How Twitter hack occured

For start, Twitter hack occurred late Wednesday July 15, 2020. It was a coordinated attack on some of Twitter internal tools/systems that affected very popular accounts. Hackers wanted to scam and convince people to send Bitcoin (BTC) to their private wallet address by posting Tweets on accounts like: Apple, Jeff Bezos, Binance, Barrack Obama, Warren Buffet and so on. You get the idea, high profile users.

Here’s an example of Tweet (sent by hackers using Apple account).

First official Tweet that announced that something is happening came at 12:45 AM on July 16.

We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 15, 2020

Few hours later, Twitter continued to report regarding what happened and how disruptive hackers attack was. A lot of high profile verified accounts were somehow lock, while the access for Twitter internal tools and system were temporary limited for their employees.

Once we became aware of the incident, we immediately locked down the affected accounts and removed Tweets posted by the attackers.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

This was disruptive, but it was an important step to reduce risk. Most functionality has been restored but we may take further actions and will update you if we do.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

We have locked accounts that were compromised and will restore access to the original account owner only when we are certain we can do so securely.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

Internally, we’ve taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing. More updates to come as our investigation continues.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

According to the Motherboard, hackers gained access to Twitter internal systems by convincing a Twitter employee to help them. Photos with their internal tools even emerged from the same source.

At this moment is not 100% clear how Twitter hack happened, but it seams that the hackers basically had access to everything inside Twitter, by using Twitter own internal tools/systems. It might sound like a Hollywood movie, but this is the reality, Twitter was hacked from the inside.

As a tech fan and a software engineer there are some questions here that we all might have.

1) How is possible that a company like Twitter gives access to their own employees and they can freely access users accounts?

Let’s not forget in 2017 a Twitter employee deleted a Trump tweet…so Twitter has no excuse now. If you read their Security policy, you will see that Twitter will never asks for your user/password. Well, that’s fine, no serious company will ever ask you for this. But since they have their own internal tools/system which they can use to access our own accounts, why would they bother asking for user/password?

For sure it is not necessary for any internal Twitter employee to have access and have a tool that can be used to post Tweets on other users accounts. It makes no sense to invade others private space, but I’m sure Twitter have its own take over this.

2) After what happened in 2017 with Trump tweet being deleted by an employee, what measures did Twitter take to ensure their employees won’t have direct access to other user accounts?

It seams like no serious action was taken and probably Twitter thought that was an isolated incident.

3) Knowing what happened, how secured are user accounts right now?

4) How can we trust Twitter that this won’t ever happened?

And the list can go on and on with questions. Remember, we are speaking about Twitter, a company that is listed on stock market with a share price of approx. $35 and having a market cap of over $35 billion.

Unfortunately, we live in a very unstable world where hackers will do whatever will take to take advantage of big companies. Today is Twitter, tomorrow it will be another huge company. It’s important for us to understand what are big companies doing to secure our data and what can be done to prevent this happening in the future.

What can Twitter do

The attach that Twitter experienced is something totally new, as hackers gained access to internal tools, using Twitter employees, which is something pretty scary and shocking. This raises a lot of concerns and some can be related to that/those employee(s) that deliberately or not were somehow made to give access to hackers.

For start, big companies should be more transparent (kudos to Twitter for sharing what happened) and to completely rethink the way they handle security and internal tools. Again, it’s not acceptable for an employee to have the right to access and modify other users accounts/tweets in a free way. Internal security audits should happen, not only at Twitter, but to all huge companies that handle sensitive data and that were never prepared for GDPR for example.

Source: Twitter

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At first, the developers were going to use the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor, but after seeing the release of the Intel 10th generation processor, that was added instead to give the Max a large boost in gaming performance. Also, the 10th Generation processor is superior to the AMD Ryzen 5 2500U and is in fact nearly as good in performance as the NVIDIA GeForce MX250.

The GPD Win Max is the first and only PC console in the whole world that can fit in your hand. It has a super-fast charger which is around 65W. This charger can also charge devices like tablets and phones. The Max also comes with a sink in joystick in case you don’t want to use the keyboard.
The Iris Plus 940 graphics allows the Win Max to run games with a high fps (frame rate), making gameplay extremely smooth for the user.

