Author: batteryforpc

Google recently removed several apps from the Google Play Store after discovering they violated the Play Store terms of service—and, more importantly, could be used as stalkerware. That doesn’t mean they’re deleted from your Android device, though, so now’s a great time to remove them.

If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, “stalkerware” involves giving a third party access to another user’s device, location data, and other sensitive information. These apps often present themselves as “normal” tracking tools—for employee activity on company phones or your children’s whereabouts (a moral grey area to begin with), but they can also be used to spy on romantic partners, friends, or roommates.

These apps run afoul of Google’s policies for apps distributed via Google Play: “Surveillance and Commercial Spyware apps are explicitly prohibited on Google Play. Only policy compliant apps exclusively designed and marketed for parental (including family) monitoring or enterprise management may distribute on the Store with tracking and reporting features, provided they fully comply with the requirements described below.”

As part of these requirements, tracking apps must clearly show that they’re active and cannot mislead users about their purpose. In other words, apps that try to hide on a user’s device and send their location data to someone else are a no-go. Security company Avast was responsible for highlighting these seven stalkerware apps to Google, which you should remove from your Android device if you see them:

Employee Work Spy

Mobile Tracking

Phone Cell Tracker

SMS Tracker

Spy Kids Tracker

Spy Tracker

Track Employees Check Work Phone Online Spy Free

If you don’t see them, but suspect your movements are being tracked in some fashion, consider performing a factory reset on your device. You’ll have to reinstall your apps—and you’ll want to back up critical data like your photos and videos before you kick off the reset—but it’s the best and easiest way to ensure that hidden apps aren’t tracking your whereabouts. Once you have your new device set up, make sure you’re using a stronger unlocking method so someone can’t get back in and reinstall any tracking tools.

Nokia’s been killing it in the Android space for the last couple of years. Under the ownership of HMD Global, we’ve seen a relentless number of Nokia handsets dominate the mid and low-end market, but now thanks to a hands-on photo, we have our first look at a new venture for the company — an Android-powered feature phone.

The photo comes via 9to5Google, and if this is legit, we’re looking at a phone running Android without a touchscreen of any kind.

Taking a look at the interface, the home screen has a microphone icon in the top-center, likely an easy shortcut to the Google Assistant. On a handset without touch input, putting a large emphasis on voice control makes sense.

Below that, there are icons for a camera, Chrome, YouTube, and a mystery app we aren’t sure about. There are also shortcuts for alerts and settings.

As for the mystery phone’s hardware, it bears a striking resemblance to the Nokia 220 — a feature phone the company launched in 2014.

The idea of an Android-powered feature phone is interesting, to say the least, so it’ll be exciting to see if anything comes of this. With IFA right around the corner this coming September, perhaps we’ll learn more there? Only time will tell.

Ahead of flagship phone announcements, Samsung usually announces the beginning of mass production for upgraded RAM and processors. This week, it has announced an industry-first 12Gb LPDDR5 mobile DRAM for, “premium smartphones.” We’re assuming this means it’ll be inside the Galaxy Note 10.

According to Samsung’s presser, this DRAM is optimized for enabling 5G and AI features, which seems like great timing with 5G networks popping up all over the world.

For the nerds here, the DRAM is capable of data rates consisting of 5,500Mbs and is approximately 1.3x faster than previous mobile memory (LPDDR4X at 4266Mbs). The new chip also uses up to 30% less power than its predecessor by integrating a new circuit design with enhanced clocking, training, and a low-power feature that ensures stable performance even when operating at fast speeds.

Samsung also detailed, “When made into a 12GB package, the LPDDR5 is able to transfer 44GB of data, or about 12 full-HD (3.7GB-sized) movies, in only a second.”

Bring on the speed, Sammy.

The fourth iOS 13 and iPadOS beta has rolled out for developers, and while there are the usual list of changes and bug-fixes in Beta 4, one of the more interesting tweaks is a much more responsive Context Menu that you’ll be able to pull up on any device running iOS or iPadOS 13.

To try it out, simply long-press your finger on any app. You’ll need to spend less time doing so than you otherwise would on an iOS 12-running iPhone XS—the “Haptic Touch” feature that serves as its substitute for 3D Touch.

Apple has even dropped a new, special command in this Context Menu: “Rearrange Icons,” which puts your apps into the familiar jiggle mode so you can drag and reorganize them however you want. (You can also just hold down for a second longer to enable the rearranging mode with a single press, or “pry” the app by moving it with your finger when the Context Menu pops up.)

Not only does iOS 13’s 3D Touch menu now refer to “3D & Haptic Touch,” but you’ll find a new option for adjusting “Touch Duration,” or the amount of time you’ll need to hold your finger on something to activate an action. You can find it by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > 3D & Haptic Touch.

Does this new move toward Context Menus mean that 3D Touch is on its way out? It’s possible—I wouldn’t expect Apple to keep this not-used-much feature alive in future iPhone generations.

Microsoft has started testing the new Window 10 Controlled Feature Rollout feature with Windows Insiders in the Slow ring. This feature allows Microsoft to slowly roll out new features without releasing entirely new builds.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that starting with Windows 10 Insider 19H2 builds, Microsoft would be testing a new feature called Controlled Feature Rollout or CFR. Using this feature Microsoft can ship builds with disabled features that are gradually enabled by Microsoft to small groups of users.

This allows Microsoft to test these new features against smaller groups to get better feedback, bug reports, and an overall better build quality.

On July 15th, Microsoft released Windows 10 19H2 build 18362.10006 to Windows Insiders in the Slow Ring. This build included four new features that were disabled by default, but would be enabled at a later date using the CFR feature.

Windows containers require matched host and container version. This restricts customers and limits Windows containers from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios This update includes 5 fixes to address this and allow the host to run down-level containers on up-level for process (Argon) isolation.

A fix to allow OEMs to reduce the inking latency based on the hardware capabilities of their devices rather than being stuck with latency selected on typical hardware configuration by the OS.

Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from in-tune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive. This feature will help prevent accidental recovery password disclosure as part of manual BitLocker drive unlock by users.

A change to enable third-party digital assistants to voice activate above the Lock screen.

In a July 17th update, Microsoft stated that they have started to rollout build 18362.10006 that enables these features for a small subset of users who installed the previous build.

“Today we have released 19H2 Build 18362.10006 for a subset of Windows Insiders that turns on the features delivered as part of Build 18362.10005 (noted in the below blog post) earlier this week. Please note that Build 18362.10006 is only going out to a subset of Insiders in the Slow ring. That means not everyone in the Slow ring will get this update.”

As you can see, the overall build number of 18362 is the same for both the original build and the new build with the enabled features. The subversion, though, went from 10005 to 10006.

This indicates that for users on CFR releases, the subversion number will increment to reflect the new build with features enabled for that group.

Unfortunately, at this time there is no known policy or method that can be used to control CFR or even disable it entirely. BleepingComputer has asked Microsoft for more information when the feature was first announced, but was told there was no further information available at the time.

Furthermore, the recent release of the Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) does not appear to contain any related policies.