Month: September 2021

Enlarge / If Alaska's native Ursus arctos population could be enlisted for cyber defense patrols, attackers might need paws for reflection before committing a criminal breach. (credit: Jared Lloyd via Getty Images)

Last week, Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) disclosed a security breach apparently made by a sophisticated nation-state level attacker.

According to DHSS—which contracted with well-known security firm Mandiant to investigate the breach—the attackers gained a foothold inside DHSS' network via one of its public-facing websites, from which it pivoted to deeper resources.

A months-long saga

This is not the first report of the DHSS breach. The organization first publicly announced the intrusion on May 18, with a June update announcing a multipronged investigation, and one more in August on completion of the first of three investigatory steps.

Enlarge / iOS 15's Focus feature. (credit: Apple)

As announced previously, Apple today released iOS 15 for the iPhone, iPadOS 15 for the iPad, watchOS 8 for the Apple Watch, and tvOS 15 for the Apple TV.

Apple has also announced a major annual update to the Mac operating system called macOS Monterey, but that is not one of today's releases.

iOS 15's major new feature addition is Focus, whereby a user can set profiles like "work," "sleep," or "home" that display different apps and notifications depending on what the user is doing. It also redesigns notifications and adds numerous new features to Messages and FaceTime, among other things.

Enlarge / It's OK to hit the pause button on iOS 15, if you want. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple releases iOS and iPadOS 15 to the public today, following the announcement at WWDC earlier this year and the customary public beta period. The new software will run on every single iPhone and iPad that could run iOS or iPadOS 14, going all the way back to 2014's iPad Air 2 and 2015's iPhone 6S and 6S Plus.

Normally, this would mean the end of iOS 14. If Apple patched a major zero-day security vulnerability in iOS next week, in past years you'd have to move to iOS 15 to get the fix whether you wanted the rest of its features or not. But starting this year, that's not the case. For the first time ever, if you want to put off the iOS 15 update for a few weeks or months, you can do that without missing out on important security updates. This is because Apple is planning to continue updates for iOS 14—not just for old devices, but for any phone or tablet that runs iOS 14 or iPadOS 14.

This update policy change brings iOS and iPadOS more closely in line with macOS. Apple provides feature updates for the newest macOS release and important security updates for the two previous macOS versions, for a total of three macOS releases at a time. Apple isn't committing to that same policy with iOS (and the macOS policy isn't actually spelled out anywhere, as Microsoft does for its software releases), but security updates for even one other version of iOS is an improvement.

Enlarge / These are the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 devices, but Google's foldable hardware will reportedly follow in Samsung's footsteps. (credit: Samsung / Ron Amadeo)

A Google Pixel Fold is pretty much inevitable. Samsung's push on the hardware front is making foldables the next big Android form factor, and the Android Team has already started thinking about foldables by incorporating basic support in Android 10 for the first Galaxy Fold launch. Part of the point of Google phones is to give the Android Team in-house hardware to experiment with and build the next version of Android for. So if foldables are going to be the next big thing, Google's going to need to make one.

That is pretty much what the rumor mill is pointing toward, with Google reportedly planning to combine the best of both worlds currently available on the market: Samsung-style foldable hardware with an iPad-OS-style dock interface for easier multitasking.

First up, the hardware: the Pixel 6 is a good framework to think about when pondering the upcoming Pixel foldables. Google's upcoming slab smartphone is very Samsungy, with a new "Google Tensor" SoC co-developed with Samsung's Exynos division and a Samsung modem with mmWave—the Galaxy S21 doesn't even use a Samsung mmWave modem. There's a 50MP Samsung GN1 as the new main camera sensor, and the 120 Hz display will undoubtedly be made by Samsung, too. The foldables will probably have a similar makeup: a metric ton of Samsung hardware DNA with Google software.

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  A catastrophic solar "event" has wiped out most of humanity. [credit: YouTube/Apple TV+ ]

Apple TV+ has dropped the official trailer for Finch, its forthcoming sci-fi film starring Tom Hanks as a robotics engineer who survives an apocalyptic solar flare, then goes on a trek to mountain safety with his trusty dog and robot sidekick. That is so Tom Hanks, amirite? Yes, this is a real movie, not a gag. Based on the trailer—carefully tailored to push all the requisite emotional buttons—the film looks like a strange mix of Cast Away, WALL-E, and Chappie. In the right hands, that unlikely mix just might work.

The title was BIOS when the film was originally announced in 2017. The global pandemic put the planned 2020 theatrical release on hold indefinitely, and Universal Pictures eventually sold the rights to Apple TV, which changed the title to Finch. There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. The film is directed by Miguel Sapochnik, the mastermind behind several big, battle-centric episodes of Game of Thrones, including "Hardhome," "The Battle of the Bastards," "The Long Night," and the hugely controversial (because of a favorite character's heel turn) "The Bells." The spec script by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell made 2017's "Black List" of favorite unproduced screenplays. And you've got the world's most likable everyman (Hanks) in the lead role.

Per the official synopsis: