It’s no secret that since its launch, the new ChatGPT-enabled Bing has attracted millions of users to sign up for the preview. And while many are still waiting to get access, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s VP for Modern Life, Search, and Devices, said that the new Bing has already surpassed 100 million daily active users just weeks after its announcement.
Mehdi attributed the growth in Bing to a unique value proposition, as the combination of search, answers, chat, and creation into one experience has proven successful. He further stated that this surge in users serves as a validation of their view that the search industry is due for a reinvention.
While Bing is still a small player in the search market, Mehdi said that the company is also witnessing growth in engagement, with more people conducting more searches on Bing. This growth can be attributed to two reasons: Microsoft’s continued push to prevent users from installing Chrome, which has prompted many users to switch their primary browser, and Bing’s updated core web search ranking, which has improved in relevance and quality due to the recent integration of OpenAI’s Prometheus model.
A long way from Google
Although 100 million users are impressive, Bing still has a long way to go before catching up with Google, which has over 1 billion daily active users and dominates the search market. However, this growth has caused some concerns at Google, as the company now faces competition for the first time in almost a decade. In response, Google also launched its own AI system named Bard, but the company currently lacks a plan on how to implement the chatbot without compromising the traditional search business.
“This is a surprisingly notable figure, and yet we are fully aware we remain a small, low, single-digit share player. That said, it feels good to be at the dance,” said Mehdi.
After announcing its plan to prevent its customers from sharing their accounts with friends and family, Netflix started to trial new changes to password sharing in several countries from Latin America, including Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic.Earlier this week, Netflix announced that the changes to account sharing revealed last year will be rolled out in more countries. Detailed at the beginning of this month, these changes are now introduced in four countries before being rolled out globally in March.
Starting today, changes to account sharing are rolling out in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. If you live in any of these countries and share your account with one or more people, you’ll have to pay extra. But first, customers in these four countries will be asked to set their primary location, which will allow them and anyone who lives in the household to use the Netflix account.
Next, Netflix customers who’d like to provide access to their account to someone else will be able to do so from the Manage Access and Devices page. Another important change involves the ability to transfer a profile to a new account, which is paid for, thus keeping personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, and saved games.
Don’t worry, even after setting your primary location, you will still be able to watch Netflix on your personal device or log into a new TV when you’re not at home.
The most important part of these changes is the option to buy an extra member. To continue to share your account with others, you will have to pay for each extra member who uses your account. Netflix customers subscribed to either Standard or Premium plan and live in one of the four countries mentioned can add an extra member sub account for up to two people they don’t live with.
Each sub account comes with a profile, personalized recommendations, login and password of their own. As far as the price goes, a sub account costs CAD$7.99 a month in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, 3.99€ in Portugal, and 5.99€ in Spain.
Google has recently rolled out the scheduled Android security update for March 2023, fixing numerous security vulnerabilities. Two of these patches also address critical code execution bugs that affected multiple Android versions. Users must ensure to update their devices as soon as they receive the update to protect their devices.
Android March Update Fixes Multiple Vulnerabilities
The tech giant Google has rolled out monthly security updates for its Android users. With the March 2023 update, Google has fixed multiple vulnerabilities in different Android versions, releasing the updates in two installments.
The first installment, dated March 1, 2023, addressed vulnerabilities in the following components.
Framework: Received patches for 8 privilege escalation vulnerabilities, 2 information disclosure issues, and 1 denial of service flaw. All of these vulnerabilities attained a high-severity rating.
System: Includes fixes for 2 critical severity remote code execution vulnerabilities – CVE-2023-20951 and CVE-2023-20954. These flaws affected Android 11, 12, 12L, and 13, letting an adversary exploit the flaw with no user interaction. Besides, Google also fixed 9 high-severity privilege escalation vulnerabilities, 5 information disclosure issues, and 2 DoS flaws.
Google Play: The patches address CVE-2023-20956 (for Media Codecs), CVE-2023-20947 (Permission Controller), CVE-2023-20929 (Tethering), and CVE-2022-20499 and CVE-2023-20910 (WiFi).
Following this release, Google released another update installment on March 5, 2023. It includes an important Kernel patch for a high-severity privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2021-33655) in Frame Buffer. Besides, the update also includes security fixes for MediaTek components, Unisoc, and Qualcomm components, which the vendors have also directly released with details.
While Google has rolled out these updates already, not all Android users will receive the patches simultaneously. That’s because the relevant Android device vendors have their own schedules for releasing updates.
Hence, the users must stay vigilant without updating their devices as soon as they receive the relevant prompt. Users may also manually check any updates for their devices via the “Settings” menu.
However, the devices must be running Android 11 or higher since the older Android versions have reached their scheduled End-of-Life (EoL).
