TechDayLife

The iPhone has been around for over a decade now, yet somehow it feels like it’s been around for even longer. It controls nearly every aspect of our lives, from work to social media, and as such, we’ve spent a lot of time with it. That amount of usage may make it seem like we know everything about the iPhone, when in fact, there are a few little-known tricks that could make using the phone infinitely easier. I shuffled through my iPhone usage and found five tricks that I use on a daily basis and they make my life a lot easier. Keep in mind that some of these tricks may seem quite elementary, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who have no idea these tricks exist. Some of them will prove to be useful to you while others may not fancy your attention and that’s completely fine. Related:  New iPhones for 2018 are out – which is the best for you? Here are five tricks you need to know to master the iPhone. I will make this video and share it to my  cuckoo channel. ...

By Bijan Stephen on Oct 12 YouTube’s relationship with its creators has always been asymmetric; the platform necessarily has all of the power, and it’s not super transparent about the changes it makes that affect people who rely on the site for revenue. This January, for example,  YouTube announced  that it would now require creators who wanted to enter its Partner Program — which allows creators to earn money from the ads that run on their videos and from the YouTube Premium subscribers who watch their content — to have at least 4,000 hours of views in the last year and at least 1,000 subscribers. Now, YouTube has changed its Partner Program policies again — this time around video duplication, which, as is typical of YouTube, seems inconsistent in its enforcement. A few days ago, in a post on its help forum, YouTube gave an explanation to people who may have been removed from its Partner Program for “duplicative content,” which appears to have less to do with fair use an...

By Jacob Kastrenakes on Oct 12 Facebook detailed today exactly what type of information was accessed during a wide-scale hack last month. It included users’ names and contact info, and in many cases, personal details like religion, locations, and more. This data was viewed on 29 million people, and now Facebook is offering a way to see whether your account was broken into and what information was seen. If you visit Facebook’s Help Center , a notice at the bottom will explain whether your account was affected. If it was, it’ll state what information was taken. Of the 29 million users, 15 million had their name, email address, and phone number exposed (depending on what contact info was on their profile). For the other 14 million, that info was viewed along with additional profile info, including gender, religion, location, device info, locations you’ve been tagged in, and Pages you’ve liked. Another million users had access to their accounts stolen, but never used. The hackers d...

Yes, Facebook originally said 50 million accounts were improperly accessed. In September, a group of hackers used a flaw in Facebook’s “view as” feature to gain unauthorized access to millions of accounts — and today, the company released its most comprehensive statement yet on exactly what data was taken as part of the breach. Related:  Facebook's Breach will be Forgotten? DATA is Misused. According to today’s statement, the hackers stole access tokens for 30 million accounts (revised down from an initial estimate of 50 million), allowing them to gain complete access to the profiles. Of those 30 million, the hackers accessed basic contact information (name and either email or phone number) for 14 million accounts, and additional information including gender, religion, location, device information, and the 15 most recent searches for another 15 million accounts. No information was accessed for the remaining one million accounts. Related:  REMIND your hacked Facebook Lo...

This time instead of exposing users’ data, a Facebook bug erased it. A previously undisclosed Facebook glitch caused it to delete some users’ Live videos if they tried to post them to their Story and the News Feed after finishing their broadcast. Facebook wouldn’t say how many users or livestreams were impacted, but told the bug was intermittent and affected a minority of all Live videos. It’s since patched the bug and restored some of the videos, but is notifying some users with an apology that their Live videos have been deleted permanently. Related: REMIND your hacked Facebook Logins Available on DarkWeb just For $3.90 The bug raises the question of whether Facebook is a reliable place to share and store our memories and important moments. In March, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told congress regarding the Cambridge Analytica scandal that “We have a responsibility to protect your data – and if we can’t, then we don’t deserve to serve you.” Between that misappropriation of user biog...

Facebook has disabled accounts operated by a Russian business that the social network says scraped user data from its platform. The Russian company, SocialDataHub, advertises insights through publicly available information. According to Facebook, that includes information gleaned from its users. Related: REMIND your hacked Facebook Logins Available on DarkWeb just For $3.90 FACEBOOK SAID IT EXPECTS TO DISABLE MORE “As part of our efforts to protect people’s security, we have recently removed Social Data Hub (SDH), a Russian-linked social media firm, because they were scraping people’s information,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “This is a violation of our terms of service, and we’ve disabled more than 66 of SDH’s accounts, profiles, Pages, and apps from our service — and we expect to find and disable more.” In a statement, a SocialDataHub representative said that, in some circumstances, they provide “scoring on open data,” which can be found through a Google search. T...

NEW YORK—After an almost endless number of leaks, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL have finally been unleashed. After scavenging the show floor for info and some experience with the new handsets, we're back to talk impressions. The first thing you notice when you pick up either Pixel 3 is the back texture. The Pixel phones have traditionally had a two-tone look, accomplished in the past by a mostly metal back with a glass top. This year the back is all glass, but the two-tone look remains thanks to two different treatments to the glass. The top is bare, shiny glass and a fingerprint magnet, while the rest of the phone has a soft-touch, satin-like matte coating. Related: Unboxing Every Google Pixel 3 XL + Pixel 3 - Decentralized Cuckoo Video Player cuckoo://QmePwdr9wAPdNXs2Af736QMmVxrMtcgxsKAQeH2VG2ZMQo.video The coating feels great, but it doesn't seem very durable. There were already visible scratches on both of the demo units I photographed, which you can see, and it's...

