Fail

Back in May 2015, a serious flaw in Chrome for Android that exposed various bits of sensitive information was discovered. This security issue was ignored by Google for more than three years, but now the tech giant is finally taking care of it. Unfortunately, a final fix for this vulnerability is not available yet.

If user tests are to be believed, the initial rollout of AT&T's 5G home internet network may be disappointing to most. Download and upload speeds aren't much better than those on 4G LTE. These tests raise concerns about the viability of 5G in its current state. Numerous problems associated with wavelength penetration and power draw may not be worth the cost if the performance increase for 5G is this marginal.

2018 has come and gone and with it the promise of an Apple-made wireless charging pad. Announced back at the 2017 iPhone X event, Apple's AirPower wireless charging mat is still MIA. At that event, Apple promised a 2018 release. However, the company has silently removed all references of AirPower from its website and hasn't said a word about the product since its 2017 announcement.

A recent study by Privacy International found that at least 20 Android apps with install bases in excess of 10 million users automatically send user data to Facebook within one second of opening. This data is sent without user knowledge or user consent and ranges from innocuous to personal. This practice obviously raises some questions of legality, although it is difficult to say who is to blame for the violation of user privacy.

Citing predictions that the 2018 iPhone line may soon enter a destocking phase, Citi Research cut production estimates for the iPhone XR, iPhone Xs, and iPhone Xs Max by a collective 10% (50 million to 45 million). Most of this cut was driven by lowered expectations of the iPhone Xs Max; Citi Research estimates Apple will produce only half as many iPhone Xs Max units as previously predicted.

An article published by iDrop News reports than an Ohio man has suffered injury from his iPhone XS Max catching fire whilst in the back pocket of his pants. Apparently, the device was completely destroyed in the incident, and the blaze also damaged his pants and burned the skin of his buttocks. It seems the individual is now considering legal action against Apple.

Competition in the smartphone industry has led to sketchy advertising practices, especially in China where such shenanigans are almost encouraged. Fake camera samples, technically correct claims, and a circus of intentional crookery.

The LG G7 ThinQ will reportedly have access to an official, stable update to Pie (Android 9.0) in the first quarter of 2019. This is according to a Korean-language document that appears to be a company roadmap for the software updates to come for the OEM's most recent flagships in 2019.

Essential Products has revealed that there are no plans to add “new inventory” to its stock of Essential Phones, which basically means the device is being discontinued. The smartphone was released in August 2017 and was widely commended for its design and performance. It’s believed around 150,000 of the PH-1 devices were sold.

Michael Gartenberg describes himself as "Former Sr. Marketing Director @Apple, ex Jupiter Research, Gartner & other stuff" on his Twitter bio. He also now implies that he is unhappy with the iPad Pro 2018's build quality on this platform, as he documented his return of this product in a Tweet.

A test feature rolled-out by Instagram has been met with the apparent universal disapproval of the social network’s army of fans. The updated software meant Instagram users had to swipe through feeds in a horizontal manner rather than via the tried and tested vertical scrolling method. Unsurprisingly, the update was rapidly rolled back.

'Bendgate 2.0': the saga continues; an iPad Pro customer who emailed Tim Cook about the situation in which the US$799+ devices arrive deformed out of the box claimed to have gotten a response. This reply was not from Cook himself, however, but from another Apple executive who explained how well the new iPad fits in with Apple's design philosophy.

HMD Global sent out the Android Pie update to the Nokia 8 a few days ago. This is the second major OS update the device has now received and will likely be the last. The update itself leaves a lot to be desired, however, with a few major Pie features found missing.

Chinese company Gionee has finally filed for bankruptcy and is set for liquidation. The company is said to owe over US$3 billion to banks and suppliers, a situation compounded by reports of CEO Liu Lirong squandering over US$140 million at a casino last month.

Microsoft has issued a patch to fix a day-zero security flaw in Internet Explorer that affected a myriad of versions and systems. The flaw, which affected IE's scripting engine and how it handles memory, could allow attackers to break into a targeted system and assume full control. Attackers could then view and edit data, install programs, and create administrator accounts. Google alerted Microsoft to the vulnerability earlier this month.

Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google (Alphabet Inc.) have been experiencing further depressions in the stock market, according to recent NASDAQ data. Apple has seen its stock price fall under US$160 as Microsoft continues to lead in terms of market capitalization value. The Cupertino-based iPhone maker also has had bad news in regard to “Bendgate 2.0” and a legal battle against Qualcomm.

