Month: January 2018

(credit: Jhaymesisviphotography)

Last week, Apple apologized for its iPhone performance slowdown "misunderstanding" and offered select iPhone users a discounted price on battery replacements. However, it was unclear if passing a Genius Bar diagnostic test would disqualify a device from getting that affordable battery replacement. According to a report by MacRumors, Apple will replace batteries in iPhone 6 smartphones and later models even if they pass Apple's own diagnostic test.

The news was first spotted by the Fresh website iGeneration, which reported that an internal Apple Store memo said to replace batteries in these iPhones no matter if Apple's diagnostic test shows the battery can retain less than 80 percent of its original capacity or not. That appears to mean that even if your iPhone 6 or later has a battery that's deemed healthy by Apple's test, you can still get a battery replacement at the reduced rate. Apple lowered the battery replacement cost from $79 to $29, even for out-of-warranty devices.

This welcome clarification comes just days after Apple began offering battery replacements earlier than expected. Initially, the company said the program would roll out starting in late January, but Apple began offering discounted battery replacements just a couple of days ago. Apple said that initial supplies may be limited, though, so don't be surprised if you have to wait for your local Apple Store to have a replacement battery for your iPhone.

(credit: Shek's Aperture)

Advertising pays much of the budget for most online publishers, making the growth of ad blockers an existential threat. As such, ad blocking has set off a software-based arms race, with publishers finding software solutions that keep ads appearing, or entreat people using ad blocking software to white-list them. Ad blockers readily respond with modified software that targets these specific responses, triggering the publishers to try again.

Some academics have recently stepped into the middle of this arms race, performing an analysis that allows them to identify the specific methods used by publishers to avoid having ads blocked. And the team has gone on to try a couple of different approaches, both of which modify a web page's contents to keep the anti-ad-blocking software from having an affect.

Outside of the economics of it all, there's an interesting computer science problem here. The code on the web page is attempting to identify software present on a user's browser. How do you recognize when that's happening, and how can you possibly intervene?