The January security patch is now rolling out to the Pixel 4a and newer, alongside an update adds fixes to the Pixel 7 series.
Of course, this update doesn’t come with anything significant, as Google released a Feature Drop in December.
The security patch also came with 20 security issues resolved, with vulnerabilities that range from moderate to critical.
The update is rolling out over the air and should hit your phone sooner than later.
Via: 9to5Google
As part of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Nvidia has announced that it’s bringing its GeForce Now game streaming service to cars.
Specifically, the tech giant is partnering with Hyundai, Polestar and BYD, who are all part of the company’s ‘Nvidia Drive’ autonomous vehicle platform. However, Nvidia didn’t provide details on which cars will be supported or when this might even launch, simply saying the GeForce Now client will run in cars either via Android-based infotainment systems or built-in web browsers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNQVdvZStLM&feature=emb_title
The popular service features a catalogue of more than 1,000 controller-supported games, including Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Rocket League and Fortnite. GeForce Now will also only be accessible to drivers and front-seat passengers when parked or charging, with those in the backseat able to play at any time.
Automakers have been looking at gaming as a way to bolster their entertainment offerings for a while now. 2019 saw the launch of Tesla Arcade, which lets Tesla owners play games like Cuphead and Sonic the Hedgehog, while Sony and Honda are even looking into bringing PS5-quality games to their joint venture’s electric vehicles.
Source: Nvidia
A 19-year-old Ottawa resident has been arrested for posting threats on Twitter.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) say they were first made aware of the threats on November 8th. The tweets targeted Parliament Hill, the Department of Defense, and the Chinese and American embassies in Ottawa.
The RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) arrested Daniel Houde. He is charged with several counts, including knowingly uttering a threat to damage property.
Not sure if this is the digital town square Elon Musk envisioned when he bought the social media platform, which reported a spike in hate speech soon after the acquisition.
Source: RCMP
Twitch says it’s investigating an ongoing problem that’s preventing multiple pages on the website from loading.
Users are met with blank pages or a display message that reads “an error has occurred” when accessing accounts, making it appear like accounts have been deleted.
Problems began just after 1pm ET/10am PT, according to Downdetector.
Twitch’s homepage during the outage. Image credit: Twitch
According to Twitch, the outage impacts logins and video, among other features.
“We are actively working on a fix for the issues impacting multiple areas of Twitch,” the platform’s support account tweeted.
This story will be updated when Twitch is back online.
Source: Twitch
Fortnite may finally return to iOS in 2023, according to a vague tweet from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
On New Years Eve, Sweeney simply tweeted “Next year on iOS!” with a follow-up tweet containing an in-game image from Fortnite.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 1, 2023
Sweeney didn’t provide any clarification, however, so it’s unclear if and when this might even happen. That said, it would be quite notable if it did, given that Fortnite has been banned from the App Store since 2020. At the time, Apple claimed that Epic violated its App Store policies by launching an in-app payments platform, which would circumvent its requirement to give up a 30 percent revenue share.
Given how much Sweeney has openly criticized Apple, it’s unclear whether he’d come to an agreement with the company. What could happen eventually, though, is Epic just making its own marketplace, now that the EU has ruled that Apple must allow third-party marketplaces on its devices starting in 2024. Epic also continues to contest Apple’s App Store policies in court.
Image credit: Epic
Source: @TimSweeneyEpic
The Rogers acquisition of Shaw Communications has hit yet another roadblock. Yesterday, the Federal Court of Appeal granted the Competition Bureau an “emergency interim stay (suspension) of the Tribunal’s decision, which “will remain in effect until [the Competition Bureau’s] application for a stay and an injunction can be heard”, the bureau tweeted.
This came after the Competition Tribunal cleared the path for the Rogers C$26 billion (including assumed debt) proposed acquisition of Shaw Communications on Dec. 29, dismissing the Competition Bureau’s application to block the merger. The proposed sale of Shaw’s wireless service subsidiary Freedom Mobile to Quebecor’s Videotron was also confirmed as a precondition to the deal.
While Rogers and Shaw proceeded to thank the Tribunal members for the favorable decision in a joint statement, the Bureau’s commissioner Matthew Boswell expressed being “very disappointed” in a statement.
