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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 18 Issue 15
Volume 18, Issue 15 Atari Online News, Etc. April 15, 2016
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2016
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1815 04/15/16
~ Millions Still Run XP! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Experts Crack Petya!
~ Rollercoaster Tycoon! ~ "Punch-Out" Easter Egg ~ A New Ransomware!
~ More Ghostbusters Soon ~ Apple Going xxxOS Path ~ Facebook Account Kit!
~ Some Modems Vulnerable ~ ~ OS X Gets Re-branded?
-* Uninstall Apple QuickTime Now *-
-* URL Shorteners, Convenient & Risky! *-
-* Microsoft Edge Becomes Ad-blocker, of Sort *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
This week flew by! Here we are on the unofficial day for taxes!
Well, actually, not this year due to a holiday being celebrated in
Washington, D.C. So, that means the deadline for filing your taxes
has been extended until Monday. And, if you live in Massachusetts,
that deadline has been extended to Tuesday because of Patriots Day!
So, if you're a tax-filing procrastinator like I am, you still have
a few more days to finish up your tax returns and get them in the
mail (literally or electronically). I filed mine last weekend,
finally.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Two New Ghostbusters Video Games Coming Soon!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Still Has Secrets!
Atari: Won't Walk Away from Rollercoaster!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Two New Ghostbusters Video Games Coming Soon From Activision
With the Ghostbusters reboot tiptoeing nearer and nearer, the
marketing machine is in full swing, with Activision announcing via
that they have not one, but two upcoming games in production.
The first is a four-player RPG simply titled Ghostbusters, which
serves as a sequel to the reboot film featuring a new cast of
characters keeping ghosts at bay in New York City. Check out the
trailer below ahead of its July 12 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
The other is a mobile game called Ghostbusters: Slime City, which
also launches in July, and has you teaming up with other
Ghostbusters to again protect NYC from supernatural threats.
From the Press Release:
Activision Publishing, Inc., in collaboration with Sony Pictures
Consumer Products, has announced a pair of new Ghostbusters video
games set in and inspired by the comedic action world of the
upcoming Ghostbusters film, in theaters July 15. Taking place
after the events of the new movie, both Ghostbusters games
introduce new casts of rookies keeping watch over the station
while the now-famous Ghostbusters tour the country stopping
high-profile poltergeists. When paranormal phenomena unleash
apparitions across New York City, these new squads of recruits
must don their proton packs and wrestle those rogue spirits back
to the afterlife!
The console game, Ghostbusters, is a third-person action
role-playing game positively charged for thrilling couch co-op
with up to four players locally. As rookie Ghostbusters, players
can level up their charactersí gear and abilities by tackling
objectives, defeating ghastly creatures and discovering hidden
collectibles in Manhattanís most haunted haunts. There are four
heroes to choose from, and each has his or her own unique
personality and play style, bringing special strengths to support
the team.
Ghostbusters is expected to arrive on the PlayStation4 computer
entertainment system, Xbox One and Windows PC via Steam on
July 12.
The mobile game, Ghostbusters: Slime City, lets players be a
Ghostbuster and save New York City from a new wave of threats.
Team up with other players in asynchronous co-op, and collect
powerful ghosts to rise to the top of the leaderboards. Players
can also craft their own proton packs from any number of
combinations of components, as well as upgrade their own
headquarters and complete jobs around the city for new weapons
and rewards.
Ghostbusters: Slime City is expected to launch in July on select
iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices via the App Store, select
Android devices via Google Play and select Kindle devices through
the Amazon Appstore.
Atari: We Won't Walk Away from Rollercoaster Tycoon World
It may have received a critical mauling, but Atari says itís not
about to give up on its new Rollercoaster Tycoon game.
The CEO of Atari says Rollercoaster Tycoon World is already
looking and playing better than it was a week ago, and that there
are 55 full-time staff working on the project ñ a number that
rises to around 80 when you factor in contractors.
Rollercoaster Tycoon World has gone through multiple developers
and was due to arrive at the end of 2015. It finally turned up on
Steamís Early Access - a platform for unfinished titles - last
month, with the user reviews being ëmostly negativeí.
