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Apple contractors frequently hear sensitive info in Siri recordings

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Apple stressed in a statement that it has multiple privacy protections. The recordings aren’t tied to Apple IDs, and they’re studied in “secure facilities” by people who are bound to “strict confidentiality requirements.” It won’t know whose device made a request or otherwise make connections.

That still leaves some concerns, though, and not just the sensitive info itself. There’s reportedly a “high turnover” for contractors, according to the source, and there’s supposedly relatively little vetting for new hires. A malicious recruit could theoretically abuse the data. There also don’t appear to be policies for dealing with sensitive recordings. Staff are encouraged to report accidental “hey Siri” requests as technical problems, but not the content itself.

It would be difficult to avoid these recordings so long as Apple and its rivals want humans checking the quality of voice assistant requests. Hotwords like “hey Siri” and “Alexa” aren’t foolproof. The companies haven’t readily informed the public about their human QA teams, though. And where Amazon and Google let you opt out of some uses for recordings, Siri tends to be an all-or-nothing affair. You can disable “hey Siri” or turn off Siri altogether, but there’s no way to control what you share. This doesn’t mean you’re at serious risk of privacy violations just by using Siri — just that Apple might have room for improvement in how it handles inadvertent audio captures.

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Brain-controlled VR lightshows could lull you to sleep

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Inter-Dream assigns different colors and properties to different brainwaves, and since brainwaves are always changing, the visuals and colors change, too. The result is a constantly moving, mirage of colors, shapes and patterns. More active brainwaves are associated with more active displays. The idea is that people whose minds are more active just before bed have a harder time falling asleep. By providing vibrant visuals of users’ brainwaves, Inter-Dream lulls people to sleep and helps them learn to calm their minds. It uses principles of neurofeedback, using real-time displays of brain activity to teach users how to regulate their mental states.

Inter-Dream was first conceived as a public art project by PluginHUMAN — a partnership between Dr. Betty Sargeant and Justin Dwyer. But it peaked the interest of PhD researcher Nathan Semertzidis, from RMIT University’s Exertion Games Lab. Semertzidis took a deep dive into the science behind Inter-Dream’s ability to improve sleep. He found that participants in an RMIT University study reported a 21 percent drop in negative emotions and a 55 percent drop in feelings of fear after using Inter-Dream. Their positive emotions increased eight percent and their feelings of serenity jumped 13 percent. Theoretically, those changes would all lead to improved sleep.

Creative activities and meditation have also been shown to improve pre-sleep cognitive states and improve rest. But some will undoubtedly find it easier and more appealing to strap on a VR headset and let their brainwaves guide them, through a world of color and light, to a state of relaxation. Semertzidis says more testing is needed before a tool like Inter-Dream could be deployed, but at the very least, it’s evidence that in some cases, tech can actually help us sleep.

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A student’s guide to keeping track of your finances

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Good money habits

It doesn’t matter if you’re starting high school or graduating college; right now is the ideal time to develop good money habits. If you can live by a few rules, you’ll be able to survive, regardless of what happens in your future. The first rule is the simplest: Your income needs to add up to more than your spending.

Dire emergencies aside, you shouldn’t be getting into debt for any reason if you’re not earning a regular (and decent) salary. Credit cards offer the temptation of a spending spree, with the pain deferred for months (or even years) afterward, but don’t you dare. That new purchase may seem exciting now, but you’ll come to resent it when you’re paying 20 percent interest on it.

Third, set yourself a budget and do not, for any reason other than a serious emergency, break those rules. And no, Coachella tickets, illicit substances or a Seamless order to your dorm do not count as emergencies. With any purchase, channel Marie Kondo and ask if you need it or if you could do without or find a cheaper alternative.

Budgeting 101

Black woman hugging her piggy bank

Setting a budget can be hard, because it requires you to be mindful about how much you’re regularly spending, and on what. The end result, however, is that you’ll be able to understand where your cash goes and if you’re making the best use of it. Use your budget as a way of learning where your weak points are, and set rules to combat that in the future.

The first thing to do is to work out how much cash you’ll expect to have on hand for the year and what your fixed costs are. These are the things you’ll pay on a regular basis, either week by week or month by month, for the duration of your education. You know what a fixed cost is, because you know that bad things happen if you stop paying it.

