The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released a list of free tools for organizations to secure themselves in cloud environments.
The post from CISA stated that these tools will help incident response analysts and network defenders to mitigate, identify and detect threats, known vulnerabilities, and anomalies in the cloud or hybrid environments.
Threat actors have traditionally targeted internal servers during an attack. However, the rapid growth of cloud migration has attracted several threat actors to target cloud environments as the attack vector is massive when it comes to the cloud.
The tools provided by CISA will aid organizations that lack the necessary tools to defend against cloud threats. These tools can help in protecting their cloud resources from information theft, data theft, and information exposure.
CISA also mentioned that organizations should use the security features provided by the Cloud Service Providers and combine them with the free tools suggested by the CISA for protecting against these threats. The tools provided by the CISA are,
The Cybersecurity Evaluation Tool (CSET) (CISA)
SCuBAGear (CISA)
The Untitled Goose Tool (CISA)
Decider (CISA)
Memory Forensic on Cloud (JPCERT/CC)
The Cyber Security Evaluation Tool (CSET)
This tool was developed by the CISA that uses industry-recognized standards, frameworks, and recommendations to assist organizations in their cybersecurity posture evaluation. The tool asks multiple questions about system components, architecture, and operational policies and procedures.
This information is then used to generate a report that provides a complete insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the organizations including the recommendations to fix them. The CSET version 11.5 includes Cross-Sector Cyber Performance Goals (CPG) which was developed by the CISA and the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).
CPG can provide best practices and guidance that all organizations should follow. This tool can help against common and impactful TTPs.
SCuBAGear is a tool that was a part of the SCuBA (Secure Cloud Business Applications) project that was initiated in response to the Supply Chain compromise of SolarWinds Orion Software. SCuBA is an automated script that compares the Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FECB) against M365 Secure configurations of the CISA.
In collaboration with SCuBAGear, CISA created multiple documents that can guide cloud security that can help all organizations. Three documents were created as part of this tool,
SCuBA Technical Reference Architecture (TRA) – Provides essential components for hardening cloud security. The scope of TRA adds cloud business applications (for SaaS models) and the security services used to secure and monitor them.
Hybrid Identity Solutions Architecture – Provides best approaches for addressing identity management in a Cloud environment.
M365 security configuration baseline (SCB) – provides basic security configurations for Microsoft Defender 365, OneDrive, AAD, Exchange Online etc.
This tool provides an HTML report highlighting policy deviations described in the M365 SCB guides.
Untitled Goose Tool
This tool was developed alongside Sandia National Laboratories which can help network defenders identify malicious activities in Microsoft Azure, AAD, and M365. It can also help query, export, and investigate audit logs.
This tool is extremely useful for organizations that do not ingest these kinds of logs into their Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) tool. It was developed as an alternative to PowerShell tools since they did not have data collection capacity for Azure, AAD, and M365.
Network Defenders can use this tool to,
Cloud artifacts extraction from AAD, Azure, and M365
Perform time bounding of the Unified Audit Logs (UAL)
Extra data within time bound
Collect data using the capability of time bounding for MDE(Microsoft Defender Endpoint) data
Decider Tool
This tool can help incident response analysts to map malicious activities with the MITRE ATT&CK framework. It also provides an easier approach to their techniques and provides guidance for mapping the activities accordingly.
Just like CSET, this tool also asks several questions to provide relevant user queries for determining the best possible identification method. With this information, the users can now,
Export ATT&CK Navigator heatmaps
Publish Threat Intelligence reports
Identify and execute mitigation procedures
Prevent Exploitation
The CISA has also provided a link on how to use the Decider tool.
Memory Forensic on Cloud (JPCERT/CC)
It was developed for building and analyzing the Windows Memory Image on AWS using Volatility 3. Furthermore, Memory Forensics is required when it comes to the newly trending LOTL (Living-Off-the-Land) attacks which are otherwise called fileless malware.
A memory image analysis can help during incident response engagements that usually require high-specification machines, time, and resources to prepare a sufficient environment.
We’re still months away from the eventual unveiling of the Google Pixel 8 phones. However, we’ve been following all kinds of leaks and rumors regarding these upcoming flagships. Thanks to a tweet from Yogesh Brar (via Phone Arena), we have some leaked specs for the Pixel 8 Pro.
