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The Mitigation-for-Spectre Edition Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Apple Releases iOS And macOS Updates With A Mitigation For Spectre, by Romain Dillet, TechCrunch

Apple just released iOS 11.2.2 with some Safari and WebKit improvements to mitigate the Spectre vulnerability. macOS is also receiving an update. It’s a supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 and it includes the same fix.

As always, you should update your devices with the latest security patches. In this case, Meltdown and Spectre are serious vulnerabilities. With Meltdown, a malicious application running on an unpatched device can read the unencrypted kernel memory. You don’t want anyone to grab your password and private encryption keys.

Apple: New Parental Control Features Planned For The Future, by Rene Ritchie, iMore

"Apple has always looked out for kids," an Apple spokesperson told iMore, "and we work hard to create powerful products that inspire, entertain, and educate children while also helping parents protect them online. We lead the industry by offering intuitive parental controls built right into the operating system."

The Wireless Charging Wars Are Over (For Now), by Russell Holly, iMore

One of the things that helped this process over the last couple of years has been the consolidation of competing technologies into the Wireless Power Consortium. Today, the last major competitor to the WPC announced it was joining and sharing its technology to advance the Qi standard of wireless charging.

Your Smartphone Is Making You Stupid, Antisocial And Unhealthy. So Why Can’t You Put It Down?, by Eric Andrew-Gee The Globe and Mail

Ten years into the smartphone experiment, we may be reaching a tipping point. Buoyed by mounting evidence and a growing chorus of tech-world jeremiahs, smartphone users are beginning to recognize the downside of the convenient little mini-computer we keep pressed against our thigh or cradled in our palm, not to mention buzzing on our bedside table while we sleep.

[...]

Socrates was wrong about writing and Erasmus was wrong about books. But after all, the boy who cried wolf was eaten in the end. And in smartphones, our brains may have finally met their match.

"It's Homo sapiens( minds against the most powerful supercomputers and billions of dollars …. It's like bringing a knife to a space laser fight," Mr. Harris said. "We're going to look back and say, 'Why on earth did we do this?'"

Stuff

Apple Finally Finds A Hit With Strange Headphones, by Molly McHugh, The Ringer

We all had our fun with the strange design and troubled launch only to see AirPods score a 98 percent customer satisfaction rate and dominate the market by September 2017.

Lifesum Health Tracking App Adds New AI Image Recognition Feature For Food Logging, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

Lifesum, a popular calorie counter and nutrition tracking app on iOS, is rolling out a new image recognition feature that allows users to snap a picture of their food to log ingredients and nutrition information.

Bottom of the Page

I've enjoyed many of my meals in fast food restaurants, especially when I am eating alone. It wasn't the food, though I do enjoy some fast food items. What I enjoy about fast food restaurants is the slower pace. I can eat my meal slower -- especially the sides, which is typcially french fries. I used to slow-read newspapers in fast food restaurants while sipping my drinks. (Nowadays, Reeder, Instapaper and Kindle on iPhone have replaced the papers.) I can't do that in food courts, kopitiams, and hawker centers.

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Thanks for reading.