Intel tells customers to stop installing Meltdown/Spectre patches due to 'unpredictable' reboot issues
The fallout from the Meltdown and Spectre bugs continues to plague Intel. The company has been hit with lawsuits, users complained about performance drops, and some users found that their computers were rendered unbootable. For people with Broadwell and Haswell chips, there was a problem with random reboots, and as a result of this -- some two weeks down the line -- Intel is now advising people to stop installing its patches.
Executive vice president Navin Shenoy says that the company is close to determining the root cause of the problem, apologized for reboots and "unpredictable system behaviour," and warns that customers should stop deploying the current version of the patches until an update is produced.
Amazon Go, the AI-powered, checkout-free store, is now open in Seattle
Today sees the opening of the first Amazon Go store. The online retailer is looking to change the face of real-world shopping with its AI-powered brick and mortar stores that are free from checkouts and time-consuming lines.
Anyone shopping in the new Seattle store will find that they are constantly monitored by cameras as they shop, with the camera monitoring which items they place in their baskets. Customers are automatically billed when they leave the store.
OnePlus admits that up to 40,000 accounts were affected by a credit card breach
Last week it emerged that OnePlus was conducting an investigation after a number of customers complained about fraudulent credit card charges. Now the company has given an update on the matter, saying that its website was attacked and a malicious script stealing credit card details was injected, affecting up to 40,000 people.
The company has issued an apology for the incident and says that it has contacted those it feels may have been directly affected. In a statement, OnePlus explains that over a two-month period, customers who entered their credit card details at oneplus.net may be at risk.
Amazon hikes monthly Prime fee by 18 percent
Amazon has just given people another reason to pay for their Prime subscriptions on an annual rather than a monthly basis. The company has increased the cost of a monthly subscription by $2 per month.
This is the first rise in Amazon Prime subscription pricing for a few years now, and the fact that the annual fee remains unchanged is a clear indication that Amazon is eager to lock customers into year-long packages.
Facebook to fight 'sensationalism, misinformation and polarization' with news trustworthiness surveys for users
Facebook has said time and time again that it will do more to fight the problem of fake news on the social network, and the company's latest idea is to simply ask users which news sources they know and trust.
In a post on his own Facebook page, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook will start to "ask people whether they're familiar with a news source and, if so, whether they trust that source." Seemingly blind to the idea that this could be open to abuse and manipulation, he says that this will shift the balance of the news that is displayed on the site.
Twitter admits that 670,000 people interacted with Russian propaganda bots during US election
Twitter has revealed that a total of 677,775 Americans followed accounts or liked tweets associated with Russian propaganda groups during the 2016 US election. The company does not reveal how many people saw the tweets posted by these accounts.
That Russia tried to use Twitter -- and other social networks -- to influence the outcome of the US election is hardly news, but there has been an ongoing investigation trying to determine the scale of the operation. In its latest announcement, Twitter also says that it closed 50,258 accounts with links to Russia.
Italy launches investigation into Samsung and Apple for slowing down phones
Just a couple of weeks ago a French watchdog announced that it was investigating Apple about the "planned obsolescence" of iPhones. Now Italy is also looking into both Apple and Samsung after complaints that the companies are purposefully slowing down older phone models.
Apple has already admitted and defended the fact that it slows down older iPhones, saying that it is done to ensure the best performance from aging batteries -- later saying that an upcoming update will make the slowdown optional. In Italy, both Apple and Samsung stand accused of reducing handset performance to "induce consumers to buy new versions."
Intel: Meltdown and Spectre bugs also affect Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake and Kaby Lake systems
In an update following the Meltdown and Spectre revelations, Intel has admitted that the problems also affect newer chips. The company had previously focused its attention -- and that of users -- on Broadwell and Haswell chips, but now company vice president Navin Shenoy has conceded that Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake and Kaby Lake-based platforms are susceptible.
In rather more positive news, Shenoy also says that good progress has been made in identifying the root cause of the problem. Furthermore, beta microcode should be made available to vendors next week.