ìWe have had a number of negative reactions from launch,î said
Atari CEO Frederic Chesnais. ìBut if you look at the number of
concurrent users ñ people playing the game ñ I think it is pretty
good. Itís a long run, this isnít a hit and run project, weíre not
about to walk away. There is a lot to come, and we have a
post-launch plan to introduce new features.î
One of the gameís criticisms focused on its low quality visuals,
and Chesnais says this was due to the team being nervous about
the gameís performance.
ìI take the blame on that,î he said. ìWe were just a bit shy and
afraid of things like frame rates. Before we launched
Rollercoaster Tycoon World we were receiving feedback about frame
rate issues that we werenít seeing on our end sometimes. So we
thought there might be a disconnect and that perhaps we were
asking too much from players in terms of performance from their
computers. So I said letís put the focus on performance over the
visual quality.
ìWe could have released the game in 4K, but we decided to go in
the direction of performance over visual quality. I think the
balance hasnít been right, so that is why we have effectively
reversed it with our latest update.î
He added that the firm has read all the online reviews, although
not all of them have been helpful.
Chesnais added: ìIf you work two years on a project and love your
game, and then you release it and you have positive and negative
reviews and other reviews ñ and by ëotherí I mean people who trash
the game even if theyíve barely played it ñ then, well, you have
to love your job, right?
ìWhat I want to say is that we do read what people are writing.
Even if it is positive or negative, we look at it and work out how
to make the game better. We do read all the reviews. We do care.î
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Still Has Secrets To Share, 29 Years Later
Nearly 30 years after Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! launched on the
Nintendo Entertainment System, gamers are still discovering
secrets inside it.
As Redditor midwesternhousewives discovered, there is a visual
cue among the spectators in the second Piston Honda fight, which
tells the player when to throw a punch that knocks Honda out with
one blow. A one-punch KO of Honda has been known for years,
though gamers were left to guess exactly when that window is open
during his special attack. Now it's clear; just watch the bearded
guy on the front row, about seven over from the left.
Another user in the Reddit thread describing the tip-off notes
that "the bearded man did not flinch or move a single pixel until
I reached the second fights with piston Honda and bald bull."
The same spectator provides the same tip-off during Bald Bull's
notorious charge attack in his second fight, which also can be
stopped with one punch. When beardy ducks. blast Bull with a body
blow, and its bedtime for Baldy.
In the first Bald Bull bout, a camera flash signals the time to
throw the punch; that was revealed in 2009 by the late Satoru
Iwata in one of the Nintendo president's roundtables with
Punch-Out!!'s creators.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Experts Crack Petya Ransomware
Security experts have devised a method that allows users to
recover data from computers infected with the Petya ransomware
program without paying money to cybercriminals.
Petya appeared on researchers' radar last month when criminals
distributed it to companies through spam emails that masqueraded
as job applications. It stood out from other file-encrypting
ransomware programs because it overwrites a hard disk drive's
master boot record (MBR), leaving infected computers unable to
boot into the operating system.
The program replaces the drive's legitimate MBR code, which
normally starts the operating system, with code that encrypts the
master file table (MFT) and shows a ransom note. The MFT is a
special file on NTFS volumes that contains information about all
other files: their name, size and mapping to hard disk sectors.
The actual contents of the user's files are not encrypted, but
without the MFT, the OS no longer knows where those files are
located on disk. Using data recovery tools to reconstruct files
might be possible, but it is not guaranteed to work perfectly and
would be time-consuming.
Fortunately, resorting to that method is no longer necessary, and
neither is paying Petya's authors. Someone using the online
handle leostone devised an algorithm to crack the key needed to
restore the MFT and recover from a Petya infection.
Computer experts from the popular tech support forum
BleepingComputer.com confirmed that the technique works, but it
requires extracting some data from an affected hard drive: 512
bytes starting at sector 55 (0x37h) with an offset of 0 and an
8-byte nonce from sector 54 (0x36) offset 33 (0x21).
If that sounds complicated, no worries: Fabian Wosar from security
firm Emsisoft created a simple and free tool that can do it for
you. However, because the infected computer can no longer boot
into Windows, using the tool requires taking out the affected hard
drive and connecting it to a different computer where the tool can
run. An external, USB-based hard drive docking station can be used.
