Engadget

04.07.2024 06:00 The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will come with a 50-megapixel rear camera for the first time, a bigger battery than any of its predecessors and a bunch of AI features, according to the product pages leaked by Evan Blass on Substack. Also known as @evleaks on X/Twitter and other avenues, Blass is known to have a good track record for leaking accurate information about unreleased devices. This time, evleaks has obtained and released copies of product pages for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 ahead of an Unpacked event happening on July 10, though the details aren't absolutely certain until Samsung itself announces them. Previous Galaxy Z Flip models only had 12-megapixel rear cameras, so the Flip 6's 50-megapixel wide camera is a huge upgrade. Unlike the previous versions that were equipped with 3,700 mAh batteries, the upcoming model will apparently have a 4,000 mAh battery that can power up to 20 hours of internet browsing on WiFi, up to 23 hours of video playback and up to 68 hours of music playback. Meanwhile, the model's display dimensions, for both its main and external displays, are similar to the Z Flip 5. One of the phone's most interesting AI tools, perhaps, is its personal interpreter function that can display translations on both of its screens. That way, if you're relying on the feature to talk to somebody, they can read what you're saying in their language on the external display. It could be an invaluable tool for traveling, if it's at least reasonably accurate. When the phone is folded, the Chat Assist feature will give you a way to text from the front display by giving you a selection of suggested replies. Google's Circle to Search will also be available on the device. Samsung didn't give the Galaxy Z Fold 6 major upgrades and changes, but the new model will come with a slightly larger front display, based on the leaked product pages. Its main display is just slightly smaller and the phone itself is a bit thinner, which make it lighter than previous models, even though its battery capacity remains the same. Like the Flip 6, the upcoming Fold will come with AI-powered features, such as Note Assist that can automatically transcribe recordings and summarize notes for you. It can also display translations from its personal interpreter on both sides of the main screen, and it has Google's Circle to Search function that you can use with the S Pen. The company is expected to announce both devices, as well as new accessories like the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch 7, Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro at its Unpacked event in a few days. Evan Blass / @evleaks on X This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-z-flip-6-and-z-fold-6-product-pages-have-been-leaked-015420863.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 Forget your phone cameras and laptop built-ins; your next webcam could be your old Game Boy Camera. The team bringing this peripheral into the modern age is Epilogue. The company makes the GB Operator, which lets people play original Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color cartridges on a current PC or a Steam Deck. Today, Epilogue announced that it is working on an update that will make the Game Boy Camera into a webcam, but one that's a fuzzy, lo-fi, 16 kilopixel experience. The magic happens through the Playback emulator app that powers the GB Operator. Hello from the team in glorious 16 kilopixels

04.07.2024 01:30 Cloudflare has released a new free tool that prevents AI companies' bots from scraping its clients' websites for content to train large language models. The cloud service provider is making this tool available to its entire customer base, including those on free plans. "This feature will automatically be updated over time as we see new fingerprints of offending bots we identify as widely scraping the web for model training," the company said. In a blog post announcing this update, Cloudflare's team also shared some data about how its clients are responding to the boom of bots that scrape content to train generative AI models. According to the company's internal data, 85.2 percent of customers have chosen to block even the AI bots that properly identify themselves from accessing their sites. Cloudflare also identified the most active bots from the past year. The Bytedance-owned Bytespider bot attempted to access 40 percent of websites under Cloudflare's purview, and OpenAI's GPTBot tried on 35 percent. They were half of the top four AI bot crawlers by number of requests on Cloudflare's network, along with Amazonbot and ClaudeBot. It's proving very difficult to fully and consistently block AI bots from accessing content. The arms race to build models faster has led to instances of companies skirting or outright breaking the existing rules around blocking scrapers. Perplexity AI was recently accused of scraping websites without the required permissions. But having a backend company at the scale of Cloudflare getting serious about trying to put the kibosh on this behavior could lead to some results. "We fear that some AI companies intent on circumventing rules to access content will persistently adapt to evade bot detection," the company said. "We will continue to keep watch and add more bot blocks to our AI Scrapers and Crawlers rule and evolve our machine learning models to help keep the Internet a place where content creators can thrive and keep full control over which models their content is used to train or run inference on."