The Apple Watch Ultra 2 went up for pre-orders earlier this week, and it’s already facing delivery delays for some buyers. This is according to MacRumors who spotted times being pushed out multiple weeks for the watch. Suggesting that plenty of people have already placed pre-orders.
This isn’t too uncommon for popular devices. Google’s Pixel phones have had limited edition colors in the past with similar situations. These always ended up being either out of stock or shipping was kicked out well into the future because of limited stock. With the Apple Watch 2 Ultra, delivery and shipping delays are going as far as 7 weeks out. Meaning if you placed your pre-order now, you wouldn’t end up getting the watch until almost November.
That being said, you may want to get you order in as soon as you possibly can. Before delays cause delivery to be pushed out even further.
Apple Watch Ultra 2 shipping delays are for certain configurations
There is a little silver lining with the way the delays are working. Not all configuration options of the watch are having shipping pushed out. It’s only for certain combos between the watch and specific bands and band sizes.
So, you could end up with a band choice that allows for the shipping to happen right on launch day. Which is September 22. As reported by MacRumors, combos that appear to have longer shipping times are the Alpine Loop band in Blue with a medium/large size, and the Trail Loop band in Orange and Beige in both small/medium and medium/large sizes.
The Alpine Loop band is seeing about a two to three week delay on shipping, and the Trail Loop band is being delayed for about six to seven weeks. At the time of writing there may now also be delays on other band options too. So it’s worth keeping in mind that your chosen bands, if you’re pre-ordering the watch, may cause a delay in getting the watch as the two items will ship together. If you’re not sure where to pre-order, you can pick up the watch from Best Buy. It’s also available from Apple directly and from Amazon.
CNN announced today that the cable news channel’s iOS and Android apps now support Dark Mode. This means that instead of seeing the app with black text on a white background, the app will appear with white text on a black background. At night, or in dark places, users will be able to view CNN without feeling blinded by the blaring white background or distracting others who are in the same room or location and are affected by seeing the bright white background of the app.
CNN adds that “Dark Mode reduces blue light that can negatively impact sleep cycles, patterns and eyes and extends the battery life of devices — overall making the user experience of the CNN mobile app more enjoyable for the millions of users who are actively engaging with the app on a daily basis.”
The CNN app on both my iPhone 11 Pro Max running iOS 17 RC and my Pixel 6 Pro running Android 14 Beta 5.3 support Dark Mode. When you open the CNN app on your phone and tap the Settings tab at the bottom right of the screen, a notice on the CNN settings page says, “You are currently viewing CNN in light mode. To switch to dark mode, adjust the display setting on your device.”
This is CNN in Light Mode and Dark Mode for iOS and Android
So to see CNN in Dark Mode, you’ll have to set your entire phone to Dark Mode. On iOS, go to Settings > Display & Brightness and select “Dark.” On Android, go to Settings > Display and toggle on Dark theme. Once this is completed, go to the CNN app and enjoy the news in Dark Mode.
Since CNN released the update today, if you find that Dark Mode (on iOS) or Dark mode (on Android) isn’t working for you, you might need to update the app. On iOS open the App Store, tap the profile pix in the upper right of the display, scroll down the Update queue for CNN, and if you see it, tap on Update.
On Android, open the Play Store app, tap the profile pix in the upper right corner of the screen, tap on Manage apps & device, under Updates available press on See details. Look for CNN in the list of apps needing to be updated, and if you see it, tap on the Update button. I did have to follow this process to update the CNN app on my Pixel 6 Pro.
After it’s all done, anytime you want to see CNN in Dark Mode, you’ll just have to change the settings of your system, whether it is iOS or Android that you are running, from Light to Dark. To install the CNN app on your phone, tap on this link for iOS or tap on this link for Android.
Samsung has released the September security patch for a few more Galaxy devices. The latest security update is now rolling out to the Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy A72, and Galaxy A52. It’s also available widely for the Galaxy S23 series and Galaxy A52 5G. This month’s security release patches over 60 vulnerabilities across Galaxy devices.