Apple has finally announced the official launch of its long-awaited classical music app, Apple Music Classical. The app will be available to download from the App Store on March 28, 2023. Apple says the new Music app will provide the ultimate experience for classical music lovers with a vast catalog.
The app will be included for free as part of the Apple Music subscription, providing users access to over 5 million classical music tracks. Subscribers will enjoy the highest audio quality available and experience many classical favorites in a whole new way with immersive spatial audio. It will also feature hundreds of curated playlists, thousands of exclusive albums, deep dives on key works, and other intuitive browsing features.
The new Apple Music Classical app can be pre-ordered from the App Store now, and it’s a free download. The app requires iOS 15.4 or later and any Apple Music subscription (bar the Apple Music Voice Plan). Interestingly, Apple says there will be no iPadOS app at launch. The app will be available wherever Apple Music is, except in China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Apple Music Classical was first announced in 2021 when the company acquired the classical music streaming service Primephonic. Primephonic, at the time, brought a high-quality listening experience for classical music aficionados, with advanced search and browsing functions optimized for the genre.
Apple promised that the purchase of Primephonic would enhance its classical music offerings, starting with incorporating Primephonic playlists and audio content. In the future, Apple Music Classical will provide an even more immersive experience, with improved browsing and search capabilities based on composer and repertoire, as well as enhanced metadata and other features tailored to classical music enthusiasts.
Samsung is developing custom processors for its Galaxy smartphones, with plans to design custom CPU cores as well. But this isn’t happening in a snap. Galaxy flagships will come with a Snapdragon chipset for at least one more year. Like the Galaxy S23 series, next year’s Galaxy S24 is also expected to pack a special version of Qualcomm’s next-gen smartphone processor, tentatively named Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Early rumors about the chipset indicate we are in line for a massive performance boost.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 to bring a massive performance boost to the Galaxy S23
According to tipster RGcloudS on Twitter, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy could boast a maximum clock speed of over 3.7GHz. If true, that would mean at least a ten percent improvement in raw CPU performance, which isn’t quite common. The special Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor powering the Galaxy S23 series this year has its prime CPU core clocked at 3.36GHz. Samsung has also got an overclocked GPU that Qualcomm isn’t proving to anyone else. The standard version tops out at 3.2GHz, though. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 shipped with a maximum clock speed of 3.0GHz.
The source adds that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will feature a triple-cluster CPU arrangement (1+4+3), unchanged from the current chipset. It will get one Cortex-X4 prime CPU core, four mid-cores, and three efficiency cores. The current solution has one Cortex-X3 prime core and two Cortex-A715 and two Cortex-A710 mid-cores with the same clock speed (2.8GHz). Qualcomm will likely retain this arrangement while upgrading to newer CPU cores from ARM. The same goes for the efficiency cores as well (three Cortex-A510 CPUs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2).
That said, there are rumors that Qualcomm will adopt an unusual 1+5+2 CPU arrangement this year. The five mid-cores will reportedly be the same solution (Cortex-A720) without any split. We have doubts, though. The company used Cortex-A715 and Cortex-A710 mid-cores last year because the former only supports 64-bit. It may opt for the same configuration on the new chipset as well. Things should get clearer in the coming months. Rumors are that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will arrive at least a couple of weeks earlier than its predecessor. We will keep you posted.
Meanwhile, rumors are that Samsung plans to debut its so-called Galaxy Chip in 2025. The Galaxy S25 series may be the first to get those in-house processors that the Korean firm can optimize from the development stage. The first two solutions may still use stock ARM CPU cores. Samsung’s custom CPUs reportedly won’t be ready before 2027. The world’s largest smartphone vendor is taking matters into its own hands to ensure that its Galaxy users always get the best out of their devices. It remains to be seen what it achieves over the next few years.
Roku has announced the next version of its smart TV OS. That’s Roku OS 12. Which has a focus on Live TV as well as Sports this time around.
For Live TV, Roku is going to offer up local news. Which will allow users to watch live news channels personalized by location or stream channels from major cities across the US. This is thanks to Roku having over 350+ free linear TV streaming channels, across many different genres. And now, they’ll be available in one spot. Roku users will be able to search for “local news” on Roku and and also visit the Live TV Zone on the Roku Home Screen Menu.
Roku is also adding Premium Subscriptions. This will allow users to quickly discover and sign up for premium channels. So they can expand their Live TV content offering. Premium Subscriptions will join Categories. Making it easier to find. This was announced last fall with the Live TV Channel Guide.
Roku is making it easier to find sports
With Roku OS 12, the company is making sports access and discovery a lot easier. Last year, Roku had launched their all-new Sports experience, which is a centralized location where users can browse and stream live and upcoming sports-related events across the Roku platform. This makes it easier for sports fans to find their favorite teams. Roku says that CBS Sports, MLB.TV, NBA App, and NBC Sports will join the list of supported channels for Sports.