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cloudflare-is-taking-a-stand-against-ai-website-scrapers-220030471.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 Floppy disks may seem like a relic from an ancient time of computers but there are still places and even governments in the world that still use them to run its most basic functions. Japan is no longer one of those countries. Japan’s Digital Agency announced on Wednesday it has rid its use of outdated floppy disks to operate its government computer systems. The only system still in place that requires the use of floppy disks is an environmental system that monitors vehicle recycling, according to Reuters. Digital Minister Taro Kono declared in a statement to the news agency, “We have won the war on floppy disks on June 28!” Presumably, the statement wasn’t printed on that annoying dot matrix printer paper with the edges that never tear straight. Kono’s agency started his crusade against ‘90s era computer technology in 2022 shortly after his appointment to the Digital Agency. Around 1,900 of Japan’s government procedures used floppy disks and other outdated technology such as fax machines, CDs and MiniDiscs. He famously declared “a war on floppy discs ” to his 2.5 million followers on X. Of course, Japan isn’t the only country that used to rely on floppy disks long after the rest of the world moved on to more efficient forms of data storage. The US military was still using 8-inch floppy disks to operate its Strategic Automated Command and Control System , a 1970s computer system that received nuclear launch codes and sent emergency messages to military centers and field sources. The world learned the scary truth about SACCS thanks to CBS’s 60 Minutes and reporter Lesley Stahl. The Defense Department finally phased out the system in 2019. Let’s hope they also removed the shag carpeting and velvet upholstery.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/japans-government-says-goodbye-to-floppy-disks-214449682.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 Ever since the open world hacker adventure game Watch Dogs captured the attention of 2012’s E3, there were rumors circulating of a movie remake before the game even got a release date. Now more than 10 years later, the film version is finally happening. Ubisoft announced today on X that filming has begun on the Watch Dogs movie with a picture of a clapboard and the caption “Lights_Camera_Action.exe.” The Watch Dogs movie was first announced in 2016 at Sony’s GamesCon press conference, according to IGN. Sony announced that Ubisoft Partners teamed up with New Regency to make a film adaptation of Aiden Pearce’s data-hacking adventure in a metropolis overseen by an intrusive server. Since then, drips and hints of the movie’s status came and went for years until last month, when Ubisoft posted a press release announcing that production on Watch Dogs would start sometime this summer. The press release also announced that actor Tom Blyth from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sophie Wilde from the sleeper horror hit Talk to Me will star in the Watch Dogs film. The movie is being directed by Mathieu Turi based on a script written by Christie LeBlanc with rewrites by Victoria Bata. A few years ago, there was also talk of turning Watch Dogs and Far Cry, another big Ubisoft franchise, into an animated TV series following a run of the Rabbids Invasion cartoons. However, there’s been nothing but radio silence from those projects ever since then. Maybe if the Watch Dogs movie becomes a hit, the animated series will follow it into production.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-watch-dogs-movie-has-finally-started-filming-after-10-years-201040830.