Starting with the Galaxy S20 FE, we can confirm that the September SMR (Security Maintenance Release) is rolling out to both 4G and 5G versions of the phone. The update is available widely in Europe, with users getting firmware build numbers G780GXXS7EWH8 and G781BXXS8HWH8, respectively. Samsung should soon expand the release to other markets, including the US (where only the 5G version was sold).
The September update for the Galaxy A72 isn’t available as widely, though. First reported by SamMobile, the rollout hasn’t expanded beyond Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine at the time of this writing. This 2021 mid-range phone is getting the new SMR with firmware version A725FXXU6DWH2. While the Galaxy S20 FE is only getting the latest security fixes, the Galaxy A72 is picking up some system stability and reliability improvements as well.
The Galaxy A52 is another Samsung phone that recently started receiving the September SMR. The updated build number for the phone is A525FXXU6DWH2 in Europe and A525MUBS6DWH3 in Latin America. The device is getting system optimizations with this update, at least in Europe. A wider rollout covering units in Asia, Africa, and other markets should follow soon.
This phone follows its 5G version to Samsung’s September update party. The latter picked up this update earlier this week. It was a limited rollout in Canada. However, the Korean firm has since expanded the rollout to Latin America as well. Users are getting the update with the build number A526BXXS5EWI1. The US versions of the Galaxy A52 5G have yet to receive the latest security patch from the Korean firm.
The Galaxy S23 series is also widely getting the September update
The Galaxy S23 series was one of the first to receive this month’s security update from Samsung. However, the company initially released the new security patch in the US and Canada. Following a wide rollout in these countries, the Korean firm is now pushing the September SMR to its latest flagships in Europe. The new build number in the region is S91*BXXS3AWHR. Users in other regions can expect to receive this update in the coming days.
TikTok has gradually been expanding its foothold in the United States with the introduction of new features. Now, as part of these efforts, the company has announced its new e-commerce platform in the United States called TikTok Shop, which not only enables users to discover but also directly purchase products featured in live videos, tags within content on their personalized “For You” page, on brand profiles, or through a dedicated “Shop” tab.
Although TikTok first began testing the new feature in the US back in November with a select group of users, the new shopping experience represents significant development as it empowers creators to tag products in their videos and establish partnerships with brands that offer commission-based marketing opportunities, ultimately increasing revenue.
For creators interested in selling their own products, the company is introducing a new “Fulfilled by TikTok” program, which takes care of storage, packaging, and shipping. Additionally, to capitalize on the hype, the platform is actively promoting hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt.
“With TikTok Shop, we’re giving people a place to experience the joy of discovering and purchasing new products without leaving the app,” says TikTok.
Challenges surrounding the shopping experience
Although TikTok says their new shopping experience has already garnered the support of over 200,000 sellers and over 100,000 creators, there are a few issues that could affect the experience. Firstly, many users have reported that the shop button primarily displays inexpensive or counterfeit products from China. Secondly, in light of concerns about TikTok’s alleged data privacy practices, there are worries about the company collecting more data from users, including financial information, shopping habits, and addresses.
“US users’ payment information is managed by USDS, and we work with third-party payment platforms to facilitate transactions on TikTok Shop,” says TikTok.
Furthermore, TikTok is not alone in the e-commerce market and will face stiff competition from giants like Amazon and Shein. Nevertheless, the platform’s unique proposition of allowing users to directly purchase products they come across in their feed could pose a significant threat to traditional retailers.
Yet another leak for the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE appears to have popped up and this time it shows what seems to be at least some of the phone’s official colors.
Leaked images that appear to be official promotional renders from Samsung obtained by MSPowerUser show the upcoming phone in four different colorways. While the phone has leaked in renders before, these seem to be the official renders from Samsung that will be used in marketing campaigns. Also worth noting is that past leaks don’t seem to show more than two colors. The black and white models. These are likely going to be called Graphite Black and Pearl White according to MSPowerUser.
These most recently leaked renders show all four colors right next to each other. And they confirm some that the phone’s come with three rear camera sensors.
