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Cracked or broken mobile device screens can be costly to fix, but a few inexpensive do-it-yourself strategies can eliminate a repair shop visit and salvage your tablet or phone. It is relatively easy and cheap to replace the glass on a phone once you get the hang of it. Tablets are a bit more involved because of the larger size and added components. Tools might require an additional monetary outlay. It is first things first when it comes to fixing cracks on a smartphone's screen. Often, the actual screen is not cracked at all. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2SodbwD

Apple's new iPhone SE delivers incredible value and performance, based on early hands-on reviews. It has a surprisingly good camera and handles videos well. Many reviewers were impressed by the phone's A13 chipset. However, there were criticisms too, including insufficient battery life and absence of a night mode feature. Lack of 5G support also came up. "For those of us concerned about money right now ... and who need a new iPhone, the SE provides the greatest bang for the buck," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2YjqdzA

The United Kingdom's plans to launch a smartphone application to track potential COVID-19 infections won't include Apple and Google. The country's National Health Service has designed its own mobile software to do contact tracing of people exposed to the coronavirus. The NHS reportedly found that its own tech, which runs in the background on Apple's iPhone, works "sufficiently well." One hangup with some contact tracing apps is that they work only when a phone is active and the app is running in the foreground, which can sap battery life. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2WdsQ2W

With measures to stem the spread of COVID-19 putting a chokehold on their filming capabilities, advertising agencies are enhancing old content with new tech, including deepfakes. Deepfakes typically blend one person's likeness, or parts thereof, with the image of another person. For example, a recent commercial for State Farm insurance blended the mouth of 2020 ESPN anchor Kenny Mayne over the image of 1998 Mayne to make it appear as if the younger Mayne was predicting events in 2020. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2KHmoMr

Some of the troubling reports of corporate responses to COVID-19 include forced work in unsafe areas, not enough -- or any -- protection gear, massive layoffs and furloughs, and the sense that a critical mass of well-paid CEOs and politicians don't get that many people live paycheck to paycheck. There are exceptions though. HP stands out for moving aggressively to protect not only its employees' lives but also their quality of life. HP generally knew what was going on when the virus outbreak was just starting. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2xib06I

One of the latest options slated for potential adoption as a sponsored flavor in the Ubuntu family of Linux desktops is UbuntuDDE. A beta version, released earlier this month, offers an interesting hands-on experience well outside the norm found with typical Ubuntu platforms. This new Linux distro is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and runs a slightly different version of the Deepin Desktop Environment, or DDE. UbuntuDDE brings to Ubuntu something rarely found in its growing family of flavors: a strikingly beautiful design. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3eOY2y9

More than any other factor, it is our asset that determines the kind of adversary we face. For most of us, our asset is the corpus of sensitive personal details consequent to online transactions. This all comes down to how much data an adversary can glean from you, and how thoroughly it can analyze it. If your data passes through some software or hardware, its developer or maintainer enjoys some measure of control. The reality of the Internet's infrastructure is that we can not vet every device or code that interacts with our data. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3aBl7RJ

Canonical has announced the general availability of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, codenamed "Focal Fossa." This major upgrade places particular emphasis on security and performance. Released once every two years, the new long-term support version provides a platform for enterprise IT infrastructures and workloads across all sectors for five years. Enterprise users can extend that support for up to 10 years with a commercial support plan. Ubuntu has reached the top of independent rankings of enterprise Linux security, according to Canonical. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3eNlV9p

Cuffless blood pressure measuring is coming to the Android world. Samsung announced that South Korean authorities have approved its Health Monitor app for use on the Galaxy Watch Active2. The app will be available in the third quarter of this year. High blood pressure has been associated with increased risk of brain, kidney and heart problems, including stroke and coronary disease. By helping users measure and track their blood pressure, the Health Monitor app supports more informed health decision making, Samsung said. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3aulcX1

Facebook has launched a free standalone app for creating and watching live video game play on Android devices. Some 700 million users already engage in gaming on the platform, but with its dedicated app Facebook is locking horns with the leaders in the market -- Amazon, Google and Microsoft. "Live streaming was a growth opportunity before the pandemic came along, and it's going to be a growth opportunity long after the pandemic has passed," observed Michael Goodman, director for digital media at Strategy Analytics. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3cDyjXC

The reason governments had to shut down economies is that in the face of a pandemic, we could not tell who was sick and who was not. While widespread testing followed by a vaccine eventually will curb this virus, what about the next one? As we have seen, it takes months to develop tests and remedies for a new disease and more than a year to develop a vaccine. We have learned from the flu that vaccines for viruses of this type are somewhat unreliable because they tend to mutate, and a vaccine for one strain may not work on a different strain. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2zhtF37

Humans may be wanderers by nature, but in the year 2020, with planet Earth overrun by a pandemic, most human activity has come to a shocking halt. Perhaps one of the best things for a wandering race stuck at home is an opportunity to look outward -- to thought-travel into the boundless universe and dream of possibilities so grand and sweeping that they boomerang back from the far reaches of time and space to shower our poor struggling planet with hope. That's the experience Cosmos: Possible Worlds offers. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/350Q8xj