Then, you’ll want to make a list of your costs that, while not fixed, you’ll be expected to pay on the regular. Food and drink, transport, not to mention fun, are all things you should keep in mind when building a budget. Plan how much you’d expect to spend in a good week and turn it into a fixed target, giving you a clear set of rules.

If you’re struggling with this, remember that your spending must be less than your income. So if there’s an imbalance, you’ll need to find ways to cut your spending by eating less lavishly or taking cheaper forms of transport. And don’t forget that you also need to account for emergencies and regular savings, so budget those in.

One more thing: You know those articles in which crusty rich people talk about how darn kids are spending too much money on store-bought coffee? It’s world-class bull, because the dollars spent on drinking a $3 latte every day for a year wouldn’t cover your loans, a car or down payment on a house. You need to include room in your budget for fun. Otherwise what’s the point of living? Set a figure that you can afford, and spend it on whatever brings you joy.

OUR FAVORITE WAYS TO BUDGET

Spreadsheet

The cheapest thing you can do, of course, is plug your finances into a spreadsheet and do the rest manually. Spend half an hour in Google Sheets or Excel and you’ll be able to knock out a half-decent budget that’ll last years. I should know: The same spreadsheet I used as a student is still working well a decade later.

Obviously, it’s far more work than some of the apps and services below, but there’s something rewarding about doing it yourself. And if you’re struggling to build your own, here’s a sample Google spreadsheet you can experiment with yourself, when you’ve copied it to your own drive.

You Need a Budget

YNAB

Pricing: $6.99 per month after an initial 34-day free trial, although the figure is taken as a $83.99 lump sum. The company says that if you aren’t satisfied with the app or your service you can get a full refund, “no questions asked.”

You Need a Budget (YNAB) is one of the most popular money-management apps, and it’s available for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. It’s based on Jesse Mecham’s budgeting system, which gets you working your way out of debt through a combination of smart management and saving. Mecham’s methods are, at first blush, unorthodox, but its users are often enthusiastic to the point of being evangelical.

That includes planning for expenses based on the cash in your bank rather than what you expect to have at the end of the month. And YNAB tasks you with “aging” your money, keeping the cash in your bank until it is more than 30 days old before spending it. If you can do that, it’s likely your earnings are covering your spending and then some.

The platform offers goal tracking, education and a litany of workshops laid on every week to help people grapple with their budgets.

Subscribe to YNAB – $7/month

Mint

Mint

Pricing: Mint is “free” because, like Facebook, you are the product that Mint can sell ads to, and the platform gets a commission from every financial product it sells you. A premium, but not ad-free, version, called Mint Credit Monitor, costs $17 per month, offering credit-score tracking and identify theft protection.

Mint is the budgeting website owned and operated by Intuit, the accounting-software giant that also owns TurboTax. The service can pull together your various bank and credit card accounts and track your spending and saving through a single page. You’ll be able to develop your own budget and crucially, get reminders when it’s time to pay your bills.

Mint may not have as much focus on clearing your debt as YNAB, but it does have one killer feature: It’s owned by Intuit. That means come tax season (assuming your parents don’t claim you for the credits), you can import your 1099 documents from Mint straight into TurboTax.

Subscribe to Mint – $0+/month

PocketGuard

pocketguard

Pricing: PocketGuard itself is free, but there are limits on what you can track (and you can’t add in cash transactions at all). The unlocked product, PocketGuard Plus, costs $4 per month, or $20 annually.

PocketGuard’s selling point isn’t that it aims to totally shift your financial habits but that it acts as an angel on your shoulder during the month. Once you’ve imported your accounts and categorized your spending, you can start adding things like spending limits. These are, unsurprisingly, ways in which you can limit yourself — like only allocating $30 per month to entertainment and so forth. And PocketGuard is designed to look for cheaper alternatives to the financial products you already have.

Subscribe to PocketGuard – $4/month

Clarity Money

clarity money

Pricing: Clarity Money is free, and the company has said it will remain so even now that it’s owned by Goldman Sachs. Over time, it’s likely that Clarity will be integrated further into Marcus, Goldman’s new online bank (of which it is now a part).

The idea behind Clarity is to put all of your banking into a single place so that you can organize your funds more easily. What separates Clarity from other apps is that it promises to help you save money by finding subscriptions you may have forgotten about, and it helps you cancel them. Even better, however, is the pledge to negotiate bills you’ve already incurred to try to get a better deal.

