John Lister

Apple has told a court that it's impossible to access data in most iPhones and iPads without a password. It could lead to a legal standoff in the 'security versus privacy' debate. The comments came in a case involving a recently-seized iPhone. The ... United States Justice Department is unable to access the contents of the phone and has therefore asked the court to order Apple to help them gain access. In this specific case however, Apple is physically able to access the device's data because the phone itself is running a susceptible operating system (iOS version 7). Nonetheless, Apple has ... (view more)

Microsoft is to display a "nag box" to users of Windows 10 who switch their default browser to Chrome or Firefox. The box will urge users to stick with the built-in Edge browser. The new nag screen came to light in a leaked version of an upcoming ... update to Windows 10. This edition, known as build 10568, isn't supposed to be available to anyone yet, not even those who've signed up to be the first to try out planned updates. However, Microsoft has confirmed that the new notification is genuine. The screen will appear whenever users try to switch the default browser, which is ... (view more)

Facebook is to warn users when it believes a government is trying to hack their account. The company is giving few details about how it will detect such attempts, or which governments may be involved. The warnings will appear when Facebook has ... reason to believe an "account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state." According to Facebook, the message is not meant as an indication that Facebook's own servers or systems have been compromised - whether by a government or anyone else. Early Warning System Instead, Facebook will ... (view more)

Google is to tone down security warnings for users of the Chrome browser. It believes the move won't increase user risk and may instead encourage websites to improve security. The change involves the way secure websites appear in the address bar in ... Chrome. At the moment, a website in Chrome will appear with one of four icons to the left of the address to indicate whether or not it is secure: A plain white 'blank page' icon indicates an ordinary http site, meaning there's no encryption of data passing back and forth between the website and the user's computer. A green ... (view more)

Facebook is tweaking a feature which shows old posts on anniversary dates. The change is designed to let users filter out unwanted or uncomfortable memories. The feature concerned is known as "On This Day" and involves an entry appearing in the ... user's news feed. The entry won't appear for anyone else, unless the user actively decides to share it. It's also possible to access the page directly using a bookmark on the Facebook site or via a dedicated page at facebook.com/onthisday. Users can also sign up so that several such memories are guaranteed to show up in their news ... (view more)

Microsoft has released the next set of updates for Windows 10, including improvements for Skype and Cortana. It's also fixed a problem that was stopping some users from activating their copy as being legitimate. The new set of changes are known as ... Build 10565 and are now available to people in on the Fast Ring setting of the Insider Program - in other words, those who have signed up to be the first to test any new features or fixes in Windows 10. Assuming the feedback is positive, the changes will likely be rolled out to the general public some time next month. Product Keys Can Now Be ... (view more)

Newly-released figures show most 'ordinary' users of Windows 10 seem to have little interest in Microsoft's new Edge browser. Meanwhile the system itself is gradually gaining an audience but doesn't seem to be getting much of a boost from being free ... to install. Previous figures relating to the usage of the Edge browser had been inconclusive at best because they were taken from records of website visitors from all computing systems. With Windows 10, users are still very much a minority, which left too much of a margin of error to draw any firm conclusions. Just One-In-Eight ... (view more)

Facebook is to tweak the way it selects and displays content in user news feeds. The idea is to make life easier for users on slow, inconsistent, or wireless Internet connections. Part of the changes affect how the content will be shown; for ... example, users on a slow connection will see more text-based content such as status updates, rather than showing more videos. There will also be a change affecting how media content is downloaded as a priority. Facebook has already switched to an image format known as Progressive JPEG that displays low quality images first, then gradually downloads into a ... (view more)

Some users of Windows 10 with high-resolution monitors have experienced blurry fonts. For the moment the best solution appears to be a third-party fix, with the obvious caveats about using 'unofficial' software. The problem involves DPI (dots per ... inch) scaling, which is the way in which Windows adjusts text, icons, and even the mouse cursor for higher-resolution screens. Because text and items are often set by their application to be made up of a certain number of pixels, anything appearing on the screen with a high resolution monitor would be impossible to read, unless scaling was ... (view more)

Microsoft's Edge browser has had a couple of usability tweaks in response to user feedback. However, some planned and hoped-for improvements are yet to materialize. The two changes are showcased in a test preview of Windows 10 that's available to ... people who have signed up for early access to new features, so it may be a little while before they are available to the general public. The first change is the addition of synchronized bookmarks, a feature common in other browsers. Edge users will now be able to access and update bookmarks across multiple devices as long as they are signed ... (view more)