Galaxy S23 FE leak shows all four colors
In the leaked render you can see the black, alongside the other three colors. These are said to be Pearl White, Purple Lavender, and Olive. So basically black, green, white, and purple.
These are pretty similar color schemes to the original Galaxy S23. Although there is one less color option and the names are different. But the colors themselves are within the same color type. It is possible there’s a fifth color too, as there are five phones in the image. Which you can see below. That being said, the fifth phone is shown from the front so you can only see the display and just barely the edges of the frame. Making it pretty impossible to see the color of the back.
With all of these recent leaks for the Galaxy S23 FE, and with an official promotional render allegedly leaking, it seems the phone is just about ready to launch. All of these colors should be available anywhere Samsung sells the phone. Although, sometimes it does keep colors exclusive to certain regions. Another possibility is that if this phone comes in more than one storage size option, some colors may be limited to one of those.
According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the partnership between Google and the chip maker Nvidia will continue for at least another ten years from now.
Google and Nvidia are two tech giants that play a crucial role in developing future technologies. The meeting point between both companies is now AI. Google is adding AI to almost all its services, and Nvidia produces high-tech AI hardware for various companies. A strategic partnership between Google and Nvidia could significantly impact the AI segment.
In an interview with Wired, Sundar Pichai alluded to the partnership between Google and Nvidia for Android and other initiatives that lasted for over a decade. Pichai added that Nvidia has a “strong track record” with AI innovation. Google CEO also said AI is “one of the most profound technologies we will ever work on.”
Google and Nvidia will team up to shape the future of AI
Pichai added that semiconductor is a dynamic, competitive industry that requires deep, long-term R&D and investments. “I feel comfortable about our relationship with Nvidia and that we are going to be working closely with them ten years from now.” He noted.
In August, Google Cloud customers could gain access to the technology powered by Nvidia’s H100 GPUs. Nvidia chips are now used in training large language models such as ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Major tech companies, government agencies, and startups are all using GPUs made by Nvidia. Nvidia’s influence in the AI market has expanded to some extent that the DeepMind CEO is suggesting the US government use its chips for AI rule enforcement.
Google and Microsoft are now fighting to become the leaders of AI. Microsoft could access the OpenAI tech by investing over $10 billion in the company. In response, Google merged Brain and DeepMind teams to concentrate all its resources to challenge Microsoft.
Of course, both OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Bard rely on Nvidia chips for training. So, any rivalry between Google and Microsoft increases Nvidia’s stock value. The chip maker has recently announced its quarterly revenue has doubled from a year earlier and they also expect a 170% growth from the year-ago period.
Samsung has just dropped another hint at a nearing launch of the Galaxy S23 FE. The company recently added the unreleased Fan Edition (FE) phone to a list of Galaxy devices compatible with Samsung Pay. It was probably an accidental or premature addition, but the Korean firm hasn’t de-listed the device from its website, at least not as of this writing. This should mean an imminent unveiling of the long-rumored FE-series phone.
First spotted by SamMobile, the Galaxy S23 FE is mentioned under the Galaxy S family of devices that support the Samsung Pay platform in Spain. The upcoming phone appears at the top of this list, above the regular Galaxy S23 flagships. The website also contains several other lists (Galaxy Z, Galaxy Note, Galaxy A, and Smartwatches), most of which list the devices in order of their launch dates, with the latest model at the top.
This addition doesn’t reveal any other information about the upcoming phone. However, this is another official confirmation of the existence of the Galaxy S23 FE. Samsung has already published support pages for the device on some regional websites. The company’s vice president of mobile for South Africa previously admitted that it needs to launch a new FE phone to fill the gap between its Galaxy A series and the flagship Galaxy S series.
Unfortunately, we still don’t have a confirmed launch date. There are rumors that Samsung will unveil the phone in late September or early October, but no date. Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart has already published a product page for the device. It says the Galaxy S23 FE will arrive before the Indian festive season, which is in mid-October. So our long wait for the Galaxy S21 FE successor might finally end in a few weeks.
