Technology - Google News |
- Researchers, cybersecurity agency urge action by Microsoft cloud database users - Reuters
- This Week in Apps: Developers sound off on App Store settlement, OnlyFans’ flip-flop, Snap’s new camera - TechCrunch
- Apple Announces Free Repair Program for Some iPhone 12 Models With Receiver Issues - Gizmodo
| Researchers, cybersecurity agency urge action by Microsoft cloud database users - Reuters Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:28 PM PDT /cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/N45WXQTJYFIIBNBHNKPEHHVXO4.jpg) A Microsoft logo is pictured on a store in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Aug 28 (Reuters) - Researchers who discovered a massive flaw in the main databases stored in Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Azure cloud platform on Saturday urged all users to change their digital access keys, not just the 3,300 it notified this week. As first reported by Reuters, researchers at a cloud security company called Wiz discovered this month they could have gained access to the primary digital keys for most users of the Cosmos DB database system, allowing them to steal, change or delete millions of records. read more Alerted by Wiz, Microsoft rapidly fixed the configuration mistake that would have made it easy for any Cosmos user to get into other customers' databases, then notified some users Thursday to change their keys. In a blog post Friday, Microsoft said it warned customers which had set up Cosmos access during the weeklong research period. It found no evidence that any attackers had used the same flaw to get into customer data, it noted. "Our investigation shows no unauthorized access other than the researcher activity," Microsoft wrote. "Notifications have been sent to all customers that could be potentially affected due to researcher activity," it said, perhaps referring to the chance that the technique had leaked from Wiz. "Though no customer data was accessed, it is recommended you regenerate your primary read-write keys," it said. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency used stronger language in a bulletin Friday, making clear it was speaking not just to those notified. "CISA strongly encourages Azure Cosmos DB customers to roll and regenerate their certificate key," the agency said. Experts at Wiz, founded by four veterans of Azure's in-house security team, agreed. "In my estimation, it's really hard for them, if not impossible, to completely rule out that someone used this before," said one of the four, Wiz Chief Technology Officer Ami Luttwak. At Microsoft he developed tools for logging cloud security incidents. Microsoft did not give a direct answer when asked if it had comprehensive logs for the two years when the Jupyter Notebook feature was misconfigured, or had used another way to rule out access abuse. "We expanded our search beyond the researcher's activities to look for all possible activity for current and similar events in the past," said spokesman Ross Richendrfer, declining to address other questions. Wiz said Microsoft had worked closely with it on the research but had declined to say how it could be sure earlier customers were safe. "It's terrifying. I really hope than no one besides us found this bug," said one of the lead researchers on the project at Wiz, Sagi Tzadik. Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. |
| Posted: 28 Aug 2021 10:30 AM PDT Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices. Apps aren't just a way to pass idle hours — they're also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that's up 27% year-over-year. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too. Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters. Changes to the App Store ecosystem dominated the headlines this week. In South Korea, legislators are set to vote on a landmark bill that could end Apple and Google's payment exclusivity on their app stores. Meanwhile, Apple dropped commissions to 15% for news publishers' apps, if they agree to participate in the Apple News ecosystem. Apple also agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit from U.S. app developers that, pending court approval, will introduce a few changes to App Store rules — the most notable being that it allows developers to communicate with their users outside of their iOS apps to tell them about other purchase options.  Image Credits: TechCrunch As it turns out, this App Store settlement agreement isn't really as earth-shattering as some headlines may have made it seem. For starters, Apple had already slightly adjusted its App Store policies in June when it clarified developers were allowed to communicate through email and text with their customers about other purchasing methods besides Apple's own in-app purchases. But this was only permitted if developers weren't using contact information obtained from within the app. With the new settlement, that changes a bit. Developers can now take the smallest of steps forward as they are allowed to inform users — well, users who have consented to receive offers via email or other communications — about alternative methods of payment besides in-app purchases. That means developers will also have to collect users' contact information from their app where users may already be logging in using third-party credentials like Facebook's, Google's or even Apple's own sign-on systems. (Apple's system, of course, has an option to hide your email address from developers. Wow, someone