Subscribe to Clarity Money – Free

Image: David-Prado via Getty Images (Budgeting 101)

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The best budget subwoofer

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Why you should trust us

I wrote my first review of a subwoofer in 1991; since then, I have, to the best of my knowledge, reviewed more home audio subwoofers than anyone in the world. I’ve written for magazines including Sound & Vision and Home Theater and websites such as Home Theater Review, SoundStage, and LifeWire. I’ve been the most active and outspoken advocate of the CEA-2010 subwoofer measurement standard and wrote an online manual for it. In my work for the above publications, I have conducted at least seven multiple-listener subwoofer comparison tests, so I have my own impressions to guide me and also the impressions of other listeners. This page on my website provides a more extensive list of my audio credentials.

I’ve played bass-register instruments (including the upright bass, Chapman Stick, and fretless bass ukulele) since the early 1980s. I play several gigs a month with Tonic Trio and other jazz groups in the Los Angeles area, and I hear many drummers and other bass players at close range, so I have a solid familiarity with what bass is supposed to sound like in music.

I had help on this guide from two other listeners; both have participated in numerous audio tests I’ve conducted for Wirecutter and Sound & Vision, and they have also conducted many audio comparison tests of their own. The first is Geoff Morrison, who has written for Wirecutter, CNET, Forbes, and Sound & Vision; he has 19 years of experience in the audio industry and has done his own experiments in trying to build the ultimate subwoofer. The second is Wirecutter headphone editor Lauren Dragan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in both music performance and audio production from Ithaca College, has spent several years in terrestrial radio, and currently works as a professional voice actor in Los Angeles.

Who should get this

A subwoofer is a speaker specifically designed to reproduce bass—deep sounds like the low boom of a kick drum or the thump of a bass guitar. You add it to an existing set of (usually small) speakers to give your system more bass and, potentially, a higher maximum volume. Adding bass to a small audio system is generally a good thing. It’s what makes you tap your feet or bob your head when music is playing, it makes music seem more like it’s being played in a large hall than in a small room, and it’s essential for reproducing explosions and crashes in action movie soundtracks.

Subwoofers have a bad reputation with some people because if a subwoofer is not correctly adjusted, it may make a boomy, annoying sound. But a correctly connected and adjusted subwoofer is nothing but a plus. It just blends in and makes it seem like you have larger speakers. For tips on how to connect, position, and adjust a subwoofer, read our blog post on the subject.

Note that the shape and size of a room (as well as the placement of the subwoofer and the listening chair or couch) can make certain bass tones stand out and others practically disappear. Many audiophiles and home-theater enthusiasts like to use two or four subwoofers, which makes the bass sound more even as you move from seat to seat. Thus, it may be a better idea to buy two of these subwoofers than to upgrade to a more expensive single subwoofer.

How we picked

Based on our past experience testing subwoofers, we settled on a few criteria for the subwoofers we would consider for this test:

  • Price: Since this is a guide about budget subwoofers, we set a price ceiling of $300. There aren’t that many subs between $200 and $300, as most models from long-established brands start at prices above $300. We plan to cover some of those brands—like SVS, Hsu Research, Emotiva, and Rogersound—in an upcoming guide to high-performance subwoofers.
  • Size: We wanted to pick subwoofers that would make a clear improvement in bass for small systems, so we didn’t seriously consider any models with woofers measuring less than 8 inches, and we focused on models with 10-inch or 12-inch woofers. It’s possible for smaller subwoofers to deliver satisfying bass, but that requires sophisticated engineering and construction that’s likely impossible in our price range.
  • Customer support and product availability: Subwoofers are the most heavily stressed component in an audio system, and thus the most prone to failure, so it’s important that the subwoofer manufacturer offers solid customer service and support. Below about $200, we found several off-brand subwoofers that have little or no availability outside of Amazon, and no North American customer-support phone number. We eliminated these from consideration.
  • Inputs: If you are using the subwoofer in a stereo system instead of a home-theater system, it’s likely you will need to connect speaker cables, rather than line-level (RCA) cables, between your stereo and the subwoofer, so we focused on subwoofers that offer both speaker- and line-level connections. See our blog post on subwoofer setup for more information on this topic.

In the course of preparing the original test and the two updates of this guide, we’ve tested a total of 18 models, including five models for this update.