Certifications have already confirmed Galaxy S23 FE specs
The Galaxy S23 FE has already picked up regulatory approvals in many countries. Those certification listings and leaks have revealed its design and specs in great detail. The phone will feature a 6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with an FHD+ resolution (2340×1080 pixels) and a 120Hz refresh rate. Samsung has included an optical under-display fingerprint scanner here.
Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200 SoC, the device should come with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It will feature a 50MP primary rear camera paired with an 8MP telephoto camera with 3X optical zoom, a 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 10MP selfie camera. The new FE phone packs and 4,500mAh battery with 25W fast charging and boasts an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. Stay tuned for its official launch.
When we think about Meta, a lot of things come to mind; AI isn’t really one of them. The company hasn’t made a big public show about its AI ambitions. However, it’s a major tech brand, so news about some AI products was bound to come. Well, according to The Wall Street Journal (via The Byte), Meta is working on a powerful new AI to rival ChatGPT.
We know Meta as the Metaverse company, and it is still trying to make that a thing. However, the whole AI renaissance happened under the company’s feet, so it needs to adapt to the changing tech landscape.
Meta is working on a powerful new AI
Most people don’t know this, but Meta actually unveiled a powerful chatbot before ChatGPT hit the market. A few months before ChatGPT, Meta released Blender Bot 3. This, just like ChatGPT was a chatbot that would respond to your input and try to speak to you as though it was a human. As you can imagine, Blender Bot was miles behind ChatGPT.
Now, the company is working on something new. It’s no mystery that Meta is angling this as a competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4 LLM (large language model). However, one thing to note is that this might not serve the same purposes. ChatGPT can be used as a business solution for companies, but it’s also a tool for average users. The report states that Meta’s new AI might only offer solutions for companies.
At this point, it’s hard to tell what the company is going to do, as information on it is scarce. It’s still too early to know what the company plans on doing with its AI. What we do know is that Meta plans on it being much more powerful than its current LLAMA-2 model.
The company will have some competition
The team working on developing this AI was assembled by none other than Mark Zuckerberg himself. It was put together earlier this year as a response to ChatGPT’s rising stardom. While the company’s been working on the model for some time, we shouldn’t expect it to start training the AI model until early next year.
This means that Meta’s going to be pretty far behind in the AI game. OpenAI is working on improving GPT-4, but other companies like Apple and Google are also working on their AI. Meta could be in for quite the AI bloodbath.
However, Meta’s business structure isn’t built on AI as much as OpenAI’s or Google’s. So, if the company gets lapped in this AI race, it shouldn’t affect it too much.
Remember: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!
KEY FINDINGS
A supply chain attack on the Free Download Manager website redirected some users to a malicious Debian package that installed password-stealing malware.
The malicious package was hosted on the domain “deb.fdmpkgorg” and contained a post-install script that downloaded two executables to the /var/tmp/crond and /var/tmp/bs file paths.
The crond job scheduler was used to force a document present at /var/tmp/crond to launch repeatedly at 10-minute intervals, effectively backdooring the infected systems.
The attacker then established a reverse shell to their owned server and installed a Bash stealer on the infected system.
The Bash stealer collects sensitive data such as system details, browsing history, cryptocurrency wallet files, saved passwords, and cloud services credentials.
The campaign is no longer active, but the end goals of the attackers are still unknown.
Not all users who downloaded the Free Download Manager received the malicious package, which may have helped the campaign to go undetected for so long.
This highlights the need to secure Linux desktops and server devices with effective and reliable security solutions.
It is hard to process, yet not surprising, that a widely trusted free software download site was exposing unsuspected users to information-stealing malware for the past three years, and no one could have detected it until this week.
According to the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, the malicious supply chain attack remained active from 2020 to 2022 but was only recently discovered by its researchers while investigating suspicious domains.
According to Kaspersky’s blog post, a website “freedownloadmanagerorg” used to offer e legit Linux software “Free Download Manager.” Since January 2020, it started offering a benign version of this software after redirecting users to a malicious Debian package that contained a post-install script.