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 It's July, and that means Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner. We're seeing a lot of early Prime Day deals ahead of July 16, and the latest offer coming from within Amazon's umbrella is for the readers out there. Prime members can now lock in three months of a free Kindle Unlimited subscription, an exclusive deal that will save you $36. As the name implies, this program offers unlimited reading of more than 4 million book titles in the KU library, free access to magazines and comics, and free listening to thousands of included audiobooks. The book library has a mix of classics, popular series and new releases across genres. Once your three free months are up, the subscription will renew at the usual rate of $12 per month. As with most Amazon subscriptions, you can cancel at any time. We're not seeing a specific end date for when this offer will end, so interested Prime members should move fast. For voracious readers and listeners, this subscription could be a nice counterpart to the three-month free Audible subscription Amazon put on offer yesterday. Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-kindle-unlimited-early-prime-day-deal-gives-you-a-free-three-month-subscription-195856022.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 After less than eight months, Amazon has discontinued the business version of its Astro security robot. GeekWire reported on Wednesday that despite being “fully committed” to its home robotics division, the company has discontinued the higher-end model that doubled as a security guard for spaces as large as 5,000 square feet. Amazon launched Astro for Business in November 2023, pitching it as a workplace security robot. The $2,350 screen-on-wheels had an HD periscope and a tangled web of subscription types and tiers, including Ring Protect Pro, Astro Security and Virtual Security Guard memberships. Suddenly, only lasting about eight months doesn’t sound so surprising. An Amazon spokesperson told GeekWire that it hasn’t laid people off because of Astro for Business’ demise, and the company plans to divert resources into its home robotics work. The consumer version of Astro, launched in 2021, is still available for $1,600. Panos Panay, the former Microsoft Surface guru, joined the company to head up its Devices Services division last year, which includes consumer robotics work. Although Astro’s home version isn’t a full-fledged security guard replacement, it can patrol your home and alert you if it sees someone it doesn’t recognize or hears breaking glass or alarms. It can also do things of sketchier value, like follow you around with music, deliver messages to other people and set timers — most of which can be duplicated by devices that cost much less.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-pulls-the-plug-on-the-business-version-of-its-astro-robot-193907015.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 Amazon Prime Day 2024 is officially a couple of weeks away now but we’re already starting to see early Prime Day deals pop up. This was expected: Amazon may deem July Prime Day a two-day event, but for years, the online retailer has hosted lead-up deals in order to drum up excitement for the main event. Most early Prime Day deals are exactly that — early discounts that only Prime members can access — but every once in a while there are some discounts available to all. We’ve collected the best early Prime Day deals here, along with the rest of the best discounts on our favorite gadgets that anyone can get from Amazon right now. We’ll be updating this post regularly, so check back to see the latest discounts. Table of contents Best Prime Day deals: Apple Best Prime Day deals: Amazon Best Prime Day deals: Anker Best Prime Day tech deals Best Prime Day deals: Apple Best Prime Day deals: Amazon Best Prime Day deals: Anker Best Prime Day tech deals Amazon Prime Day FAQs When is Prime Day 2024? Amazon Prime Day 2024 lands on July 16 and 17 this year. The shopping event focuses on exclusive deals for Prime members, which means you’ll have to be a Prime subscriber on Prime Day to take advantage of most of the savings. Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial to new Prime subscribers, so you can start your free trial now to participate in the event. Is Prime Day the same days every year? No, but Prime Day usually happens during the summertime in the United States. In recent years, Amazon has held a second sale event in the fall as well, dubbed October Prime Day, which is similar to the summertime sale. Can anyone shop Amazon Prime Day? Amazon Prime Day focuses on exclusive deals available only to Prime members. However, if you don’t pay for Prime and have no intention of doing so, you should still check out Amazon on Prime Day for sales that are available to all shoppers — there are always a few of them. Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-early-amazon-prime-day-deals-for-2024-110027697.