How we tested

The primary criteria that our panelists considered in our evaluations were:

  • how much clean bass a subwoofer can put out
  • how deep the subwoofer can play
  • how natural the bass sounds (i.e., not excessively boomy or punchy)
  • appearance
  • enough inputs to accommodate any common connection scenario

We conducted all of the listening tests in the same acoustically treated listening room I’ve used to test more than 130 subwoofers over the past 17 years. I have run countless tests and measurements in this room, had dozens of manufacturers set up their subwoofers in it, and at one point even had a scientist from Harman International come over to run tests in my room using as many as four separate subwoofers. I know this room’s characteristics (and how they affect speaker performance) extremely well.

Each of the subwoofers went into my room’s “subwoofer sweet spot,” the place where I’ve found most subs to sound their best from my favorite listening chair. I connected the subwoofers to my home-theater receiver (a Denon AVR-2809ci for the original tests and a Sony STR-ZA5000ES for later tests) and used a surround-sound system made up of Sunfire CRM-2, CRM-2C, and CRM-BIP speakers. I used a crossover point (the frequency at which sounds are redirected from the speakers to the subwoofer) of 100 hertz, what you might use with a small set of speakers; this gave us a little more bass from the subs and a little less from the speakers, making the test tougher on the subs.

To make sure the subwoofer volume levels were set correctly, I first used the receivers’ built-in test tones and a RadioShack sound-pressure level meter to get the setting close. Then I used TrueRTA spectrum analyzer software, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB interface, and a calibrated Earthworks M30 measurement microphone to check the level of the subwoofers relative to the level of the sound coming from the speakers using TrueRTA’s built-in pink noise generator.

For my listening, I used several of the toughest bass test tracks I know of, including Holly Cole’s “Train Song,” Olive’s “Falling,” and the recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Symphony No. 3 (Organ)” from the Boston Audio Society Test CD-1, which has notes that drop down to 16 Hz. (How deep is that? It’s the lowest note a standard electric bass could play if its scale length was 7 feet.) I also used bass-heavy action-movie soundtracks via Blu-ray, including U-571 and San Andreas. Then I brought Geoff and Lauren in for blind listening sessions, using a thin black drape to hide the subs’ identities.

I concluded by running CEA-2010 output measurements on each subwoofer. This measurement provides an accurate and easy-to-understand baseline assessment of a subwoofer’s performance, using test tones that simulate the bass content of music and movies. I’ve found that CEA-2010 results correspond well with blind-listening test results but provide a more precise comparison than listening tests can. The higher the number, the louder the subwoofer will play, and the clearer it will sound even if it’s not cranked to the max. I keep a log of all my CEA-2010 results here.

Below are the CEA-2010 results for many of the subs we tested, citing an average output in the mid bass (the region from 40 to 63 Hz, which corresponds to the bottom notes of a standard electric or upright bass) and the low bass (the region from 20 to 31.5 Hz, corresponding to the deepest bass notes in hip-hop and EDM and the couch-shaking explosions in movie soundtracks). Click here to see an embedded chart that includes all the data points.

Subwoofer

Photo: Rozette Rago

Our pick: Dayton Audio SUB-1200

The Dayton Audio SUB-1200 delivers a combination of output, sound quality, and style that no other budget subwoofer we’ve tried can match. It has enough bass output for a mid-size stereo or home-theater system, and it has a clean, natural sound—something especially important for music listening. It uses a 12-inch woofer in a ported enclosure, driven by a 120-watt internal amplifier, and it measures 16¼ by 16¼ by 17¾ inches (HWD).

The SUB-1200 puts out an impressive amount of deep bass for its price. It’s easy to hear and even easier to measure. The sub put out an average of 114.8 dB in the mid bass and 102.0 dB in the low bass. This is 1.1 dB less and 2.7 dB more, respectively, than our previous top pick, the Monoprice 9723. Surprisingly, the SUB-1200’s average output is almost the same as Dayton Audio’s larger, more expensive SUB-1500, the differences falling within the specified ±1 dB range of error for this measurement. That’s impressive.

Subwoofer

The SUB-1200 looks a little nicer than most budget subwoofers, with a flush-fit speaker grille and rounded corners. Photo: Rozette Rago

Of all the budget subs we’ve tested, the SUB-1200 delivers the best blend of definition and tunefulness in the upper and mid bass, as well as couch-shaking power in the low bass.