We expect the typical upgrades with the Pixel 8 phones. They will use the latest Google Tensor chip and bring some improvements to the cameras. Along with those, they’re going to launch with Android 14 out of the box. While we wait for the phone to come out, we’ll definitely get more information on these phones.
Here are some leaked specs for the Pixel 8 Pro
The Pixel 8 Pro is going to be the more premium of the phones. Thus, the specs are going to be more robust than what we’ll see in the regular Pixel 8.
As for the leak, Brar states that the Pixel 8 Pro will have a 6.7-inch HDQ+ OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The leak also states that it will use LTPO technology. With this technology, the phone’s refresh rate will drop to an incredibly low number if the user is looking at a still image. This could lead to battery savings.
As for the internals, the tweet says that it will use the Tensor G3 with the Titan security chip, and that should come as no surprise. It says that they will be backed up by 12GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB of onboard storage. Those are identical to what we saw in the Pixel 7 Pro; however, the Pixel 7 Pro had a 512GB variant.
Moving onto the cameras, it appears that this phone will have a 50MP main camera, 64MP ultrawide camera, and a 48MP telephoto camera. Up front, we’re looking at an 11MP front-facing camera.
As for the battery, the leak states that it will be ever so slightly smaller than the standard 5,000mAh. It points to a 4,950mAh battery with 27W charging.
When the Pixel 8 phones launch, we’re expecting these phones to be a bit more expensive than what we saw with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7. A rumor points to the Pixel 8 costing $649. That’s a $50 increase from what we saw in the recent years. We’re not sure how much the Pixel 8 Pro is going to cost, but we expect it to be similar.
Just know that these are all leaked specs, so you’ll want to take them with a grain of salt.
It’s no secret that this sudden influx of generative AI tools has had companies like Google working around the clock to integrate the new technology into their various services. Now, in recent news, Google has launched its latest experimental project called NotebookLM, an AI-powered note-taking tool designed to assist students and learners in organizing and accessing lecture notes and coursework materials more effectively.
How does it work?
Initially introduced as Project Tailwind during Google I/O in May, NotebookLM aims to simplify the process of understanding and retrieving relevant information from various documents. The tool seamlessly integrates with Google Docs, allowing users to select multiple documents and interact with NotebookLM to ask questions, gain insights, and even generate new content. Additionally, the tool will automatically summarize lengthy documents and transform video outlines into scripts.
For instance, if a student is studying World War 2 and has a specific question about the significance of the Battle of Bulge, the AI tool will first refer to the user’s existing notes and supporting materials to provide an answer. However, even if the user hasn’t explicitly mentioned the battle in their notes, NotebookLM will obtain information from reliable sources through “source-grounding.”
Addressing inaccurate information and data privacy concerns
To ensure the reliability of the information, the AI tool includes built-in citations that streamline fact-checking and verification processes. Moreover, unlike conventional chatbots that draw data from a wide range of sources, the NotebookLM only focuses on user-provided data, thus enhancing the accuracy of information. However, it’s important to note that Google acknowledges the possibility of occasional errors, particularly if the provided information is inaccurate or incomplete.
When talking about data privacy concerns, Google emphasizes that NotebookLM respects user privacy, as the AI model only accesses documents explicitly uploaded by the user, and the data is neither used to train new AI models nor made available to others.
Although the new NotebookLM AI tool is making its debut to a select group of users in the United States, Google has already announced plans to expand the feature to more regions in the near future.
YouTube, the world’s largest online video sharing platform, is experimenting with a feature called Stable Volume to address varying sound quality across its billions of videos. This feature aims to ensure a consistent volume level, as some videos may be louder than others.
TechCrunch has confirmed that YouTube is testing the Stable Volume feature with a select group of users worldwide. This new experiment is designed to maintain a more balanced volume while you watch videos. However, whether this feature will become a permanent addition to YouTube remains to be seen.
M. Brandon Lee, a creator on YouTube, recently shared a tweet about this feature, correctly predicting its purpose.
YouTube now has a feature called “Stable volume.”
I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I think it may be a normalizer and compressor that evens out the volume so you don’t have big jumps in volume between videos and even parts of a video itself.
