Roborock brings its impressive obstacle avoidance system to the Q-series with Q8 Max
Roborock has a pretty large portfolio these days, and at IFA it added the Q8 Max (and Q8 Max+) to its lineup. Which is an affordable, but high-end robot vacuum. You’d actually be shocked at the features it has, for a robot vacuum that costs only $599.
With the Q8 Max, Roborock is including the DuoRoller Brush system, 5,500Pa suction, Obstacle Avoidance and even its auto-empty dock on the plus model. Which is why the Roborock Q8 Max has earned our Best of IFA 2023 award.
Roborock’s Obstacle avoidance is a must-have feature
Roborock first debuted its obstacle avoidance feature on the Roborock S6 MaxV, which was a vacuum that started at $749. And now we’re starting to see the feature move down to its less-expensive models. With the camera on the front of the Q8 Max, Roborock is able to not only see obstacles that it should avoid, but also create a 3D map of your home. This makes it easier for the user to put in no-go zones and such.
Obstacle avoidance is a really good feature to have in a robot vacuum. With Roborock’s obstacle avoidance, it is able to avoid things like dog toys, dog waste, cords, cables, scales, shoes and much more.
Now, that’s not the only impressive feature Roborock has on the Q8 Max. One of the most important aspects of a robot vacuum is, how well it cleans. So with the Q8 Max, Roborock has included its DuoRoller Brush system, as well as some pretty insane suction – that’s 5,500Pa, well above the competition.
The DuoRoller Brush uses two rubber brushes underneath that allow the vacuum to get closer to the ground and pick up more dirt and debris. This system is also far less likely to get tangled with hair and cords. In fact, Roborock says that it has a 20% higher hair pick-up rate.
The Roborock Q8 Max is going to be available for purchase in October, and at $599, it’s looking like a really good bargain. So it’s easy to see why it won a Best of IFA 2023 award.
Tecno dazzled the audiences at IFA with its rollable concept phone, the Phantom Ultimate
IFA 2023 is going on now, and we’re seeing all sorts of new and innovative technology from tech brands. Among the companies, we saw Chinese smartphone maker Tecno. This company showed off its concept for a flexible screen phone, but it’s not a foldable; it’s a rollable.
The company showed off the Tecno Phantom Ultimate, and this is the company’s concept for a rollable phone. Rather than folding open or closed, it will actually expand outward using a display that can be rolled up. Along with Tecno’s announcement, the company also unveiled a video showcasing what this phone could do.
The Tecno Phantom Ultimate looks like a neat phone
In the video, we see the user pressing a button on the top of the phone. When he does that, we see the 6.55-inch display expand to become a 7.1-inch display. At 7.1 inches, that’s just barely tablet-sized. It’s definitely smaller than the displays we’re seeing on Notebook foldables on the market. However, it can provide some extra screen real estate when you’re looking to do work.
There really aren’t any specs for this phone, as it’s a concept, but we do have the screen resolution. This screen could have a full resolution of 2,296 x 1,595 pixels. When rolled up, it will look like a normal phone with a little bit of the display spilling over the side. This could be used as an Always On display or a ticker display.
This phone sticks out because, as you can imagine, making a rollable phone is more difficult than making a foldable phone. So, to see a more obscure company stepping up to the plate to bring such a good-looking rollable phone concept is really a spectacle. This is why the Tecno Phantom Ultimate gained Android Headlines’ Best of IFA award.
Withings has just announced their latest hybrid smartwatch, the ScanWatch 2. This new hybrid watch does offer really good battery life since it is a hybrid watch and doesn’t have a full color display like other smartwatches. The company claims that it can last a full month on a charge. And it takes just 2 hours to fully recharge.
The ScanWatch 2 comes in two sizes: 38mm and 42mm. So it’s pretty similar in size to other smartwatches out there. And it’s pretty lightweight too, at 34.6g and 52.6g respectively. Now as far as the screen that is on this one, it’s a tiny OLED display that’s about 0.63″. It’s a small screen towards the top of the watch, that shows things like the time, your health metrics and more.
It’s a great watch if you want something that looks more traditional, with better battery life than a smartwatch and to track your health.
24/7 health tracking from Withings
With the ScanWatch 2, Withings is the first to do 24/7 body temperature, allowing you to track your baseline temperature every hour of the day. So how helpful is this? Well, tracking your body temperature 24/7 can be helpful in determining whether you’re sick or getting sick. It can also help you boost your ability to manage performance and recovery via workout temperature variation zones.
It can also give you heart health notifications and direct you to take an on-demand electrocardiogram to detect atrial fibrillation. You’ll get advanced respiratory insights, and advanced activity tracking too. There’s over 40 activities that are recognized here. And you can see your progress right on the watch.
