In the middle of pandemic lockdowns last year, Microsoft launched Together Mode for its Teams workplace messaging app in an effort to help attendees feel more connected. To use the mode, a meeting should have five participants at the very least, but it looks like the tech giant is looking to make it available even for calls with fewer attendees. As first reported by The Verge, people are now able to use the feature for video calls with as few as two participants, as long as they're using the Developer Preview version of the Teams app.
Love the fact I can use together mode in #MicrosoftTeams with only two people when I'm on the developer preview 😍
I'm almost never in meetings with 5 or more people🙄
— 💫🌙 Amanda Sterner 💫🌙 (@amandassterner) July 1, 2021
Together Mode uses AI-powered segmentation to put all participants in a meeting in one virtual space. Its purpose is to make people feel like they're all sitting in the same room and to help them see the other participants' nonverbal cues. The NBA gave fans a look at what the feature can do by using it to recreate the atmosphere of a packed arena without anyone being physically there.
In December, a few months after the mode rolled out, it made its way to Skype so that friends and family can use it for their video calls, as well. Even then, though, it had a five-participant minimum, which likely limited its use. Making it accessible to fewer participants could encourage people to use it more frequently. Users can switch to Developer Preview by clicking the ellipsis next to their profile picture in Teams and going to the About section. However, some organizations could switch the option off, making it unavailable to their personnel.
Twitter has shared concepts for four features that could give users more control over who can see, read and find their accounts, and it wants feedback from the public on what it showed off. The first of those features would make it easier for those with protected accounts to make their tweets publicly viewable in instances where they want to reply to non-followers. “If you have a protected account and reply to someone who isn’t following you, you may not know they can’t see your reply,” Lena Emara, Twitter people experience designer, wrote in a thread. So one idea is to include a prompt that reminds people of that fact, as well as give them the option to easily switch their tweets to public.
Twitter
Another potential feature would help those with multiple accounts. A mockup Emara shared shows an interface element that would allow you to switch to a different account directly from Twitter’s main composition window. What’s more, the new interface would allow you to see, at a glance, the name, handle and privacy status of your accounts all in one place.
The two other concepts Emara shared focus more on privacy. One of those details a feature that would periodically touch base with users to see if they’re happy with their current discoverability and conversation settings and make it easy to tweak them as needed without visiting the app’s settings menu. Lastly, the second one would create a system for notifying you when people search for your username and give you more control over whether your account is discoverable that way. That’s something that could be significant for limiting online harassment.
Twitter
As with the last time Twitter showed off several concept features, everything you see above “are just ideas and not being built (yet?).” They may never mature into features the company ships. That said, the feedback Twitter collects could inform other tools the company builds in the future.
Muse Group, the new owner of audio-editing app Audacity, caused a stir in recent days with an update to the software's privacy policy. It stated that Muse Group will collect users' personal data and possibly share that information with third parties, including law enforcement and potential buyers. That led to claims from users that the software was becoming "spyware."
The company has attempted to clear up the controversy, which it says is primarily down to "unclear phrasing in the Privacy Policy,” as Music Radar reported. Muse Group says it will only collect "very limited" data (operating system version, processor type, IP address and opt-in error reports) from Audacity users. Users' IP addresses are stored in a readable format for 24 hours before they become "pseudonymized and irretrievable."
Muse Group added it will only share data if required by a court in a jurisdiction in which it operates. It won't hand over user information following a law enforcement request or otherwise sell or share data. The data collection is "a standard policy requirement for providing services in many jurisdictions, regardless of the depth of data collected or nature of service," the company said.
"We do understand that unclear phrasing of the Privacy Policy and lack of context regarding introduction has led to major concerns about how we use and store the very limited data we collect," Muse Group's head of strategy Daniel Ray wrote on GitHub. The company is working with its legal team on a revised, clearer version of the policy, which it plans to publish soon.
The limited data collection is necessary because of two new features in the upcoming version of Audacity, according to Ray: a way to automatically check for updates, and the optional error reporting. Ray didn't address a privacy policy request for users aged under 13 not to use the app. The General Public License under which Audacity is distributed doesn't allow restrictions on the use of software.
The updated privacy policy does not apply "to offline use of the application," so if you block Audacity's access to the internet, it shouldn't be an issue. The policy will only come into force with the next version of the software, 3.0.3. Current and older versions don't have any networking features and they won't collect any data.