Gpd Win Max Design

The Win Max has a cover on top which is made of magnesium aluminum alloy and the main body is built of LG-DOW 121H aviation anti-shock resin. Overall, the whole product uses a 1.3mm thickness in the shell to stop resistance from high temperatures and stops bending of the device. All of this protection allows the Win Max to be durable and tough stopping it from easily breaking.

All buttons on the machine are hollow for air intake. And foot pads are attached to stop obstruction of airflow. Overall there are 9 outlets to avoid the hinge blocking the flow of air providing better performance.

Gpd Win Max Features

The device uses an 8-inch screen which is safely protected by 5th generation Gorilla glass. The 1080p screen uses pixels per inch to show the difference between the size of the screen and resolution. It also determines the screen sharpness.

The built-in controller uses the design of the Xbox 360 controller. It features L3 and R3 buttons and has a 360 ° rotation for the joysticks. The sticks use curved rocket caps on top to avoid finger slipping while playing games.

The built-in D-pad has a split arrow key layout from the PS4 controller to give the user accurate movement when playing. All controls have a double layer on top and have enough space to allow comfortable button pressing.

Win Max has the cooling solution of a PC. This improves heating performance and stops the device from heating up. It has heat pipes and very high-power turbofans.
If the temperature becomes too high, the fans automatically adjust the speed to control the heat levels.

The Max has an HDMI 2. Ob controller to support 4K, 60Hz video output. The device gets around 18Gbps of bandwidth and up to a whopping 32 channels for audio.

Win Max has a Thunderbolt 3 port which has a fast transmission rate (8x faster than the USB 3.0 40Gbps). Another cool feature is that the Thunderbolt port can have 2 4K / 60Hz connected at the same time.

Conclusion

Overall, people find it difficult to call Win Max a featured gaming console. This is because its processor isn’t strong enough to run the latest gaming titles. It might be a bit inconvenient using it when playing online games due to its mouse and keyboard control. However, it’s a great gaming console if you need something easy and portable to use.

The price of Gpd Win Max is around $890, but this this price is only available for the funding period on IndieGoGo. Retail price will be $1400.

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Similarly, many technology enthusiasts have been amazed by the development that is taking place in the robotic vacuum cleaning industry in the past few years. These ‘Roombas’ and ‘RoboRocks’ have the ability to free up a room from dust without any human effort at all.

Yet, Tabot, a sub-brand of the famous Haier company, has come up with an innovation that is on route to ‘spice’ up the industry and make our lives even easier. Their original goal was to raise $5000. This goal was obliterated (to put it punctually) with massive funding of more than $400,000. They are currently in the production phase of their prototype.

Functionality of Haier Tabot

Haier Tabot claims that it has “better performance than 99% of Robot Vacuum on the market”. It comes with two features, mopping and vacuum. The vacuum robot is perfect for everyone who wants a cleaner room; however, it’s focus audience is on individuals that have a lot of hair (from dogs, clothes, heads, etc.) on the floor.

It comes with a built-in ‘Anti-Winding Blade Roller Brush’ which will cut all long hairs before being sucked into the dust compartment. When combined with the powerful 3200PA Ultra-Strong Suction, which can “easily pick up metal balls”, the robotic vacuum and mop seem like a perfect powerhouse to cleanse your home.

Vacuuming is not enough to remove all the germs, bacteria and dust from a room. Therefore, Hairer Tabot’s robotic cleaner also comes with an inbuilt mop functionality. It has 230ml of water in its tank, which is sufficient to clean up large rooms. The company claims to have installed 3 different types of safeguards’ mechanisms to prevent any leakage from occurring.

Artificial Intelligence Incorporated Movement

The robotic cleaner moves in a Y-shaped pattern which emulates real-life cleaning and “makes your room super clean”.

It features a Laser Scanning Technology (LDS) that is also put in many Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) such as the drones used by the military in various countries. It works by making a Two-Dimensional analysis of the room and creates a map of the owner house’s layout.

Once the house map is ready, it will appear on the Haier Tabot Companion app on your phone. You can then modify the map to make ‘no-go zones’ if required.

Further calculations are done through Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Technology (SLAM) creating the shortest path for effectively and quickly cleaning a room.