Tim Cook: iPhone users will soon be able opt out of performance reduction
Many iPhone owners were disappointed to learn that Apple had been purposefully slowing their handsets, with many people believing it confirmed rumors that Apple slowed older iPhones to encourage upgrades.
Facing a backlash, the company explained that the forced performance degradation was an attempt to maximize battery life, and it then announced a cheaper battery replacement program. Now Tim Cook has said that a future iOS update will make iPhone throttling optional.
YouTube updates its video review process yet again to avoid another problem like Logan Paul
YouTube is to subject large numbers of videos to manual review in an attempt to ensure that they are "ad-friendly." Google says that "stricter criteria for monetization" will be introduced as it tries to avoid further controversies such as Logan Paul's video that featured a dead body.
The changes are likely to mean that some YouTubers will lose money when they are introduced in February. Google is also making changes to the requirements that need to be met to join the YouTube Partner Program.
Having Wi-Fi problems? Your Chromecast device could be to blame [Updated]
Google support forums are filling up with complaints from Google Home and Chromecast users that they are experiencing problems with their Wi-Fi connections. With such devices connected to a network, many people are having issues with stability, or finding that their network collapses entirely.
Both TP-Link and Linksys have issued patches for their routers, but the problem ultimately lies with the Cast feature of Google Home and Chromecast devices.
Kaspersky reveals details of extraordinarily powerful Android trojan, Skygofree
Security firm Kaspersky Lab has revealed details of a highly-sophisticated Android trojan that takes advantage of multiple vulnerabilities to gain full control of a device. Skygofree has capabilities that have never been seen in the wild before.
In the malware's arsenal of weapons is the ability to track user location, record audio, connect to attacker-controlled networks, monitor messaging apps, intercept text messages, take photographs, and much more. Kaspersky says its capabilities are "reminiscent of Hollywood spy movies."
Microsoft releases confusing patches for AMD systems bricked by Meltdown and Spectre fixes
While the notorious Meltdown and Spectre chip bugs are still yet to pose a real threat in their own right, it's rather a different story when it comes to the patches designed to fix the problems. Microsoft had to pause the rollout of patches after reports that they were leaving some AMD systems unbootable.
Now the software giant has released two new updates -- one for Windows 7 (KB4073578) and one for Windows 8.1 (KB4073576) -- to fix the "Unbootable state for AMD devices" issue. But it's not all good news. These are updates that have to be manually downloaded and installed, and Microsoft has provided no instructions about how to use them.
Meltdown and Spectre: very few enterprise mobile devices are patched, and many will never be
The Meltdown and Spectre bugs have been in the headlines for a couple of weeks now, but it seems the patches are not being installed on handsets. Analysis of more than 100,000 enterprise mobile devices shows that just a tiny percentage of them have been protected against the vulnerabilities -- and some simply may never be protected.
Security firm Bridgeway found that just 4 percent of corporate phones and tablets in the UK have been patched against Spectre and Meltdown. Perhaps more worryingly, however, its research also found that nearly a quarter of enterprise mobile devices will never receive a patch because of their age.
Twitter denies reading your direct messages
Undercover footage emerged this week in which Twitter engineers said that hundreds of company employees were reading users' direct messages. The footage was shared by Project Veritas, and now Twitter has come out on the defensive.
The conservative activist group's video purports to show Twitter employees saying that the company not only has access to, but also actively reads, users' DMs. Project Veritas is on a mission to highlight what it believes to be liberal bias in the media, and this is not the first undercover footage it has recorded relating to Twitter. Other footage shows an engineer saying the company could hand President Trump's deleted tweets and direct messages to the Department of Justice.
Sofia Elizabella's Bio
Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson is a queer, transgender journalist based in Poland. She has been writing about technology for more than two decades, and after years working for magazines, her writing moved online. She is fueled by literature, music, nature, and vegetables. You can find her on Bluesky and Mastodon. If you like what you read, you can Buy her a Coffee!
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