At best, this was a case of miscommunication which caused concern among Audacity users. Nevertheless, many community members are pushing for a fork of the open-source app without any data collection requirements.
Audacity is hugely popular audio editing software, often used by beginner podcasters but with some powerful features, despite its free, open-source status.
However, recent changes to Audacity’s privacy policy have led to accusations that the editing app is now spyware. Alongside collecting user data for "app analytics" and "improving our app" — typical stuff — the data will also apparently be used for "legal enforcement."
The policy says it will capture "data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities' requests (if any)." It may share personal data with "any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary.” Yes, it’s a little vague.
These privacy policy changes follow Audacity’s acquisition by Muse Group back in April. The changes also include a ban on under-13s using Audacity, which would violate the license under which the software is currently distributed.
Data collection was apparently in the planning since Audacity’s purchase. As some reports have noticed, a Github update says the app was supposed to include opt-in anonymous analytics data collection, handled through Google and Yandex, but this was caveated by remarks that it would be "strictly optional and disabled by default." It didn’t sound as broad as the eventual policy update.
Talking of Github, some users are already calling for a fork of the software, creating a new version of the app based on the source code. For Audacity owners, Muse Group, it’s a rough start to its newest purchase.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is a little confusing, if the name didn’t give it away. It’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake polished up for the PlayStation 5, but it also includes new original content called Intermission. This is a two-chapter run completely separate to the main game, following the once-optional character Yuffie arriving into Remake’s main locale, Midgar. Sadly, you can only play Intermission with a PS5. But, oh boy, it plays like a dream. Continue reading.
Electric hypercar company Rimac is taking control of Volkswagen’s supercar brand Bugatti as part of a joint venture with Porsche (which VW owns). Bugatti and Rimac will share resources and expertise but remain separate brands with their own production and distribution setups.
Bugatti will be able to harness Rimac's EV know-how and perhaps carry on its legacy of making electric vehicles. Rimac, meanwhile, can tap into the knowledge of Bugatti, which makes the second-fastest street-legal car on the planet: the Bugatti Veyron. Continue reading.
Korean scientists claim a new desalination technique makes seawater fit to drink in minutes. The researchers’ membrane distillation process resulted in 99.9 percent salt rejection for a whole month. If commercialized, they say the solution could help alleviate the drinking water crisis exacerbated by climate change. According to the UN, more than 3 billion people worldwide are affected by water shortages.
While scientists have used membrane distillation in the past, if the membrane became too wet, it was unable to reject the salt. This particular solution uses a 3D membrane and nanotechnology. Continue reading.
In New York, Bumble is opening a café/restaurant/wine bar. Bumble Brew is scheduled to open for breakfast service on July 24th, with lunch and dinner service starting at the Nolita spot in the coming weeks. Along with an 80-seat dining room, there will be a cocktail bar, patio dining and private dining space.
The new venture builds on the Bumble Hive pop-up community spaces where people can hang out, eat and drink and meet others. Alas, you won’t be able to reserve a table direct from the app — at least not yet. Continue reading.
With more and more people getting fully vaccinated against COVID-19, many single folks are ditching virtual dates for in-person ones. Those looking for love in New York City will soon have a new spot where they can meet up for dates, a café/restaurant/wine bar from dating app Bumble.
Bumble Brew is scheduled to open for breakfast service on July 24th. Lunch and dinner service will start at the Nolita spot in the coming weeks. Along with an 80-seat dining room, there will be a cocktail bar, patio dining and private dining space.
The restaurant, which is decked out in the app's recognizable shade of yellow, can be used for events as well. It has an Italian-inspired menu with pickup and delivery options, and the music is primarily from female artists.
The new venture builds on the Bumble Hive pop-up community spaces where people can hang out, eat and drink and meet others. Bumble Brew doesn't have a direct tie-in with the Bumble app, at least for now. Still, it's easy to imagine Bumble adding a reservation system that pops up when NYC users try to arrange a date.
Recent changes to the Audacity privacy policy have led to some users calling the audio-editing app spyware. The open-source software is now collecting user data for "app analytics" and "improving our app" as well as "for legal enforcement."
The privacy policy was updated on July 2nd, following Muse Group's acquisition of Audacity in April — Muse Group also owns Ultimate Guitar and notation app MuseScore. As reported by Foss Post, the policy notes Muse Group is collecting details about users' operating system version, processor, country based on IP address, crash reports and non-fatal error codes and messages. According to the policy, processing that data is in the "legitimate interest" of the company "to offer and ensure the proper functioning of the app."
The data it collects on law enforcement grounds is more vague. The policy says Muse Group will capture "data necessary for law enforcement, litigation and authorities' requests (if any)." It may share personal data with "any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary." Data may be shared with potential buyers too.
Users' personal data is stored on servers in the European Economic Area (EEA). However, Muse Group is "occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA." Muse Group noted that whenever personal data is "transferred outside the EEA to countries that are not deemed adequate by the European Commission, your Personal Data receives an adequate level of protection in accordance with [the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation]."
The policy states users' IP addresses are "stored in an identifiable way" for a day before they're hashed. That leaves users open to identification through law enforcement or government data requests.
Several other points in the privacy policy have raised some eyebrows, including a ban on under-13s using Audacity. That, as Foss Post notes, violates the license under which Audacity is distributed. The General Public License prohibits restrictions on software use. Engadget has contacted Muse Group for comment.
All is not lost for Audacity users who value their privacy and pre-teens who tinker with audio in the app. Some users have been calling for a fork of the software, a new version of the app based on the source code. It wouldn't be surprising to see the community take Audacity in that direction.
Until that fork arrives, privacy-conscious users might want to find alternative software, or at least block Audacity from accessing the internet. After all, it's a desktop app that doesn't have any tangible online functions.
Google is still racing to pull Android apps that commit major privacy violations. Ars Technicanotes that Google has removed nine apps from the Play Store after Dr. Web analysts discovered they were trojans stealing Facebook login details. These weren't obscure titles — the malware had over 5.8 million combined downloads and posed as easy-to-find titles like "Horoscope Daily" and "Rubbish Cleaner."
The apps tricked users by loading the real Facebook sign-in page, only to load JavaScript from a command and control server to "hijack" credentials and pass them along to the app (and thus the command server). They would also steal cookies from the authorization session. Facebook was the target in each case, but the creators could just have easily steered users toward other internet services.
There were five malware variants in the mix, but all of them used the same JavaScript code and configuration file formats to swipe information.
Google told Ars it banned all the app developers from the store, although that might not be much of a deterrent when the perpetrators can likely create new developer accounts. Google may need to screen for the malware itself to keep the attackers out.
The question, of course, is how the apps racked up as many downloads as they did before the takedown. Google's largely automated screening keeps a lot of malware out of the Play Store, but the subtlety of the technique might have helped the rogue apps slip past these defenses and leave victims unaware that their Facebook data fell into the wrong hands. Whatever the cause, it's safe to say that you should be cautious about downloading utilities from unknown developers no matter how popular they seem.
China's app privacy crackdown just struck one of its largest targets yet. Bloombergreports that China's Cyberspace Administration has ordered the removal of Didi Chuxing's ride hailing app from mobile stores, including Apple's App Store and Huawei's AppGallery. The software allegedly committed serious regulatory breaches through its collection and use of personal data, officials said.
The government didn't explain the decision, which came just two days after a formal review began. Didi's app is still functional if you've already downloaded it and have an account— you just can't download a new copy.
Didi said it planned to fix the app to honor Chinese regulations, and had paused new user registrations as of July 3rd. It's not certain when sign-ups and the app will return.
The move might help protect privacy, but it also reflects China's mounting attempts to rein in domestic tech giants. It recently fined Alibaba $2.8 billion for alleged monopolistic practices, for instance. Didi was already under scrutiny for possible antitrust violations and security issues — the order represents both an escalation of that scrutiny and a signal that China is ready to get tough if companies don't fall in line.
Hackers just perpetrated one of the largest known supply chain cyberattacks so far. The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal report that IT management software giant Kaseya has fallen victim to a ransomware attack that compromised its VSA remote maintenance tool. The company initially claimed that "fewer than 40" of its customers were directly affected, but security response firm Huntress said three managed service providers it worked with had also succumbed to the attack and compromising over 200 companies.
The number could be higher. Huntress noted there were eight affected cloud service providers, potentially affecting many more
Kaseya said it had identified the likely source of the security flaw and was developing a patch that would be "tested thoroughly." In the meantime, though, the company urged all customers to shut down their VSA servers and keep them offline until they could install the update. Software-as-a-service customers were "never at-risk," Kaseya added, although the company took down that functionality as a precaution.