By Russell Brandom on Oct 9 For months, Google has been trying to stay out of the way of the growing tech backlash, but yesterday, the dam finally broke with news of a bug in the rarely used Google+ network that exposed private information for as many as 500,000 users. Google found and fixed the bug back in March, around the same time the Cambridge Analytica story was heating up in earnest. But with the news breaking now, the damage is already spreading. The consumer version of Google+ is shutting down, German privacy regulators in Germany and the US are already looking into possible legal action, and former SEC officials are publicly speculating about what Google may have done wrong. The vulnerability itself seems to have been relatively small in scope. The heart of the problem was a specific developer API that could be used to see non-public information. But crucially, there’s no evidence that it actually was used to see private data, and given the thin user base, it’s not clear ho...

By Jon Porter on Oct 8 The UK’s High Court of Justice has blocked an attempt by a campaign group to sue Google for allegedly tracking millions of users without their consent, reports  BBC News . The group, “Google, You Owe Us,” claims that as many as 5.4 million users were affected by Google’s tracking between August 2011 and February 2012, and sought around £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in damages from the search giant. Google has already gotten into trouble as the result of the so-called “Safari Workaround,” which ignored user’s cookie settings within the Safari browser to track them regardless. Back in 2012, the company paid a $22.5 million fine to the FTC for “[misrepresenting] to Safari browser users how to avoid targeted advertising by Google.” At the time, the fine was the largest ever levied by the FTC. “WRONGFUL, AND A BREACH OF DUTY.” Despite this, it still wasn’t possible to proceed with the case in the UK, even as the justice who oversaw the cas...

Google is going to shut down the consumer version of Google+ over the next 10 months, the company writes in a blog post today. The decision follows the revelation of a previously undisclosed security flaw that exposed users’ profile data that was remedied in March 2018. Google says Google+ currently has “low usage and engagement” and that 90 percent of Google+ user sessions last less than five seconds. Still, the company plans to keep the service alive for enterprise customers who use it to facilitate conversation among co-workers. New features will be rolled out for that use case, the company says. Google is focusing on a “secure corporate social network,” which is odd considering this announcement comes alongside news that the company left profile details unprotected. Related:  Facebook's Breach will be Forgotten? DATA is Misused. IT’LL TAKE 10 MONTHS TO FULLY SHUT DOWN THE SERVICE In addition to sunsetting Google+, the company announced new privacy adjustments...

Google exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of users of its Google+ social network, the company announced in a blog post this morning. The news, originally reported by  The Wall Street Journal  ahead of Google’s announcement, means that Google+ profile information like name, email address, occupation, gender, and age were exposed, even when that data was listed as private and not public. However, Google says that it has no evidence to suggest any third-party developers were aware of the bug or abused it. The bug, affecting an API that was accessed by hundreds of developers, appears to have been active between 2015 and 2018. Related:  Facebook's Breach will be Forgotten? DATA is Misused. The company says it closed the bug in March 2018 shortly after learning of its existence. The  WSJ  reports that the company chose not to report it because of fear of “immediate regulatory interest” that would lump Google in with Facebook, acco...

By Zack Whittaker on Oct 7 Homeland Security has said it has “no reason to doubt” statements by Apple, Amazon and Supermicro denying allegations made in a Bloomberg report published earlier this week. It’s the first statement so far from the U.S. government on the report, casting doubt on the findings. Homeland Security’s statement echos near-identical comments from the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center. Bloomberg said, citing more than a dozen sources, that China installed tiny chips on motherboards built by Supermicro, which companies across the U.S. tech industry — including Amazon and Apple — have used to power servers in their datacenters. The chip can reportedly compromise data on the server, allowing China to spy on some of the world’s most wealthy and powerful companies. Apple, Amazon and Supermicro later published statements on their websites. Bloomberg said it’s sticking by its story. And yet, this latest twist isn’t likely to leave anyone less confused, days after th...

The Pixel 3 XL may have the honor of being the most leaked smartphone in history. So with just days to go before Google formally introduces the phone at its New York City event, it seems like we know nearly everything that’ll be announced. We’ve rounded up all the details that have leaked so far about the Pixel 3 XL and the smaller Pixel 3, along with all the details that are still rumored and a couple of the unknowns that we’re waiting to find out about on Tuesday. The event is happening on October 9th at 11AM ET, and we’ll be there to cover the news. NEW SCREENS The biggest physical difference on both the Pixel 3 and 3 XL is supposed to be their screens. The Pixel 3 is rumored to go from a traditional, squared-off 16:9 screen to a more modern 18:9 screen with thinner bezels and rounded corners. It’ll basically be like what you saw on all of last year’s flagship phones. The Pixel 3 XL will, of course, get a notch like any good 2018 flagship. That means more screen space, but, ...