Apple has reversed its decision about blocking web apps, also known as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), on iPhones in the EU.
Last month, Apple reduced the functionality of PWAs as mere website shortcuts with the release of the second beta of iOS 17.4, as security researcher Tommy Mysk and Open Web Advocacy had first pointed out.
The company then updated its developer page saying that because of security risks like malicious web apps reading data from other web apps and accessing cameras, it decided to end support for home screen apps.
Apple also said that PWAs had “very low user adoption” so there might not be a lot of impact on users.
Separately, the Open Web Advocacy group published an open letter addressed to Tim Cook to lift the ban on web apps, which was signed by hundreds of organizations and individuals including Mastodon, internet advocate Cory Doctorowand Vercel CTO Malte Ubl.
Meta has dropped its lawsuit against an Israeli web scraping company Bright Data, after losing a key claim in its case a few weeks ago.
Beyond being just another case of web scraping, what made this case particularly interesting was that Meta was a Bright Data customer at one time.
However, when Bright Data scraped Meta’s own data, the company sued.
“This concession by Meta is a pivotal moment for Bright Data and the web scraping community.
“Bright Data remains committed to keeping public web data freely accessible to everyone.
Generative AI has done an impressive job in improving productivity in a wide range of areas, including website building.
10web, a company based out of Armenia, is entering the race and believes it has an edge.
10web allows users to quickly generate websites built with WordPress, the widely-used content management system that is notoriously hard to use for beginners, using text prompts.
WordPress still powers around 40% of all the websites on the internet, thanks to its customization options, according to estimates by w3techs.
“We have AI talent, which is probably four times cheaper in Armenia than in the U.S. And here, we can access the best AI talent possible,” the founder suggested.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday said it will ban the antivirus giant Avast from selling consumers’ web browsing data to advertisers after Avast claimed its products would prevent its users from online tracking.
Avast also settled the federal regulator’s charges for $16.5 million, which the FTC said will provide redress for Avast’s users whose sensitive browsing data was improperly sold on to ad giants and data brokers.
But the FTC alleged that Avast sold consumers’ browsing data through its now-shuttered subsidiary, Jumpshot, to more than a hundred other companies, making Avast tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
The regulator said that the browsing data that Jumpshot sold revealed consumers’ religious beliefs, health concerns, political leanings, their location, and other sensitive information.
The reports found Jumpshot was also selling access to its users’ click data, including the specific web links that its users were clicking on.
A coalition of international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, have disrupted the operations of the prolific LockBit ransomware gang.
LockBit’s dark-web leak site — where the group publicly lists its victims and threatens to leak their stolen data unless a ransom demand is paid — was replaced with a law enforcement notice on Monday.
“This site is now under the control of the National Crime Agency of the UK, working in close cooperation with the FBI and the international law enforcement task force, ‘Operation Cronos,’ the message reads.
The group last year claimed responsibility for attacks against aerospace giant Boeing, chipmaker TSMC, and U.K. postal giant Royal Mail.
Monday’s takedown is the latest in a series of law enforcement actions targeting ransomware gangs.
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Google’s Chrome web browser is getting an infusion of AI technology in the latest release.
In addition to the writing assistant, AI can also be used to help organize tab groups and personalize your browser.
Chrome’s Tab Groups feature allows users who keep many tabs open to manage them by organizing them into groups.
With the new Tab Organizer, Chrome will automatically suggest and create groups based on the tabs you already have open.
To access these features, you’ll sign into Chrome, select “Settings” from the three-dot menu, and then navigate to the “Experimental AI” page.
The rabbit r1 will use Perplexity AI’s tech to answer your queriesOne of the standout gadgets of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the rabbit r1, will use Perplexity AI’s tech to answer user queries, both companies said in an announcement.
Perplexity noted that the first 100,000 r1 buyers will get one year of Perplexity Pro for free.
We're thrilled to announce our partnership with Rabbit: Together, we are introducing real-time, precise answers to Rabbit R1, seamlessly powered by our cutting-edge PPLX online LLM API, free from any knowledge cutoff.
The 5th batch of 10,000 rabbit r1 devices has sold out.
Pre-orders for the 6th batch, totaling 50,000, are available now at https://t.co/R3sOtVWoJ5 Expected delivery date for the 6th batch is June – July 2024.
Netflix isn’t planning on releasing a dedicated app for the Apple Vision Pro, nor will the company modify its iPad version to run on the headset.
Instead, users will have to resort to the web version, meaning they can’t access features like downloading titles for offline viewing.
“Our members will be able to enjoy Netflix on the web browser on the Vision Pro, similar to how our members can enjoy Netflix on Macs,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
One user wrote:Mixed reality headsets are still niche products and Netflix likely believes the Vision Pro won’t be a huge hit with customers – at least not right away — especially given the outrageous price point ($3,500).
The Apple Vision Pro will be available for purchase on February 2 and will include the ability to download and stream movies and TV shows from popular services like Disney+, Apple TV+, Max, Discovery+, Paramount+, Prime Video, Peacock, Pluto TV and Tubi, among others.
Internet monitoring firms say a near-total internet blackout in Gaza is reaching its seventh day, the longest outage of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict so far.
Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Kentik, told TechCrunch in a Signal message that this is the “longest internet blackout ever and longer than all of the previous blackouts combined” in Gaza.
On January 12, Palestinian telecom giant Paltel announced that “all telecom services in Gaza Strip have been lost due to the ongoing aggression.
According to NetBlocks, this is the “ninth and longest sustained” telecom’s outage since the onset of the present conflict with Israel.
David Belson, the head of data insight at Cloudflare, which also monitors internet connectivity across the world, told TechCrunch on Thursday that there is an ongoing internet outage in Gaza.