A number of Pixel 3 and 3XL owners have reportedly taken to the Google Product Forums to complain about issues with voice-calls on their devices. These problems apparently include low-quality in-call audio, connection issues and more. On the other hand, there are claims that the December Android 9.0 software update is a solution in some cases.

HTC might only be a shadow of its former self nowadays, but it looks like 2019 will not bring any noticeable changes. Even worse, the company's president, Darren Chen, has recently revealed that the next HTC flagship will be "an extension of the latest U12 Plus" instead of an entirely new device.

A Forbes reporter had a replica of his own head, made via 3D-printing, commissioned from a company that specializes in the same. He was able to use this object to unlock four Android phones (from different OEMs), but not an iPhone X. This suggests that Face ID remains the more powerful device-security tool.

Dell has backtracked on its decision that the XPS 15 9570 does not have an NVIDIA GPU issue. The company has informed us that it is working on a fix that it aims to roll out via an updated BIOS by the end of this month.
Update: Dell changes its tune once again.

Yesterday, NASA revealed that a possible compromise of its servers where personally identifiable information was stored has been under investigation since October 23. The servers have been secured since then, but NASA and its cybersecurity partners are still working on determining all the details of the data exfiltration.

The Xiaomi POCO F1 has reportedly received an update to official stable Pie, following a recent beta to test the same. However, it's not all good news for fans of the device: some users have claimed that it no longer includes an option to hide the notch in the UI. The update has brought other apparent problems, most notably unusual battery drain.

More than a decade after its founding, Tumblr has finally reached a critical point and has decided to turn into "a better, more positive" version of itself by banning adult content, including nudity (with some exceptions). The new guidelines will be enforced starting today, but the affected pages will not disappear overnight.

The most recent versions of Windows 10 has an option in settings that apparently prevent the OS sending your activity history to Microsoft. However, HowToGeek has reported that these options may be insufficient in the case of app-history tracking. This information may still be collected unless every relevant privacy setting possible is modified.

A list of the 100 worst passwords of 2018 has been published online, and “123456” and “password” have taken the top two spots. These howlers are closely followed by the equally poor “123456789,” “12345678,” and “12345.” The annual list of the most-used worst passwords is compiled by SplashData, the company that created the SplashID and TeamsID password managers.

During the launch event for the latest series of iPhones, many tech correspondents remarked on the company's official images which gave the impression that the devices lacked the profound notches that do in fact exist. It appears that this strategy worked too well in the case of one consumer, who is now reportedly suing Apple for misrepresenting the XS Max's appearance.

Despite winning a victory against Apple earlier this week, Qualcomm is continuing to pressure the iPhone manufacturer in China. Qualcomm is petitioning Chinese courts to expand the ban of iPhone sales to include the iPhone XR, Xs, and Xs Max. However, Apple is claiming that these devices should not be included in the initial ban as they run iOS 12. Chinese courts have yet to make a decision.

A recent software update to a Google+ API left some data of 52.5 million users exposed and available to app developers. The data included rudimentary user information, including names and birth dates. As a response, Google has moved up Google+'s kill date from August 2019 to April 2019, four months sooner than previously announced.

It has been reported that the new Sony PlayStation Classic has already been hacked, even though the console has only just been released. Apparently, hackers have been able to run software on the device using a USB flash drive, after discovering that the PlayStation Classic’s security key is on the system itself. The console has been met with a generally lukewarm response so far.

Contrary to news circulating earlier today, Samsung has confirmed that rumors of the Galaxy S10 including a cryptocurrency cold wallet are merely speculation. The rumors stem from EU trademark filings made by Samsung earlier this month related to blockchain-based technology. This news is a stark reminder to never take a rumor as anything more than a guess.

Supermicro has published a letter to its customers to explicitly state that no evidence of tampering was discovered in its hardware during a recent thorough internal review. An article from Bloomberg claimed that Supermicro products had been compromised by Chinese spy chips, which had then affected servers used by companies like Amazon and Apple.

Samsung announced the new Galaxy A8s in China yesterday and while the device's Infinity-O camera hole may be the biggest talking point, an even bigger point of contention is the fact that the phone lacks a 3.5mm jack. This will be the first time Samsung has removed the headphone jack from a mainstream phone.

Although Pixel owners will probably get some exclusive treats, as usual, the Google Sounds app should work with most modern Android handsets. This app — which should be included in the December Android Update — comes with more options for the sounds used for notifications, alarms, and ringtones.

