Articles

Apple has fixed a supposed bug that caused iPhones to mix up the words "Trump" and "racist". But a speech recognition expert says Apple's explanation was implausible. The issue was with the Dictation tool in iPhones that lets users speak and have ... their words transcribed ready to use as text, for example to send as a message. Numerous videos posted online by users showed them saying the word "racist" but their phone showing the word "Trump" before correcting the error shortly afterwards. Although Apple quickly fixed the issue after the videos went viral, it does appear the videos are genuine. ... (view more)

So-called video display "dark modes" on mobile devices may use more energy than ordinary display modes according to new research. The effect of the modes on human behavior may be counterproductive. The claim comes from BBC Research ... (view more)

Google is to allow advertisers to use a controversial tactic for tracking Chrome users online. It had previously described the 'fingerprinting' technique as "wrong". The idea of fingerprinting is to identify an individual user even if they don't ... have the ability or permission to install a cookie on a user's computer. It's a way to more accurately identify somebody without relying solely on an IP address, which may be shared between multiple users or even change between different online sessions. Fingerprinting adds in specific pieces of data which individually don't reveal much about the user ... (view more)

Chrome may soon make it even easier to change a password after a data breach. An in-test feature would actively change the password on the user's behalf. The change would affect what happens when Google auto-fills a password field using a stored ... password. The browser already checks such stored passwords against a database of passwords that have been breached and released publicly. At the moment Chrome will simply warn users about such a breach and prompt them to change it. However, the user will need to manually go to the password settings section or account settings on the website in ... (view more)

Microsoft is to more clearly label search results in the Windows 11 Start Menu. It will better highlight which results come from the computer itself and which are from the Internet. The change will initially apply only to users in the European ... Economic Area and appears to be a way of complying with new rules on the continent. It's not clear yet if Microsoft intends to roll the changes out to all users. It's all to do with the search feature that appears in the Start Menu itself. The current setup means typing a word or phrase will bring up results that include documents and applications on ... (view more)

Comcast is experimenting with a new technology for reducing latency and lag online. It could be particularly useful for video calls and online gaming. While most analysis of Internet speed is about uploading or downloading data, latency - also ... called lag - is all about response time. In effect, it's how quickly the connection starts transferring data after you (and your device) start the process. Although variations in latency are usually measured in fractions of a second, they can cause serious problems for some Internet use. For video calls they can cause a notable gap between somebody on ... (view more)

Microsoft's Edge browser now has a "scareware blocker" available for optional use. It attempts to recognize bogus claims that a computer has been compromised by malware. Scareware can come from a deliberate scam website, a compromised site, or a ... pop-up window running on a legitimate site that hijacks or takes advantage of advertising space. Whatever the source, the effect is normally the same: highly visible warnings of a supposed malware infestation, often in a full-screen window that's difficult to escape. Some versions even include an audio warning. The idea is to panic the user into ... (view more)