At this point, remarking that people now are more concerned about online privacy than ever before is not a novel observation. What's fascinating, though, is that interest in personal digital security has remained high since the issue exploded about seven years ago. In other words, instead of experiencing a short-lived spike, digital privacy awareness has been sustained. This is encouraging. Yet it's not always clear where to turn to improve one's digital security. Getting a handle on the subject can seem like trying to jump onto a moving train. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3acSUQJ

GitHub has lowered its pricing plans drastically and made its core features free for everyone, even for private development. GitHub CEO Nat Friedman announced a plan that has been in the works for some time, noting that the changes were not related to the COVID-19 worldwide health crisis. The new structure allows access to GitHub's private repositories with unlimited collaborators for all GitHub accounts. Microsoft purchased GitHub, a software hosting and version-control platform, for $7.5 billion in June 2018. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2xzRmmI

Apple has introduced the second-gen iPhone SE, based on its A13 Bionic processor. The phone has the best single-camera system in an iPhone, according to the company. "I'd pay attention to the cameras," said Ramon Llamas, research director at IDC. "Apple insists that its iPhones have best-in-class cameras, and at the price points that the SE is shooting for, I'd be curious about the comparisons you could make." The device is offered in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB versions. Pricing begins at $399. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2VC0xLt

Zoom's paying customers will be able to choose the region they want to use for their virtual meetings. They will be able to opt in or out of a specific data center region, although they won't be able to change their default, which for most customers is the U.S. Zoom has data centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, India, Australia, China, Latin America, and Japan/Hong Kong. The move follows a report that found Zoom generated encryption keys on servers in China, even though all the people on a call were located outside of the country. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2K6vv97

MakuluLinux Flash 2020 is a traditional/retro style Linux operating system that focuses on ease of use, comfort and stability. It uses a highly tweaked Xfce desktop environment with features previously not seen in standard Xfce integrations. The Xfce desktop is known for its speed and flexibility, but given the amount of eye candy and other enhancements built into Flash 2020, its performance is neither degraded nor overtaxed. MakuluLinux Flash offers 24 varieties of different-colored themes and a unique selection of in-house background images. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2RDR7Oj

Google, Apple and MIT have made headlines with announcements of contact tracing mobile apps in the wings. Their purpose is to identify contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19 so appropriate actions can be taken to stem its spread. However, a Cambridge University professor threw some cold water on those apps. The proposed apps all have voluntary aspects to them. That may address the privacy concerns such apps are raising, but it creates other problems, argued Ross John Anderson, a professor of security engineering. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2z1pW9M

Some states defaulted to mail-in ballots some time ago, and their elections are unconstrained by the pandemic. However, in many parts of the U.S. the prevailing attitude is that the Web lacks enough security for elections. That seems odd, given that we now use the Internet to manage our finances, our healthcare, our businesses, our travel -- and now our shopping, including for food. The existing election hardware is aging and largely unsecure. No one seems to have the budget to replace it. While we can make smartphones secure, we mostly don't. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3b6HqiV

On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong descended from the lunar module to become the first human to ever step on the surface of the Moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," he famously said. More than 50 years later, the next Moon landings are being prepared with the goal of landing the first woman on the Moon by 2024. This shows that we are still eager to explore the unknown and grasp the mysteries of the vast, wonderful universe. However, space exploration also puts the value of planet Earth in perspective. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3chGqZR

Facebook and YouTube are cracking down on the pervasive conspiracy theories linking the spread of coronavirus to 5G wireless technology. Facebook has begun actively removing false claims that link COVID-19 to 5G and could lead to physical harm. Facebook-owned WhatsApp has reduced the number of accounts users can forward chats to from five to one. Meanwhile, Google-owned YouTube has banned all videos promoting 5G-coronavirus conspiracy theories. One of the bogus theories ties the origin of the coronavirus to the rollout of 5G in Wuhan. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2UWzwTX

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook is now available to buy -- but the $999 price tag for its one-of-a-kind configuration may cause an internal struggle between want and need. Samsung introduced the high-end Chromebook early this year, positioning it as the flagship Chromebook to meet potential demand for a more useful and powerful multipurpose premium mobile device. The Galaxy Chromebook is an ultra premium 2-in-1 laptop running Google's Chrome OS. It ships with a durable aluminum body and the latest 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3bUPy68

People don't trust their governments for a good reason. Governments lie to them regularly. In the ongoing COVID-19 event, we in the U.S. initially were told that there was little risk. The first 15 people who came to the U.S. with the virus soon would get well. We were advised to go about our day -- and many people did. They got on planes and cruise ships, and went about their lives. We were told not to wear masks. We were told that wearing them might make us more likely to get sick -- and that advice didn't come only from Republicans either. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/2UNsqRu

What do you do with your old Android phones or tablets? That question usually prompts three tired answers. You might trade them in for a new purchase. Or you could resell them on eBay. Probably, though, you will just stuff them in a drawer as emergency backups. Better options exist, however, that would let you continue to get value from your aging devices. For example, you could download Google maps to create a dedicated in-car GPS navigator, or you could turn them into webcams. from TechNewsWorld https://ift.tt/3dNeOgx