Continue Watching is another new feature launching here, which is located within the What to Watch section, and will give users a single location to jump back into the content that they love. Channels that support this include discovery+, Prime Video, HBO MAX, Netflix, Paramount+ and the Roku Channel.
Roku says that OS 12 will start to roll out to users in the coming weeks. And additional updates will come in the coming months.
A phishing attack takes place when an unsuspecting victim receives an email from a company that looks genuine. It might have a company logo on it and look genuine. But these missives are attacks in disguise designed to get the victim to tap on a link which will start a process that will result in your device getting infected by malware. In the worst-case scenario, the attacker can then take control of your device and get access to your personal accounts including your bank account.
According to a Reddit post written by a Reddit spokesperson, last Sunday the company first became aware of a “sophisticated and highly-targeted phishing attack” that was aimed at certain Reddit employees. The phishing campaign copied Reddit’s internal platform and was designed to steal employee credentials. After obtaining the credentials from one employee of the social media firm, the attackers gained access to some “internal documents, code, and some internal business systems.”
Information belonging to Reddit subscribers and the platform itself were not compromised
Reddit notes that the attacker did not break into the firm’s primary production systems which is where the social media company stores most of its data and the stack that runs Reddit. The attacker did have access to contact information for a limited number of companies and current and former employees. Also exposed was limited advertiser information.
Reddit was the target of a phishing attack
The Reddit post announcing the details of this breach makes it clear that the data belonging to Reddit subscribers was not accessed by the attacker. The company spokesperson wrote, “Based on several days of initial investigation by security, engineering, and data science (and friends!), we have no evidence to suggest that any of your non-public data has been accessed, or that Reddit’s information has been published or distributed online.”
Reddit first learned about the attack from the employee who responded to the phished message. The company jumped into action by removing the attacker’s access to its internal systems and launching an internal investigation. The goal of the investigation is to understand fully what occurred so that it can’t happen again in the future.
“Similar phishing attacks have been recently reported,” Reddit wrote. “We’re continuing to investigate and monitor the situation closely and working with our employees to fortify our security skills. As we all know, the human is often the weakest part of the security chain.”
Reddit gives a couple of suggestions to secure your account
Reddit says that the best way to protect your Reddit account is to set up two-factor authentication (2FA) which adds an extra layer of security to your Reddit account as it requires you to enter a code that is sent to your phone to access Reddit. To do this, you need to go to your Reddit account on your computer and follow these directions:
Click on your username in the top right of your screen.
Select User Settings and click on the Privacy & Security tab.
Under Advanced Security, you’ll see the Use two-factor authentication control. To enable it, click the toggle to on.
Next, enter your password and click Confirm.
Follow the step-by-step instructions to set up your authentication and don’t forget to save your backup codes.
After setup, you may be asked to log out and log back in to your account. Moving forward, you’ll need to enter a 6-digit code from your authenticator app every time you log in to Reddit.
Also, Reddit suggests that users employ a password manager because it will warn them before they enter their password on a phishing site because the domains won’t match. Thus, you’ll know not to type your password on a bogus page created just to steal your login information.
If you’re worried about the security of your Reddit account, you might want to follow the aforementioned suggestions.
The data breach occurred in March 2023 on DC Health Link known for serving members of the U.S. Congress and Washington D.C. residents.
A recent data breach is likely to affect hundreds of members of the US Congress as well as Capitol Hill staff after hackers stole personally identifiable information (PII) from DC Health Link, the online health insurance marketplace of the District of Columbia.
Hackread.com can confirm that a hacker has claimed to have leaked the stolen database on Breach Forums, a hacker forum that surfaced as an alternative to the popular and now-seized Raidforums.
In their post, the hacker stated that the data breach occurred in March 2023 on DC Health Link known for serving members of the U.S. Congress and Washington D.C. residents.
The hacker further stated that the total number of affected customers is around 55,000 including government staffers, politicians, members of the U.S. Congress and Senate and others. The database contains the following information:
Gender
Full names
Nationality
Date of birth
Phone numbers
Race and Ethnicity
Social Security Numbers
Home and work email addresses
Hackread.com’s founder and editor, Waqas, has seen and analyzed the data, revealing that the database is actually a 29 MB CSV file with a large chunk of duplicate data, totalling details of almost 35,000 individuals.
DC Health Link has confirmed that data belonging to an unspecified number of customers has been affected by a security incident. The organization stated that it is currently working with law enforcement and notifying affected customers.
The leaked data (Image credit: Hackrad.com)
The FBI on the other hand has confirmed that they are investigating the matter and working with authorities to determine the scope of the breach and identify the responsible parties.