was thinking ahead there!) But this change wasn't what developers want. They actually want to point users from inside their app to their website where they could market their own payment and subscription options — possibly even at a reduced rate since they wouldn't have to share a commission with Apple. Even if Apple allowed this more permissive action, it's likely many consumers would continue to use in-app purchases for the sake of convenience. The real concern on Apple's part is that such a change could redirect significant income from the App Store's biggest moneymakers, like games, to payment systems outside the App Store. The settlement agreement proposes other changes as well, such as the expansion of price points from fewer than 100 to more than 500. Apple also agreed to publish a transparency report on the App Review process. (This could potentially be an even bigger deal than the App Store rule changes, as it could push Apple to address some of the outstanding issues with erroneous rejections, app scams and delays.) And Apple said it would establish a $100 million fund for U.S. developers less than $1 million per calendar year, which will pay out in a range of $250 to $30,000, depending on the size of the developers' app business. Developer responses to the settlement Image Credits: Apple Apple put out the news of the settlement in its usual style of a polished press release, albeit one buried late on a Thursday night with reporter briefings scheduled for hours where they could easily get missed. Apple, in its release, touted the "even better business opportunity" this represented for developers whose feedback it "appreciates" and whose "ideas… helped inform the agreement." We wanted to hear what developers thought about this change. Here's a sampling of feedback from the community: Ryan Jones, founder and CEO of iOS flight tracker Flighty (whose Twitter thread offers a good summary of the news): "I just keep praying Apple will wake up and change the rules themselves but today wasn't that day. Its not a great idea to let 70-year-old bureaucrats who get tech support from their grandkids write technology ecosystem law. I just have to believe Apple is realizing this is a ticking time bomb – they have to change it themselves, or we'll all pay the consequences for years to come. There's real resentment building the way Apple PR keeps basically gaslighting us. Anyone who can read critically can immediately tell there's zero substance to this announcement. They need to step up and make changes before courts do it for them." James Thomson, indie developer and creator of PCalc app: "On the face of it, it doesn't seem like the announcements are particularly significant for us. It's mainly clarification on existing rules that were already in place. It's still not permitted to link within your app to an alternative payment mechanism, but you can at least email the customer to tell them about it, if they have opted-in. It's not 100% clear to me that wasn't allowed in the first place. The developer fund is also U.S. only, so that doesn't help us. Overall, I don't see this doing very much to change the opinion of those calling for antitrust legislation." Becky Hansmeyer, indie developer behind YarnBuddy and Snapthread apps: "Apple has made zero concessions in this settlement. App Store search and discovery are still terrible, developers still can't reference outside payment methods within their apps, and App Review is still a needlessly draconian process that discourages innovation and punishes good actors while letting scams run rampant. The 'Small Developer Assistance Fund' is nothing more than payouts to class members as a form of self-punishment. Nothing about this is good for developers, or consumers." David Heinemeier Hansson, Basecamp co-founder, developer of HEY email app and noted Apple critic: "…The trophy of this settlement, as presented in the press, is supposedly that developers can now tell their customers where to buy services outside the app. Except no, that's not actually what's happening! Apple is simply 'clarifying' that companies can send an email to their customers, if they've gotten permission to do so, on an opt-in basis. That email may include information about how to buy outside the app. So the steering provisions of the App Store, that developers are not allowed to tell users inside their app or on the signup screen about other purchasing choices than IAP – the only places that actually matter! – is being cemented with this 'clarification.' It draws a thicker line, asserts Apple's right to steer in the first place, and offers the meaningless concession of opt-in email, which was something developers had already been doing." Kosta Eleftheriou, FlickType developer who's also suing Apple over lost revenues due to App Store scams: "Apple's draconian anti-steering provisions remain in place just as before. This settlement is a meaningless concession for developers who all see what PR game Apple is playing. And Apple labelling the restitution they've agreed to pay as an 'assistance' fund is deceitful and shameful: Developers aren't asking for help, they are asking for fairness." Jacob Eiting, CEO of RevenueCat, which offers app developers a suite of tools for their subscription-based apps: "The changes proposed in the settlement are largely a repackaging of existing work Apple has done, a much smaller change than it seemed from Apple's press release. They are rolling back one recently enacted anti-steering rule, but