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 With the current rebellion against Adobe’s subscription model, folks are taking a hard look at Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio. And many like what they see. It’s arguably more powerful than Adobe’s Premiere Pro, offering better color correction tools along with built-in effects and audio apps. Best of all, it’s free . To make it more practical for those editing on the go, Blackmagic introduced an iPad version in late 2022 with the Cut and Color pages, but no effects or audio apps. The idea was to offer creators a way to edit or color-correct on the road, with everything syncing up via Blackmagic Cloud. It was also a good option for those who prefer to work on mobile devices. Earlier this year, Blackmagic introduced the $509 Micro Color Panel that gave users tactile control for color correction, just like the highly paid colorists in Hollywood. Better still, it can be used with Resolve on iPad, so you can click, dial and roll in a precise manner, rather than pawing inaccurately on a touch display. Steve Dent for Engadget I love control surfaces, so I was eager to test the Micro Color Panel with my iPad Air M2 to see how they work together. At the same time, I wanted to try out Blackmagic’s Cloud to share projects on multiple devices. You get two installs with DaVinci Resolve Studio, so I used my desktop key to install it on my iPad Air M2. Blackmagic recommends an iPad with an M1 or later processor, and though it will work with earlier iPads, you may be restricted to HD and features will be limited. Blackmagic provided me with a free trial of its Cloud service so I could transfer projects from my desktop over to the iPad. That normally costs $5 per month per library, which gives you 500GB of storage and unlimited projects that can be shared with up to 10 collaborators. You can easily share timelines, effects, metadata and media. To transfer files, you can either connect a USB-C drive or share full or proxy media on Blackmagic Cloud. That requires a fast connection — both to upload and download — but once that’s done, they live locally on your iPad. Any new media files are automatically synced to the Cloud. Steve Dent for Engadget The downside of DaVinci Resolve on an iPad is the clumsy touch-based interface, especially for color correction – but that’s where the Micro Color Panel comes in. Blackmagic has a rich history of building such controllers for professional use, but the new model is its smallest and cheapest to date. Though diminutive compared to the $859 version, the new Micro Panel still oozes quality. Its black finish can draw some dust but otherwise looks professional. The buttons light up to help you find them in a dark studio, but the labels on the dials don’t, so they can be hard to read. The panel comes with its own battery that gives you about 15 hours on a charge. Though you can use USB-C to connect to PCs or Macs, iPads only support Bluetooth, with USB-C reserved for charging. After pairing the Micro Control Panel to your iPad, you need to enable it in DaVinci Resolve’s preferences. Then, you can slide your iPad into the slot on the back and you’re ready to work. Steve Dent for Engadget To be clear, the Micro Control Panel is not designed for editing — it’s strictly for color correction. To that end, it mirrors the interface of DaVinci Resolve’s Color Page. The main controls are for “Lift” , “Gamma” and “Gain” . Those wheels and dials offer nice levels of resistance and accuracy, compared to the Loupedeck+ and other types of control surfaces I’ve tried. They're used for things like shadows, highlights and saturation, while the buttons let you view the image full screen, move from clip to clip, add keyframes and more. The tactile experience is a strong selling point of the Micro Control Panel, but there’s a catch-22 using it with the iPad. At home, I’d be likely to use it with my PC or Mac for more speed and versatility. When I’m on the road with my iPad, though, I’m not sure I’d take the Micro Control Panel with me, because it’s too bulky. Steve Dent for Engadget So despite Blackmagic marketing this as an iPad accessory, I’d say it’s currently better for desktop DaVinci Resolve Studio users who want more tactile control. It’s great for people who only edit on iPad, but I’d imagine that in a Venn diagram of those folks and the ones willing to spend $508 on a color correction panel, there is only a tiny overlap. In sum, Blackmagic’s Micro Color Panel is portable, attractive, well-designed, nice to use and reasonably priced. If you spend a lot of time on color correction, you’ll find it to be a timesaver once the controls become second nature. It’ll also make your editing suite look more professional. Though not yet a great match for the iPad, that could change. Apple recently launched the iPad Pro M4, including a 13-inch model that offers similar performance to many MacBooks. At the same time, Blackmagic Design has promised to bring the iPad version of DaVinci Resolve more on par with the desktop versions. If that happens, many Resolve users may opt to use the iPad version exclusively — which would make the Micro Color Panel more desirable.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-ipad-and-blackmagics-micro-color-panel-make-strange-bedfellows-183835929.html?src=rss