The robot also has fantastic smart functions such as its ability to glide under sofas and climb over small obstacles. Its best feature is a cliff sensor that prevents it from falling off your stairs or roof. When the robot feels low on battery, it can return to simply return to it’s self-charging port.

Is this the future?

Some people believe cleaning to be like gardening, a calming task that cleanses the mind. They claim that automating this will remove the calming effect.

Yet, the above are a minority. The statistics all point towards one direction – we are walking towards a world run by automation.

People will buy robotic vacuums such as that of Haier Tabot. The vacuum robot is a testimony to technological progress and an allusion for a future where technology will thrive. If you are interested to buy one, there is a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo website and the Haier Tabot robot starts from $469 USD.

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First of all you would wonder who is Huami Technology, right? Well, Huami is the exclusive provider of wearable technology for Xiaomi and is also the maker of the Mi Band, which has been a hit worldwide.

Amazfit X Design

When speaking about Amazfit X, “comfort” seems to be the first key word that comes in mind. It looks like a Smart band and comes in two colors, Eclipse Black and New Moon Gold. With a 2.07-inch at 92° curvature, It gives your wrist that relaxing and comforting feeling whether you are at work, the gym, or in your bed. A titanium alloy uni-body makes the watch so light you will almost forget you have it on your wrist.

This design is accomplished by heating the metal body under 700°C along with 6-bend bending process. It comes with a 326 PPI HD resolution and a 400 NIT high-brightness display that optimize clarity anywhere and any time of the day.

Main Features

By making a pressure-sensitive sensor that helps you access everything with just a touch of your fingertips. It responds to your touch with textured, natural vibrations, so your fingertips know who is in control. On top of the smart control, Amazfit X features multiple handy settings: Do Not Disturb, nap mode, timer, stopwatch, wake-up alarms and weather forecast.

You will always get the best with Amazfit X, even when you travel and forget your charger behind. With a curved 220mAh battery that powers the Smartwatch for seven days on a full charge; a low battery is never going to be an issue.

Health Features

Your health comes first as Amazfit X comes with various tracking modes, a proprietary heart-rate monitor called BioTracker that monitors your heart rate 24 hours a day. And will update you on where your stress levels are: Relaxed, Normal, Medium, and High. When your stress level is high, The Amafit X would always be there to notify you. The Amazfit X has an infrared light test to measure your blood oxygen levels.

With Two top Class Geo-tracking systems; GPS and GLONASS in one watch, Navigation has never been easier and more accurate in such a small gadget.

Getting the best out of your workout session just got easier with Amazfit X as it comes with 9 versatile sports modes to offer customizable tracking and coaching for every activity. Amazfit X is still right by your side while you are going to the beach or pool. With 50 meters water resistance, you can keep track of your notification, time or laps record without any worries.

It also has a 100-point scoring system that make healthy living fun and possible. The more you move, the more you score. Amazfit X measures your calories and notifies you when you are sitting too much with its Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI). This gives you easy comprehensible assessments and aid that helps you set then meet your fitness goals.

For those that are interested to buy this Amazfit X curved smartwatch, the project is still available at IndieGoGo for $159 USD with the estimated delivery to be IN OCTOBER.

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The Butterfly Keyboard is Gone!

Like the many other refreshes Apple has done this year, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro finally has received the new Magic Keyboard with a redesigned scissor switch. This keyboard is simply superior, it just feels good to type on. Trust us on this, this new keyboard is the most important thing to the new MacBook Pro. It even has a dedicated escape button!

Before, all Apple laptops in the previous years have used the Butterfly switch that you may have heard about. Although these switches allowed Apple to make a smaller device overall, they came with numerous problems such as it simply not working. When dust would fall in the switch, the keys became unusable. To make it even worse, the only solution to this problem is to send Apple the keyboard so they would replace the entire keyboard instead of the single broken key.Since Apple got rid of the butterfly switches, there are a few things we lose. But they are almost insignificant. Like the overall laptop is .02 inches taller and weighs .08 pounds heavier. You probably won’t even notice this, so we won’t go any further into that.

