been sending the user data back to China, which is a major security concern.

Both the apps that have been a premium offering from China and have millions of users worldwide have been asked to be taken off from the Google Play Store and the App Store in India. Also, the same has been informed to the ISP’s to block these platforms. The government has many more apps originally from China and has been under the radar ever since the ban on Chinese apps started. As per their official statement, these apps are engaging in activities that threaten the sovereignty and integrity of India.

Some of the most popular apps like PUBG were also under the scanner a few days back, due to which the game developers modified the privacy policy for Indian users. A similar action was also taken by the US government, where they decided to remove selected Chinese apps from online stores. Baidu and Weibo had a lot of resources invested in the Indian market, and the ban on such apps is very likely to bring a big impact on Chinese companies. The Indian government is also looking out for the clone, or similar Chinese apps banned previously. Many such apps have been banned a few days back as well.

Two new features spotted in the Radxa Rock Pi 4C

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Image Credit: Tomshardware.com

The new Radxa Rock Pi 4C is one of the best offerings from Radxa, which is known for creating single-board chipsets, especially for Android tablets. The new Radxa Rock Pi 4C was created for ultra-cheap ultra-compact systems, and the company has now started its sales. The product is based on the Rockchip RK3399 SoC, originally meant for Android tables where the affordable tables could provide a decent set of features and a good performance.

The chipset also made to entry-level power devices in many different categories like PCs, home theater, etc. Using the same features, the Radxa Rock Pi 4C has 2 Arm Cortex-A72 cores, clocked at 1.8GHz and four Arm Cortex-A53, which consumes less power at 1.4GHz. The SoC also comes with an Arm Mali T864 GPU. The configuration does provide a good mix of power-packed performance for entry-level devices and also saves on energy at the same time.

The two new features spotted in the new SoC were DisplayPort and support for NVMe storage, which was not available in their predecessor. The Soc also comes with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM onboard integrated, 128 GB eMMC with expandable memory support until 2TB. It also has common features like Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi5, USB 3.0 ports, mini Display Port 1.2, 3.5 mm jack, and a USC C connector for charging and data transfer. The SoC has been created to compatible with multiple products and designs, and it measures only 85x54mm. The chipset can be used for Android TV, devices, or Linux devices as well.

iPhone 12 lineup to be released in two stages

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Image Credit: gsmarena.com

It was earlier estimated that the release of the iPhone 12 might be delayed till November this year due to the supply chain issue where Apple cannot get the component supply on time due to pandemic. Another news that has come into the picture now is that the tech giant will roll out the devices in two different stages due to the supply delay and problem. The information was provided by Digitimes which claims that Apple will launch its two 6.1 inch iPhones, and during the second stage, it will roll out 6.7 inches and 5.4 inch iPhones.

Although, there is still no confirmed information as to which iPhone variants would be released, it seems that the first stage would release iPhone 12 and pro models, while the second stage will release the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the iPhone 12 lite version. The production of the iPhone 12 will see a delay of about four weeks, after which it will peak back to what is expected.

Apple seems to face a lot of issues recently due to the delay in getting the components. Many new things are expected for Apple, and even companies Mediatek is waiting for Apple to release its devices so that the sales for its new 5G chipset start.

Apple’s major event for the unfolding of these devices was expected in September and later expected to be delayed until November. The sources claim that the event could be held in October, which seems to be good news for Apple customers and fanboys.

Twitter to soon come up with the “Undo Send” feature and a paid subscription

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Image Credit: Indiatvnews.com

With so many social media platforms adding a pack of features recently, even Twitter is all geared up to enhance its users’ experience. The microblogging site is all ready to add a set of new features and the rumored paid subscription services which have been codenamed “Gryphon“. The new paid subscription will allow users many different options to use and increase their privileges.

YouTube video

The paid subscription for a Twitter account is said to provide longer tweet capabilities, which is currently restricted to just a few words. Also, premium users will use high-quality videos and other types of content for posting on twitter. Apart from these, other features have also been rumored that will be added to the platform. The feature is the “Undo Send” option, which will feature like an edit button for the existing tweet. The details about the paid subscription were hinted last month, which can be reused by other platforms.

As per TechCrunch’s details, the paid account will provide users with custom badges, auto-response, social listening analytics, surveys, and a lot of other and new features. The details mentioned that the “Undo Send” option would provide the user with a 30-second window to recall or withdraw a tweet. Not only this, but the users will also be able to use different features like fonts, colors, links, hashtags, icons, mentions, and backgrounds. Another feature of the paid subscription will allow the user to post five times longer videos with a very high resolution.

Also, users can set up a list of auto-responses for other users. Twitter also mentioned that they are currently working on multiple products that could generate revenue for the website. However, the company also stated that they are not expecting any revenue to be generated in the year 2020 and are only working on different platforms for the same.

Xiaomi’s new TWS Noise cancellation earphones spotted

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Image Credit: smartphones.com.bd

Xiaomi has never been out of the news as they keep launching new devices at affordable prices to keep the market on its toes. Now the company is rumored to launch new earphones with Active Noise cancellation. It is rumored to be called the Mi Active Noise Cancellation Wireless earphones. The reports provided by GizmoChina says that it will be a pair of TWS. The good news for Xiaomi fans is that they will not have to wait for a long period to see the launch of these earphones.

It seems that the company is going to launch them as soon as possible as the product is already ready to ship. The earphones are set to join the existing lineup of Mi True Wireless Earphones 2, which is also expected to be launched soon. The earphones will be equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 support as expected and will also support AAC and SBC audio codecs.

The earphones will also be IPX4 certified for durability. Although the company has not provided any kind of official date for the launch, it is expected to launch alongside Mi 10 Pro, which is the next premium flagship phone from Xiaomi.

The earphones are expected to launch at a very affordable price and will take Apple earpods heads on. The product is made out of the same superior quality material as before and provides a great listening experience due to noise cancellation. It is expected that the product will also come as both standalone and as a combo Xiaomi smartphone.