04.07.2024 01:30 Popular virtual tabletop service Roll20 has experienced a serious security breach, according to an email the company sent out to users. The email, written on July 2, warned users that their personal data may have been exposed, including “first and last name, email address, last known IP address, and the last four digits” of credit cards. However, the breach didn’t expose passwords or full financial information, so that’s good. The company discovered “unauthorized access” to an administrative account last week. It immediately blocked the impacted account, but this particular account had access to the aforementioned personal information. Roll20 doesn’t know if anyone actually used this breach to scoop up data, saying it has “no reason to believe that your personal information has been misused” and that it’s notifying users “out of an abundance of caution.” Engadget reached out to the company for more information regarding the timeline and the potential impact. We’ll update this post when we hear more. “We truly regret that this incident occurred on our watch,” Roll20 founder Riley Dutton told Wargamer. It’s worth noting that users have been asking the company to implement two-factor authentication for years, to no avail. It experienced a similar data breach in 2018 that impacted four million users. It’s probably time for Roll20 to bump its charisma stats and approach a 2FA service provider, for the good of the realms. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/virtual-tabletop-gaming-platform-roll20-experienced-a-serious-data-breach-181052179.html?src=rss

03.07.2024 20:00 Amazon has Engadget’s favorite pair of budget running headphones on sale for 33 percent off. The JLab Go Air Sport surprised us with its combination of affordability, sound quality and battery life. The hook-style earphones are only $20 when you click a $10-off coupon. The JLab Go Air Sport adopts the style of workout headphones with flexible hooks that wrap around the outside of your ears. It makes them more comfortable and can help stabilize them during runs, aerobics or other fitness routines with lots of quick or jerky movements. Although you won’t get sound quality equivalent to high-end models that cost hundreds of dollars, we found them to sound much better than expected . They have three EQ modes , which you can cycle through on the device — no need to mess with an app. The JLab Go Air Sport is IP55-rated for water and dust resistance, so they should be fine if you get caught in the rain. The JLab earphones have a solid eight hours of playtime on the headphones themselves, and the charging adds another 24 hours. However, one of our biggest gripes is that they have a bulky case with a USB-A cable instead of USB-C. But at this price, that’s a relatively minor gripe. Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prime-day-deals-have-already-discounted-our-favorite-jlab-wireless-earbuds-to-only-20-174550539.html?src=rss

03.07.2024 20:00 It’s been a year since Meta pushed out Threads in an attempt to take on the platform now known as X. At the time, Mark Zuckerberg said that he hoped it would turn into “a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.” Meta’s timing was good. Threads launched at a particularly chaotic moment for Twitter, when many people were seeking out alternatives. Threads saw 30 million sign-ups in its first day and the app has since grown to 175 million monthly users, according to Zuckerberg. But the earliest iteration of Threads still felt a little bit broken. There was no web version, and a lot of missing features. The company promised interoperability with ActivityPub, the open-source standard that powers Mastodon and other apps in the fediverse, but integration remains minimal. One year later, it’s still not really clear what Threads is actually for. Its leader has said that "the goal isn’t to replace Twitter” but to create a “public square” for Instagram users and a “less angry place for conversations.”But the service itself still has a number of issues that prevent it from realizing that vision. If Meta really wants to make that happen, here’s what it should change. Fix the ‘For You’ algorithm If you follow me on Threads, then you probably already know this is my top complaint. But Meta desperately needs to fix the algorithm that powers Threads’ default “For You” feed. The algorithmic feed, which is the default view in both the app and website, is painfully slow. It often surfaces days-old posts, even during major, newsworthy moments when many people are posting about the same topic. It’s so bad it’s become a running meme to post something along the lines of “I can’t wait to read about this on my ‘For You’ feed tomorrow,” every time there’s a major news event or trending story. The algorithmic feed is also downright bizarre. For a platform that was built off of Instagram, an app that has extremely fine-tuned recommendations and more than a decade of data about the topics I’m interested in, Threads appears to use none of it. Instead, it has a strange preference for intense personal stories from accounts I’m entirely unconnected to. In the last year, I’ve seen countless multi-part Threads posts from complete strangers detailing childhood abuse, eating disorders, chronic illnesses, domestic violence, pet loss and other unimaginable horrors. These are not posts I’m seeking out by any means, yet Meta’s algorithm shoves them to the top of my feed. I’ve aggressively used Threads' swipe gestures to try to rid my feed of excessive trauma dumping, and it’s helped to some extent. But it hasn’t improved the number of strange posts I see from completely random individuals. At this moment the top two posts in my feed are from an event planner offering to share wedding tips and a woman describing a phone call from her health insurance company. These types of posts have led to blogger Max Read dubbing Threads the “gas leak social network” because they make it feel as if everyone is “suffering some kind of minor brain damage.” Stop avoiding news, politics and anything “potentially sensitive” Look, I get why Meta has been cautious when it comes to content moderation on Threads. The company doesn’t exactly have a great track record on issues like extremism, health misinformation or genocide-inciting hate speech. It’s not surprising they would want to avoid similar headlines about Threads. But if Meta wants Threads to be a “public square,” it can’t preemptively block searches for topics like COVID-19 and vaccines just because they are “potentially sensitive.” If Meta wants Threads to be a “public square,” it shouldn’t automatically throttle political content from users’ recommendations; and Threads’ leaders shouldn’t assume that users don’t want to see news. DMs, DMs, DMs A year in, it’s painfully clear that a platform like Threads is hamstrung without a proper direct messaging feature. For some reason, Threads’ leaders, especially Mosseri, have been adamantly opposed to creating a separate inbox for the app. Instead, users hoping to privately connect with someone on Threads are forced to switch over to Instagram and hope the person they are trying to reach accepts new message requests. There is an in-app way to send a Threads post to an Instagram friend but this depends on you already being connected on Instagram. Exactly why Threads can’t have its own messaging feature isn’t exactly clear. Mosseri has suggested that it doesn’t make sense to build a new inbox for the app, but that ignores the fact that many people use Instagram and Threads very differently. Which brings me to… Decouple Threads from Instagram Meta has said that the reason why it was able to get Threads out the door so quickly was largely thanks to Instagram. Threads was created using a lot of Instagram’s code and infrastructure, which also helped the company get tens of millions of people to sign up for the app on day one. But continuing to require an Instagram account to use Threads makes little sense a year on. For one, it shuts out a not-insignificant number of people who may be interested in Threads but don’t want to be on Instagram, There’s also the fact that the apps, though they share some design elements, are completely different kinds of services. And many people, myself included, use Instagram and Threads very differently. A “public square” platform like Threads works best for public-facing accounts where conversations can have maximum visibility. But most people I know use their Instagram accounts for personal updates, like family photos. And while you can have different visibility settings for each app, you shouldn’t be forced to link the two accounts. This also means that if you want to use Threads anonymously, you would need to create an entirely new Instagram account to serve as a login for the corresponding Threads account. It seems that Meta is at least considering this. Mosseri said in an interview with Platformer that the company is “working on things like Threads-only accounts” and wants the app to become “more independent.” These aren’t the only factors that will determine whether Threads will be, as Zuckerberg has speculated, Meta’s next 1 billion-user app. Meta will, eventually, need to make money from the service, which is currently advertising-free. But before Meta’s multibillion-dollar ad machine can be pointed at Threads, the company will need to better explain who its newest app is actually for.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-meta-should-change-about-threads-one-year-in-173036784.html?src=rss