The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile ransomware attacks, including JBS and Colonial Pipeline. It also follows the large-scale SolarWinds breaches attributed to another group, Nobelium. Online security is quickly becoming a major issue in the supply chain, and it's not clear these problems will disappear any time soon.
Kaseya's breach also reflects the dangers of relying heavily on one company's software platform. While the number of directly affected clients is small, the supply chain network appears to have created a ripple effect that damaged numerous companies down the line. The situation might not improve until there's either tighter security among Kaseya-like providers or more competition that reduces the potential damage.
iPadOS 15 is arriving at a crucial time for the iPad. Ever since the well-designed and overly powerful 2018 iPad Pro arrived, people have increasingly asked Apple to make its tablet software as flexible and impressive as its hardware. This year’s iPadOS update isn’t going to satisfy those who want the iPad to work more like a Mac — it still feels like an iPad, for better or worse.
That said, Apple has made a handful of significant changes and a host of smaller ones, all of which add up to an experience that makes the iPad more customizable and flexible than before while still retaining (and improving upon) the basic iPad experience. There are a lot of new features to unpack, and the just-released iPadOS 15 public beta is still a work in progress, but here are some of the most significant changes to look forward to when the final software arrives this fall.
Should you install iPadOS 15?
But first, a note about that beta status. Apple’s public betas are generally pretty reliable, and that’s true here, too. I’ve generally been able to use my 11-inch iPad Pro without any issues, but apps occasionally crash and throw me to the Home Screen; interacting with notifications doesn’t always work; and there are various other hiccups here and there. (Examples: my cursor doesn’t always move to the search field when I summon it, and the last few letters of my messages are sometimes cut off when using the app in Slide Over.) It’s nothing deal-breaking, but it’s noticeable, particularly when I use my iPad for multiple hours at a time. Unless you're extremely curious, I'd wait for a few more beta versions to be released before giving it a shot, unless you can put it on a back-up iPad.
Widgets and Home Screen updates
With that out of the way, let’s dig into the new features. The most obvious change in iPadOS 15 is that widgets have come to the Home Screen. As with last year’s iOS 14, iPad users can now pin widgets anywhere they want. You can also select which apps you want to show on the Home Screen and stash the rest in the App Library, an auto-organized place to find everything you’ve installed on your iPad. Both widgets and the App Library came to the iPhone last year, and it was surprising that they didn’t arrive on the iPad until now.
My "work" home screen.
I’m glad Apple did this, because it makes your iPad’s home screens far more customizable than before, something sorely needed on a big-screen device. It took a little work, but I’ve now hidden the apps I don’t use as much in the App Library and now have five home screens curated for work, entertainment, games and so forth. For example, my work screen only has six app shortcuts (Drive, Docs, Sheet, Trello, Slack and LastPass), but the variety of widgets I have installed provides glanceable info and easy access to a lot of tools. I have a widget showing recent notes in the “work” folder, another with Reminders (also specifically from my work group), an Apple News widget showing the latest tech news, and widgets for Google Calendar and Gmail. All that, plus the apps in my dock, make this the prime place to go when I need to get things done.
Quick Notes
The other new feature that could fundamentally change the iPad experience is Quick Notes. As Apple’s Craig Federighi said during last month's WWDC keynote, Notes are now a “system-wide” feature. Swiping in from the lower right corner summons a new note that floats above whatever apps you’re using. You can quickly type or write down (with the Apple Pencil) whatever comes to mind and then swipe the note away when you’re done. Depending on your settings, you can start a new note every time you access Quick Notes, or just keep adding to the same one. Finally, you can swipe between Quick Notes you’ve started if you want to get to a specific document.
At the top of this Quick Note is a button that automatically appears to let you save a link to the page you're visiting.
The iPad’s Slide Over multitasking feature offered an approximation of this experience, but Quick Notes is far more flexible. For starters, you can move a Quick Note anywhere on the screen you want, making it feel like a true “window” reminiscent of something you would use on Windows or macOS. If you’re going to jump in and out of the same note frequently, you can dismiss it to the side of the iPad screen where a little arrow shows that you can summon it back quickly.