The Withings ScanWatch is available for pre-order now on their website. It comes in a silver white, silver black, and a rose gold face 38mm size. While the 42mm is available in silver black, and later on it will debut in silver white. The ScanWatch 2 should be available from select retailers starting in October.
Amazon has the TCL 65-inch QM8 Mini LED 4K TV on sale right now. Allowing you to save $300 off of its regular price, now just $999. This is the lowest price we’ve seen for the QM8 so far, and seeing as it’s only been on the market for a few months, this is a really good price.
This TV from TCL is a Mini LED TV, so what does that mean? Well, you’re getting a stunning picture quality here, and you’re also getting bright picture without killing the colors. Mini LED has a lot of the same advantages of OLED, but now it’s brighter. Speaking about the picture quality, this does also have Dolby Vision, making this one of the best looking TVs on the market.
The QM8 does run on Google TV, so you’re getting access to all of your favorite apps here. That includes YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and so much more. As well as Google Cast and Google Assistant being included here.
On the audio front, it’s also no slouch, coming in with Dolby Atmos available out of the box. Now you might still want to use a soundbar, but it’s not needed.
Triad cleverly impersonates postal/delivery services like Royal Mail or USPS to trap unsuspecting US citizens in its newly detected smishing campaign.
Cybersecurity rsearcgers at Resecurity have published an advisory about the newly discovered large-scale smishing campaign from the Chinese-speaking cybercrime group Smishing Triad targeting US-based users through impersonating popular mail and delivery services.
According to Resecurity, Smishing Triad originates from China and uses smishing attacks as its primary attack vector. Researchers found that Smishing Triad has affiliations with several different cybercrime groups and that the group offers cybercrime-as-a-service infrastructure with its Smishing kit subscription starting at $200/month. Subscribers receive activation codes and deployment scripts with different frameworks.
“It is complicated to disrupt cyber-criminal activity committed by actors located in foreign jurisdictions like China without proper regulatory harmonization and mutual legal assistance abroad. Resecurity is thus sharing information about the ‘Smishing Triad’ with the cybersecurity community and general public to raise awareness to help organizations better safeguard their customers,” the advisory read.
What is a Smishing Attack?
Smishing (aka SMS Phishing), scammers exploit SMS or text message features and services to trap unsuspecting users into revealing sensitive personal and financial details, including passwords, banking credentials, and debit/credit card numbers, and lure them into downloading malicious software.
Threat actors mimic some credible government or private entity for instance, postal services, government institutions, or banks for creating a sense of legitimacy around these messages.
How Does the Attack Occur?
The group generally exploits iMessage service for sending package-tracking scams, and steals PII (personally identifiable information) and financial data (such as payment card details or banking credentials) to conduct credit card fraud and identity theft.
This time, Smishing Triad has changed its strategy slightly and exploits messages from compromised Apple iCloud accounts to trick users. Its smishing kit is also up for sale on Telegram IM groups to create an extensive and well-organized fraud-as-a-service network.
Resecurity threat intelligence team accessed and reverse-engineered one such kit and discovered an SQL injection vulnerability through which they could retrieve sensitive data of more than 108,000 victims and warned them about the likelihood of identity theft.
Who are the Targets?
In this campaign, Smishing Triad is targeting US citizens. The group impersonates most leading postal and delivery services to trick users, including the following:
USPS
Correos (Spain)
New Zealand Post
The Royal Mail (UK)
Postnord (Sweden)
Poczta Polska (Poland)
J&T Express (Indonesia)
New Zealand Postal Service (NZPOST)
Poste Italiane and the Italian Revenue Service (Agenzia delle Entrate)
The victim receives a message from any of these services requesting additional information or payment of delivery fees through a credit card. After obtaining the desired information, the attackers can commit financial fraud.
Phished text – What happens when the phishing link is clicked (Rsecurity)
In its earlier campaigns, the group targeted users from diverse regions such as the UK, Poland, Japan, Indonesia, Sweden, and Italy.
Protection from Smishing Attacks
Protecting yourself from smishing (SMS phishing) is important for safeguarding your personal information and financial security. Here are five points to help you stay safe from smishing:
Verify the Sender: Always verify the sender’s identity before responding to any SMS messages, especially those that ask for personal or financial information. Legitimate organizations usually include their name and contact information in their messages.
Don’t Click on Links: Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments in text messages, especially if you didn’t expect to receive such a message. These links may lead to malicious websites or install malware on your device.
Be Cautious with Personal Information: Never share personal or financial information via text messages, such as Social Security numbers, credit card details, or login credentials. Legitimate organizations will not ask for such sensitive data through SMS.
Use Trusted Sources: If you receive an SMS claiming to be from a bank, government agency, or other official institution, don’t trust it blindly. Instead, contact the organization directly using a trusted phone number or website to verify the message’s authenticity.
