Huge PS5 Leak Spills a Bunch of Info On Sony’s Reveal Event

A PS5 leak posted on 4Chan, which was later reposted on Reddit, spills a bunch of information on the PlayStation 5 reveal event which is expected to take place in February. According to the leak, the PS5 will be unveiled on February 5 at a PlayStation Meeting event for the media. “The console design, controller, UI/home screen, certain features, console specs,…

iPhones Can Now Be Used To Generate 2FA Security Keys For Google Accounts

Most modern iPhones running iOS 13 can now be used as a built-in phone security key for Google apps. 9to5Google reports: A built-in phone security key differs from the Google Prompt, though both essentially share the same UI. The latter push-based approach is found in the Google Search app and Gmail, while today’s announcement is more akin to a physical USB-C/Lightning…

Google Chrome To Hide Notification Spam Starting February 2020

Following in Mozilla’s footsteps, Google announced today plans to hide notification popup prompts inside Chrome starting next month, February 2020. ZDNet reports: According to a blog post published today, Google plans to roll out a “quieter notification permission UI that reduces the interruptiveness of notification permission requests.” The change is scheduled for Google Chrome 80, scheduled for release on February 4,…

Linus Torvalds Calls Blogger’s Linux Scheduler Tests ‘Pure Garbage’

On Wednesday Phoronix cited a blog post by C++ game developer Malte Skarupke claiming his spinlocks experiments had discovered the Linux kernel had a scheduler issue affecting developers bringing games to Linux for Google Stadia. Linus Torvalds has now responded:
The whole post seems to be just wrong, and is measuring something completely different than what the author thinks and claims it…

Google Releases Chrome 79 With New Features Including an Option To Freeze Tabs and Back-Forward Caching

Google today released Chrome 79 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and iOS users. This release comes with security and bug fixes, but also with new features such as built-in support for the Password Checkup tool, real-time blacklisting of malicious sites via the Safe Browsing API, general availability of Predictive Phishing protections, a ban on loading HTTPS “mixed content,” support…

Microsoft Announces Plan To Support DoH In Windows

New submitter Shad0wz writes: Microsoft’s Core Network team just announced they plan on supporting DoH in the Windows resolver. In the blog post, the company writes: Providing encrypted DNS support without breaking existing Windows device admin configuration won’t be easy. However, at Microsoft we believe that “we have to treat privacy as a human right. We have to have end-to-end cybersecurity…

Study of Over 11,000 Online Stores Finds ‘Dark Patterns’ on 1,254 sites

A large-scale academic study that analyzed more than 53,000 product pages on more than 11,000 online stores found widespread use of user interface “dark patterns” — practices meant to mislead customers into making purchases based on false or misleading information. from a report: The study — presented last week at the ACM CSCW 2019 conference — found 1,818 instances of dark…

Are Forced Subscriptions Driving 3D Users To Open Source Tools?

Slashdot reader dryriver writes: More and more professional 3D software like 3DMax, Maya, AutoCAD (Autodesk) and Substance Painter (Adobe) is now only available on a monthly or yearly subscription basis — you cannot buy any kind of perpetual license for these industry standard 3D tools anymore, cannot offline install or activate the tools, and the tools also phone home every few…

Chrome OS 78 Rolling Out With Picture-In-Picture Support For YouTube, Split Browser/Device Settings, More

The latest version of Chrome OS, version 78, adds separate browser and device settings, click-to-call, and picture-in-picture support for YouTube. It also introduces virtual desktop support for the operating system with a feature called Virtual Desks. 9to5Google reports: Chrome is getting another cross-device sharing feature after “Send this page” widely rolled in September. With “click-to-call,” you can right-click on phone number…

Essential Reveals Project Gem Smartphone With Very Long, Unusual Design

Andy Rubin, the controversial mobile industry executive who co-founded Android, left Google amid allegations of sexual misconduct while retaining a huge severance package, and went on to create the Essential Phone, has tweeted photos teasing an upcoming device with an elongated design and very tall UI composed of card-like apps. The Verge reports: It look extremely small in his hands, too….