Apple’s Quick Note demos mostly focused on using the Apple Pencil to quickly jot things down, but it works just as well with a keyboard. When I’m doing work, it’s almost always with the Magic Keyboard attached, and being able to quickly summon a persistent document to take notes in, regardless of what else I was doing, makes the iPad feel significantly more versatile. It’s a great tool when doing research, especially since you can add links to web pages in Safari or destinations in Maps with one tap. My only real complaint is that the “swipe in from the bottom right” gesture is a little awkward, especially when using the iPad docked to a keyboard. It’s much with the Apple Pencil.
Multitasking
Multitasking was a major focus at WWDC, as well. While Apple did make some useful changes here, the fundamental iPad multitasking experience is still the same. Apps can take up the whole screen, or share the display with a second app in Split View. There’s also the Slide Over area, which lets you quickly summon a floating window containing another app. Apple has made major improvements to these features over the years, but they’re the same fundamental multitasking options we’ve had since iOS 9 back in 2015.
The tiny multitasking menu can be handy, once you know how to use it.
If you’ve been hoping for a true windowed multitasking experience, this isn’t it. But Apple has made it easier to work with the multitasking features it does offer. Now, there’s a tiny three-dot menu at the top of every app you use that lets you move the app between full screen, slide over and split view. As I compose this sentence, I’m typing in the Notes app, full screen. If I want to take Notes into Split View and share the screen with Safari, I just tap the multitasking menu and hit the Split View icon. This gives me a full view of my Home Screen, which then lets me pick anything I want to go alongside Notes.
Being able to quickly choose from any app on your Home Screen when setting up a multitasking view is a big improvement; before, you primarily had to use search to find the app you want, or drag one of the apps available in your dock. The menu also makes it a lot easier to move apps between Split View, Slide Over and full-screen views. Previously, you had to be aware of a variety of gestures, but a few minutes of playing with the multitasking menu makes the behavior pretty clear.
Safari
The last major change I’ll cover at this early stage is Safari. It’s one of the most important apps on the iPad, and it’s gotten a lot better in the last few years. But for iPadOS 15, Apple has made what I predict will be a polarizing design decision. In an effort to slim down the top menu bar, Apple crammed the URL bar and open tabs into one row. Essentially, a tab and its URL bar are now represented by a single visual cue.
This means that the location of the URL bar moves. If you’re looking at the right-most tab you have open, for instance, the URL bar is all the way to the right. It definitely takes some time to get used to, since most of us are used to it always being right in the center of whatever browser we’re using. This also makes it harder to see all your tabs; besides the “active” tab, I can currently see eight others. The rest are hidden off to the left and right of my active tab. To see them, you’ll have to scroll either direction to find what you’re looking for.
Because my active tab is the one furthest to the right, the URL bar in my window is also far to the right.In this case, my active tab is to the far left, and so is the URL bar.
Apple’s menu bar cleanup also means it removed the button that zooms out to show you a preview of every tab you have open. I used that constantly, so I hate this change. And unlike on the Mac, you can’t customize the Safari menu on the iPad at all. Now, you either have to use a keyboard shortcut or pull up the new sidebar, which contains all the open tabs in a window along with your bookmarks, reading list, history and links shared in Messages.
Safari on the iPad already did a great job of hiding the menu bar once you started scrolling through a site, so this change feels unnecessary to me. I’ll be curious to see what kind of feedback Apple gets during the beta, because I wager plenty of other people will prefer the old layout.
Safari's new sidebar holds your tab groups as well as usual items like bookmarks and your reading list.
There is at least one good thing about the new Safari: tab groups. They’re handled elegantly, with a button in the sidebar letting you open either a new “blank” group for you to populate or taking all your current tabs and saving them as a group. You can swap between groups in the sidebar, and access any groups you’ve created in any open Safari window you have. Groups will also sync across your other devices, assuming you’ve upgraded to iOS 15 or macOS Monterey. Having different tab groups for different tasks has already proven useful to me, and I’ll probably use them even more as I get used to incorporating them into my workflow.
More to come
There are plenty of other significant changes to iPadOS 15, things like the new Focus system and notifications revamp, improvements to FaceTime and Messages, the new Universal Control system that works between a Mac, iPhone andiPad, and plenty more. (You can read about some of these changes in our previews of iOS 15 and macOS Monterey.) We’ll be doing a proper review of all the new software in its final form this fall, but in the meantime I’m going to keep digging into the future beta releases to see how iPadOS 15 changes between now and its wider release.
