Mobile & Wireless

Mr. Zuckerberg went to Washington yesterday for private meetings with the President and several lawmakers. The meetings were private and Mr. Zuckerberg did not answer questions about specifics. However, according to the WSJ, Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) challenged Facebook’s CEO saying, “Prove that you’re serious… sell WhatsApp, and sell Instagram.” There is only hearsay Continue Reading →

You won’t see 5G on the iPhone 11, 11 Pro or any Apple iPhone until at least 2020. CNET reports that it’s because Apple and Qualcomm were too busy suing each other to get it done. While that may have had something to do with it, the most obvious reason is far more simple — Continue Reading →

It’s becoming a trend for smartphone brands to release TVs, as OnePlus, Xiaomi and now Motorola are doing it. OnePlus is due to unveil its own Smart TV this month, so Motorola effectively beat it to the punch. With all the hoopla around Apple TV+ (the service), I think it’s important to remember that Google’s Continue Reading →

Facebook is getting into the dating game. Deepfakes are getting better and better. Put them both together and they present a potential reality as sinister as it is deceitful. Imagine online dating in a world replete with deepfakes. Continue Reading →

I have been in an abusive relationship with Apple since the mid 80s. They keep torturing me and I keep buying their products. From the Apple II to the present, I have only cheated on them with some PCs in the 90s and some Samsung phones in the smartphone era. They are the company I love to hate, so you can imagine how weird it was for me to be defending Apple on television yesterday. Me? Defending Apple? Continue Reading →

On Tuesday, Apple officially unveiled three new iPhones. The company also announced a new Apple Watch, a new iPad, and finally dated and priced Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade. Here’s what you need to know. Continue Reading →

According to Wedbush, “This Tuesday at its HQ in Cupertino Apple is set to unveil its trifecta of iPhone 11s which represent the next step in the company’s ability to put a fence around its unparalleled consumer installed base. With roughly 1/3 of the company’s 900 million active iPhones globally currently in a ‘window of Continue Reading →

The FTC and New York State reported that Google has agreed to pay a record $170 million penalty to settle accusations that YouTube broke the law when it knowingly tracked and sold ads targeted to children.  In agreeing to pay this fine, Google is essentially admitting that YouTube collected user info from kids in violation Continue Reading →

It has been just a week since my essay, Deepfakes 2.0: The Sequel Is Even Scarier. Now, Bloomberg is reporting about Zao, a next-generation deepfake facial replacement tool (a la FaceApp) that is taking China by storm (details below). When you see the results of this “anyone can do it at the tap of a Continue Reading →

On Thursday, Google Project Zero posted a notice: "Earlier this year Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) discovered a small collection of hacked websites. The hacked sites were being used in indiscriminate watering hole attacks against their visitors, using iPhone 0-day." Wired reports the issue was identified on February 1, 2019 and supposedly fixed by Apple on February 7, 2019 with the iOS 12.1.14 patch. This is interesting for a couple reasons: 1) there is a popular belief that Apple products are not vulnerable to viruses or hackers, and 2) most people believe that it is expensive to hack an iPhone -- even the FBI needed to hire outside consultants -- so victims must be high-value and carefully selected. As it turns out, neither of these popular assumptions are correct. Continue Reading →