Advertised as a multi-screen 5G smartphone with a professional camera and a mobile gaming console, the HubblePhone K3-XR Copernicus is supposed to arrive in about a year, but there are two more models — Cassini and Herschel — that should hit the market in 2020. The pre-orders (roughly 1850 to 4250 USD) can be paid using BC or USDT.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all suffered on the stock market today amid growing concerns over US-China trade relations. While some investors have been selling stock to reduce the chance of risk, others have been nervously watching recent events such as the trade talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping and the arrest of a high-ranking Huawei executive.

Since the research team who discovered the SplitSpectre attack used SpiderMonkey 52.7.4 — the JavaScript engine in Firefox — to target both Intel and AMD chips nobody seems to be safe anymore. The attack has been successfully carried out against Intel Haswell, Intel Skylake, and AMD Ryzen processors.

Months after getting caught using DSLR shots as camera samples for the Galaxy A8, Samsung has been nabbed doing the exact same thing with the Galaxy A8 Star. Companies like Huawei and Xiaomi have also been caught in similar acts of crookery in the past.

Huawei ambassador Gal Gadot was revealed to have been tweeting with an iPhone a long while ago and if you thought that was bad, you'd be shocked, as an official Samsung account was caught parading the streets of Twitter with an iPhone in tow.

Bootloops may as well be LG's calling card at this point, as the company has a long line of devices that have displayed that behavior at certain points. The G7 ThinQ may join that special group if recent reports are anything to go by, but it would appear that it mostly isn't even LG's fault this time out.

Apple is facing a lawsuit pressed by 3 plaintiffs in the United States. It concerns a claim that the company has breached Californian advertising and representation laws in selling Macbook and iMacs. These plaintiffs assert that Apple's allusions to longevity and robustness when marketing its devices are contrary to their experiences of reduced or impaired functionality in their devices.

Bitcoin has closed at a price of US$3,964.89 today, keeping the well-known digital currency under the US$4,000 mark. Its value actually dropped to a low of US$3,505 on November 25 but has managed to gain a little over the last few days. However, a market analyst for IG Group has stated that the virtual currency is coming close to a crucial “capitulation moment.”

Apple became the world's first trillion dollar company this past August. Since then, the Cupertino giant has struggled to hit sales targets for its latest iPhone family. Despite this, Apple VP of product marketing Greg Joswiak said that the iPhone XR has been "the most popular iPhone" since its launch. However, "most popular" does not mean "selling well."

Dell has published a press release that will be of some concern to customers that use its network. The company suffered from a recent cyber attack, and although the attempted hack was apparently “detected and disrupted” it is possible that some information was stolen. The attack targeted names, emails, and hashed passwords; credit card details were not extracted.

Nine people and two companies in South Korea have been charged with selling Samsung technology to a Chinese rival. It is believed bendable OLED technology, which is expected to be incorporated in the South Korean company’s upcoming foldable smartphone, was included in the criminal exchange. The Chinese company that received the information has not been named.

Apple has reportedly reduced orders from iPhone component suppliers again. According to DigiTimes, a "second wave" of order cuts is beginning to bring pain to some Taiwanese manufacturers. Apple is continuing to blame poor sales of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR for the order reductions.

In a blog post released earlier today, Sony revealed that it would be using the PAL version of nine titles on the PlayStation Classic. The PAL versions will be included in the North American PlayStation Classic as well. Considering that North America televisions operate on the NTSC standard, the format difference could cause these games playing at different speeds or glitch out, rendering them unplayable.

A group known for Nintendo Switch piracy has obtained and distributed a full file dump of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, set to release in two weeks on December 7th. While early game leaks are not uncommon, a leak this far in advance is quite unusual, especially a leak of a game as hotly anticipated as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Microsoft has come very close to matching Apple’s market capitalization value today. At the time of writing, Microsoft’s market cap was US$817.28 billion compared to Apple’s US$828.64 billion. Earlier in the day, the two tech giants had been within around US$3 billion of each other. A comment from President Donald Trump about potential trade tariffs caused Apple’s stock price to fall.

Apple will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court today to argue that a lawsuit brought against it is invalid. Apple claims that the lawsuit, which alleges that the iOS App Store creates a monopoly for the company, could only be brought by app developers, not the end users. If Apple is successful, then the case will be dismissed. Otherwise, Apple could be taken to court for potentially monopolistic practices.