Cortana App For iOS And Android

There was a time when it seemed that Microsoft was developing its voice-controlled, digital assistant Cortana to draw iPhone and Android users to Windows Phone. That might have even been true, once, but it certainly isn’t the case anymore, as the company is planning a standalone Cortana app for iOS and Android.

Initially compared to Siri and Google Now, Microsoft has been referring to Cortana as a “personal assistant” for some time now. At times, it seems that the company goes out of its way to avoid referring to Cortana as software, preferring to refer to it as “her” and “she” instead. A large part of Cortana’s identity is drawn from the character of the same name in the Halo franchise.

More so than either Siri or Google Now, Cortana makes use of artificial intelligence, drawing from an internal Microsoft project called Einstein. “This kind of technology, which can read and understand email, will play a central role in the next roll out of Cortana, which we are working on now for the fall time frame,” said managing director of Microsoft Research Eric Horvitz, speaking to Reuters.

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Credit: digitaltrends.com

iPhone 6 Beginners Guide Video

This could prove to be a helpful guide for those who have recently acquired an iPhone 6. There are 15 chapters in this video and it's 71 minutes long.

Apple Unveils New MacBook And Updates Others

Apple® today unveiled the all-new MacBook®, a new line of notebooks reinvented in every way to deliver the thinnest and lightest Macs ever. Every component of the new MacBook has been meticulously redesigned to create a Mac® that weighs just two pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. The new MacBook features a stunning 12-inch Retina® display that is the thinnest ever on a Mac, an Apple-designed full-size keyboard which is dramatically thinner and highly responsive, the all-new Force Touch trackpad that brings a new dimension of interactivity to the Mac, an incredibly compact USB-C port for data transfer, video out and charging in a single connector, and a new battery design that maximizes every millimeter of space to deliver all-day battery life. And, for the first time, MacBook is available in three gorgeous aluminum finishes—gold, silver and space gray.

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Apple® today updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro® with Retina® display with the all-new Force Touch trackpad, fifth generation Intel Core processors and Intel Iris Graphics 6100, two times faster flash and longer battery life, bringing even more performance and capabilities to our pro customers. Apple also today updated the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air® with fifth generation Intel Core processors, Intel HD Graphics 6000, and Thunderbolt 2, and added up to two times faster flash to the 13-inch MacBook Air, making the perfect everyday notebooks even better.

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Apple And Google Plan Fix For 'Freak' Security Bug

Apple and Google said on Tuesday that they have developed fixes to mitigate the newly uncovered 'Freak' security flaw affecting mobile devices and Mac computers. The vulnerability in web encryption technology could enable attackers to spy on communications of users of Apple's Safari browser and Google Android browser, according to researchers who uncovered the flaw.

Apple spokesman Ryan James said the computer had developed a software update to remediate the vulnerability, which would be pushed out next week. Google spokeswoman Liz Markman said the company had also developed a patch, which it has provided to partners. She declined to say when users could expect to receive those upgrades. Google typically does not directly push out Android software updates. Instead they are handled by device makers and mobile carriers.

The Washington Post reported that the bug left users of Apple and Google devices vulnerable to cyberattack when visiting hundreds of thousands of websites, including Whitehouse.gov, NSA.gov and FBI.gov. Whitehouse.gov and FBI.gov have been fixed, but NSA.gov remains vulnerable, the paper cited Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew D. Green as saying.

A group of nine researchers discovered that they could force web browsers to use an form of encryption that was intentionally weakened to comply with U.S. government regulations that ban American companies from exporting the strongest encryption standards, according to the paper.

Once they caused the site to use the weaker export encryption standard, they were then able to break the encryption within a few hours. That could allow hackers to steal data and potentially launch attacks on the sites themselves by taking over elements on a page, the newspaper reported.

Markman said that Google advises all websites to disable support for the less-secure, export-grade encryption. "Android's connections to most websites - which include Google sites, and others without export certificates - are not subject to this vulnerability," she added.

The group of researchers dubbed the flaw Freak, for "Factoring RSA-EXPORT Keys," according to a website where they described the vulnerability.

Credit: reuters.com