The data extracted by the tool must be inputted into a Web
application created by leostone that will use it to crack the key.
The user must then put the affected hard drive back into the
original computer, boot from it, and input the key on the ransom
screen displayed by Petya.
"Once the hard drive is decrypted, the ransomware will prompt you
to reboot your computer and it should now boot normally,"
BleepingComputer.com founder Lawrence Abrams, wrote in a blog
post.
No Password Required! 135 Million Modems Open to Remote Factory Reset
More than 135 Million modems around the world are vulnerable to a
flaw that can be exploited remotely to knock them offline by
cutting off the Internet access.
The simple and easily exploitable vulnerability has been uncovered
in one of the most popular and widely-used cable modem, the Arris
SURFboard SB6141, used in Millions of US households.
Security researcher David Longenecker discovered a loophole that
made these modems vulnerable to unauthenticated reboot attacks. He
also released his "exploit" after Arris (formerly Motorola)
stopped responding to him despite a responsible disclosure.
The Bug is quite silly: No Username and Password Protection.
Arris does not provide any password authentication set up on the
modemís user interface, thus allowing any local attacker to access
the administration web interface at 192.168.100.1 without the need
to enter a username and password.
This issue allows a local attacker to 'Restart Cable Modem' from
the 'Configuration page' of the administrative interface at
http://192.168.100.1/, as shown. This is nothing but a Denial of
Service (DoS) attack.
Bingo! By clicking 'Restart Cable Modem' manually will disable
victim's modem for 2 to 3 minutes and every device on that network
will lose access to the Internet.
However, three minutes of no Internet connectivity is bearable,
but the same administrative panel provides an option to Factory
Reset the modem as well i.e. wipe out modem's configuration and
settings.
If an attacker clicks this option, your modem will go offline for
30 minutes as re-configuration process takes as long as an hour
to complete. Though, sometimes you need to call your Internet
Service Provider (ISP) to reactivate the modem.
David revealed that an attacker can also reset your modem
remotely, as the application doesn't verify whether the reboot or
reset the modem command comes from the UI interface or an
external source.
This remote attack is known as a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
attack that allows an attacker to use social engineering
techniques to trick users into clicking on a specially crafted web
page or email.
For example: A web page including <img src="http://malicious_url/">
tag could call any of the following URLs:
http://192.168.100.1/reset.htm (for restart)
http://192.168.100.1/cmConfigData.htm?BUTTON_INPUT1=Reset+All+Defaults
(for factory reset)
"Did you know that a web browser does not care whether an
'image' file is really an image?," Longenecker explains. "Causing
a modem to reboot is as simple as including an 'image' in any
other web page you might happen to open."
"Of course, it is not a real image, but the web browser does
not know that until it requests the file from the modem IP
address ñ which of course causes the modem to reboot."
However, these flaws are easily patchable that only requires Arris
to create a firmware update such that:
The UI requires authentication (username and password) before
allowing someone to reboot or reset the modem.
The UI validates that a request originated from the
application and not from an external source.
However, the bad news is that there's no practical fix for the
flaws. Since cable modems are not consumer-upgradable, even if
Arris releases a fix, you would need to wait for your ISPs to
apply the fix and push the update to you.
Arris has recently addressed the flaws with a firmware update.
"We are in the process of working with our Service Provider
customers to make this release available to subscribers," said the
company's spokesperson.
"There is no risk of access to any user data, and we are
unaware of any exploits. As a point of reference, the 135 million
number is not an accurate representation of the units impacted.
This issue affects a subset of the ARRIS SURFboard devices."
Meet The New Ransomware That Knows Where You Live
There's a new malware attack in town, and it's designed to hit a
little too close to home.
A new phishing campaign is sending thousands of ominous-looking
emails that contain the recipient's home address.
The well-worded email appears to come from a legitimate email
address and domain name, and raises very few irregularities. The
email comes with an demand for money for an arbitrary service,
along with a link that purports to be an "overdue invoice."
Click that link and open the file (which looks like a Word
document), and you'll become the latest victim of ransomware -
that is, malware that encrypts your files and locks you out of
your computer until you pay a ransom.
The longer you wait, the larger the ransom you have to pay.
