A mistake saw British iPhone users yesterday receive a range of severe weather alerts, one of them citing “severe high temperatures” of 39F (4C). Some of the alerts warned of a “significant threat to life” …
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will now be going after more scammers after it closed a significant loophole in the law.
The agency says the expanded scope of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) will be of particular benefit to seniors, who disproportionately fall victim to fake tech support calls …
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month announced a review of the customer service offered by ISPs (internet service providers), stating that this was often so poor it made it hard for consumers to switch providers.
But ISPs have responded through a lobbying group, claiming that they offer “effective and user-friendly” customer service and therefore new regulations are not needed …
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Some 11,000 Starbucks stores in North America have been hit by a ransomware attack on one of its largest IT providers. Two UK supermarket chains have also been affected by the security breach, and car-maker Ford says it is trying to determine whether its own operations have been affected …
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Back in June, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a new rule, under which carriers will have to unlock your iPhone or Android smartphone within 60 days of activation.
Two of the biggest US carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile, are now arguing against this, claiming that it’s consumers who will suffer if they are forced to comply …
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At a time when you can ask AI to modify an existing photo in almost any way you please, or even ask it to generate a completely artificial image, can we ever trust photos again?
Apple is working to address the issue in two ways, and many of us are hoping it will also join an emerging new standard for content authenticity …
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TikTok isn’t the first place I’d think of in relation to the concept of the wisdom of crowds, but it seems I may be underestimating the streaming video app …
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Update on October 21: The hackers still have access to support tickets and the email addresses of the users who submitted them, and are currently sending replies.
An Internet Archive data breach has been confirmed by the organisation, which has also been suffering Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. The home of the Wayback Machine was previously attacked back in May …
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A new survey reveals that almost half of Americans have forgotten to cancel a trial subscription. It also corroborates earlier findings that we’re now spending around $1,000 a year on subscription services.
The survey comes as the FCC announced new rules ensuring that companies can’t use deceptive practices to hook us into taking out subscriptions, nor make it hard to cancel them …
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A “click to cancel” law was last month passed in California, and now the FTC has ratified a federal rule designed to achieve the same goal.
The idea of both is to force companies to make it as easy to cancel an online or app subscription as it is to sign up in the first place. Both were introduced in response to sketchy practices by companies designed to make it as difficult as possible to unsubscribe …
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I’m very late to the sit-stand desk party, I know. My colleague Jeff Benjamin first made the switch way back in 2016, and Apple did the same for all its Apple Park employees in 2018.
I’d so far been using a large custom-made desk, but there are two reasons that now seemed a good time to make a switch …
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You’d think that dating apps would help people find better partners, given that they allow daters to expand their dating pool beyond the people they meet organically, but new research suggests that isn’t the case.
The research even suggests that online dating may have negative effects on society as a whole, by reducing social mobility …
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Podcasting is getting tougher for those who don’t already have a significant following, says a new report, as a few big names take most of the cash and get most of the audience.
Recent data shows that the top 25 podcasts reach almost half of regular US listeners, and the top 100 shows reach more than 60% of the total podcast audience. But it also shows that high-profile deals don’t always work out …
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Cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt – who runs the HaveIBeenPwned website – predicted that the CrowdStrike failure would set a record as the largest IT outage in history, and the numbers seem to back him up.
Cyber insurance company Parametrix has put together some estimates of the cost of the outage, with healthcare companies worst hit, and airlines not far behind …
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A T-Mobile class action lawsuit has been filed by customers on plans with a lifetime price guarantee. The carrier broke that apparent promise by cancelling legacy plans, and switching them to a more expensive one.
The lawsuit relates to a number of plans sold with the promise that “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay” …
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An Adobe exec is quoted as describing its hidden pricing strategy as being “a bit like heroin.” The remark was revealed when the government released its unredacted complaint, which accuses the company of deliberately making it hard to cancel a Creative Cloud subscription.
The exec acknowledged customer anger at the way the company made its contractual terms hard to understand, but said that improving this would result in “taking a big business hit” …
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The House Homeland Security Committee has written to CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, asking him to testify before Congress. The letter says the committee wants Kurtz to explain how the global IT outage happened, and what steps it is taking to prevent any repetition.
The demand comes as companies around the world struggle to recover from the global IT outage, with Delta saying that it has cancelled 4,000 flights since Friday and expects disruption to continue for another couple of days …
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The sheer scale of the global IT outage caused by a faulty software update has left many wondering how one update to one company’s security software could have such massive impact.
Ironically, the effect of the CrowdStrike flaw has been almost identical to the very thing it’s intended to prevent …
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A huge mistake by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has caused a global IT outage on a massive scale, with airlines, banks, health services, and more affected – including some 911 centers.
United, Delta, and American Airlines are among the airlines who have been forced to ground flights. Broadcaster Sky News was taken off-air for several hours. Many retailers have been unable to accept payments. In short, it’s chaos out there …
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The Department of Energy has announced that it is funding 1,000 battery drop-off points across the US, where people will be able to hand in not just batteries but also smartphones and other electronic devices which are no longer worth anything on the resale or trade-in market …
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The Unofficial Apple Weblog, more commonly referred to as TUAW, has made a return from the dead, almost a decade after it was closed down. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing …
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Incoming students at Eton – the most famous of Britain’s private boarding schools, and whose alumni include many of the country’s prime ministers – are being told that they must leave their iPhones at home for the whole school year.
Their SIM will be transferred to a Nokia dumbphone which is only capable of phone calls and texts (and, I guess, Snake) …
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A new breed of scambaiting AI systems are now being officially used by telecoms companies to protect their customers from fraud. The systems use more sophisticated versions of Lenny, a delightful simulation of a rambling old man keen to engage in lengthy conversation …
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A deal between the UK and US has seen Wikileaks founder Julian Assange freed from a British jail. A plea deal was agreed with the US Department of Justice which will see him serve no prison time in the US …
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