03.07.2024 20:00 If you use Authy, update your app immediately. Twilio, the messaging company that owns the two-factor authentication service, confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday that hackers breached Twilio and acquired mobile phone numbers for 33 million users. Twilio published a statement on its website also confirming the hack. “Twilio has detected that threat actors were able to identify data associated with Authy accounts, including phone numbers, due to an unauthenticated endpoint,” the statement reads. “We have taken action to secure this endpoint and no longer allow unauthenticated requests.” The company added that there was no evidence that the hackers accessed Twilio’s systems or sensitive data. But updating to the latest version of the iOS and Android apps is critical as they include new security updates. Twilio stressed that Authy accounts weren’t compromised. However, the hackers could “try to use the phone number associated with Authy accounts for phishing and smishing attacks.” If you aren’t familiar with the term, smishing is the text-message equivalent of phishing. So, if you have an Authy account, be extra cautious about any unexpected texts that appear to come from trusted sources, especially Authy or Twilio. Rachel Tobac, a social engineering expert and CEO of SocialProof Security, illustrated to TechCrunch what that may look like. “If attackers are able to enumerate a list of user’s phone numbers, then those attackers can pretend to be Authy/Twilio to those users, increasing the believability in a phishing attack to that phone number,” Tobac said. “We encourage all Authy users to stay diligent and have heightened awareness around the texts they are receiving,” Twilio stressed.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twilio-hack-leaves-authy-users-exposed-to-text-messaging-scams-165156650.html?src=rss

03.07.2024 20:00 Amazon Prime Day is nearly upon us, as the festivities officially kick off on July 16. However, there are already plenty of early Prime Day deals making the rounds. Even better? Some of these discounts are among the best Prime Day deals we’ve seen so far. Case in point? There’s a sweeping sale on various Amazon Fire tablets with some record-low prices. The Fire HD 8 has been discounted to just $55, which is 58 percent off and a record-low price. Don’t let the low cost fool you. This is a surprisingly decent tablet that’s perfect for content consumption. I have one and it’s great for streaming episode after episode of 90s Star Trek while sick in bed. The battery lasts around 13 hours per charge and the HD display gets the job done, though it won’t be winning any visual fidelity awards. This sale is for the 64GB model, which is twice the storage of the entry-level tablet. Additionally, there’s a microSD slot that adds up to 1TB of expandable storage. This isn’t an iPad Pro, however, so there are trade-offs. It’s underpowered and only offers 2GB of RAM. Like I said before, this tablet is for laying around and watching stuff or playing simple mobile games. It’s not for power-intensive creativity-focused apps. You get what you pay for, though the price has certainly been sweetened. For those looking for a slightly higher-end experience, the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet is also on sale for $75 instead of $140. The kid-friendly version of this model actually made our list of the best tablets. The RAM is slightly increased compared to the Fire 8, at 3GB, though the base storage is 32GB. This one also has a microSD slot that accommodates up to 1TB. Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/early-prime-day-deals-include-up-to-58-percent-off-amazon-fire-tablets-154648570.html?src=rss

03.07.2024 20:00 Investing in a new tablet can be costly but early Prime Day deals are making it a bit more reasonable. Ahead of Amazon Prime Day, the online marketplace has discounted Samsung's Galaxy S9+ tablet by 25 percent, bringing its cost down to an all-time low price of $750 from $1000. This deal is available for the 256GB Beige model, while the Graphite model is down to $800 from $1,000 — still lower than we've previously seen it . The Samsung Galaxy S9+ tablet is part of a series of great tablets that includes the Galaxy S9 Ultra and Galaxy S9 — the latter of which is our choice for 2024's best Android tablet. The Galaxy S9+ is a slightly larger model , with Vision Booster and a 2800p x 1752p max screen resolution. Plus, it has exceptionally thin bezels and an Armor Aluminum finish. Samsung's Galaxy S9+ is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, providing it with faster processing. The device also offers 12GB of RAM, 10,090mAh battery and an IP68 dust and water resistance rating. Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/early-prime-day-deals-bring-the-samsung-galaxy-s9-tablet-down-to-a-record-low-price-142946216.html?src=rss