That change alone was apparently key to winning support from some skeptical members of the Senate, including Sen. Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. What will happen if the bill passes into law? TikTok (and potentially other apps “controlled by a foreign adversary”) would face a ban in US app stores if it declined to sell to a new owner.
— Mat Smith
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Chinese regulators cited national security concerns.
… and in what you might believe is something of a tit-for-tat move for blocking TikTok, Apple has pulled. The country’s internet regulator says the removal was required and justified on national security grounds. Apple is always willing to comply, lest it harm relations with one of its largest markets.
There’s no penalty for secrecy if you’re a streaming company.
Netflix has always been secretive about how much of its near-limitless library of content is being watched at any given time. Now, to prevent giving Wall Street another stick with which to beat it. Instead, it’ll only drop data when it’s good PR, like crossing the 300-million subscriber threshold, and stick telling everyone how much money it’s making.
Samsung’s Freestyle projector is a genuinely great product. Now in its second iteration, the portable projector is highly capable and easy to carry around, making it perfect for use both at home and when on the road.
To highlight precisely the level of versatility that this device provides its customers, Samsung has come up with a rather cute way to promote this product. It has set up an experience zone for the 2nd generation of the Freestyle project at a camping festival in South Korea.
Samsung’s The Freestyle 2nd Generation is a very capable projector
Go Out Camp is the country’s largest campaign festival that’s underway in Goseong, Gangwon Province until the 21st of this month. Samsung has set up a “The Freestyle 2nd Generation” experience zone at this festival to showcase the various capabilities of this device to attendees.
Visitors to the experience area can try out the various features of this product, such as WideViews, which lets them connect two Freestyle projectors to display a single screen. There’s also Auto Screen Setting, which optimizes the screen angle automatically.
The company’s also offering a rental service whereby visitors can try out this projector at various locations in the campsite. Samsung’s campsite display for the Freestyle is very colorful with cute additions like a funky mini bus with which visitors can take commemorative photos.
The Freestyle includes an integrated speaker that provides an immersive 360-degree sound. It’s a great little device to have on you when out camping, as it helps provide entertainment with great picture and sound quality, as well as the ability to stream content from all of your favorite streaming solutions.
What the Atom One does do is make things louder—and by default, it makes all the things louder. Tuning is fairly blunt: A lone button on the back of each aid lets you cycle through five volume levels. Since the aids don’t talk to one another, each has to be controlled individually. The units also include three environmental modes that are designed respectively for conversation, noisy environments, and in-vehicle operation. To cycle through these—again, separately for each ear—you hold down the button on the back of each unit for a few seconds and wait for a lower frequency tone to alert you to which mode it has engaged.
If you’re prone to fiddling with hearing aids, you’ll probably accidentally hit the control button more than you’d like, inadvertently changing the volume and requiring you to cycle back through the five levels again to return to the volume you want. This is a bit of a pain, but a little hassle is perhaps to be expected at this price level.
As for performance, the amplification effect is, to put things plainly, rather blunt. Around the house, when at max volume, it sounded like everyone was screaming, and even the slightest sound was deafening. Typing this review with the aids in was nerve-racking, even at more moderate volumes, like tiny firecrackers popping beneath my fingers. My voice became an echoing boom from the heavens that drowned out everything else.
Eventually, I found better luck in more intimate environments at lower volume settings and was able to see some value in hearing television audio and one-on-one conversations with a modest amount of added clarity—but in busy, noisy environments, the Atom One couldn’t keep up. In a bowling alley test, the aids were effectively useless no matter how I configured them.
Ugly Hiss
In all mode settings and at all volumes, there’s ample background hiss that makes it feel a bit like you’re sitting on an airplane. I found it more difficult to concentrate with them in my ears even if I was in a silent room. Combined with the booming reports of keyboard taps, footsteps, and crinkling wrappers, I found the Atom One to be significantly more nerve-racking than I’d like. (Which is none at all.)
On aesthetics, I wouldn’t call the Atom One ugly—the mostly in-ear design is at least less obtrusive than behind-the-ear models—but the beige color palate doesn’t feel very modern. Perhaps this is something Walmart requested, but a more modern white or black earbud-like design would probably go over better with most wearers.
Netflix has lots of news regarding its very biggest shows, and most of it is good. The streamer has said when new seasons of some of its most popular shows will air, and the list includes some of its biggest hitters: Squid Game season two, a new season of The Night Agent, the final season of Cobra Kai and more. But it’s bad news for The Witcher fans. The final two seasons are to be filmed back to back with the show ending with its fifth and now final season.