“Currently, I do not know the size and scope of the breach, but have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that account information and of hundreds of Member and House staff were stolen,” Chief Administrative Officer Catherine L. Szpindor said.
The hackers may have also obtained sensitive health information, such as diagnoses and treatments; however, no such information has been leaked so far. The breach is particularly concerning given the sensitive nature of the data involved and the potential risks to the individuals affected.
(Image credit: Hackrad.com)
Lawmakers and officials have expressed concern about the breach and the need for increased security measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. Some have called for greater investment in cybersecurity and stricter regulations to protect sensitive information. The FBI has urged anyone affected by the breach to monitor their personal information and report any suspicious activity.
Another Day, Another Data Breach in the U.S.
The latest data breach has hit both US government officials and unsuspecting victims, adding to the growing list of cyberattacks targeting the country. In February2023, the FBI announced that it had investigated a “contained” data breach, and prior to that, hackers leaked the FBI security platform InfraGard’s database online.
In addition, the US Marshals Service was recently targeted in a ransomware attack. In January 2023, a security researcher discovered that the US no-fly list had been exposed to the public, and within days, the list was leaked on a hacker forum.
It is worth noting that a hacker and owner of Breach Forums was able to hack into the FBI’s email server and send a trove of emails with bogus threats.
According to a recent report, Apple supplier TSMC is working to improve its capacity utilization for 3nm process technology.
A recent DigiTimes report revealed that TSMC’s 5nm fabrication capacity began to drop in November 2022.
The news wasn’t surprising, considering Apple reduced orders for iPhone chips by 30 percent. Since the tech giant is one of TSMC’s major partners, the Taiwanese chip maker was forced to reduce the fabrication capacity for the 5nm chips.
Besides, TSMC is also experiencing a rapid decline in 7nm and 6nm chip orders from other manufacturers. As a result, the chip manufacturers reportedly experienced a rough first quarter in 2023.
But it’s not all dire news.
According to DigiTimes’s source, TSMC has managed to keep its utilization rate at 70 percent or higher thanks to Apple’s 3nm chip order.
“TSMC continues to improve its capacity utilization for 3nm process technology, which is expected to approach 50% at the end of March,” says sources. “The foundry will also grow the process output to 50,000-55,000 wafers monthly in March, with Apple being the main customer.”
Here’s what to expect from the forthcoming chip.
What to Expect from the First-Gen 3nm Process
Industry experts believe the first-generation 3nm process could result in 35 percent more power-efficient chips than the current A16 Bionic. Furthermore, the N3 technology could significantly boost performance over the recent 5nm chips.
So which Apple products will get the advanced chip?
Reports suggest the M3 chip could be manufactured on the 3nm process for power efficiency and performance improvements. So we will most likely see the technology first on Apple’s next-generation 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models. Also, the A17 Bionic processor on the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro models could also be based on N3E.
Meanwhile, DigiTimes says orders from new AI processors from other tech giants — such as AMD and Nvidia could help TSMC avoid further decline in fab utilization.
Google launched its first smartwatch back in October 2022, and it’s been a pretty well-received device. Since Google doesn’t really reveal its numbers, it’s hard to tell how the Pixel Watch is doing. Well, thanks to Canalys, we know how many units that the company was able to ship.
Now, one thing to note is that there’s a difference between units “Shipped” and units “sold”. People can sometimes conflate these terms. If you see a report that refers to units that a company shipped, it’s referring to the number of units that it shipped out to retailers to be sold. This number doesn’t refer to the number of devices that were purchased by consumers.
The numbers say that Google shipped 880,000 Pixel Watches in Q4 2022
All in all, the wearable market isn’t in a great spot. In the last quarter of 2022, it saw an 18% drop compared to Q4 2021. However, thanks to the Pixel Watch, and the massive decline in sales for Samsung’s Galaxy Watches, Google was actually able to place second in terms of smartphone shipments.
All in all, Google was able to ship about 4 million smartwatches last quarter. Those aren’t all Pixel Watches, however. Remember, Google also owns Fitbit. So, most of those shipments were Fitbit watches. But, to the Pixel Watch’s credit. Fitbit actually saw a 25% dip last quarter. So, it’s impressive that the Pixel Watch was able to compensate for the drop.
So, last quarter, Google shipped 880,000 Pixel Watch units. That’s about 7% of how many Apple Watch units were shipped, but it’s still an impressive figure for a device that’s still pretty new. It launched in the fourth quarter, so it started at a bit of a disadvantage.
However, this watch has gotten some decently good buzz. We should, ostensibly, see better numbers for Q1 2023, as people have had more time to get read about this watch and save up for it. If you want to read more about it, you can check out the review below.