We received an email on Wednesday, which included my home address
from some eight years earlier. Besides a tweet noting the
phishing effort, we didn't think much more of it.
But then the BBC News also reported that some of their staffers
had also received similar looking emails.
We contacted the company named in our email which demanded money
that was purportedly owed.
"We're just as much victims as those who got the emails," said a
person at the company who we spoke with on the phone. The Ludlow,
UK-based company said that they began receiving phone calls and
emails earlier this week, but stressed that the phishing emails
were not from the company.
A number of other companies were implicated by the scam. BBC
reports that other companies had "more than 150 calls from people
who don't owe us money."
The company said it had no idea how the scammers got people's
home addresses, but said they had reported the incident to
police.
Rahul Kashyap, executive vice-president and chief security
architect at security firm Bromium, said in an email that the
scammer was using a "classic social engineering" technique by
trying to "gain credibility by providing some reliable data that
the potential victims can relate to."
"It appears that the scammers are leveraging some sort of
database that has home addresses publicly available and using
this for the scam," said Kashyap.
Scammers are increasingly moving away from enticing victims into
entering their username and passwords on fake websites in order
to take over accounts.
They're now turning to ransomware which has a much higher return.
In tests in CNET's lab in New York, we verified that the malware
used in this ransomware attack is a variant called Maktub Locker,
described as a "beautiful and dangerous" kind of ransomware.
Yonathan Klijnsma, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Dutch
security firm Fox-IT, said that the fact the malware doesn't need
an internet connection is "pretty significant," not least because
network detection systems wouldn't be effective.
"It means you can retrieve your mail, step on a plane, open your
mail and still get hit," he explained.
Ransomware is increasingly becoming problematic for private
companies and citizens alike.
The FBI said last year that one popular variant of ransomware has
cost businesses tens of millions in damages for lost files.
Many hospitals, in particular, have faced shutdowns and declared
emergencies when their systems were hit by file locking malware.
More recently, the federal agency called on US businesses in a
flash advisory to help agents investigate the ever-growing kind
of malware.
Uninstall Now! Apple Abandons QuickTime for Windows
Yet another program is joining Java 6 and Windows XP as big-name
software you do not want running on your PC. Security firm Trend
Micro and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are advising
all Windows users to uninstall Appleís QuickTime as soon as
possible. (The advisory does not affect Mac users.)
The reason for getting rid of QuickTime for Windows is twofold.
First, Apple told Trend Micro it is deprecating the software and
will no longer deliver security updates for it. Second, there are
two known critical vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker
to take control of a system running QuickTime.
That's a hellacious combo.
Apple was unavailable for comment at this writing, but a quick
look at QuickTimeís download page shows the software is still
publicly available. It hasnít been updated since at least January,
however.
Trend Micro says it does not yet know of any instances where the
two potential security threats are being used in the wild but that
could change. Trend Microís Zero Day Initiative recently published
some technical details about the vulnerabilities. ZDI did this
because its disclosure policy requires it to publish threat
information when a ìvendor indicates that the product is
deprecated,î and thus wonít be patched.
If you're a longtime user of iTunes you may be running QuickTime.
To dump the program, open the Control Panel on your PC and then
from the ìcategoryî view go to Programs > Uninstall a program.
Once the list of installed programs populates, scroll down until
you find QuickTime. Select it with your mouse, and then click
Uninstall towards the top of the window. A pop-up window will
then appear asking to confirm that you want to uninstall the
program. Click Yes and youíll be QuickTime-free in no time.
A survey published by Secunia Research in late 2015 found that
Apple software is among the programs that are updated the least
often by Windows users.
Why this matters: Whenever software is about to be abandoned itís
always a good idea to move away from it ó or at least start
planning to. That goes double for software with known flaws that
allow the bad guys to execute code on your machine. QuickTime
used to be an important piece of software for Windows users. But
these days you donít need it to watch movie trailers on Appleís
site and it's no longer used by iTunes to play media on Windows.
Thereís little reason for the vast majority of Windows users to
keep QuickTime on their PCs.
Microsoft Edge Becomes An AdblockerÖ Of Sorts
Microsoft is following what Apple did with Safari back in 2013,
and Google did with Chrome in 2015.
