How One Piece of Hardware Took Down a $6 Trillion Stock Market

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg on how a data storage and distribution device brought down Tokyo’s $6 trillion stock market: At 7:04 a.m. on an autumn Thursday in Tokyo, the stewards of the world’s third-largest equity market realized they had a problem. A data device critical to the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading system had malfunctioned, and the automatic…

Singapore Becomes First Country To Use Facial Verification For a National ID Service

“Singapore will be the first country in the world to use facial verification in its national identity scheme,” reports the BBC: The biometric check will give Singaporeans secure access to both private and government services. The government’s technology agency says it will be “fundamental” to the country’s digital economy. It has been trialled with a bank and is now being rolled…

‘Google App Engine’ Abused to Create Unlimited Phishing Pages

Google’s cloud-based service platform for developing and hosting web apps “can be abused to deliver phishing and malware while remaining undetected by leading enterprise security products,” reports Bleeping Computer, citing a startling discovery by security researcher Marcel Afrahim: A Google App Engine subdomain does not only represent an app, it represents an app’s version, the service name, project ID, and region…

The Fairphone 3+ Is a Repairable Dream That Takes Beautiful Photos

The Fairphone 3+ is a $550 phone with modular parts that can easily be swapped out by users themselves. “In many ways, a Fairphone is the antithesis of the iPhone,” writes Catie Keck via Gizmodo. “It doesn’t benefit most retailers to allow you to easily repair your own stuff, meaning that a lot of gizmos these days — particularly higher-end electronics…

YouTube Will Use Tech Updates To Better Enforce Age Restrictions

YouTube said Tuesday that it has updated its technology to enable the tech giant to better enforce its age restriction policies. From a report: The company has been criticized and penalized for its policies and architecture that displayed harmful content to kids and violated children’s data privacy. The company is announcing three new changes: It will begin using machine learning to…

Microsoft’s Xbox Expands, Buying ZeniMax Media and Fallout Maker Bethesda For $7.5 Billion

Microsoft’s Xbox team significantly expanded its list of game development studios on Monday, announcing the purchase of ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in cash. From a report: The entertainment company owns several industry-leading game developers, including Bethesda Softworks, the maker of the post-apocalyptic Fallout games and the fantasy series the Elder Scrolls. It also owns id Software, known for its Doom,…

Apple Introduces Redesigned iPad Air With A14 Chip, All-Screen Design, TouchID and USB-C

Apple today introduced a redesigned iPad Air that looks more like an iPad Pro, as well as an updated 8th-generation, entry-level iPad. MacRumors reports on the new iPad Air: Apple today introduced a redesigned iPad Air with slimmer bezels, paving the way for an all-screen design similar to recent iPad Pro models. In addition, the new iPad Air is the first…

Twelve Years Later, Apple Is Still Trying To Erase Mac.com Email Addresses

Apple is steadily removing references to the old @mac.com and slightly less old @me.com addresses from its support documents. AppleInsider reports: It used to be that if your email addressed ended in @mac.com, you were telling the world that you are an Apple user. Now while it’s only that part of the world which is extremely geeky, you’re actually telling them…

Are Apple’s Privacy Changes Hypocritical, Unfair to Facebook and Advertising Companies?

iPhone users will have to opt-in to tracking starting with iOS 14. Advertisers are “crying foul,” reports the Washington Post: [W]ith Apple under the antitrust spotlight, its privacy move has also been called a power move by an advertising industry that is scrambling to adjust to the changes, expected to be included in iOS 14, the company’s latest mobile operating system…

Kingpin Behind Massive Identity-Theft Service Says He’s Sorry

Krebs on Security tells the tale of Hieu Minh Ngo, who earned $3 million by selling the identity records he’d stolen from consumer data brokers (which included social security numbers and physical addresses). “He was selling the personal information on more than 200 million Americans,” one secret service agent tells the site, “and allowing anyone to buy it for pennies apiece.”…