leaving all other anti-steering rules in place. The settlement also puts into place commitments to programs that most likely weren't going anywhere anyway. They've also agreed to pay out $100M to small developers as a settlement, acting as if it's some magnanimous gesture. However, it's in exchange for developers waiving any claims of unfairness in Apple's fees for the last 6 years. Seeing how good Apple has gotten at patting themselves on the back, this will likely be dragged out any time Apple needs evidence of developer friendliness for years to come." Aaron Pearce, indie iOS developer behind a suite of HomeKit-connected apps including HomeRun, HomeCam, HomePass and others: "To me, there weren't any real changes that matter. These are mostly clarifications of existing rules or statements. The pledge to keep the Small Business program is nice, but no one expected that to go away. Keeping App Store search the same was a near guarantee previously. The only real change is introducing more pricing points that I cannot see helping developers in a huge way in the immediate future. The $100 million fund is a lawsuit settlement, not Apple being generous to help developers. I find the PR spin on these 'changes' to be disingenuous. They aren't fixing the core problems with the App Store that small or large developers face when they are simply trying to ship products to their customers." CAF, a nonprofit representing developers including Epic Games, Spotify, Tile and dozens of others pushing for regulation of app stores: "Apple's sham settlement offer is nothing more than a desperate attempt to avoid the judgment of courts, regulators, and legislators worldwide. This offer does nothing to address the structural, foundational problems facing all developers, large and small, undermining innovation and competition in the app ecosystem. Allowing developers to communicate with their customers about lower prices outside of their apps is not a concession and further highlights Apple's total control over the app marketplace. If this settlement is approved, app makers will still be barred from communicating about lower prices or offering competing payment options within their apps. We will not be appeased by empty gestures and will continue our fight for fair and open digital platforms." Samantha John, CEO and co-founder of coding app Hopscotch: "Nothing changed. You were always able to write whatever you wanted in your emails or website. They still are not letting you link to or mention an alternate payment processor inside your app. It's a weird news story because it made me hopeful when I saw the headlines but nothing had actually happened." Overall, it's seems developers aren't impressed with this minor concession and it doesn't seem this settlement will do anything to stop the push for increased App Store legislations. Apple Platform Updates
 Image Credits: App Store screenshot Google Platform Updates
E-commerce Shopify and TikTok for business with TikTok image of Kylie Jenner. Image Credits: Shopify
Augmented Reality
Fintech
Social/Creators
 Image Credits: Snap Camera Shortcuts
 Image Credits: Snap Screenshot
Messaging Image Credits: Messenger
Streaming & Entertainment Image Credits: Movies Anywhere
Gaming Image Credits: Netflix
Health & Fitness Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Transportation
Productivity Image Credits: Edison
Utilities
Government & Policy Image Credits: TechCrunch
Security & Privacy
💰 Design and editing app Picsart raised $130 million Series C led by Softbank with participation from Sequoia, GSquared, Tribe Capital, Graph Ventures and Siguler Guff & Company. The round values Picsart at a near $1.5 billion valuation. The app has over 1 billion installs across 180 countries and more than 150 million MAUs. 💰 Mexican fintech Flink raised a $57 million Series B round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The app allows consumers to participate in the stock market, and has grown to 1.6 million users, 85% of whom are first-time investors. 💰 African mobile payments platform OPay raised $400 million in funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital and Softbank Ventures Asia. The round values the business at $2 billion. 🤝 Meditation app Headspace announced plans to merge with on-demand mental health service Ginger, valuing the combined business of $3 billion with a headcount of more than 800. 💰 London-based EV charging platform Bonnet raised $1.3 million (£920,000 total in new funding, including £850,000 in an equity financing round led by Ascension Ventures, with investors from Imperial College London and APX. It also won an additional £70,000 grant from Innovate UK and OZEV. The app gives drivers real-time data on charger availability and functionality and seller bundles of cheaper charging, which can be used across the network. 💰 European stock trading app Shares raised $10 million in a pre-product seed round led by Singular for its app that would allow users to trade 1,500 stocks without paying fees, as well as start conversations with friends and learn from experts. 💰 Tencent has entered advanced stages of talks to lead a new $20-35 million investment round in Gurgaon-headquartered podcasts and audiobooks app Pocket FM. The terms being discussed would value the three-year-old company around $75-$100 million. 💰 Estonia-based grocery delivery app Membo, which serves a European audience, snagged Y Combinator backing and will present during the incubator's Summer 2021 Demo Day next week.
