HiTechEdge

Author: Matt Milano

  • Charter’s Internet Prices Vary Depending on Competition

    Charter’s Internet Prices Vary Depending on Competition

    Charter is charging customers different prices, depending on whether there is decent competition to worry about.

    Charter is known for asking a prospective customer their address before quoting a price. Turns out, there’s a very specific reason for that. Charter charges its customers significantly more if there’s no serious competition available to them.

    Stop the Cap compared pricing for two streets in the same neighborhood. On one street, where Charter Spectrum was the only option, the company charged significantly more than one street over, where a competitor offered fiber internet.

    On the street where Charter had no competition, it offered three package: 200 Mbps for $50, 400 Mbps for $70 and gigabit for $110. On the street where Charter had serious competition, the company didn’t even offer the low-end 200 Mbps package. The 400 Mbps package was $30 (as opposed to $50) and the gigabit plan was $90 (as opposed to ($110).

    To make matters even worse, the introductory prices only lasted 12 months on streets with no competition, as opposed to 24 months for competitive streets.

    According to Stop the Cap, Charter is engaging in this behavior around the country.

    Note similar pricing variability exists in Spectrum service areas around the country, with the most aggressively priced offers reserved for addresses also served by a fiber to the home provider or multiple competitors (e.g. cable company, phone company, Google Fiber or other overbuilder). Current customers typically have to cancel existing service and sign up as a new customer to get these prices.

    It’s little wonder internet service providers are among the most hated companies in the US.

  • Facebook and WhatsApp Do About-Face on Privacy Update

    Facebook and WhatsApp Do About-Face on Privacy Update

    Facebook and WhatsApp appear to be doing an about-face on a controversial privacy update.

    Facebook sparked a furor when it announced it would start sharing WhatsApp data with other Facebook-owned companies. Users who failed to agree to the new terms would be locked out of the app until they did agree. Many users deleted their account and switched to competing platforms, and several countries came out in opposition to the move.

    In response to the backlash, Facebook initially postponed the rollout date, and then partially reversed course, saying people would not get locked out of the app. Instead, users would be persistently reminded to accept the terms, and be subjected to limited functionality until they did so.

    The company now appears to be doing a complete about-face, sayingit will not keep reminding individuals or limit their functionality.

    Considering the majority of users who have seen the update have accepted, we’ll continue to display a notification in WhatsApp providing more information about the update and reminding those who haven’t had a chance to do so to review and accept. We currently have no plans for these reminders to become persistent and to limit the functionality of the app.

    If WhatsApp does indeed abide by this statement, score one for privacy advocates who kept pushing back.

  • Another Wave of DMCA Takedowns About to Hit Twitch

    Another Wave of DMCA Takedowns About to Hit Twitch

    Twitch has notified users that another wave of DMCA takedowns is about to hit, to the tune of roughly 1,000 notices.

    Many Twitch users play music in the background while they’re streaming. Unfortunately, in many cases, that music is covered by copyright law. Beginning last May, Twitch started seeing a massive surge in the number of takedown requests. The first such large wave was last May, followed by another in October, with Twitch deleting the offending content.

    According to an email seen by The Verge, Twitch streamers should prepare for another round.

    “We recently received a batch of DMCA takedown notifications with about 1,000 individual claims from music publishers,” reads the email. “All of the claims are for VODs, and the vast majority target streamers listening to background music while playing video games or IRL streaming.”

    As The Verge points out, Twitch did not initially offer very good tools to help streamers manage their content and deal with the takedowns. The company has since apologized and improved its tools.

    Those improvements will hopefully help this takedown will go a bit smoother than the first two.

  • US Consumer Spending Continued to Grow in April

    US Consumer Spending Continued to Grow in April

    US consumer spending continued to grow in April, albeit at a slower pace, fueling optimism for a recovery.

    According to the Associated Press, recent data from the Commerce Department shows consumer spending up 0.5% in April. That’s down from the 4.7% increase in March, an increase that was largely fueled by stimulus spending.

