Internet

The combined might of email, scanners, and computers should have made the venerable fax machine obsolete right? Millennials might laugh at it and presume it went the way of the floppy disk but it might shock them to know that more 300 million fax numbers still exist. That may not mean that all of those are in use but it at suggests that some may be active and may even be connected to some network, be it local or the Internet. And that is one gaping security hole waiting for some enterprising hacker to get through.

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Smartphones are built for the Internet. Almost every functionality and every app seem to be designed with the presumption of an Internet connection always available. Naturally, installing and updating apps also require that. Internet access, however, isn’t available everywhere all the time. And in some cases, it can even be expensive. Google Play used to be indiscriminate about Internet connections. Either you had one or you didn’t, end of story. Fortunately, now it will be more forgiving, allowing users to choose not to download or update apps unless they’re on Wi-Fi.

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If you have an Instagram account, you may want to take some extra precautions and do what you can to lock it down. That, of course, is always good advice, but at the moment it might be particularly important. Reports of hackers taking over Instagram accounts are starting to circulate, but this story is a fair bit more strange than you would initially expect.

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As part of its efforts to be more transparent and accountable for its political influence, Facebook has announced changes to the verification process for Pages with a large following. The social network will require additional measures from Page administrators to prove their identity, in part to make it harder for Pages to be run by fake or compromised accounts.

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Facebook is cracking down on content that instructs the public on creating firearms using 3D printers. Blueprints for these weapons have been available online for years, raising concerns about safety and the technology's ability to circumvent existing gun laws. Facebook confirmed the removal to several media outlets today, saying the content is against its Community Standards.

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Microsoft has teamed up with Agile Networks to launch broadband Internet throughout rural Ohio, the companies have announced. The launch will cover 900,000 Ohioans who currently have inadequate access to the Internet, this being part of Microsoft's larger Airband Initiative. Under that, Microsoft aims to reduce the number of American communities without broadband, covering 2 million people by 2022.

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Last week, Verizon announced a new subscription service that promised to protect your privacy when you do anything on your smartphone that connects you to the Internet. Safe Wi-Fi is practically Verizon’s own branded VPN service that uses security company McAfee’s technology under the hood. That collaboration, however, has allegedly given rise to some miscommunication that is rendering this service pointless. Because in agreeing to use Verizon’s Safe Wi-Fi to keep your data private, you are giving it and McAfee permission to use your data for targeted ads, among other things.

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Facebook has disclosed the discovery of new accounts engaging in "inauthentic behavior," according to newly released statements from the company. These accounts were present on both the Facebook and Instagram platforms, the oldest dating to early 2017 and the newest to May 2018. Facebook, which says it is still in the early stages of its investigation, explains that one page had more than 290,000 followers, and that the Pages collectively produced more than 9,500 organic posts.

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Amazon has quietly started rolling out collaborative wishlists, hinting at the upcoming wider launch of a feature that users have been requesting for years. With this new type of wishlist, Amazon customers can create and maintain a single shopping list together, a useful feature for households, couples, families, and more. Only some users have access to the feature at this time, however.

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YouTube is home to tons of different videos and, therefore, tons of different aspect ratios. While YouTube's desktop player is 16:9 by default (and indeed, that seems to be the go-to aspect ratio these days), there are still plenty of older videos that were recorded and uploaded in 4:3. Then, of course, we have the always controversial vertical aspect ratio of videos recorded on a smartphone.

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Google has announced plans to rollout Internet hotspots in Nigeria, a move that will give millions of people online access. The project will involve the construction of Google Station destinations across five Nigerian cities, adding them to the list containing Mexico, Thailand and other select countries set for Google Station rollouts. The hotspots will be launched in partnership with 21st Century, a fiber provider in Nigeria.

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For a lot of people, summer means spending time outside at local events, whether those are concerts, festivals, art shows, or theater. Google has been working on improving event discovery within Search for a while now, but today, it announced a pretty significant update that will put information on events front and center. The idea is to surface information on events right in your search results, saving the trouble of visiting different websites to find the idetails you need.

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