Simply put, the Edge browser will as good as block Flash ads by
default.
Of course, thatís not exactly what Microsoft is doing, nor is it
quite how Microsoft has described the feature.
Itís not about security, even though Microsoftís announcement
starts off with:
One of our top priorities in building Edge has been that the
web should be a dependably safe, performant, and reliable place
for our customers.
Nor is it really about turning Edge into an adblocker ñ after all,
ads are vital to Microsoftís business, just as they are to Apple
and Google.
Apple pitched Safariís Flash-blocker as the Safari Power Saver;
Google announced its Flash regulator under the headline Better
battery life for your laptop; and Microsoft is following suit
(our emphasis):
Weíre introducing a change to give users more control over
the power and resources consumed by Flash.
Ads will still be loaded, but Flash content that isnít considered
central to the web page youíre on will be ìauto-paused,î meaning
that youíll have to click on the content before it starts
playing.
Microsoft doesnít define how it decides what counts as ìcentral,î
but we imagine that the algorithm will use some combination of
where the Flash came from, thus penalising third-party content
sucked down from an ad network, and where it will be displayed,
thus penalising animations around the edge of the page:
Peripheral content like animations or advertisements built
with Flash will be displayed in a paused state unless the user
explicitly clicks to play that content. This significantly
reduces power consumption and improves performance while
preserving the full fidelity of the page. Flash content that is
central to the page, like video and games, will not be paused.
In other words, Microsoft, like Apple and Google before it,
isnít admitting that having the Flash plugin in your brower
might be a security risk, and it isnít jumping into the argument
about whether the online ad industry is out of control or not.
Itís mostly about battery life.
Ironically, uninstalling Flash isnít enough to eliminate ads
these days.
Amazon, for example, banned Flash ads from September 2015, but
apparently as a way to make ads more likely to appear, given the
ever-increasing popularity of blocking browser-based Flash:
[Amazonís ban on flash ads] ensures customers continue to
have a positive, consistent experience across Amazon and its
affiliates, and that ads displayed across the site function
properly for optimal performance.
What to do?
Like you, weíve noticed how power-hungry Flash content can be (if
you live in a warm climate, your laptop fans can be a handy
early-warning system for battery-sapping web pages), so
Microsoftís announcement is a welcome one.
Nevertheless, weíre sticking to our recommendation to try turning
Flash off, and uninstalling it altogether if that works for you.
Indeed, weíre not yet sure how much protection Edgeís ìauto-pauseî
is likely to give you against deliberately-poisoned ads, because
the ads will still be loaded, which implies that some Flash code
in the ads might get to run anyway, even if it doesnít get to run
for long before it gets paused.
With two zero-day patches in two months, and ever-fewer sites that
actually need Flash, we think itís a potential security risk that
youíd do better to eliminate altogether if you can, rather than
simply skating around it.
URL Shorteners: Convenient But A Potential Security Risk
Services that shorten URLs can be great. They help take a giant,
messy, unwieldy string of text and make it a lot more manageable.
Unfortunately, some short URLs also have one major flaw: if the
URL is tiny enough, they're pretty easy to guess. In most
instances that doesn't matter; maybe you're just shortening an
online article URL to share on Twitter. However, two security
researchers published a paper yesterday that details how
Microsoft's OneDrive and Google's Maps services are easily
exploited by this method.
As Ars Technica reports, the URL shorteners these companies use
to give users direct links to files, addresses, or directions are
simply too short. Said researchers brute-forced a ton of
different links and then used them as starting points for
accessing the rest of a user's data or, in the case of Google
Maps, a user's identity.
With OneDrive, the researchers scanned 100 million different
six-digit bit.ly URLsówhich map directly to the "1drv.ms" URL
shortener Microsoft uses for OneDrive. Of these URLs, 42 percent
were live, and 19,524 linked to OneDrive files (mostly live).
"OneDrive URLs have predictable structure. From the URL to a
single shared document ("seed"), one can construct the root URL
and automatically traverse the account, discovering all files and
folders shared under the same capability as the seed document or
without a capability," reads a blog post from one of the
researchers, Cornell Tech professor Vitaly Shmatikov.