The finish line, however, was moved again for the telcos, as they became advised the next day of the Bureau’s application for an injunction (which blocks the deal from closing while the appeal is pending) and appeal of the Tribunal’s decision.
“The Tribunal’s decision was the right one, and the Tribunal was clear in its summary that the transactions we have proposed are not likely to substantially lessen competition in Alberta and British Columbia. Instead, as the Tribunal found, the transactions will likely result in an intensifying of competition. We are deeply disappointed that the Commissioner continues to attempt to deny Canada and Canadians the advantages that will come from these proposed transactions,” Rogers and Shaw responded in a joint statement.
The news of the appeal does not bode well for Rogers, as the company was hoping the deal would go through before the end of last year to avoid facing hundreds of millions in fees to its lenders and a potential lawsuit from Shaw (the target date is now Jan. 31). However, an appeal could take months.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne said he will allow the legal dispute to be resolved before making a final decision on the deal.
The post Rogers-Shaw merger blocked again as Competition Bureau gets temporary stay of Tribunal’s decision from Court of Appeal first appeared on IT World Canada.
LG is refreshing its OLED TV lineup for the upcoming year, and the main upgrade over its predecessors is a significantly brighter display.
As first reported by TechGoing, LG’s certain G3 TV series models are gaining a new ‘per-pixel Brightness Booster Max’ feature that promises an up to 70 percent brighter picture that lets the display shine bright even under direct sunlight, perfect for day-time viewing in well-lit rooms. According to the report, the TV’s would reach a max brightness of 1,800 nits.
The LG G2, on the other hand, could hit a max brightness of 930 nits, and a full-screen brightness of 166 nits.
LG’s updated G3, alongside the C3 and Z3 all use a new a9 Gen 6 processor that is reported to offer AI upscaling, HDR tone mapping, alongside object-based picture sharpening. The processor also enables AI audio processing for 9.1.2 channel surround sound via the built-in TV speakers.
The 2023 lineup of LG OLED TVs will continue to feature four HDMI 2.1 ports (two on the LG B3) alongside support for 4K at 120FPS, HDR10, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and would introduce LG WebOS 23 with a simplified look with support for quick cards and tab navigation.
Pricing and availability for LG’s 2023 OLED TV lineup have not yet been revealed. LG’s 2023 OLED TVs will be on show during CES 2023 from January 5th to 8th at the company’s booth. Learn more about the lineup here.
Elsewhere, Samsung has also revealed its 2023 QD-OLED TV lineup with TVs capable of reaching 2,000 nits of brightness. Read more about it here.
Image credit: LG
Samsung’s 2023 TVs are extremely bright.
Every year at CES, TV and monitor manufacturers reveal their upcoming models, and there’s usually some sort of theme regarding new features.
For example, a few years ago, it was 3D technology, then it was the thinnest possible design, and in the last bit, we’ve seen several modular prototype televisions. But at CES 2023, the emphasis seems to be on brightness levels when it comes to arch-rivals Samsung and LG.
This is where Samsung’s 2023 QD-OLED TV lineup comes in. The South Korean tech giant says its TVs are capable of hitting 2,000 nits of brightness thanks to a new “HyperEfficient EL’ panel from Samsung’s Display. In comparison, LG’s 2023 lineup of TVs reportedly only hit 1,800 nits, which is likely why the company doesn’t specifically mention nits in its press release. Samsung also says that its new TVs feature more accurate colours and are more energy efficient.
Sizes this year include 49-inches, 55-inches, 65-inches and 77-inches. Beyond the new display technology, nothing else is known about these TVs yet, but expect them to feature Tizen OS, HDR10+, HDMI 2.1, and, unfortunately, likely Bixby integration.
Canadian pricing and availability haven’t been revealed yet, but this story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Image credit: Samsung
Source: Samsung Display
Ransomware is going down, if you count the number of attacks reported on news sites and to regulators.
Or, it’s going up, if you count the number of victims listed by ransomware gangs.
Or it was down in the first seven months of the year, but now it’s up …
The truth is, says an end-of-the-year analysis of numbers in the U.S. by researchers at Emsisoft, we don’t know what the truth is.
“Only a minority of ransomware attacks on private sector companies [in the U.S.] are publicly disclosed or reported to law enforcement,” says the report, “which results in a dearth of statistical information. The reality is that nobody knows for sure whether the number of attacks are flat or trending up or down.”