MacBook Pro (2020) has a new Processor

If you follow the technology industry at all, you will be very familiar with processor refreshes that happen all time. These refreshes boost the performance a small amount, but it’s an amount nonetheless. The higher end models of the 13-inch MacBook Pro will be receiving the new 10th-generation Intel chips. The most notable thing about these chips are the improved Intel Iris Plus graphics. This means that the graphics of these laptops will get a boost and this will be a nice improvement for your games or workflow.

But if you noticed, we said that only the higher end models will get the Intel chips. The base model and the other entry model are still on Intel’s 8th-generation chips. Although on the surface this doesn’t sound too appealing, the processor performance of the two different chips are relatively similar, you are just missing out on the boost of graphics. This may be worth it as the entry models are nearly 500 to 300 dollars cheaper.

There Is More Storage and Memory

If you are anything like me, 128GB is simply not enough for a modern laptop. Even on my Windows desktop I have been struggling to keep my 128 GB SSD empty. However, lucky for us, Apple finally took the leap of faith and made the storage of the base model start at 256 GB with the higher end model going all the way up to 1TB! As this storage is the usual ridiculous fast SSD they always use, this a very welcome change. You usually don’t complain about storage until you run out of it.

On a similar note, the higher end models got a boost to the memory as well. The models featuring the 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor have much faster and larger 16GB of 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory. The downside is that they come with a significant price of $1,799.00 or even $1,999.00 (for the 1TB version). I just think it’s a shame that the two lower end models don’t get a memory boost and are stuck at 8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory, which is significantly slower for the price tag of $1,299.00.

To wrap it up, the only downside of all these nice upgrades is the price, as you might expect. But for someone that travels a lot and needs to carry a portable device that is small, light and powerful when needed, I think that the $1,799.00 MacBook Pro 2020 (10th-generation Intel Core i5 version) is the perfect choice.

Source: Apple

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iPhone SE Performance

The new iPhone SE is using the A13 Bionic as the main chip. If you don’t quite know what that means, let me explain. This new iPhone is using the same brains as the iPhone 11 Pro, which is the fastest iPhone Apple offers. This means that the new iPhone is tied the fastest iPhone out there, absolutely mind-blowing! Anything you do on this phone should be incredibly smooth and fluid, from playing your new favorite game, or opening up complex applications such as Photoshop.

With all that performance in the chip, the camera is largely improved. Although it uses a similar setup of the iPhone 8, it should have better picture quality to the improved processor. It features the very popular portrait mode which artificially blurs the background of photos to make the subject pop.

iPhone SE Size

Honestly, screen sizes in the past few years have been insane recently. Do you really need a 6.5-inch screen on your iPhone 11 Pro? Or do you really need the equivalent of three huge screens with products such as the Galaxy Fold?
I know I don’t need that. In fact, the phone I currently have only has a single modest 6-inch screen, and In my opinion it’s too big. It’s not comfortable reaching all the way to the far corner with my thumb simple due to the size.
But, let us rejoice! The new iPhone SE swoops in and saves us from straining our thumbs. This new iPhone has a mere 4.7-inch display, which may seem like a bad thing, but I beg to differ. I know I don’t need a big screen, because that’s just not how I use my phone. I use my phone to call people, look at Google Maps, and occasionally watch a small YouTube video. Besides this, I don’t need a big screen and you probably don’t either. Plus, a smaller screen will improve battery life and decrease the cost of the phone.

iPhone SE Price

This is also what everyone is talking about. The price is crazy cheap, compared to Apple’s other offerings. The base model of the new iPhone SE comes in at just $399. Compare this price tag to the iPhone 11 Pro at $999, and you can see the immense value in the iPhone SE.
By setting the price tag to such a low value, Apple is finally competing with cheaper android phones like the Google Pixel 3a. For the past years, Apple had no product this cheap, but now finally, almost anyone can join the iPhone ecosystem for not that much money. Although, we still realize that this is a lot of money to a lot of people, the iPhone SE is a much easier pill to swallow than the other significantly more expensive iPhones.

Conclusion

You can pre-order the new iPhone SE on Apple.com and it becomes available on March 24th. As you could tell by reading this article, we are extremely excited to get our hands on the device so we can see how great it is. The iPhone SE may be the best value smartphone for 2020, something I did not expect to say about an Apple product.

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Happy New Year 2020!

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