The news comes via CEO Ted Sarandos, who spoke about the series during the streamer’s first-quarter earnings call. However, while he did give time frames for the shows, he didn’t give the actual dates. Fear not, they’ll no doubt trickle out as the trailers drop and the publicity machine for the best streaming service gets into gear.
So what’s coming – and what’s going?
Netflix’s biggest shows for 2024
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shows that will “premiere in the second half of the year” include the second season of Squid Game along side new seasons of Cobra Kai, The Night Agent, Outer Banks, Emily in Paris and Monster. And they’ll be joined by a bunch of new exciting shows including Senna, about the legendary Formula 1 racing driver Ayrton Senna, and a new adaptation of the novel The Perfect Couple starring Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber.
One of the reasons for the packed slate of shows is that many are finally cleared for streaming after the resolution of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which delayed many already scheduled shows and movies. According to Sarandos, “the floodgates have opened a little more” in terms of Netflix licensing shows from other huge media firms too.
It’s not all good news, though. The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has posted a statement about the forthcoming end of the show, with two final seasons being filmed back to back and Liam Hemsworth taking on the role of Geralt from Henry Cavill. The final two seasons will adapt the final three books in Andrzej Sapkowski’ series: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow and Lady of the Lake.
As The Hollywood Reporter, er, reports, the statement says that “it is with huge pride that we begin shooting our penultimate season of The Witcher with a stellar cast, including some exciting new additions… We’re thrilled to be able to bring Andrzej Sapkowski’s books to an epic and satisfying conclusion. It wouldn’t be our show if we didn’t push our family of characters to their absolute limit – stay tuned to see how the story ends.”
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This timely book on racist and conspiratorial language in politics draws on Donald Trump’s election as US president in 2016 and his continued popularity. Philosopher Jennifer Saul examines “dogwhistles” — coded terms such as ‘88’, used by white supremacists to mean ‘Heil Hitler’ — and “figleaves” such as ‘I’m not a racist, but …’ to disguise a racist remark. Most commentators on the Trump era focus either “on the racism, or on the spread of obvious falsehoods”, she notes, whereas she analyses the parallels between the two.
Look Again
Tali Sharot & Cass R. Sunstein Bridge Street/Little, Brown (2024)
Neuroscientist Tali Sharot and behavioural economist Cass Sunstein accept that habituation — getting used to things — “is crucial for survival: it helps us adapt quickly to our environment”. However, dishabituation is crucial to new experiences. Their wide-ranging book covers both. A chapter about the German people’s incremental habituation to Nazism in the 1930s considers the 1961 experiments of psychologist Stanley Milgram, in which a participant complied when told to apply incremental electric shocks to a human subject.
How the World Made the West
Josephine Quinn Bloomsbury (2024)
As a historian of the ancient world, Josephine Quinn receives many applications from students wishing to study ancient Greece and Rome as the supposed roots of Western civilization. Her book dismantles this outdated view by showing the involvement of many other cultures. Greece and Rome openly adapted Mesopotamian law codes and literature, Egyptian stone sculpture, Assyrian irrigation techniques and a Levantine alphabet. “It is not peoples that make history, but people” and their interconnections, she argues.
Mysteries of the Deep
James Lawrence Powell MIT Press (2024)
In 1881, “Charles Darwin was the first to propose drilling” of the sea floor — specifically coral reefs — for scientific purposes, notes geologist James Powell. In 1912, Alfred Wegener published his theory of continental drift; it was controversial at the time, but received support from a series of scientific programmes beginning in 1968 with the Deep Sea Drilling Project. The current iteration, the International Ocean Discovery Program, can drill into Earth’s mantle. Powell skilfully brings this probing history of sea-floor drilling to life.
The New Documents in Mycenaean Greek
Ed. John Killen Cambridge Univ. Press (2024)
Linear B, dating from around 1450 to 1200 bc, is the earliest European script that can be read today. Rediscovered in Crete in 1900 and dubbed Minoan, it was later found in mainland Greece, at sites including Mycenae. In 1952, the script was deciphered and found to be early Greek by architect Michael Ventris. He and classicist John Chadwick analysed it in Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956). This has now been updated as two volumes edited by classicist John Killen, with expert essays on Mycenaean society.
The Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset has just received another staggering – and permanent – price drop.