Install Security Software: Use reputable antivirus and anti-malware software on your mobile device. These tools can help detect and block malicious SMS messages and links.
Additionally, keeping your phone’s operating system and apps up-to-date, using strong and unique passwords for your accounts, and enabling two-factor authentication wherever possible can further enhance your protection against smishing and other cyber threats.
Samsung’s second iteration of The Freestyle makes it easier than ever to game anywhere
Samsung debuted The Freestyle 2nd Gen at IFA this year, and it’s not a huge update to the original, but it does bring in quite a few nice upgrades here. With a big focus on gaming here. The Freestyle adds support for cloud gaming services like NVIDIA GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass, Amazon Luna, Utomik, Antstream Arcade and Blacknut to name a few. Making it easier to game on the go, and on a huge 100-inch display.
The Freestyle is a pretty unique and portable projector from Samsung. Which allows you to angle it at just about anywhere. Whether that’s a wall, or ceiling, or even the side of a building. And now you can bring it outside for a nice Summer night and get some games going.
The Freestyle 2nd Gen is perfect for small spaces
The Freestyle 2nd Gen is a really good projector for those in small areas. Think of a very small apartment or a dorm room. Where you may not want to lose an entire wall for a TV and a console setup. Instead, you can throw up The Freestyle 2, which doesn’t take up a whole lot of room. And can be moved pretty easily.
Samsung also has its TV software on The Freestyle 2nd Gen. This is the same experience as you’d get on a Samsung TV. Allowing you to watch content from all of the popular apps like Hulu, YouTube, Netflix and more. There’s also the Samsung TV Plus app, which is a FAST service, giving you over 250 live TV channels that are completely free and ad-supported.
Now compared to the original, Samsung has dropped the price on The Freestyle 2nd Gen, making it just $799. It’s actually available for pre-order now. These are reasons why the Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen has won our Best of IFA 2023 award.
TCL’s latest TV is one of the brightest you’ll ever see
TCL is pretty well-known for putting out some really incredible TV models. And this year at IFA, they’ve done it again. The TCL X11G Max, a new 115-inch luxury TV from the company. It is the world’s largest QD-Mini LED TV yet and takes home one of our “Best of IFA 2023” awards.
TCL ups the bar QD-Mini LED TVs with its 115-inch X11G Max
The TCL X11G Max gains its name from being the largest model in the company’s X11G QD-Mini LED TV lineup. It features a massive 115-inch Quantum Dot (QD) Mini LED display with more than 20,000 individual backlighting partitions. The TV’s 5,000 nits of peak brightness and a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio will give you bright whites and deep blacks with a wide dynamic range.
This TV comes equipped with Dolby VisionIQ, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR10, HLG, MEMC motion smoothing, ambient light adaptation, and other technologies to deliver an immersive viewing experience. Paired with the built-in 6.2.2 channel audio system with Dolby Atmos and DTS (Digital Theater Systems), you’ll enjoy a true-to-life sound experience as well.
TCL has left no stone unturned here to ensure that you get a QD-Mini LED TV like never before. The company is using its LingYao M2 processor and a proprietary chip for image enhancement. It has also given enough importance to the gamer audience. The X11G Max comes with FreeSync Premium Pro, HDR10+ gaming, and more features tailored to a gamer’s needs.
There’s an HDMI port here for connecting your gaming console. The TV supports an HDMI 4K 144Hz input, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0. TCL has also taken care to not make the X11G Max too bulky in the process of giving it all the power. The TV is still quite slim and can easily be mounted on your wall.
With so much going for it, the TCL X11G Max is one of the most interesting products to come out during this year’s IFA. TCL has certainly left the competition behind and upped the bar for QD-Mini LED TVs, bagging our Best of IFA 2023 Award.
Prompt injection refers to a technique where users input specific prompts or instructions to influence the responses generated by a language model like ChatGPT.
However, threat actors mainly use this technique to mod the ChatGPT instances for several malicious purposes. It has several negative impacts like:-
Misinformation
Content bias
Offensive content
Manipulation
An independent security researcher, Utku Sen, recently developed and launched a new tool dubbed “promptmap” that will enable users to test the prompt injection attacks on ChatGPT instances.
Promptmap
On ChatGPT instances, the “promptmap” automatically tests the prompt injections by understanding the context and purpose of your rules configured on ChatGPT.
It uses this understanding to create custom attack prompts for the target, running them alongside your system prompts. While this tool checks for prompt injection success by analyzing the ChatGPT instance’s response.
Work Mechanism Structure (Source – GitHub)
Attack types
Here below, we have mentioned all the current attack types along with their details:-
Basic Injection: These attacks are straightforward, as they are sent without prompt enhancements, aiming for unrelated answers or actions.