— M. Brandon Lee | THIS IS TECH TODAY (@thisistechtoday) July 15, 2023
YouTube’s spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is indeed testing a “new YouTube listening control feature that provides users with more consistent sound while watching videos.” The test is currently limited to mobile devices, so if you are among the chosen participants, you may soon see the new Stable Volume feature in your YouTube mobile app.The Stable Volume feature aims to equalize volume levels both between videos and within a single video. This is particularly important when videos include both speech and other sounds. Many creators fail to maintain a consistent volume balance between speech and other audio elements, which can be frustrating for viewers trying to enjoy the content.
Therefore, it was about time for YouTube to start testing such a feature. Watching videos without sudden, excessively loud sounds might be a welcome update to the platform. However, there are some who may argue against the inclusion of this feature while listening to music, and they may have a valid point. Fortunately, the option to disable the feature provides a solution to this concern.
JumpCloud, an American commercial software company, has announced a data breach attributed to a spear phishing attack launched by a sophisticated nation-state-sponsored threat actor.
As a result, the threat actor (Nation-state) gained unauthorized access to JumpCloud systems to target a small and specific set of its customers.
Spear phishing is a type of phishing attack that targets a specific individual, organization, or business with a personalized email or message that looks authentic and comes from a trusted source.
JumpCloud’s cloud-based directory as a service platform is used to securely manage users’ identity, devices, and access across things such as VPN, Wi-Fi, Servers, and workstations.
A nation-state threat actor is a government-sponsored group that forcefully targets and gains illicit access to the networks of other governments or industry groups to steal, damage, and/or change information.
These types of attackers, in particular, go to extreme lengths to cover their tracks and make it difficult to trace their campaigns back to their country of origin. Often, they will plant “false flags” to mislead cyber investigators.
The goal of spear phishing is to get the target to reveal private information, download malware, or lose money.
On June 27 the organization discovered malicious activity in the internal system they accessed a specific area of the infrastructure but they did not find any evidence at that time about the impacts.
To avoid the potential danger, they took immediate measures to rebuild infrastructure and took a number of other actions to further secure our network and perimeter.
Also they combine with Incident Response (IR) partners to analyze the system, they also contacted law enforcement for investigation.
On July 5 at 3:35 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) they found another unusual activity in commands frameworks.
At that time they have evidence of customer impacts so they worked with that impacted customers and help them with more security measures.
The organization decided to execute force-rotation of all admin API keys beginning on July 5 at 23:11 UTC.
They found that attackers inject the data into the command framework moreover they target only certain customers.
This incident made the organization learn to create and now share a list of IOCs (Indicators of Compromise) that we have observed for this campaign.
A debate as old as time. Which platform is better? The iPhone or Android? Of course, there’s really no right answer, and both platforms have their advantages over the other. But why exactly is the iPhone better than Android? That’s something we’re going to explore today, because there is a real argument here for the iPhone being better.
A couple of years ago, I bought an iPhone 12 Pro. After having used Android since 2009, and reviewed almost every single Android phone made in that time, I had grown bored of Android and wanted to try something new. Now, three years later, I’m on the iPhone 14 Pro and don’t see myself going back. So the reasons for why the iPhone is better, are things that I have found out myself.
While I do typically use two phones (right now, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pixel Fold), my main SIM card is in the iPhone. And no it’s not because of iMessage. It’s mainly because if I want to bring one phone only, it’s gonna be the lighter weight one, and the one with better battery life and the one that doesn’t overheat. Which is the iPhone.
Apple Silicon is more efficient
One of the big advantages that the iPhone has over Android is, Apple Silicon. Not this has been a pretty big topic with Macs lately, as Apple transitioned away from Intel to its own chipsets for its computers. But Apple has been making its own chipsets for its iPhone since the iPhone 4S. So it’s not new to this at all.
And because Apple is in control of the iPhone from top to bottom, it is able to build a chipset that is very efficient for the platform. Versus Android where OEMs basically need to use what’s available from Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek.
Year-after-year, Apple’s latest chipset for the iPhone outdo the latest from Qualcomm and others. Now, that gap has started to close a bit with Qualcomm moving over to TSMC. But Apple still has a lead here.
While I do despise benchmarks, they are useful here. And as you can see in the image above, the iPhone beats the Galaxy S23 Ultra (which has Qualcomm’s latest chipset, and it’s even overclocked) in Geekbench 6. Both in the single and multi-core tests.