For that reason, the Emsisoft report focuses on only four sectors: By Emsisoft’s count, last year 105 local governments, 44 universities and colleges, 45 school districts operating 1,981 schools and 24 healthcare providers operating 289 hospitals were hit by ransomware. The numbers come from disclosure statements, press reports, the dark web, and verified third-party information feeds.
Missing are attacks on the technology, services, hospitality and retail sectors.
As in many countries around the world, U.S. organizations aren’t obliged to publicly report breaches of security controls.
“The fact that there seems not to have been any decrease in the number of incidents [in the U.S.] is concerning,” say Emsisoft researchers. Counter-ransomware initiatives have included executive orders from the White House, international summits, increased efforts to disrupt the ransomware ecosystem, and the creation by Congress of an interagency body, the Joint Ransomware Task Force (JRTF), to unify and strengthen efforts. “Yet, despite these initiatives, ransomware appears to be no less of a problem” so far, the report says.
The number of local governments hit increased from 2021, when there were 77 ransomware attacks on governments. However, the researchers point out the 2022 figures were dramatically affected by a single incident in Miller County, Arkansas, where one compromised mainframe spread malware to endpoints in 55 different counties. Data was stolen in at least 27 of the 105 incidents.
The 89 education sector organizations that were impacted by ransomware last year were one more than the 88 in 2021. However, there was a large difference in the total number of individual schools potentially affected. In 2021, the impacted districts had 1,043 schools between them but, in 2022, this almost doubled to 1,981 schools. Data was exfiltrated in at least 58 incidents.
The most significant incident of the year was the September attack on Los Angeles Unified School District which, with more than 1,300 schools and 500,000 students, is the second-largest district in the U.S. According to TechCrunch, some 500GB of data was copied and released.
At least three organizations paid a ransom demand, including the Glenn County Education Office, CA, which paid US$400,000.
The most significant healthcare-related incident of the year was the attack on CommonSpirit Health, which operates almost 150 hospitals across the U.S. The personal data of 623,774 patients was compromised.
The Emsisoft researchers note that the number of incidents does not provide a complete picture of the ransomware landscape, or necessarily indicate whether the government’s counter-ransomware initiatives are succeeding or failing. For example, a decrease in the level of disruption caused by attacks or in the amount paid in ransoms could be regarded as a win, even if the number of incidents had increased.
Implementing best practices can limit the scope of an attack by, for example, preventing lateral movement (see Ransomware Prevention Best Practices), they argue. An organization that detects and blocks an attack in its early stages may experience only a few encrypted endpoints, whereas one which does not may experience a catastrophic multi-week, organization-wide outage. “These are obviously very different events in terms of their scope and impact, but simply counting incidents does not distinguish between them. The best measure of the effectiveness of counter-ransomware initiatives would be whether the dollar losses resulting from incidents had increased or decreased but, unfortunately, that data is not available.”
Finally, the researchers say it’s time to stop calling this category of malware “ransomware,” because some attacks are data theft only by ransomware groups.
“A better way of thinking about incidents is simply “data extortion events.” “Encryption-based data extortion” and “exfiltration-based data extortion” are subcategories to data extortion events. “These descriptors may not be ideal replacements for ‘ransomware,’ but we are sure that somebody can come up with better alternatives,” said the researchers.
Another version of this argument was made by a threat analyst at last fall’s SecTor conference in Toronto.
The post Are ransomware attacks in U.S. up or down? Why it’s hard to say first appeared on IT World Canada.
At CES 2023, Samsung showed off its new foldable prototype, the Flex Hybrid OLED, a tablet that can fold from one side and slide out on the other.
The phone starts off with a 4.2-inch display that can fold out to a 10.5-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Then you can further increase the display size to 12.4-inches with a 16:10 aspect ratio.
The handset is capable of doing this by sliding out an extra two inches of screens from below the right-hand side of the device. This is pretty cool, as it allows you to fit a 12.4-inch OLED tablet in your pocket.
Samsung will reportedly show off two other display devices at CES 2023. These devices are the Flex Slideable Solo, which expands from a 14.-inch OLED panel to a 17.3-inch screen by sliding the handset open. The other device is the Flex Slideable Duet, which slides from both sides of the screens to create the same size display.
Image credit: Samsung