GLENN’S SHOWNOTES
Apple tightens ID policy after hack
From Milo
Apple has temporarily suspended users’ ability to reset their Apple ID passwords over the phone in the wake of a devastating hack on a journalist.
Wired reporter Mat Honan lost control of several online accounts and had his iPhone, iPad and Macbook erased after a hacker used social engineering techniques to get access to his Amazon and Apple accounts.
The attacker had obtained the last four digits of Honan’s credit card number by accessing the reporter’s Amazon account, and used those to convince Apple personnel that he was Honan.
“We’re asking customers who need to reset their password to continue to user our online iForgot system,” Apple said.
Amazon removed the ability to change email addresses and credit card details for its customers over the phone earlier this week.
Apple to ditch YouTube app in iOS 6
Apple will remove the default YouTube application from its iPhone devices in the next iteration of its iOS operating system.
Apple confirmed iOS 6 will not include the application, as the license for the app has ended. iPhone users will be able to access YouTube via the Safari web browser.
Google is working on a dedicated YouTube application to be released in Apple’s App Store.
The YouTube application will still be available in iOS 5
Windows 8 packaging surfaces
As reported by The Verge, packaging for Windows 8 will display the Metro-style Windows 8 UI logo on the front with a white background, with a black background for Windows 8 Pro.
Microsoft last week canned the use of its ‘Metro’ moniker after a German retailer threatened to sue the software giant.
Germany-based company, Metro AG, has threatened legal action over the use of the name.
Microsoft is urging its partners and developers to replace mentions of ‘Metro’ with ‘Windows 8-style UI’ for Windows 8, and ‘New User Interface’ for its product line.
The moniker appears to still be in wide use across Microsoft websites as well as partner and developer sites.
Gmail in personal search results
https://www.google.com/experimental/gmailfieldtrial – sign up page
Google has begun testing a search feature that mines relevant emails from users’ Gmail accounts and displays links to them in the results page.
To use the feature, users would need to be logged in to their Google account and the Gmail results would be visible only to them.
Google Knowledge Graph Arrives In Australia
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html
Knowledge Graph aims to provide detailed information in response to searches, rather than just a list of web pages. In a post announcing that it will now work on all English-language Google sites
Will be rolled out progressivly
Google adds cell locking to spreadsheet app
Users’ of Google’s Spreadsheet application can now designate blocks of cells that only they can modify when they allow their worksheets to be edited by others.
Other new features include the ability to apply colors and patterns to cell borders
NBN costs blow out by billions
From Greg
NBN Co’s broadband network will cost $1.4 billion more to build and $3.2 billion more to operate than first expected – altogether $4.6 billion over ten years – but rollout targets are being met, according to an updated corporate plan.
The $1.4 billion figure is indexed for inflation. The increased costs will see NBN Co taking in more revenue from 2018 onwards, giving it about $10 billion annual revenues in 2028 rather than $8.5 billion if the additional investment were not made, according to the updated corporate plan.
Since the last report came out NBN Co has signed a 40-year deal with Telstra to use its infrastructure. Telstra expects to get at least $11 billion, in 2010 dollars, over the life of the contract. **so is there a negative adjustment as years go on?
Fake users and an angry developer — Facebook’s bad week
the company also reported that about 83 million of its user accounts are fake.
UBank plans 48-hour web blackout
NAB subsidiary UBank has advised customers that its website will be pulled offline for the weekend to enable a series of technical upgrades.
The online-only bank said its website would be “out of action from 12.01am Saturday 11 August to 11.59pm Sunday 12 August.
UBank said it would move to “seven-day processing”, allowing payments or transfers to go through on weekends and public holidays, rather than have to wait until the next business day.
However, the bank warned that such payments were still at the mercy of the receiving bank’s systems.
“UBank is one of the first Australian banks to move to this type of processing and until the other banks catch up, it will mean funds won’t be processed at their end until the next business day,” UBank said.
Amazon selling more Kindle ebooks than print books
The UK’s biggest book retailer Amazon now sells more ebooks than hardbacks and paperbacks combined, the company has said.
For every 100 print books sold through the site, Amazon said it sold 114 titles for its Kindle e-reader device.
It added that the average Kindle owner bought up to four times more books than they did before owning the device.
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