This is really just a product of Apple making a chipset for one specific phone. Versus Qualcomm making a chipset that is set to power hundreds, if not thousands of phones. With very many different configurations.
Longer OS support, faster OS updates
When it comes to the operating system, Apple beats Android in two ways here. First off, Apple supports its phones much longer. This year, they just dropped support for the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X. These phones are six years old. And while they did drop support for them, so they won’t get iOS 17, they will continue to get security updates when needed.
Then you compare this to Android, and it’s a struggle to find phones that will get OS updates past 3-4 years. Even Google is only offering three years of OS updates (four years of security updates). It’s a big problem for Android, and one that likely will never be figured out.
The other side is faster OS updates. When Apple releases iOS 17 in September, it will instantly be available to billions of devices. From the iPhone XS through the iPhone 14 series. All on the same day, there’s really no waiting, other than for the servers to actually download the update. As these are big updates and the servers are getting hit by billions of devices, it can take some time.
Meanwhile, on Android, when Google releases Android 14 in September, it’ll be available for Pixel the same day (maybe). And that’s it. From September to December, we’ll see a number of phones getting the update, with Samsung likely being first to push it out. But that’s a far cry from getting the update the same day as it launches.
iMessage
If you talk to any Apple user, they will say they can’t live without iMessage. But then again, that’s really only a thing in the US. Text messaging isn’t really a thing outside of the US, or North America. Most other countries use messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and others. This is likely because carriers outside of the US did not offer unlimited texting, so most people used something that was free.
As an iPhone user for three years now, I can’t say that iMessage is a must-have feature for me. It’s cool and all, and I really don’t care that some people I text come up as a green bubble. But others do care quite a bit. Including Apple, who has been resistant to adding this to Android, because they see it as a lock in to keep people on the iPhone.
Google has been trying to pressure Apple into supporting RCS, however, Google can’t even get the carriers to universally adopt it. In fact, there are problems with RCS on its own wireless carrier – Google Fi.
Apps come to iOS first
This isn’t quite the big deal it was a few years ago. But most of the time, new apps and games come to iOS first. Why? Well it’s pretty simple, from a developers standpoint. Imagine you are a single developer or have a very small team and budget and are building an app. Are you going to build an app for Android that requires a lot more work due to the many different screen sizes, processors, storage, etc. Or spend less time and build an app for iOS that really only uses two different screen sizes and all use Apple’s own processors. It’s pretty simple, and you’ll be available to a much larger audience that way.
Here’s just a few apps that landed on iOS first, and then came to Android months later: Super Mario Run, HQ Trivia, Monument Valley 2, Affinity Photo and even Snapchat. Heck, Instagram was even iOS only for a number of years. It really didn’t land on Android until Facebook bought it in 2012.
No bloatware
Perhaps the single biggest reason to get an iPhone is – no bloatware.
Though, that’s entirely true. When you first setup your iPhone, there’s a number of Apple apps pre-installed. However, the majority of these can be installed. There are a few that can’t, like Safari, the App Store, etc. But most things can be uninstalled. That’s not the case on Android. Most of them cannot be uninstalled.
Also, on Android, you have carrier bloat – at least in the US. You’ll find, especially on a Verizon device, there’s an entire folder full of Verizon apps. There’s usually a good 10 or more apps from Verizon included. On top of that, if you get something other than a Pixel, then you have all of Google’s apps as well as your OEM’s apps.
For instance, on a Samsung device. You get bloatware from Google, Samsung and your carrier. So it comes pre-installed with potentially 50 apps that you don’t need or want.
Privacy built-in
A feature that Apple has really been touting over the last few years on the iPhone, is privacy. It’s actually what got me to seriously consider an iPhone.
Apple is really the only smartphone company that doesn’t collect and sell your data, or use it for selling ads. Remember, Google is an ad company, so using a phone from Google means you’re just giving them access to more data to serve up more ads. Apple doesn’t do that. They do collect some data, but nowhere near as much as Google.
On top of that, Apple has also introduced a feature that will keep apps from tracking you. The first time you open an app, you’ll be greeted with a pop up to allow the app to track you. Most people select “ask not to track”. This is actually a big deal, Facebook reported that Apple’s change here cost them $10 billion per year.
