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Jumat, 12 April 2019

Apple adds extra step to App Store subscriptions to prevent accidental purchases - The Verge

Apple has added an additional pop-up screen where users can confirm that they want to pay for recurring app subscriptions. Once users download apps that require subscriptions or tap on the in-app subscription options, the pop-up will show up after the initial Face ID or Touch ID confirmation screen.

The “Confirm Subscription” menu explains to users that the subscription will continue unless they cancel in Settings. It’s useful information to know, especially since most apps lure users by offering free trials, and users may be unaware that their cards are still being charged after the trial ends. The feature was first spotted by developer David Barnard on Twitter.

Whoa! Apple added an additional confirmation step for subscriptions. This new alert comes after you confirm with Touch ID/Face ID. I hope they address this in a more elegant way in iOS 13, but I’m thrilled Apple took a definitive step to curb scam subscriptions. @pschiller pic.twitter.com/oktaEVdx0o
— David Barnard (@drbarnard) April 11, 2019

The update is part of Apple’s ongoing effort to make in-app payment options more transparent. In January, the company began requiring app subscriptions to show the full cost to users before signup to crack down on misleading in-app subscriptions.

The feature will also be useful for cutting down on scams for Touch ID phones, where an accidental tap of the home button could trigger a fingerprint scan to confirm purchases. Some fitness apps have been tricking users into making in-app purchases while getting their fingerprint scans for “fitness tracking data.” The new pop-up screen can serve as an extra layer of protection against bad actors.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/12/18307785/apple-ios-subscription-confirmation-scam-accidental-purchases

2019-04-12 16:05:31Z
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Skype's Latest Feature Will Help You Show Your Parents How to Use Their New Phone - Gizmodo

Illustration for article titled Skype's Latest Feature Will Help You Show Your Parents How to Use Their New Phone

Apps like VNC or Window’s Remote Desktop Connection have long been an invaluable tool for kids tasked with remotely solving their parents’ computer woes. But Skype might soon be the new secret weapon when it comes to helping baby boomer’s figure out how to use their new-fangled smartphones, as it’s soon rolling out a new screen sharing feature on its iOS and Android apps.

Microsoft’s been on an upgrade spree with Skype in recent months, bringing support for up to 50 users at a time (do you really want to chat to that many family members at once?) and a novel feature that uses artificial intelligence to automatically blur what’s in the background of your video chat. For the iOS and Android versions of the app, users will soon be able to share their smartphone screens during a call. Microsoft suggests this will be useful for sharing PowerPoint presentations, or collaborating with friends as you swipe your way through Tinder matches.

But the real power of this new feature will only be understood by anyone who’s ever had to talk an older family member or friend through their smartphone’s Settings section over the phone. Instead of having to describe what they should be seeing and where to tap, users can now just demonstrate where a certain feature or option is. It’s not quite as useful as just completely taking control of their mobile device remotely, but it’s easily the next best thing, and much easier to set up.

Skype’s mobile screen sharing feature is currently only available in the most recent 8.3 beta version of the apps, so if you want to try it out now you’ll need to sign up for the Skype Insider Program if you’re not already a member. But a member of the Skype team has told us it should be rolled out in the official version of the app sometime this month if you can wait just a few more weeks.

[Microsoft via The Verge]

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https://gizmodo.com/skypes-latest-feature-will-help-you-show-your-parents-h-1833997479

2019-04-12 14:15:00Z
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Prevent Amazon From Eavesdropping On Your Alexa Conversations - Lifehacker

Illustration for article titled Prevent Amazon From Eavesdropping On Your Alexa Conversations — Photo: Fabian Hurnaus (Pexels)

Fun fact: Snippets of your Alexa conversations may be heard and read by thousands of Amazon employees. According to recent reports, Amazon has an international team of employees who work to help Alexa better understand your many commands and develop new ways for the AI to interact with users. This requires them to listen to snippets of what your Echo speakers and other Alexa devices are recording. Sounds eerily familiar to us.

Not only are real people listening to you talk to (and around) Alexa, but the conversations they listen in on are being transcribed and annotated by Amazon’s employees. These transcriptions are then used to “teach” the Alexa AI to recognize more commands.

If you’re sketched out by this, we understand. Especially since what you say is only kind-of, sort-of associated with your account, as Bloomberg describes:

“A screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg shows that the recordings sent to the Alexa reviewers don’t provide a user’s full name and address but are associated with an account number, as well as the user’s first name and the device’s serial number.”

While you’ll never be able to stop Amazon employees from listening in on whatever you say to your Alexa, you can at least turn off any features that make this easier. For example:

Open the Alexa mobile app
Tap the Menu button in the upper-left of the screen
Go to Alexa Account > Alexa Privacy > Manage how your data improves Alexa
Turn off “Help develop new features” and “Use messages to improve transcriptions” for all profiles on your account

Bloomberg notes that Amazon’s team might still analyze your Alexa recordings “by hand,” but this at least opts you out of some facet of Amazon’s voice study. The only real solution at this point is to ditch your Amazon devices altogether, but adjusting these privacy settings should hopefully help keep unnecessary third parties out of your business a little bit.