Popcorn
A new startup called Popcorn wants to make work communication more fun and personal by offering a way for users to record short video messages, or "pops," that can be used for any number of purposes in place of longer emails, texts, Slack messages or Zoom calls. While there are plenty of other places to record short-form video these days, most of these exist in the social media space, which isn't appropriate for a work environment. With Popcorn, you can instead create a short video and then send a URL to that video anywhere you would want to add a personal touch to your message — like for outreach on LinkedIn or a quick check-in with a colleague, for example. The app is currently a free download on iPhone, iPad and Mac. (Read the full review here on TechCrunch.) Luma
A new iPad drawing app called Luma connects the screen with real-world play by allowing kids (or anyone) to attach paper to their iPad then trace the lit-up drawing using a pen or pencil. Each drawing will connect to the previous one and can be colored in however the user sees fit. As kids draw, they'll bring an audio story to life for a more immersive and creative experience. The app was built by Jonathan Wegener (Timehop co-founder, Snapchat designer), Bernardo Nunez (YouTube), Jeffrey Neafsey (Microsoft, Apple), Britt Hatzius and Ant Hampton. It's backed by the founders of YouTube, Oculus, Eventbrite, Tumblr, HQ Trivia, Google Photos, Venmo, Tinder and more. LOVE Image Credits: LOVE A London-headquartered startup called LOVE, valued at $17 million following its pre-seed funding, aims to redefine how people stay in touch with close family and friends. The company is launching a messaging app that offers a combination of video calling as well as asynchronous video and audio messaging, in an ad-free, privacy-focused experience with a number of bells and whistles, including artistic filters and real-time transcription and translation features. But LOVE's bigger differentiator may not be its product alone, but rather the company's mission. LOVE aims for its product direction to be guided by its user base in a democratic fashion as opposed to having the decisions made about its future determined by an elite few at the top of some corporate hierarchy. In addition, the company's longer-term goal is ultimately to hand over ownership of the app and its governance to its users. (Read the full review here on TechCrunch.)
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| Apple Announces Free Repair Program for Some iPhone 12 Models With Receiver Issues - Gizmodo Posted: 28 Aug 2021 05:53 PM PDT  While some of us have mostly abandoned calls for endless text messages, there are others who actually like or need to make and receive phone calls. That's kind of hard to do with some iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models right now though, which Apple says emit no sound when people make or receive calls. Good news is Apple will fix these phones for free. Apple announced a worldwide service program for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models—not including the iPhone 12 mini or the iPhone 12 Pro Max—with no sound issues on Friday. The company explained that "a very small percentage" of the devices may experience sound issues due to a faulty component on the receiver module, or earpiece. Apple said phones with this issue had been manufactured between October 2020 and April 2021. This is the first service program for the iPhone 12, according to Apple's website. If your phone has this issue, Apple or an Apple authorized service provider will analyze it to determine whether it's eligible for a free repair. You can also choose to send Apple your phone for repair using its mail-in service. The service program will cover iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro devices for two years after you bought it. However, if your receiver's messed up, I imagine you have a deep desire to get it fixed as soon as possible. Also, FYI, getting your receiver fixed doesn't extend your phone's standard one-year Apple warranty. Apple points out that if your phone has any damage that impedes the repair, such as a cracked screen, you'll have to get that fixed before it can address your earpiece's issues. In some cases, you'll have to pay for that additional repair. All in all, even if you don't make a lot of phone calls, like me, you shouldn't ignore a phone with this issue. In my case, it could be the delivery person trying to find my door to hand me my dinner. No dinner, no fun. |
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