Apple does have a few other features that are included for privacy. Like Private Relay, which is technically just a VPN, but it’s part of iCloud+ (which is as little as $0.99 per month). It also helps to keep apps and websites from tracking you and where you are. There’s also “Hide my email”. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It allows you to create a random email address for things and it forwards to the email linked to your Apple ID. So if you start getting a lot of spam at that email, just turn it off and boom all that spam is gone. This is a feature that I use a lot. I have probably 50 different email aliases with Hide My Email, because I use it whenever I sign up for something.
The Apple ecosystem
The Apple ecosystem, or as some call it, the “walled garden”, is undefeated. Apple does such a good job at making sure all of its products work well together. For instance, AirDrop. It’s a feature that I use all the time to transfer files from my MacBook Air to my iPhone 14 Pro. Other features include the ability to copy something on your iPhone and paste it on Mac or iPad, and so much more.
There’s also continuity. So if you were editing a doc in Pages on your Mac, you can then open Pages on your iPhone or iPad and continue editing it. iCloud works to keep everything in sync too. That includes backups, photos, documents and so much more. Giving you access to all of your stuff on any Apple device.
Apple’s Customer Support
Finally, Apple’s Customer Support. The biggest advantage that Apple has over Android is, the very many stores it has around the world. There are 272 stores in the US and 526 across the world, in 26 countries. Meanwhile, Google has like 3 stores, all in New York City. So naturally, Apple is able to provide better customer support in store than Google, or any other brand.
I’ve experienced Apple’s stellar customer support a few times. When I was in college, I spilled an entire glass of water on my MacBook Pro. I did have AppleCare, but it did not cover water damage back then (this was around 2010). I took it into my local Apple Store, and was upfront with them that yeah, I spilled water on it. The tech said that they typically don’t cover water damage, but they will this one time. Now this meant that they needed to send it out to be fixed. So I was without a laptop for a few days.
It was sent out, and returned to me in about 3-4 days, which was really impressive, since it went across the country to Texas. But when I got it back, the entire laptop had been replaced, and all of my data was loaded onto the new hard drive, from my old one. I was so impressed, considering I paid exactly $0 for this repair. Since then, I’ve never bought any non-Mac as a computer.
Now sure, some will argue that this is a small expense for Apple to keep a customer and get them to buy more products in the future. But even if it is, so what? They actually take care of their customers. When I was in College, I had a Dell Inspiron 13, which had overheated and fried the entire inside of the laptop, less than 6 months after it was bought. Dell basically gave me the middle finger. Do you think I ever bought another Dell laptop? Nope. They lost a customer for good, because of that decision to not honor the warranty.
And I have a few more stories about how great Apple’s customer support really is. But I won’t bore you with those here.
BAT aims to revolutionize the digital advertising landscape. This article explores the intricacies of BAT, its technical architecture, and its impact on digital advertising. Crypto trading is at its best with automated trading bots. Click immediaterevolution360 and get started with crypto trading.
The Technical Architecture of Basic Attention Token (BAT)
One key aspect of BAT’s technical architecture is its integration with the Brave Browser. Brave Browser plays a vital role in the BAT ecosystem by serving as the gateway for users to interact with the token. It incorporates BAT seamlessly into its user interface, allowing users to earn BAT tokens by opting to view privacy-respecting ads or by supporting content creators through direct contributions.
Blockchain technology forms the backbone of BAT’s decentralized platform, enabling secure and tamper-proof transactions. With blockchain, every ad impression, user attention, and token transfer is recorded and stored in a distributed ledger, ensuring transparency and accountability throughout the advertising supply chain.
BAT’s use of blockchain technology also addresses the issue of ad fraud. By leveraging the decentralized nature of blockchain, BAT provides a transparent and auditable environment that reduces the chances of fraudulent activities. Advertisers can have confidence in the authenticity of their ad impressions, as each interaction is recorded on the blockchain and can be verified.
Furthermore, BAT places a strong emphasis on user privacy and data security. Unlike traditional advertising models that rely on extensive user data collection, BAT’s approach is centered around user anonymity and control over personal information. By using the Brave Browser, users can opt-in to share their attention data while maintaining their privacy. This data is then used to match users with relevant ads, ensuring a more personalized and engaging advertising experience without compromising user privacy.