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https://lifehacker.com/prevent-amazon-from-eavesdropping-on-your-alexa-convers-1833974108

2019-04-12 13:30:00Z
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The chat feature may soon return to Facebook’s mobile app - TechCrunch

Facebook upset millions upon millions of users five years ago when it removed chat from its core mobile app and forced them to download Messenger to communicate privately with friends. Now it looks like it might be able to restore the option inside the Facebook app.

That’s according to a discovery from researcher Jane Manchun Wong who discovered an unreleased feature that brings limited chat features back into the core social networking app. Wong’s finding suggests that, at this point, calling, photo sharing and reactions won’t be supported inside the Facebook app chat feature, but it remains to be seen if that is simply because it is currently in development.

It is unclear whether the feature will ship to users at all since this is a test. Messenger, which has over 1.3 billion monthly users, will likely stick but this change would give users other options for chatting to friends.

We’ve contacted Facebook for comment, although we’re yet to hear back from the company. We’ll update this story with any comment that the company does share.

As you’d expect, the discovery has been greeted with cheers from many users who were disgruntled when Facebook yanked chat from the app all those years ago. I can’t help but wonder, however, if there are more people today who are content with using Messenger to chat without the entire Facebook service bolted on. Given all of Facebook’s missteps over the past year or two, consumer opinion of the social network has never been lower, which raises the appeal of using it to connect with friends but without engaging its advertising or newsfeed.

Wong’s finding comes barely a month after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sketched out a plan to pivot the company’s main focus to groups and private conversation rather than its previously public forum approach. That means messaging is about to become its crucial social graph, so why not bring it back to the core Facebook app? We’ll have to wait and see, but the evidence certainly shows Facebook is weighing the merits of such a move.

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https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/12/facebook-mobile-app-chat/

2019-04-12 11:27:06Z
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Facebook is exploring a change to its main app that users might actually enjoy - Phone Arena

Facebook's strategy to achieve world domination with multiple social networking services and messaging apps hasn't always been very coherent and predictable, but it seems Mark Zuckerberg wants to bring together the resources and capabilities of Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp soon enough.

Considering this controversial plan that's sending shivers down the spine of privacy advocates while no doubt also facing scrutiny from regulatory bodies around the world, it's certainly not surprising to hear the main Facebook mobile app could regain its messaging functionality before long. The change is already being internally tested, according to Jane Manchun Wong, a Twitter user that's been making serious waves of late with her abilities to uncover unreleased features in beta versions of popular services like Facebook.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean a public comeback of the app's "Chats" section is right around the corner. In fact, the feature may never return to the masses, as companies often try out many different things behind closed doors that don't ultimately materialize. But given Zuckerberg's reported intention to merge Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, we're ready to bet this is one of those things that will move out of testing and in the public eye relatively quickly.

It's also one of the few features that could come out of this app unification that users actually seem excited about. For the time being, it looks like the "Chats" section inside the main Facebook app only contains "basic" messaging functionalities. Namely, the ability to send and receive messages, while reactions, calls, and photos might remain exclusive to Messenger. Unless of course this is still early days of testing and Facebook plans to bring every little aspect of Messenger to its core app later on.

By the way, this absolutely does not mean the standalone Messenger app is going away. As of last September, 1.3 billion people around the world used that product every month after a 2011 launch and a 2014 split from the main Facebook app. While there's obviously major overlap between the two's user bases, some folks probably prefer to keep the tools separate or only use one. Facebook is likely to respect that going forward.

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https://www.phonearena.com/news/facebook-app-messenger-functionality-comeback-testing_id115244

2019-04-12 10:22:03Z
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This four-inch antenna could let you text from deep underground - Engadget

Dawn Harmer/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

There's a reason that scuba divers use sign language and that caves and tunnels create radio dead zones. The laws of physics prevent radio signals from penetrating materials like water, soil and stone, and that's been a frustrating limitation of modern wireless communication. Now, the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory might have a solution: a four-inch-tall, pocket-sized antenna that emits very low frequency (VLF) radiation.

Unlike radio waves, which are used for radio broadcasts, radar and navigation systems, VLF radiation wavelengths can travel thousands of miles beyond the horizon and hundreds of feet through the ground and water. This isn't the first time VLF radiation has been used to break through physical barriers. But the new antenna is much smaller and could be used to build transmitters that are only a few pounds. That makes it appealing for military rescue and defense missions.

The SLAC-led team shared its work in Nature Communications today. According to SLAC, in tests, the new antenna produced VLF radiation 300 times more efficiently than previous compact antennas and transmitted data with almost 100 times more bandwidth. That could enable data transfer rates of more than 100 bits per second -- enough to send a simple text. While that might not sound like much, it could make life-saving communication with submarines and deep bunkers or mines possible.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/12/slac-antenna-vlf-radiation/

2019-04-12 09:00:31Z
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This four-inch antenna could let you text from deep underground - Engadget

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/12/slac-antenna-vlf-radiation/

2019-04-12 09:00:03Z
CAIiEK7F7aG4YKSZxlf-bsFHCMgqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowwOjjAjDp3xswicOyAw