Researchers noted that the website redirected users to another domain “deb.fdmpkgorg,” which hosted the Debian package. The script downloaded two executables to the /var/tmp/crond and /var/tmp/bs file paths.
This script used the cron job scheduler to force a document present at /var/tmp/crond to launch repeatedly at 10 minutes intervals so that the systems that have installed this decoyed version of the Free Download Manager were backdoored permanently. For your information, crond, aka Bew, is a backdoor variant discovered in 2013.
The attacker then established a reverse shell to their owned server and installed a Bash stealer on the infected system. This stealer was previously analyzed by Yoroi in June 2019. It collects sensitive data such as system details, browsing history, cryptocurrency wallet files, saved passwords, and cloud services credentials, including AWS, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Google Cloud, and Azure.
After collecting these details, the malicious stealer contacts the C2 server to download an uploader binary and saves it to this path: /var/tmp/atd. This binary is then used for uploading stealer execution results to the malware operator’s infrastructure.
The screenshot shows the attack flow, the domain to which users were redirected, a YouTube video demonstrating how to download manager showing the malicious package being dropped from the site, and users complaining about the malware in 2021.
“The communication protocol is, depending on the connection type, either SSL or TCP. In the case of SSL, the crond backdoor launches the /var/tmp/bs executable and delegates all further communications to it. Otherwise, the reverse shell is created by the crond backdoor itself,” the report read.
Nevertheless, the team at Free Download Manager has apologized to its users and vowed to implement better security measures. It has also urged users to scan their system and change their passwords.
“If you were among the subset of users who tried to download FDM for Linux from our compromised page during the mentioned timeframe, we strongly recommend conducting a malware scan on your system and updating your passwords as a precautionary measure.”
Free Download Manager team
Thankfully, this campaign isn’t active anymore. The campaign’s end goals are still under investigation. However, an interesting finding is that not all users who downloaded the Free Download Manager received the malicious package. Perhaps this is how the campaign remained undetected for so long. This highlights the growing need to secure Linux desktops and server devices with effective and reliable security solutions.
Samsung is wowing people on social media with a new ad campaign promoting the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 foldable smartphones. No, we aren’t talking about the one that innocuously trolls Apple. The Korean firm has published new videos featuring giant, movable foldables at some iconic locations around the world. The ads look impressive and can easily grab anyone’s attention. But — if you haven’t already figured it out — they aren’t real.
The Samsung ads in question feature the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 mounted on massive billboards and buildings at places like Times Square in New York City, Coex Media Tower in Seoul, and Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li Mall in Chengdu, China. The foldables have their bases attached to the billboard or building, with the other half slowly unfolding skyward. Crowds below stare up and take pictures of the outlandish ads on their smartphones.
However, all of this is fake. Well, the locations are real, but everything else is CGI (computer-generated imagery). Samsung didn’t actually put up massive, movable models of its latest foldable smartphones at those locations. Instead, it superimposed images of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 on real buildings and billboards and used CGI mastery to bring them to life. The result is impressive enough to wow the internet.
“Using advanced video editing techniques, moving cameras, and rotoscope technology, these huge, photorealistic foldables were superimposed onto footage of actual billboards and buildings. Rendered at a large scale but in meticulously realistic detail, the digital models capture viewers’ imaginations by showing the new foldables’ distinctive form factors inserted into familiar settings,” Samsung explained via a press release.
Samsung used CGI mastery to draw attention to its foldable phones
Of course, the Korean firm has mentioned this in fine print in the video that it originally posted on Instagram. “Please note that the OOH advertisement scenes featured in this video are not real but virtual images created with computer graphics,” the notice in fine print reads. Samsung wanted to draw people’s attention toward its new foldables through these OOH (out-of-home) ads, and the trick seems to have worked. People aren’t questioning the reality.
Unsurprisingly, Samsung launched this ad campaign for the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 just when Apple unveiled the iPhone 15 series. The Korean firm has done so on numerous occasions in the past as well. It releases new ads for its latest products coinciding with new iPhone launches.