The technical architecture of Basic Attention Token (BAT) encompasses the integration with the Brave Browser, the utilization of blockchain technology for transparency and security, and a privacy-focused approach to user data. This architecture addresses the challenges of traditional digital advertising by providing a decentralized, fraud-resistant, and privacy-enhancing ecosystem for advertisers, publishers, and users alike.
BAT’s Impact on the Future of Digital Advertising
BAT’s disruptive nature stems from its ability to challenge the traditional advertising model. By leveraging blockchain technology and a decentralized approach, BAT aims to shift the balance of power from centralized intermediaries to individual users and content creators. This shift has the potential to revolutionize the advertising industry by fostering a more direct and mutually beneficial relationship between advertisers, publishers, and consumers.
One of the key impacts of BAT is the increased transparency it brings to the digital advertising ecosystem. With the use of blockchain technology, every interaction and transaction within the BAT ecosystem is recorded and stored in a public ledger, ensuring transparency and accountability. Advertisers can have a clear view of where their ad spend is going, how their ads are performing, and the impact they have on user engagement. This transparency helps build trust between advertisers and publishers, promoting a more open and fair advertising landscape.
BAT also addresses the issue of ad fraud, a persistent problem in the digital advertising industry. Through its decentralized architecture, BAT provides a secure and tamper-proof environment that reduces the risk of fraudulent activities. The immutability of blockchain ensures that ad impressions, user attention, and token transfers cannot be manipulated or faked. This significantly minimizes ad fraud, providing advertisers with more reliable and accurate data on ad performance and ROI.
Moreover, BAT’s focus on user attention and engagement has the potential to reshape the way ads are perceived and consumed. By incentivizing users with BAT tokens for their attention, BAT encourages users to actively engage with ads that are relevant and interesting to them. This incentivization model creates a win-win situation where users are rewarded for their time and attention, while advertisers benefit from more attentive and engaged audiences. This shift in user behavior can lead to higher-quality ad interactions, improved ad relevance, and ultimately, better returns on ad spend for advertisers.
BAT’s impact on the future of digital advertising goes beyond its technical aspects. It presents a paradigm shift in how the industry operates, emphasizing the importance of user privacy, consent, and control over personal data. By putting users at the center of the advertising ecosystem, BAT challenges the prevailing norm of invasive data collection and targeted advertising.
Conclusion
Basic Attention Token (BAT) has the power to transform digital advertising by providing transparency, combating ad fraud, prioritizing user engagement, and emphasizing privacy. With its decentralized approach and blockchain technology, BAT paves the way for a future where advertisers, publishers, and users can benefit from a fair, accountable, and user-centric advertising ecosystem.
There’s a way to watch YouTube videos twice as fast without the need for diving in settings and menus. YouTube is testing a gesture to switch to 2x playback speed on both mobile and desktop devices.
Boosted playback speed is this author’s manna from heaven, in regards to podcasts. Even if your favorite creator speaks fast and clearly, there’s always a guest with a different tempo that gets on your nerves. Now users can make slow-talkers act twice as fast with a simple gesture. The speed change comes handy in other scenarios, too: when you want to skip a certain part of the video, but you don’t want to miss too much of the stream by selecting random timestamps on the timeline.
Press and hold
You just need to press and hold anywhere on the YouTube player while watching a video to ‘automatically bump the playback to 2x’ (via 9to5Google). That’s for Android/iOS users. For desktop/web users, clicking and holding with the mouse/trackpad will do the trick. A message that reads ‘Playing at 2x speed’ at the top of the window will notify you, in case you don’t realize why things are going twice as fast.There’s a substantial difference between mobile and web when it comes to what happens after you let go. On Android/iOS, the playback continues at normal speed after you take your finger off the screen, while releasing the mouse/trackpad leads to a video pause.
I need this in my life, where is it?
The ‘Long press to watch at 2x’ option, found in the dedicated YouTube page for experimental new features. Of course, should you want to give it a try, you must be a YouTube Premium subscriber. This feature is available for testing until August 13.
If the tests are successful, YouTube may roll out this feature for everyone in the future. Right now, if you need to bump up the playback speed of a video, you need to dive in the settings (top-right corner for mobile, bottom-right for web) while playing and scroll down some menus, until you finally get to the ‘Playback speed’ section.
