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The App Gap and supply chains: Purism CEO on what's ahead for the Librem 5 USA

Freedoms eroded, iOS-Android duopoly under fire, chip sources questioned – it's all an opportunity for this phone

Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Sat 2 Jul 2022 // 10:07 UTC

Interview In June, Purism began shipping a privacy-focused smartphone called Librem 5 USA that runs on a version of Linux called PureOS rather than Android or iOS. As the name suggests, it's made in America – all the electronics are assembled in its Carlsbad, California facility, using as many US-fabricated parts as possible.
While past privacy-focused phones, such as Silent Circle's Android-based Blackphone failed to win much market share, the political situation is different now than it was seven years ago.
Supply-chain provenance has become more important in recent years, thanks to concerns about the national security implications of foreign-made tech gear. The Librem 5 USA comes at a cost, starting at $1,999, though there are now US government agencies willing to pay that price for homegrown hardware they can trust – and evidently tech enthusiasts, too.

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Walmart accused of turning blind eye to transfer fraud totaling millions of dollars

Store giant brands watchdog's lawsuit 'factually misguided, legally flawed'

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Wed 29 Jun 2022 // 00:36 UTC

America's Federal Trade Commission has sued Walmart, claiming it turned a blind eye to fraudsters using its money transfer services to con folks out of "hundreds of millions of dollars."
In a lawsuit [PDF] filed Tuesday, the regulator claimed the superstore giant is "well aware" of telemarketing fraudsters and other scammers convincing victims to part with their hard-earned cash via its services, with the money being funneled to domestic and international crime rings.
Walmart is accused of allowing these fraudulent money transfers to continue, failing to warn people to be on their guard, and failing to adopt policies and train employees on how to prevent these types of hustles.

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FTC urged to probe Apple, Google for enabling ‘intense system of surveillance’

Ad tracking poses a privacy and security risk in post-Roe America, lawmakers warn

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Mon 27 Jun 2022 // 18:44 UTC

Democrat lawmakers want the FTC to investigate Apple and Google's online ad trackers, which they say amount to unfair and deceptive business practices and pose a privacy and security risk to people using the tech giants' mobile devices.
US Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and House Representative Sara Jacobs (D-CA) requested on Friday that the watchdog launch a probe into Apple and Google, hours before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for individual states to ban access to abortions.
In the days leading up to the court's action, some of these same lawmakers had also introduced data privacy bills, including a proposal that would make it illegal for data brokers to sell sensitive location and health information of individuals' medical treatment.

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Google to pay $90m to settle lawsuit over anti-competitive behavior on the Play Store

US developers that qualify could receive more than $200,000

Richard Speed Fri 1 Jul 2022 // 13:30 UTC

Google is to pay $90 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with US developers over alleged anti-competitive behavior regarding the Google Play Store.
Eligible for a share in the $90 million fund are US developers who earned two million dollars or less in annual revenue through Google Play between 2016 and 2021. "A vast majority of US developers who earned revenue through Google Play will be eligible to receive money from this fund," said Google.
Law firm Hagens Berman announced the settlement this morning, having been one of the first to file a class case. The legal firm was one of four that secured a $100 million settlement from Apple in 2021 for US iOS developers.

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Microsoft teases Outlook Lite for Android

What are the 'main benefits' of Outlook? Whatever they are, that's all you'll get

Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Mon 4 Jul 2022 // 06:58 UTC

Microsoft is readying a "Lite" version of its flagship messaging and calendar app for Android.
News of the app appeared on the software giant's feed of forthcoming items on the Windows 365 Roadmap.
The description offered is scanty: "An Android app that brings the main benefits of Outlook in a smaller app size with fast performance for low-end devices on any network."

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Apple lets devs in South Korea switch payment providers – with a lot of legwork

iPhone seller makes changing to a third party payment platform expensive and difficult. We're shocked. Shocked

Richard Speed Fri 1 Jul 2022 // 03:57 UTC

A crack in Apple's walled garden appeared yesterday as the iPhone vendor opened up an option for alternative in-app payment processing within apps distributed in South Korea.
The commission levied by Apple for in-app transactions, which can be up to 30 percent, has long irked app developers. Epic Games famously went before US courts to protest Apple's rules and lost.
South Korea's lawmakers, however, took matters into their own hands and targeted Google and Apple with a law requiring both to open their app stores to third party payment options. Google made its update at the beginning of the year, effectively cutting its service fee by four percent.

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LGBTQ+ folks warned of dating app extortion scams

Uncle Sam tells of crooks exploiting Pride Month

Jeff Burt Mon 27 Jun 2022 // 21:37 UTC

The FTC is warning members of the LGBTQ+ community about online extortion via dating apps such as Grindr and Feeld.
According to the American watchdog, a common scam involves a fraudster posing as a potential romantic partner on one of the apps. The cybercriminal sends explicit of a stranger photos while posing as them, and asks for similar ones in return from the mark. If the victim sends photos, the extortionist demands a payment – usually in the form of gift cards – or threatens to share the photos on the chat to the victim's family members, friends, or employer.
Such sextortion scams have been going on for years in one form or another, even attempting to hit Reg hacks, and has led to suicides.

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Biden considers removal of Trump-era China tariffs to ease inflation

But US administration split on loss of leverage, according to reports

Lindsay Clark Tue 5 Jul 2022 // 13:30 UTC

US president Joe Biden is debating whether to end or cut Trump-era tariffs imposed on Chinese imports into the United States, according to reports.
Introduced in 2018 during the Trump administration, tariffs on more than $300 billion in imports from China — including products and components vital in consumer and business technologies — were inherited by the Biden administration.
According to Bloomberg, president Biden and his cabinet have discussed the inflationary impact of these levies with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The cabinet was looking at all of the possible ways to curb inflation and to provide some relief on cost of living for Americans, the report said.

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Visual Studio adds ability to edit code in All-in-One Search

Just one more wafer-thin feature to pop in Microsoft's swelling dev suite

Richard Speed Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 16:18 UTC

Microsoft has added the ability to edit code while in Visual Studio's All-In-One Search user interface.
The feature is included in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 2 and follows changes to search functionality in the development suite. At the start of the year, Microsoft introduced indexed Find in Files to speed up the already rapid searching (compared to Visual Studio 2019 at any rate).
The indexed Find in Files fired up a ServiceHub.IndexingService.exe process on solution load or folder open which scraped through the files to construct an index. Worries that the indexer would slug performance like certain other Microsoft indexing services were alleviated somewhat by the use of Below Normal operating system priority.

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A great day for non-robots: iOS 16 will bypass CAPTCHAs

A bot says what? Apple relies on IETF standards to remove annoyance, citing privacy and accessibility

Laura Dobberstein Tue 21 Jun 2022 // 11:45 UTC

Apple has introduced a game-changer into its upcoming iOS 16 for those who hate CAPTCHAs, in the form of a feature called Automatic Verification.
The feature does exactly what its name alludes to: automatically verifies devices and Apple ID accounts without any action from the user. When iOS 16 ships later this year, it will eliminate the frustrating requirement to select all the stops signs in a photo or decipher a string of characters.
The news was mentioned at Apple's 33rd annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) along with the usual slew of features designed to enhance the functionality of iPhones.

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