    Nonetheless, a 0.5% increase indicates the economy is continuing its recovering from the pandemic recession, and provides evidence that consumer confidence is headed in the right direction.

    Interestingly, individual incomes dropped a whopping 13.1% in April, but that is another data point largely caused by stimulus checks. With many Americans receiving a boost in March, a drop in April was to be expected.

    Overall, the government estimates the economy grew 6.4% in the January to March quarter.

  • JPMorgan CEO: ‘Stay Away From Cryptocurrency’

    JPMorgan CEO: ‘Stay Away From Cryptocurrency’

    JPMorgan’s CEO isn’t likely to win friends in the crypto market, slamming it as not ‘having much value.’

    Traditional financial institutions are still trying to figure out cryptocurrency. Some, such as Visa, have begun accepting crypto. Others are still trying to figure out the best way to support it.

    JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, is cautioning investors not to invest in crypto. In a congressional hearing, Dimon didn’t mince any words regarding his thoughts on crypto.

    “Put aside blockchain and put aside stable coins, which is support by assets. Something that is not supported by anything, I do not believe has much value,” the JPMorgan CEO said.

    “My own personal advice to people is stay away from it,” Dimon continued. “That does not mean the clients don’t want it – this goes back to how you have to run a business. I don’t smoke marijuana, but if you make it nationally legal, I’m not gonna stop our people from banking it, etc. I don’t tell people how to spend their money, regardless of how I might personally feel about some of the items that people might buy with their money.”

    Dimon then said JPMorgan is debating the best way to safely integrate crypto, but ultimately believes unsupported cryptos are dangerous.

    “We’re debating should we make it available in some way, in a safe way that people can buy and sell it and put it in their statement systems,” Dimon added.

    “My one personal view: It’s nothing like a fiat currency, it’s nothing like gold. Buyer beware.”

  • FBI Working With Have I Been Pwned to Disclose Compromised Passwords

    FBI Working With Have I Been Pwned to Disclose Compromised Passwords

    The FBI will start contributing data to Have I Been Pwned, the website that allows people to see if their passwords have been compromised in a data breach.

    As data breaches become a regular occurrence, it’s important to periodically check to see if a password has been compromised by a breach. Have I Been Pwned offers that service, and the FBI wants to contribute.

    According to Troy Hunt, Have I Been Pwned’s creator, the FBI reached out to him to see if there was a way to provide the site with comprised passwords they become aware of in the course of their investigations.

    And so, the FBI reached out and we began a discussion about what it might look like to provide them with an avenue to feed compromised passwords into HIBP and surface them via the Pwned Passwords feature. Their goal here is perfectly aligned with mine and, I dare say, with the goals of most people reading this: to protect people from account takeovers by proactively warning them when their password has been compromised. Feeding these passwords into HIBP gives the FBI the opportunity to do this almost 1 billion times every month. It’s good leverage ?

    As Hunt points out, the FBI’s goals are aligned with his in this instance, and they have the ability to make a significant contribution to the database of comprised passwords. This is a big win all around, and should help keep people safe.

  • Twitter Blue Features Color Themes and Custom App Icons

    Twitter Blue Features Color Themes and Custom App Icons

    Jane Manchun Wong has struck again, spilling details on Twitter’s upcoming Twitter Blue subscription service.

    Jane Manchun Wong is a well-known leaker who often manages to find out details about an upcoming service or feature before they’re released. Twitter has been rumored to be working on a subscription service for some time, even buying Scroll to serve as the basis of it. Wong originally leaked the name and price of the upcoming service.

    Wong has now discovered additional details, including that Twitter Blue will come with color themes and custom app icons.

  • NVIDIA Posts Record Quarter on Gaming and Data Centers

    NVIDIA Posts Record Quarter on Gaming and Data Centers

    NVIDIA has posted its quarterly report, beating estimates on record revenue, thanks to its Gaming and Data Center business.