As of now, if non-Premium mobile users (or paid subscribers that have not enabled the ‘Long press to watch at 2x’ feature) press and hold somewhere in the video window, the ‘Slide left or right to seek’ option appears. Sliding left or right enables a fast forward or backward seeking of the timeline. Desktop/web users do not benefit from the same function if they click and hold on the video. Here’s a little bonus for them: using the commands ‘Shift + ’ lets you change the playback speed.
There’s a Premium Lock Screen, too
That’s not the only new Premium feature that you can test until August 13. Check out ‘Lock Screen’: it ‘disables touch input while watching a video so that accidental taps do not pause, skip or disrupt the video’. This one is available on Android and iOS only.
We’re neck-deep in the beta testing for Android 14. It looks like this version will be hitting the stable release sometime next month. According to Android Police, Android 14 will not like you updating side-loaded apps, so it will give you a new warning before you do so.
The ability to side-load apps on Android is both a blessing and a curse. One great thing about it is that you’re able to download apps that have been delisted from the Play Store. You can also download older versions of apps in case a newer update changes something you don’t like.
However, it comes with a risk. You don’t know if the APK you’re downloading contains any malware that could dig into your phone and cause trouble for you. You’ll want to be careful when sideloading apps.
Android 14 will issue a new warning when updating side-loaded apps
You’re not only able to side-load apps, you’re also able to update those apps. It’s just that those updates won’t come from the Play Store, and you’ll need to update the apps manually.
According to the report, when you try to update a side-loaded app on the Play Store, you’ll see a new warning screen pop up. The warning will read: “Update this app from [third-party app store] (beta)? This app normally receives updates from Google Play Store. By updating from a different source, you may receive future updates from any source on your phone. App functionality may change.”
This isn’t the company blocking you from updating the app. You’re given the option to update anyway or cancel it. It’s a warning reminding you of the risks of using side-loaded apps.
What Google is saying is true. Let’s not fool ourselves, there’s still the chance that you’ll run into some shady apps on the Google Play Store. However, Google does a lot to ensure that the apps you’re downloading are safe. You can’t expect the same thing from third-party app stores.
You can’t be sure that the apps you’re downloading from a third-party store have been checked at all. It’s easy to download any sort of malware to your phone.
In a rather shocking report, netizens find out that Samsung Internet might be adopting an AI model. Since Samsung uses Android, you might be expecting them to adopt Google Bard, right? Well, they might be going against your imagination to adopt ChatGPT, a strong rival to Google’s AI model.
This will mean that the company would be towing the line of Microsoft, which made this move with the Edge browser. Some experts have been able to spot a section on the Samsung web browser for various ChatGPT models. While this section might not be accessible by all at the moment, it gives an idea of Samsung’s plans.
There are several things that Samsung could achieve by integrating an AI model into its browser. This will span across the company’s benefits into how the end users will interact with these tools on an everyday basis. But what are some of the things that can be attainable with this possible Samsung Internet ChatGPT integration?
Here are a few things you could do with ChatGPT integrated into your Samsung Internet browser
There are some things Samsung users will be able to benefit from with the integration of ChatGPT into their web browser. As you already know, there are a lot of things that you can do with AI, like asking questions and getting feedback. So if you own a Samsung mobile device and use the brand’s built-in web browser, you might be in line to enjoy these benefits.
Integrating ChatGPT into the Samsung Internet browser will make the service more accessible to users. With this tool handy, Samsung users will be able to get more detailed responses and explanations when they search for stuff using the AI tool. It can also help summarize very long search results into small and understandable bits for users to digest.
Just like with the Microsoft Edge browser, Samsung might as well introduce a chatbot for users to interact with. They might as well make more AI-generated content available. This content might make shopping and other web activities easier for most users.
Well, this AI tool might make its way to Samsung users as an experimental feature. This means that its arrival on the globally available Samsung Internet browser still isn’t certain. It might arrive for certain users as a test feature in the coming months.
Once available, beta testers of the app would be able to try out ChatGPT on their mobile browser. If Samsung sees the feature as being one that the global community will appreciate, then they can roll it out publicly. Until this happens, Samsung fans will need to keep their fingers crossed while expecting more information on this feature.