As detailed in an official Meta blog post, those who have been holding out on Meta Quest 2 can now purchase the 128GB model for $199 / £199, either from Meta’s own website or at online retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Currys. You can now expect this price to remain this way too, and it won’t bounce back up to its previous retail price of $249 / £249. This means that the 128GB version is now permanently matching fantastic prices that were previously only available as temporary discounts.
While some retailers aren’t offering the new reduced price quite yet, here’s a quick overview of some of the current Meta Quest 2 prices in your region:
On top of this, a range of the best Meta Quest 2 accessories have also seen substantial price cuts. The Elite Strap with Battery is now just $44.99 / £44.99 (was $89.99 / $84.99), the Active Pack has dropped to $29.99 / £29.99 (was $59.99 / £59.99) and you can pick up the official carrying case for only $19.99 / £19.99 (was $44.99 / £44.99).
This swathe of price drops now makes the Meta Quest 2 far and away the most affordable of the best VR headsets on the market, and the aggressive slashing of official accessory prices is excellent news if you’re looking for a more robust VR experience.
Overall, these permanent price cuts are very welcome especially for those looking to buy into VR for the first time. It’s typically a very expensive hobby, and when you factor in the sky-high prices of headsets like PSVR 2 and Valve Index, $199 / £199 for a headset that’s entirely standalone and has a massive library of games is an enticing prospect.
While PSVR 2 is set to receive PC support sometime this year, there’s still no price drop in sight for Sony‘s excellent – yet very expensive – VR headset. And as it still requires the use of the PlayStation 5 console at present, we’d certainly suggest checking out this round of Quest 2 price drops for first-time VR buyers.
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WhatsApp and Threads are no longer available for download in China’s App Store. Photo: Unsplash
Following a request from the Chinese government, Apple has reportedly pulled WhatsApp and Threads from China’s App Store. Other Meta apps, like Facebook and Instagram, are still available for download in the country.
The Cyberspace Administration of China asked Apple to take down the two Meta apps, citing national security concerns.
New Chinese government regulations possibly behind WhatsApp’s removal
It is not immediately clear what national security issues led the Chinese government to ask Apple to delist the Meta apps. iPhone users with WhatsApp and Threads installed can continue using it without issues. However, new users cannot download it from the App Store now.
In an emailed statement to the Wall Street Journal, Apple confirmed the removal of the two Meta apps. Its spokesperson said, “The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns.”
The removal comes as Chinese regulators start clamping down on apps that have yet to register with the government based on a directive issued in August 2023. It aims to reduce scams and fraud, with the registration deadline of March 2024. As part of the regulation, app developers must have a mechanism to handle “illegal information.”
Telegram and Signal also removed from China’s App Store
WhatsApp is not the only popular messaging app that is unavailable for download on the iPhone in China. Telegram and Signal have also been removed from the App Store.
This is not the first time Apple has removed popular apps from the Chinese App Store at the government’s request. In 2020, Apple booted over 94000 games from China’s App Store following a new government regulation. Before that, it had removed apps like Quartz and Tripadvisor for violating the App Store or the Chinese government guidelines.
Last year was bad for Samsung. Its revenue and profit took extreme hits, and the company has been under pressure from competition and the global economic downturn. While its profit increased in the first quarter of this year, Samsung has reportedly switched to a six-day workweek to inject a sense of crisis in its employees.
Samsung hopes to improve its business with this drastic step
Samsung Electronics introduced an emergency six-day workweek policy for its executives. The company hopes this change will invoke a sense of crisis in its employees and improve its fortunes in the coming months. Apart from heightened competition from Apple and Chinese firms in the consumer electronics segment, the company faces pressure from Micron, SK Hynix, and TSMC in the semiconductor segment. The Korean currency has depreciated, and the current global economic woes have no end in sight.
In the smartphone segment, Apple defeated Samsung in the global market last year, shipping more phones than Samsung for the first time. While the South Korean firm returned strongly in Q1 2024 and won back the smartphone shipments crown, only time will tell if it can maintain the lead for the rest of the year. Chinese smartphone firms are chipping away at Samsung’s market share in Asian and European markets.
Samsung Group’s other affiliates, including Samsung SDI and Samsung SDS, have already switched to a voluntary six-day workweek. Hopefully, this will improve the company’s outcome for the rest of the year.
