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Thursday, 14 May 2020

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Here's What New Zealand Did Today After Two Months of Coronavirus Lockdown

The government of New Zealand lifted most of the country’s strict lockdown measures today after almost two months. What did New Zealanders do? They went to stores, they got tattoos, they met up with friends (in groups of no more than ten), and they got haircuts. Lots of haircuts.

FBI Serves Apple Warrant to Gain US Senator's iCloud Data

Apple has been served a warrant by the FBI to obtain information on the iCloud account of U.S. Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who is being investigated for controversial stock trades linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Los Angeles Times, FBI agents served Apple the warrant "in recent days" to gain access to the ‌iCloud‌ data. The information gathered from the warrant's execution was then used as evidence to serve another warrant to obtain the Republican senator's iPhone from his home.

Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to a prominent Republican senator on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department's investigation into controversial stock trades he made as the novel coronavirus first struck the U.S., a law enforcement official said. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, turned over his phone to agents after they served a search warrant on the lawmaker at his residence in the Washington area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a law enforcement action.

According to the report, the Senator is being investigated for selling a significant percentage of his stock portfolio in 33 different transactions on February 13, just as his committee was receiving daily COVID-19 briefings and a week before the stock market sharply declined.

The value of the trades is believed to be between $628,000 and $1.72 million. Much of that was said to have been invested in businesses that in subsequent weeks were hit hard by the plunging market, the implication being that the trades were made on the basis of information Burr received about the pandemic in the daily briefings.

Apple can decrypt an ‌iCloud‌ backup and provide the information to authorities when ordered to do so via a warrant, because the company views privacy and security issues differently between physical devices that can be lost and ‌iCloud‌. With ‌iCloud‌, it needs to be accessible by Apple so that it can restore the data for the user.

‌iCloud‌ backups contain iMessages and texts, content purchase history, photos and videos, device settings, app data, voicemail password, and health data. Backups don't include information that's easily downloadable, such as emails from servers or apps, and while ‌iCloud‌ backup does encompass ‌iCloud‌ keychain, Wi-Fi passwords, and passwords for third-party services, that information is encrypted in a way that makes it inaccessible to Apple.

More than two years ago, Apple reportedly informed the FBI that it planned to roll out end-to-end encryption for ‌iCloud‌ backups, but ultimately dropped the plan at some point after the FBI objected, although it remains unclear if the federal agency was a factor in the decision.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: iCloud, FBI

This article, "FBI Serves Apple Warrant to Gain US Senator's iCloud Data" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Report: In-Display Fingerprint Scanner Market Grew Eightfold in 2019

Global shipments of fingerprint-on-display (FoD) sensors grew nearly eightfold in 2019, according to tech market research firm Omdia (via DigiTimes).

A total of 228.3 million FoD sensors were shipped in 2019, up 674% from 29.5 million in 2018, said Omdia. With FoD sensors having reached the sweet spot for market pricing, FoD shipments are expected to continue rising at a tremendous rate in 2020, expanding to more than 400 million units, Omdia indicated.

Apple stopped using its capacitive Touch ID sensor in its flagship iPhones when it introduced Face ID in 2017's iPhone X, which ditched the Home button in favor of an extended screen.

Apple has since pushed ahead with Face ID, adding it to every flagship ‌iPhone‌ since, and even including it in the iPad Pro. Meanwhile, most other smartphone brands have adopted fingerprint-on-display scanners as an advanced biometric identification technology to replace capacitive fingerprint chips. More than 70 smartphone models integrated FoD in 2019, according to Omdia.

Despite Apple's decision to move away from the technology in favor of face recognition, rumors persist about the company's interest in using under-screen fingerprint scanners in its mobile devices. Just last month we heard a report that Apple could feature the technology in an ‌iPhone‌ by 2021, while an anonymous leaker with a fairly accurate track record claimed Apple is developing a new iPad Air with under-the-screen ‌Touch ID‌.

Those rumors also lined up with reports last year from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Barclays analysts, Bloomberg, and others who said they expect Apple to release an ‌‌iPhone‌‌ with both Face ID and under-display fingerprint authentication in 2020 or 2021.

Apple has explored various in-display fingerprint scanner solutions in the past, including fingerprint sensing MicroLED displays, but has not developed in-screen fingerprint technology for a consumer device. Meanwhile, ‌‌Touch ID‌‌ has found a new lease of life on Apple's MacBook keyboards and the latest-generation iPhone SE.

With rumors suggesting Apple is working to gradually reduce the size of the notch housing the TrueDepth sensor, which powers Face ID, the most likely scenario is a biometric authentication system that combines both facial and finger sensing tech, enabling a future all-screen device featuring unparalleled mobile security.

Tag: digitimes.com

This article, "Report: In-Display Fingerprint Scanner Market Grew Eightfold in 2019" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Upcoming Chrome Browser Feature Lets You Group Together Multiple Tabs

Google has announced a new tab grouping feature coming to Chrome browser that lets users better organize their tabs, however many they have open at the same time.

The new Tab groups option will appear in a tab's right-click menu and lets you group your tabs together and label them with a custom name and color. Once the tabs are grouped together, you can move and reorder them on the tab strip in one go.

Google suggests a few use cases in its Keyword blog:

Through our own usage and early user research, we've found that some people like to group their Chrome tabs by topic. For instance, it helps if you're working on several projects, or looking through multiple shopping and review sites.

Others have been grouping their tabs by how urgent they are - "ASAP," "this week" and “later.” Similarly, tab groups can help keep track of your progress on certain tasks: "haven't started," "in progress," "need to follow up" and "completed."

Google says that that tab groups are fully customizable and are saved when you close and reopen Chrome, just like regular tabs.

The tab grouping feature is set to roll out gradually from next week, but anyone eager to try it out now can download the latest version of Google Chrome Beta for Mac.

Tags: Google, Chrome

This article, "Upcoming Chrome Browser Feature Lets You Group Together Multiple Tabs" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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