Technology

The great thing about all Appleproducts is that you can start to use them effectively almost as soon as you take them out of the box, but the more you get to know how to control them the more useful they become.

Get around in Maps

Checking for directions in Maps Double tap the Map to zoom in and you can keep on double-tapping to reach maximum zoom. Another tip: double-tap and keep holding and you can zoom in and out of the map by moving your finger up and down on the display.

The ultimate and amazing Calculator tip

When you enter an incorrect number in Calculator, you don&t need to start all over again, just swipe to the left or right in the calculator input screen.

Tesla will remain a public company, CEO Elon Musk said Friday night, less than three weeks after he announced to the world via Twitter that he was considering taking the electric automaker private at $420 a share.

Musk, who posted the announcement via Teslablog, said Friday that after speaking with shareholders and investigating the process of taking the company private he believes the better path is for Tesla to remain public. Musk met with Teslaboard of directors Thursday and told him his decision. The board agreed, he wrote.

Herean excerpt:

Given the feedback I&ve received, itapparent that most of Teslaexisting shareholders believe we are better off as a public company. Additionally, a number of institutional shareholders have explained that they have internal compliance issues that limit how much they can invest in a private company. There is also no proven path for most retail investors to own shares if we were private. Although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was &please don&t do this.&

I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but itclear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated. This is a problem because we absolutely must stay focused on ramping Model 3 and becoming profitable. We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable.

That said, my belief that there is more than enough funding to take Tesla private was reinforced during this process.

Friday nightannouncement closes a tumultuous 17 days that began with Musk tweeting that he secured funding and was considering taking Tesla private. The tweet wasn&t warmly embraced by the Tesla board or many shareholders. It also prompted theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/10268726522903797

While this 17-day ride might be over, the questions over Muskbehavior (and possible drug use) and the companyfuture are likely not.

Google has clapped back in tremendous fashion at Epic Games, which earlier this month decided to make the phenomenally popular Fortnite available for Android via its own website instead of GooglePlay Store. Unfortunately, the installer had a phenomenally dangerous security flaw in it that would allow a malicious actor to essentially install any software they wanted. Google wasted exactly zero time pointing out this egregious mistake.

By way of a short explanation why this was even happening, Epic explained when it announced its plan that it would be good to have &competition among software sources on Android,& and that the best would &succeed based on merit.& Everyone of course understood that what he meant was that Epic didn&t want to share the revenue from its cash cow with Google, which takes 30 percent of in-app purchases.

Many warned that this was a security risk for several reasons, for example that users would have to enable app installations from unknown sources — something most users have no reason to do. And the Play Store has other protections and features, visible and otherwise, that are useful for users.

Google, understandably, was not amused with Epicplay, which no doubt played a part in the decision to scrutinize the download and installation process — though I&m sure the safety of its users was also a motivating factor. And wouldn&t you know it, they found a whopper right off the bat.

In a thread posted a week after the Fortnite downloader went live, a Google engineer by the name of Edward explained that the installer basically would allow an attacker to install anything they want using it.

The Fortnite installer basically downloads an APK (the package for Android apps), stores it locally, then launches it. But because it was stored on shared external storage, a bad guy could swap in a new file for it to launch, in whatcalled a &man in the disk& attack.

And because the installer only checked that the name of the APK is right, as long as the attackerfile is called &com.epicgames.fortnite,& it would be installed! Silently, and with lots of extra permissions too, if they want, because of how the unknown sources installation policies work. Not good!

Edward pointed out this could be fixed easily and in a magnificently low-key bit of shade-throwing helpfully linked to a page on the Android developer site outlining the basic feature Epic should have used.

To Epiccredit, its engineers jumped on the problem immediately and had a fix in the works by that very afternoon and deployed by the next one. Epic InfoSec then requested Google to wait 90 days before publishing the information.

As you can see, Google was not feeling generous. One week later (thattoday) and the flaw has been published on the Google Issue Tracker site in all its… well, not glory exactly. Really, the opposite of glory. This seems to have been Googleway of warning any would-be Play Store mutineers that they would not be given gentle handling.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was likewise unamused. In a comment provided to Android Central — which, by the way, predicted that this exact thing would happen — he took the company to task for its &irresponsible& decision to &endanger users.&

Indeed, companies really should try not to endanger their users for selfish reasons.