Earlier this week, Samsung launched its 2024 lineup of smart TVs in India. During the launch event, the company revealed the pricing of its Neo QLED and OLED TVs. While it mentioned The Frame TV, it did not reveal its pricing or features. The 2024 version of The Frame TV can now be purchased in India, and its pricing has been revealed.
The 2022 version of The Frame TV is still available for purchase, and its price has been dropped.
The Frame TV (2024) brings improved colors and efficiency
The new version of The Frame TV (LS03D) has been launched in India. It comes in five sizes: 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch. It uses a VA QLED panel with 4K resolution, 100% color volume, 1.07 billion colors, edge backlight, and a matte finish. It also features a 120Hz refresh rate (not available in 43-inch and 50-inch sizes), AMD FreeSync Premium, ALLM, VRR, and Super Ultra Wide Game View. It lacks Dolby Vision but features HDR10 and HDR10+ (Adaptive and Gaming).
Samsung says that the color accuracy of its new The Frame TV has improved. It now features ‘Pantone Art Validated Colors’ for more natural and realistic colors.
It has 2.0.2-channel speakers with 40W of total audio output. It also supports Dolby Atmos and Q-Symphony. It also features Active Voice Amplifier Pro, Adaptive Sound Pro, Object Tracking Sound, and 360 Audio.
It has four HDMI ports (one with HDMI 2.1), one optical port, one Ethernet port, one RF port, and two USB 2.0 ports. To make things more aesthetically pleasing, it has One Connect Box on the rear. Wireless connectivity features include AirPlay 2, Bluetooth 5.2, Tap Sound, Tap View, and Wi-Fi 5.
The TV runs Tizen OS 7.0 with a refreshed UI design and Samsung Daily+ interface. It uses the Quantum Processor 4K chip for AI-based 4K upscaling and general processing. It has Alexa, Bixby, Multi View, and SmartThings. It also brings Samsung Art Store – Streams, a complimentary set of regularly curated artworks and paintings fetched from the Samsung Art Store.
The Frame TV is now more power-efficient, thanks to an adjustable refresh rate. So, when you’re enjoying art on the screen, the TV lowers the refresh rate to conserve energy. It has motion and ambient light sensors, allowing you to determine the ambient conditions and adjust the picture accordingly. It has EyeComfort Mode, too.
Like the previous The Frame TVs, it features customizable magnetic bezels that you can adjust according to your preferences. It also comes with a Slim-Fit Wall Mount that allows you to mount the TV flush to a wall. It comes with a SolarCell Remote, which can charge through ambient light or the USB Type-C port.
The Frame TV (2024) pricing in India
The Frame TV (LS03D) has a starting price of INR 64,990 ($778) in India for the 43-inch version. The 55-inch version is priced at INR 97,990 ($1,173) and goes as high as INR 294,990 ($3,532) for the 75-inch version. Samsung is offering a cashback of INR 4,500 on the 43-inch version of the TV, INR 6,000 on the 50-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch versions, and INR 15,000 on the 75-inch version.
43-inch: INR 64,990 ($778)
50-inch: INR 78,990 ($945)
55-inch: INR 97,990 ($1,173)
65-inch: INR 141,990 ($1,700)
75-inch: INR 294,990 ($3,532)
The 75-inch version of The Frame (2024) TV comes with a free HW-Q800C 5.1.2-channel soundbar worth INR 52,990. Users who use the Samsung Shop app to buy the TV for the first time can avail of an additional discount of INR 3,000.
Traditional cybersecurity is laser-focused on incident detection and response. In other words, it’s built around a Security Operations Centre (SOC). That’s no bad thing in itself. Read between the lines, however, and that assumes we’re waiting on the threats to come to us. With cyber adversaries evolving their tactics through AI, automated ransomware campaigns, and other advanced persistent threats (APTs), adopting advanced, proactive measures has never been more critical. Except that your SOC team is already drowning in vulnerabilities and knee-jerk remediations. How can they even begin to manage this?
Today’s ever worsening threat landscape calls for a strategic pivot towards the establishment of a Vulnerability Operations Centre (VOC) to rethink the foundational challenges of vulnerability management and cyber resilience.
The Strategic Imperative of the VOC
Traditional strategies are necessary but painfully insufficient. As an industry, we’ve predominantly been reactive, focusing on the detection and mitigation of immediate threats. This short-term perspective overlooks the underlying, ongoing challenge posed by a vast backlog of vulnerabilities, many of which have been known but unaddressed for years. Alarmingly, over 76% of vulnerabilities currently exploited by ransomware gangs were discovered more than three years ago. Either SOC teams don’t care – which we know is not true – or they can’t keep up on their own. It’s time to admit that the main problem they face is knowing which handful of threats to focus on amidst the tidal wave.