Translation Injection: These attacks work by giving English prompts to ChatGPT without language restrictions to gauge if it responds in another language.
Math Injection: Getting ChatGPT to solve a math equation indicates its capability for complex tasks. However, attacks like math injection prompts can be customized for specific targets.
Context-Switch: Context-switching involves asking unrelated questions to measure the willingness of ChatGPT to answer sensitive queries that are mainly tailored to specific targets.
External Browsing: External browsing prompts allow the ChatGPT to browse specific URLs, and they are evolving based on the target’s needs.
External Prompt Injection: The External Prompt Injection asks ChatGPT if it’s possible for it to access specific URLs for additional prompts.
Installation
Here below we have mentioned the installation procedure:-
Open promptmap.py file and add your OpenAI API key into the following line: openai.api_key = “YOUR KEY HERE”
You can also change model names that are defined target_model and attack_model variables.
Moreover, with the help of the “python3 promptmap.py command,” the promptmap” can be run, and it defaults to 5 attack prompts per category, which is adjustable with the ‘-n’ parameter.
The HONOR V Purse is a phone that can easily become a fashion statement.
HONOR decided to show off two smartphones at IFA 2023 in Berlin. One of them was the HONOR Magic V2, a device that launched in China in July. That one was expected. The other one, however, was quite a surprise. All we know is that it’s going to be a ‘concept phone’. The device in question is the HONOR V Purse, and it managed to make an impact at IFA. This device is foldable, but it’s a fashion-focused foldable.
The HONOR V Purse is an outwards-folding smartphone with a spark for fashion
The HONOR V Purse is, first and foremost, an outwards-folding foldable. It means it has one display, which is foldable, and the device folds in the opposite direction of book-style foldables. That display ends up being visible whether the phone is folded or not, unlike what book-style foldables and clamshell foldables offer. There are advantages and disadvantages to that form factor, and HONOR decided to focus on the benefits of it, and even put focus on them.
How’s that? Well, the HONOR V Purse takes advantage of the fact its display is constantly visible, but we’ll get to that in the moment. Let’s talk about how you can attach straps to this phone. Yes, you can attach a strap, as you would to a handbag or a purse. The company envisioned various different straps for this purpose, including the ones with feather accents, chains, and so on. So you can basically switch between them in order to make a different statement, or dress for a different purpose.
It transforms into a digital purchase thanks to different straps & AOD styles
Those straps attach to the phone’s hinge, actually. Now, this works in collaboration with the AOD (Always-On Display) function of the phone. HONOR worked with several well-known designers to create different AOD styles for the device. It also plans to invite other designers to join the pack, as it will open the APIs. That way, you can make the phone’s AOD match the clothes you’re wearing for a specific occasion, and also match with the strap you’re using that time.
The HONOR V Purse is not for everyone, of course, but it can make a fashion statement. You carry your phone with you everywhere, so why not show it off in the best light? Cases make fashion statements on phones these days, but this takes everything to a whole new level. The HONOR V Purse is not only a phone, it’s also a fashion statement, and a conversation starter. It was easily one of the more interesting announcements we’ve seen at IFA 2023, which is why one of our awards has been issued.
HONOR did not talk about the phone’s specifications just yet. This is, after all, just a concept phone at the moment. We’ll see what will happen down the road.
iRobot’s latest combo robot vacuum comes with interchangeable dustbins
Last year, iRobot introduced its first ever combo robot vacuum, that was able to vacuum and mop. Now, iRobot is starting to bring that functionality over to more options, starting with the Roomba Combo j5+. It does bring some improvements, for instance instead of using an arm to move the mopping pad from underneath to the top of the vacuum, it now uses two dustbins with one that has a mopping pad and water reservoir. This is good for those that might be worried about that arm breaking.
With the Roomba Combo j5+ you are able to choose whether you want to vacuum only or vacuum and mop, just by switching out the dustbin. This is sort of similar to what other companies have done, but iRobot has done it better. This is because instead of just removing the mopping pad, you’re removing the entire dustbin – which the mopping pad is attached to. Making it a much easier swap.
iRobot guarantees that it will avoid pet waste, it’s the POOP Guarantee
Similar to the previous j-series Roombas from iRobot, the company guarantees that it will avoid pet waste. They have called it the POOP guarantee, which stands for Pet Owners’ Official Promise. It’s pretty cute, especially since Roombas were rolling over pet waste all the time.
So how is this being done? Well, Roomba is using a camera in the front of the vacuum, which can see what’s going on in your home. So it can see things like pets, waste, toys, cords, and much more. It will avoid those things. It will also show you on the map on your app that it found something and avoided it. Sometimes it can identify exactly what it is, but not all the time.
This is why the iRobot Roomba Combo j5+ has earned our Best of IFA 2023 award this year.