    Unlike many companies that have been hurt by the pandemic, NVIDIA has experienced significant growth. Multiple factors have helped the company, including people turning to gaming more during lockdowns and quarantine.

    NVIDIA’s GPU chips are also popular with cryptocurrency miners, leading the company to cripple them when mining is detecting, in an effort to preserve its GPU supply for gamers. The company has even announced a processor designed specifically for miners to help address the issues.

    All of the above has helped propel the company to a record quarter, bringing in $5.66 billion, an increase of 84 percent from a year earlier. Gaming revenue accounted for $2.76 billion, an increase of 106%. Data Center revenue accounted for $2.05 billion, an increase of 79%.

    “We had a fantastic quarter, with strong demand for our products driving record revenue,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

    “Our Data Center business continues to expand, as the world’s industries take up NVIDIA AI to process computer vision, conversational AI, natural language understanding and recommender systems. NVIDIA RTX has reinvented computer graphics and is driving upgrades across the gaming and design markets. Our partners are launching the largest-ever wave of NVIDIA-powered laptops. Across industries, the adoption of NVIDIA computing platforms is accelerating.

    “Mellanox, one year in, has exceeded our expectations and transformed NVIDIA into a data-center-scale computing company. We continue to make headway with our planned acquisition of Arm, which will accelerate innovation and growth for the Arm ecosystem. From gaming, cloud computing, AI, robotics, self-driving cars, to genomics and computational biology, NVIDIA continues to do impactful work to invent a better future.”

  • Shortcuts Run Much Faster in iOS 14.6

    Shortcuts Run Much Faster in iOS 14.6

    It appears iOS/iPadOS 14.6 contains an undocumented improvement, running Shortcuts actions faster than previous versions.

    The Shortcuts app is the unsung hero of iOS and iPadOS, providing a way to automate a series of actions for increased productivity. Federico Viticci, of MacStories, is a long-time iPad proponent and has extolled the virtues of Shortcuts.

    There’s good news for iPhone and iPad power users, as it appears iOS/iPadOS runs shortcuts faster. First spotted by 9to5Mac, users on Twitter started noticing the improvement.

    9to5Mac did their own tests and confirmed Shortcuts actions are indeed faster in iOS/iPadOS 14.6 and the 14.7 beta. One test involved a shortcut with 380 actions that took 8 seconds to complete with iOS 14.5.1. Running iOS 14.6, the same shortcut only took 4 seconds to complete.

    Similarly, one user on Reddit had a shortcut containing 700 actions that now runs in a mere 13 seconds, as opposed to roughly 30 seconds pre-iOS 14.6.

  • Facebook Declares War on People Who Repeatedly Share Misinformation

    Facebook Declares War on People Who Repeatedly Share Misinformation

    Facebook is stepping up its fight against misinformation, including taking action against people who repeatedly share it.

    Social media platforms have become one of the biggest conduits of misinformation about climate change, vaccinations, elections, social issues and more. Facebook has been taking an increasingly tougher stance against misinformation, adding fact checkers, warning labels and other measures.

    The company is now taking action against individuals who repeatedly share misinformation. One part of the company’s strategy is to share more context about pages that spread it.

    “We want to give people more information before they like a Page that has repeatedly shared content that fact-checkers have rated, so you’ll see a pop up if you go to like one of these Pages,” says the company’s blog. “You can also click to learn more, including that fact-checkers said some posts shared by this Page include false information and a link to more information about our fact-checking program. This will help people make an informed decision about whether they want to follow the Page.

    Individuals who continue to share information may face additional penalties. Facebook previously would reduce a single post’s distribution in News Feed if it contained misinformation. Starting today, however, Facebook will reduce the distribution of all of an individual’s posts, if they repeatedly share misinformation.

    The company is also improving the notifications a person receives when they attempt to share misinformation, including the fact-checking article that debunks the post.

    It remains to be seen if the changes will have the desired effect. One thing is certain, however: Facebook has declared war on misinformation and the people who share it.

    It’s likely this will be a non-issue soon based on news about Facebook’s AI development.