Monthly Archives: October 2018

On September 15, 2008, Stack Overflow’s public beta went live. It is now ten years old. Stack Overflow is a community in which developers can learn and share their programming knowledge. Today, it’s the largest and most trusted website where programmers share information and code, and thereby develop their understanding, and by extension careers.

Throughout the ten years, 9.3 million users have provided 25 million answers to 16 million questions. The answers provided have been searched and found 12.3 billion times by other developers in need. This site has created a space where developers are not embarrassed to ask questions and can get help, enabling them to learn more and faster. Solutions can even be found in different languages to be accessible for all.

Stack Overflow is currently working on ways to include new users and further develop their platform. They have an active blog and are developing new business services, such as team StackOverflow for teams and recruitment offerings.

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It looks like Samsung will finally reveal their foldable smartphone concept in November. In addition, it has been reported that Samsung are working toward larger foldable displays, for bigger devices such as laptops.

Creating reliable foldable displays could transform the market for 2-in-1 devices. Current laptops have set a new trend with the ability to flip or twist into tablet modes, but having a foldable display could bring additional benefits to both personal and professional use.

“Like foldable smartphones, Samsung is collaborating with display makers to develop laptops with foldable displays that will not just simply fold in and out but create new value and user experience, amid the changing market trends for laptops,” said Lee Min-cheol, vice president at marketing for PCs at Samsung.

Samsung hasn’t revealed which companies they are working with, or any expected date for a prototype or retail device. Nonetheless, the releases from Samsung don’t stop, recently they have unveiled an ARM-powered Surface-like 2-in-1 Laptop, complete with LTE connectivity and the promise of up to 20 hours battery life.

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The latest version of Google’s browser, Chrome 70 is out now on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

New updates have been made which reverse certain features, such as unexpected automatic logins to Google accounts, which did not go down well with users.

Security experts claimed this feature undermined user privacy, as the browser would log in automatically to all Google accounts if just one of their apps were accessed. This was a concern to many as once logged in a user’s data, including passwords and history, would be connected to the browser
Within the settings of Chrome 70 there is an option to stop this automatica sig in under “Allow Chrome Sign-in”. It should be highlighted that this is an “opt-out” feature meaning users will still be automatically signed in by Chrome if they are unaware of this feature as part of the latest update.

Alongside updating Chrome 69’s controversial features, Chrome 70 also brings support for Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, on Windows. These allow such services as Spotify to be more easily accessed from Windows.

Chrome 70 also includes a new video codec — AV1 — which is intended to succeed VP9 by offering much better compression, and thus better performance and less data usage on mobile.
Chrome’s interface has been updated to more clearly explain what’s syncing, as well as changes to how the browser clears cookies so that Google service cookies will now be deleted as well as third party sites.

If you’re a Chrome user then you can update your browser now by copying and pasting “chrome://settings/help” into the address bar. Otherwise the browser should automatically prompt you to update over the next few days.

Google+ incurred a data breach which exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of users. It was claimed that developers could obtain data such as, full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status, but did not include phone numbers, messages or posts.

Google+ is a social networking service, launched by Google in 2011, as a possible competitor to Facebook. Google+ enables sharing and interaction with other users, it also integrates some Google services, for example, YouTube.

Google allegedly opted not to disclose the data breach for fear of drawing regulatory scrutiny and reputational damage. People briefed on the incident have said that outside developers had potential access to private data between 2015 and March 2018 – which is a significant duration.

Data on Google is available to outside developers through over 130 different channels known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. These tools usually require a user’s permission to access any information but they can be misused. Google said it plans to tighten the access of data it provides to outside developers through APIs, however, restricting access to APIs will likely have implications to some developers helping Google to build useful apps.

Due to the data breach, new data privacy measures have been announced including, significantly, the permanent closure of all consumer functionality of Google+. The move effectively destroys Google’s attempt to directly rival Facebook in a social media sense.

This closure is part of a broader review of privacy practices, with the company determining that it needs tighter controls on several of its major products, and comes at a time when the handling, security and privacy of personal data by major platforms and providers seems to be regularly in the news.

Microsoft has announced they will launch a new mirroring app for Android to Windows 10. This is an element of Microsoft´s ¨Your Phone¨ app which debuts this week, however, the mirroring aspect is suggested to appear next year.

With this, you will be able to easily mirror your phone straight onto Windows 10, allowing you to simply manage or work on anything from your phone. A full list of your Android apps will appear which you can click to open remotely.

Microsoft has already taken steps to align Android as the mobile equivalent Operating System, with software enabling a connection between the two. The new mirroring app is an exciting step towards deeper integration between Microsoft and Android.

Microsoft Launcher is another way to bridge Android which brings their services and connectivity to the home screen. It’s a popular launcher that is frequently updated, and supports the Windows 10 Timeline feature that lets you resume apps and sites across devices.

Microsoft launched the last Windows Mobile device, the Lumia 950,three years ago, which completely failed. It now seems that they are embracing Android as their mobiles’ new version of Windows. Bringing Android and Windows 10 together shows an understanding of consumer behaviour, and may prove a way to keep users relying on Windows as much as their mobile devices.

It has been announced that 50 million Facebook users have been subjected to their personal information being exposed to attackers. The hackers could obtain access tokens which can allow access and full control of user profiles and linked apps. It remains unclear what the attackers were able to gain and who was affected. Additionally, Facebook are still unable to confirm the exact method of the breach and the culprit.

The company advised users they had been logged out for protection and stated there is no need to change passwords:

“To protect your security, we may have recently logged you out of your Facebook account. On September 25th, 2018, we discovered an attack on our system where attackers stole Facebook access tokens. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that attackers could then have used to take over other people’s accounts. By logging people out, we prevent attackers from using the tokens to access these accounts.

We don’t know yet if anyone’s Facebook information was accessed, but we wanted to let you know what we’re doing to protect your account. We’re continuing to investigate the situation and have informed law enforcement about the issue. If we find that more people have been affected, we’ll immediately log them out and then let them know what happened.

If you’ve been logged out, you will need to log back into your account to continue using Facebook or other apps you log into using Facebook. There’s no need for anyone to change their passwords. But if you’re having trouble logging back into your account, learn what you can do.”

Facebook was initially not forthcoming about this massive data breach and allegedly tried to conceal the news. Over the weekend, users were sent a notice regarding the breach, however this was titled “An Important Security Update”. It has been reported that Facebook may face a $1.63 billion dollar fine under the GDPR if it is shown that they “did not do enough to safeguard their users’ data”.

Announcements of this breach follows a privacy scandal investigation which found that advertisers can obtain phone numbers used in two-factor authentications (which claim to make accounts more secure). Several times this year in congressional hearings, lawmakers have suggested that the government will need to intervene if the social network is unable to get tighter control of its service.

Privacy scandals are becoming an increasing concern. This reminds us how vulnerable our personal information is on the internet. Civil liberties and digital rights groups are acting for tech companies to minimise the amount of data they store and argue for tighter laws and safeguards. Nonetheless, individuals should be aware of the risks and have a responsibility for the data they choose to share.

Read Facebook’s report here