"The traversal-augmented scan yielded URLs to 227,276 publicly
accessible OneDrive documents, including dozens of thousands of
PDF and Word files, spreadsheets, media files, and executable
binaries. A similar scan of 100,000,000 random seven-character
bit.ly tokens yielded URLs to 1,105,146 publicly accessible
OneDrive documents. We did not download their contents, but just
from the metadata it is obvious that many of them contain private
or sensitive information," he added.
Worse, around 7 percent of OneDrive folders the researchers found
using this method had full write access. So, presumably, a person
could easily dump malware into the folder, which would then
synchronize to a person's various OneDrive-connected devices.
As for Google Maps, the researchers found just under 24 million
live links when they scanned various five-digit permutations of
shortened Google Maps URLs. Around 10 percent were links to maps
with driving directions.
"The endpoints of driving directions often contain enough
information (e.g., addresses of single-family residences) to
uniquely identify the individuals who requested the directions.
For instance, when analyzing one such endpoint, we uncovered the
address, full name, and age of a young woman who shared directions
to a Planned Parenthood facility. Conversely, by starting from a
residential address and mapping all addresses appearing as the
endpoints of the directions to and from the initial address, one
can create a map of who visited whom," Shmatikov wrote.
Though Microsoft has said that these issues are not themselves
security vulnerabilities ó surprisingly ó it has since disabled
bit.ly-based URL shortening within OneDrive. It also changed its
URL structures to prevent digging through a person's other shared
data from one successful shortened URL. As for Google, the
company has switched to much longer tokens for its shortened
URLs, greatly increasing the difficulty of brute-forcing live
ones.
"We're continually looking for ways to improve the usability,
features and security of our products and services for customers.
As part of these efforts, earlier this year we began removing
shortened URLs from file sharing options to simplify for users
and prepare for future developments," Microsoft told Wired.
Google told Wired the company "appreciate[s] [the Cornell Tech
researchers] contributions to the safety of Google Maps and other
Google products. The Cornell researchers notified us last year
about this issue and we've since strengthened URL protections
based on their findings and our own studies."
Millions of People Are Still Running Windows XP
Itís been two years since Microsoft ended support for Windows XP,
the popular operating system thatís been around since 2001 and
which many people just donít seem willing to let go.
Microsoft did about all it could to drag XP-ers into the present
with pop-up warnings urging them that they need to upgrade, and a
free migration tool to help people transfer their files and
settings to Windows 7 or Windows 8.
Itís not merely that Microsoft wants to get everybody onto the
latest version of Windows, although it has certainly gone to great
lengths recently to get people to upgrade to Windows 10, whether
they want to or not.
But as we at Naked Security repeatedly warned XP users, the end of
support means ìzero-days forever,î because those vulnerabilities
will never be patched ñ and XP computers are sitting ducks for
cybercriminals to attack.
And yet there are still millions of XP computers connecting to
the internet, where all manner of malware is waiting to pounce.
Windows XP was still running on 10.9% of all desktops as of March
2016, according to stats compiled by Net Applications.
To put that in perspective, according to Net Applicationsí
figures, Windows XP is still the third-most popular desktop OS,
trailing only Windows 7 (51.9%) and Windows 10 (14.2%).
And there are more PCs running XP than Windows 8.1 (9.6%), and all
versions of Mac OS X combined (7.8%).
Desktop OS market share, March 2016 (source: Netmarketshare.com).
By the way, there are some Mac OS X users who are using
out-of-support versions, too, meaning they are also vulnerable to
never-going-to-be-fixed security holes.
Net Applicationsí stats show that just under 1% of all desktops
are running OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion) or 10.8 (Mountain
Lion), which are no longer receiving security updates from Apple.
Things look slightly better when you look at OS market share
measured by a different company, Stats Counter, but thereís still
an alarming number of PCs running XP.
According to Stat Counter, Windows XP represents 7.4% of all
desktops in April 2016, down from 10.9% in April 2015.
Thatís an improvement.
But when you consider that Microsoft puts the number of Windows
devices at more than 1 billion, we are still talking about tens of
millions of computers today running a very old, very outdated, and
very insecure operating system.