Sylvain Cortes
VP of Strategy, Hackuity.
The VOC provides a new approach to this challenge, offering a centralized, automated, and risk-based approach to vulnerability management. Unlike the SOC, whose primary objective is to manage incidents and alerts, the VOC is designed to predict and prevent these incidents from occurring in the first place. It focuses exclusively on the prevention, detection, analysis, prioritization, and remediation of security flaws that affect an organization’s unique IT environment. By doing so, VOCs enable organizations to address the far narrower, infinitely more manageable list of vulnerabilities that pose a significant, actual threat to their operations and sensitive data.
Linking SOC to VOC: A synergistic approach
The synergy between the SOC and VOC is essential to creating a comprehensive security framework that not only responds to threats but proactively works to prevent them.
The process of linking SOCs to VOCs begins with CISOs recognizing that patch management is not a standalone task but a core component of the broader security strategy. A dedicated team or unit, ideally under the guidance of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or another appointed security leader, should spearhead the establishment of the VOC. This approach underscores the importance of a clear directive from the highest levels of cybersecurity leadership, ensuring that the VOC is not just an operational unit, but a strategic endeavor aimed at enhancing the organization’s overall cyber resilience.
Establishing a VOC involves leveraging existing vulnerability assessment tools to create a baseline of the current security posture. This initial step is crucial for understanding the scope and scale of vulnerabilities across the organization’s assets. From this baseline, the team can aggregate, deduplicate, and normalize vulnerability data to produce a clear, actionable dataset. Integrating this dataset into the SOC’s security information and event management (SIEM) systems enhances visibility and context for security events, enabling a more nuanced and informed response to potential threats.
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The transition from technical vulnerability assessment to risk-based prioritization is a pivotal aspect of the VOC’s function. This involves evaluating how each identified vulnerability impacts the business, then prioritising remediation efforts based on this impact. Such a shift allows for a more strategic allocation of resources to focus on vulnerabilities that pose the highest risk to the organization.
Automation must play a key role in this process, enabling routine vulnerability scans, alert prioritization, and patch deployment to be conducted with minimal human intervention. This not only streamlines operations but also allows analysts to concentrate on complex tasks that require intricate human judgment and expertise.
The VOC empowers cybersecurity teams with a comprehensive and systematic approach to vulnerability management, significantly simplifying the process of handling an exponentially increasing number of CVEs. The immediate benefits include:
Centralization of Vulnerability Data: By aggregating and analyzing vulnerability information, the VOC provides a unified view that makes life easier for teams identifying and prioritizing critical vulnerabilities.
Automation and Streamlining Processes: The use of automation tools within the VOC framework accelerates the detection, analysis, and remediation processes. This not only reduces the manual workload but also minimizes the likelihood of human error, enhancing the overall efficiency of vulnerability management.
Risk-Based Prioritization: Implementing a risk-based approach allows teams to focus their efforts on vulnerabilities that pose the highest risk to the organization, ensuring that resources are allocated effectively and that critical threats are addressed ASAP.
Enhanced Collaboration and Communication: The VOC fosters better collaboration across different teams by breaking down silos and ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are informed about the vulnerability management process. This shared understanding improves the organization’s ability to respond to vulnerabilities swiftly and effectively.
Ownership and Accountability: Centralizing operations for vulnerability management within the VOC framework ensures clear accountability and ownership across teams. This organizational clarity is vital to removing siloes and reducing risk, as it establishes well-defined roles and responsibilities for vulnerability management, ensuring that all team members understand their part in safeguarding systems and networks.
That’s a lot to digest but, put simply, it’s time to rethink how we approach vulnerability management. Check the news – or better yet, check in with the rest of your cybersecurity team. A VOC reduces the crushing burden of vulnerability management on SOCs and makes the lives of all security teams that much easier. By centralizing operations, automating routine tasks, and emphasizing risk-based prioritization, the VOC enhances the organization’s security posture. Linking your SOC to your future VOC creates a seamless flow of actionable intelligence directly into the threat response mechanism.
The endgame? Ensuring that your organization’s defense mechanisms are both proactive and responsive for a far more secure and resilient digital environment.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
