Technology

With the introduction of Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001, the operating system immediately stood out for its innovative Aqua interface with transparent, water-like elements.   Leaked code now reveals that Microsoft had a similar theme in store for Windows XP to make PCs look more like an Apple computer with Aqua. The theme in question from Microsoft, which ultimately never appeared in the final version of Windows XP, was called Candy, tech site The Verge reports. It looks like two drops - yes - water on Aqua and dates back to 2000 when XP was still in an early development phase. Like Mac OS X 10.0, XP came out in 2001, but Apple had already previewed Aqua a year earlier, during one of Steve Jobs' keynotes. There is a good chance that Microsoft shamelessly started the copier after that perf...

An algorithm that has to choose where photos are cut out in a tweet appears to focus mainly on white faces.   Twitter users have found a significant problem with the automatic cropping of photos on the social network: it appears that white faces are much more likely to be the focal point than the faces of people with dark skin. The problem seems to be with an algorithm that automatically determines where the focus of a photo is. When you publish a photo in a tweet, it is automatically cropped to the correct size. You can then click through to see the full photo. Twitter trained a neural network to choose how to do that cutting, with a focus on faces, among other things. But that neural network has failed, as demonstrated by various Twitter users. With several photos featuring bot...

The departure of Kevin Mayer as CEO of the video service TikTok may mean that the US arm of the company will be sold in a few days.   The likely buyers are Microsoft and supermarket chain Walmart, and sources tell US news channel CNBC. According to the insiders, Mayer was not involved in the talks with Microsoft and Walmart. The former CEO wanted to run TikTok as an independent company, not as part of a larger technology group. It probably would be when Microsoft and Walmart acquired TikTok. Walmart would like to reach more customers with the help of the social media platform. There has been a lot of activity around TikTok lately. The app is threatened with a ban in the United States. According to critics, TikTok collects too much data from its users, and it could just fall into ...

The former security director of Uber Joseph Sullivan has been charged with halting a taxi app hack in 2016, exposing the personal details of 57 million customers and drivers.   Rather than report the hack to the authorities, Sullivan decided to keep it quiet and buy off the hackers. According to the prosecutor, Sullivan should have gone to market watchdog FTC, which was investigating another hack at Uber from 2014 at the time. Instead, he paid the hackers $ 100,000 in bitcoins. He used a program for this in which Uber rewards reporting vulnerabilities found in its computer code. Sullivan is charged with the hindrance of justice and failure to report a crime. However, according to the former Uber director, the case is misplaced. A spokesman for Sullivan said that at Uber, a large...

Images have surfaced of a new Microsoft keyboard on Twitter. Not so special in itself, were it not for the fact that the keyboard has an entirely new key for quick access to the Windows 10 emoji.   Both Microsoft and Apple are very proud of the ever-expanding collection of emoji in their operating systems. Microsoft now seems to go one step further by making the smiley faces quickly accessible via a special keyboard button. In the photos that have turned up, a button with a square and a heart is visible at the bottom, next to the right Alt key. That icon is not entirely new, as it previously appeared in the most recent Insider Preview build of Windows 10. On Twitter also surfaced an image of the separate numeric keypad that can be linked wirelessly to the keyboard. A user with ...

In the coming year, Microsoft will gradually discontinue Internet Explorer 11. The browser will remain, but the light will gradually dim.   On August 17, 2021, IE11 will no longer be supported by Microsoft 365 apps. This includes Outlook, OneDrive, Word or Excel. Support in Teams will end on November 30 of this year. The company does point to the existence of an IE11 compatibility mode in Edge, and old, often very explicitly developed, applications for companies will still continue to work in Internet Explorer 11. Microsoft does not explicitly say whether the browser will receive additional security updates within a year or not. But presumably, that will still be the case. However, the signal is that Internet Explorer is a lot less useful in combination with other Microsoft appli...

Facebook is also complaining about the commission policy in Apple's App Store. The social network is annoyed that the iPhone maker with a new service from Facebook simply wants to have the usual fee on so-called in-app purchases.   With Facebook, it is now also possible for companies to set up paid online events. Enterprises may charge Facebook users to access specific live streams, such as a yoga class or seminar. Usually, Apple always gets a 30 percent commission on payments made within the Facebook app. That's a rule for apps that can be downloaded from the App Store. However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's company had this time asked Apple to waive the usual fee, also because it would involve transactions for smaller entrepreneurs. They would have it severe enough because of the coron...

After Apple, Google has now also removed the popular cartoonish shooting game Fortnite from its app store.   That happened after developer Epic Games introduced its own payment method in the game - something that goes against the rules of the American tech giants. Apple and Google charge a commission on apps sold through their digital store. That amount can be as much as thirty percent of the purchase price, and that is an eyesore for more and more companies. For example, music service Spotify recently filed a complaint with the European Commission because it believes that Apple is guilty of unfair competition. Meanwhile, the maker of Fortnite, Epic Games, has also filed a complaint against the tech giants for abuse of their monopoly position.

Six ex-eBay employees are charged with harassing a couple who was critical of the auction site in their newsletter.   The six sent cockroaches to their address, among other things, the CEO was also partly aware. The case reads as if she is almost impossible to come up with. The six accused launched a smear campaign against a couple who had their own newsletter targeting online sellers. They were critical of eBay at times, and that bumped some employees. The six included members of the eBay security team, including some high-profile executives such as James Baugh, then senior director of Safety & Security, and David Harville, then director of global resiliency. The couple was sent anonymously of the six different cases ranging from porn, Halloween masks from a bloodied pig's ...