Facebook Hopes To Kill The Username and Password
At its F8 developer conference, Facebook announced Account Kit, a
new way for app developers to let users sign up for services with
an email or phone number, no username or password required.
An extension of the existing Facebook login system, Account Kit
is designed for developers who want an easy way for users to
create accounts without having to sign in using Facebook.
Account Kit lets developers drop in code that will speed up the
account-creation process. Instead, a user can use an email address
or phone number. Users will receive a confirmation message via SMS
or email to get setup.
If this sounds a lot like Digits ó which is part of Twitterís
Fabric development platform ó thatís because it is.
The idea is to reduce the friction it takes to sign up for an
account within an app. And although weíre sure Facebook would
prefer that users sign up for an app with a Facebook account
(app developers would probably prefer that too), solving the
problem of user sign-ups is important. And if Account Kit can
help with that, it ultimately means more developers are using
Facebookís developer tools and platforms.
Account Kit is available for iOS, Android and web and mobile
web.
Is Apple Finally Changing The Name of OS X?
Apple seems to be in the process of renaming one of its most
important products, as evidenced by the wording of some
documentation added to the companyís website yesterday. The text
of a now-amended FAQ page about Appleís relationship with the
environment initially referred to Mac OS X as MacOS, prompting
speculation that a rebranding is in the works.
For well over a decade, OS X has been the name for the operating
system used on millions of Macs around the world ó but itís fair
to say that Apple has changed a lot since the OS was implemented
in 2002. This minor edit would bring its moniker in line with the
likes of iOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
This isnít the first indication that Apple might be mulling such
a change. Last month, the term ìmacOSî was found in the name of a
file included in the OS X 10.11.4 update which was distributed to
users on March 21, as referenced in reporting by 9to5Mac.
Of course, there is a minor difference between these two pieces
of evidence; one capitalizes the word Mac, whereas the other does
not. The lower-case style certainly fits the pattern of Appleís
other platforms, but it also makes sense that the company would
continue to treat the word Mac as a proper noun.
Regardless, the fact that the software development team and the
copywriter behind the FAQ page both seem to be familiar with the
label MacOS seems to suggest that the rebranding is common
knowledge in the halls of Apple HQ. It remains to be seen how
long itíll be before we hear official word from Apple on the
situation.
Since the release of OS X 10.7 in 2011, Apple has stuck to an
annual schedule for the launch of its incremental updates. If
OS X is indeed set to transform into MacOS, we can perhaps expect
the announcement to be made when the next version is unveiled to
the public ó which will likely take place in the fall.
Apple Mightíve Let ìMacOSî Rebranding for OS X Slip Out
Evidence that Apple will rebrand OS X to MacOS is starting to
pile up, with the new name appearing briefly on Appleís own
website.
As spotted by 9to5Mac, Appleís Environment page got an update on
Thursday, and for a short time it included a reference to MacOS.
ìYears of use, which are based on first owners, are assumed to be
four years for MacOS and tvOS devices and three years for iOS and
watchOS devices,î the page said. (Apple has since reverted the
name to OS X.)
This isnít the first time the potential name change has slipped
out. Last month, an Interface Builder document inside the OS X
system folder included a file named
ìFUFlightViewController_macOS.nibî (emphasis ours). Still,
9to5Mac noted that the name could have been included for the
sake of convenience, as developers sometimes prefer the symmetry
of iOS and macOS suffixes together. The nameís appearance on an
official webpage seems like strong evidence.
Also worth noting: Last June, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller
vaguely hinted at more name changes to come, after the company
announced ìwatchOSî for the Apple Watch. ìI think, youíll see.
Give us time, weíve been through many fun naming things,î
Schiller told John Gruber during a live podcast at Appleís WWDC
conference. (At the time, however, Apple still hadnít revealed
ìtvOSî for the Apple TV.)
Why this matters: A name change would make sense given that all
of Appleís other operating systems now fall under the [prefix]OS
naming scheme. And given that Apple has been updating the desktop
version of OS X for more than 15 years now, the roman numeral for
10 has long outlived its functional purpose. MacOSóor, perhaps,
macOS ó could be a fun throwback to the operating systemís
origins, while positioning it for the future alongside Appleís
broadening range of phones, tablets, watches, and TV devices.
=~=~=~=
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