When set up and adjusted correctly, the SUB-1200 doesn’t produce the booming, garbled, distorted sounds for which cheap subwoofers are sometimes reviled. It sounds smoother than most budget subs (and some much more expensive models) because it doesn’t accentuate the “punch” of bass tones—that pressure you feel in your chest when you’re right next to a kick drum or bass amp.

While no budget subwoofer stands any chance of being mistaken for the work of Philippe Starck, we think the SUB-1200 looks a little nicer than most of its competitors, with a flush-fit speaker grille and large-radius vertical rounded corners. (You have to admit that at least they tried.) It also doesn’t have (or need) a large, finned heat sink on the back, so it’s easier to push back against a wall.

Subwoofer

The SUB-1200 has line-level RCA stereo inputs and speaker-level (high-level) input and output connections, plus crossover, gain, and phase controls. Photo: Rozette Rago

The SUB-1200 offers line-level RCA stereo inputs, which make it compatible with receivers that have a line-level subwoofer output (included on all surround-sound receivers and some stereo receivers). If your receiver lacks a subwoofer output, the SUB-1200 also has speaker-level input and output connections, so you can connect speaker cables (in sizes up to 14 gauge) from your receiver or amplifier to the subwoofer, and then from the subwoofer to the speakers.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

There’s really nothing we don’t like about the SUB-1200 for the price. Note, though, that our comments about the sound are subjective, and that some music-oriented listeners may prefer a subwoofer with a punchier sound (although in this price range, that will likely require compromising the deep bass performance). There are many subwoofers that can play louder and/or deeper, but they all cost substantially more.

Also great: Dayton Audio SUB-1000L

Subwoofer

Photo: Rozette Rago

Most subwoofers are blah-looking black boxes that take up a pretty good amount of space and detract from a room’s decor. The Dayton Audio SUB-1000L, on the other hand, is only 6 inches thick, so you can probably hide it behind a chair or a sofa, or maybe even under the sofa, and it thus could go unnoticed (or at least less noticed). It has legs that elevate the woofer off the floor or keep it away from the wall, so there’s no concern about muffling the sound. It’s 25 inches wide and 15¾ inches deep. You can place it horizontally or vertically, and it even includes brackets that let you attach it directly to a wall. It has a 10-inch woofer powered by a 100-watt internal amp.

Subwoofer

The SUB-1000L is only 6 inches thick, so it easily hides behind or under most couches. Photo: Rozette Rago

The SUB-1000L’s output can’t compare to the Dayton Audio SUB-1200, but it’s respectable for such a slim, inexpensive subwoofer. Our measurements showed an average of 108.8 dB in the midbass and 97.0 dB in the low bass, compared with 114.8 and 102.0 dB, respectively, for the SUB-1200. The SUB-1000L’s closest design competitor, the Monoprice SSW-10, averages 113.2 dB and 89.9 dB, respectively.

When we played action movies, the SUB-1000L had more power than we expected on the deepest bass notes. It also sounds fairly satisfying playing the deep bass tones in hip-hop and dance music. It can’t match the punch, power, and clarity of the SUB-1200, but its combination of room-friendly design, sound quality, and price is available in no other sub we’ve tested.

Subwoofer

The SUB-1000L has the same connection options as the SUB-1200. Photo: Rozette Rago

The SUB-1000L has the same inputs as the SUB-1200: speaker-level inputs and outputs plus line-level RCA inputs. This makes it easy to incorporate the sub into a stereo or surround-sound system.

What to look forward to

We’ll continue to watch for the introduction of new budget subs, and for a future update we’ll consider adding a budget pick—a smaller 8-inch model, probably under $100, that would be good for a small office or bedroom.

The competition

The BIC America V1020 is a previous pick. It’s a nice, compact, very good-sounding subwoofer, and we still recommend it, but its price has gone up since we originally picked it.

The BIC America V1220 has impressive power in the deepest notes but lacked mid-bass punch and didn’t blend as smoothly as the V1020 did with the speakers we used.

The Dayton Audio SUB-1500 is a nice subwoofer that doesn’t really perform significantly better than the less-expensive SUB-1200.

The Monoprice 14567 sounds pretty good, but the Dayton Audio SUB-1000L and the Monoprice SSW-10 deliver substantially greater output for roughly $40 more.

The Monoprice 605999 is a pro-style subwoofer that can be used in the home, but our top picks and the BIC V1020 offer more kick for fewer bucks.

The Monoprice 9723 is our previous top pick. It delivers surprisingly good sound quality and lots of deep bass output for the price, although we do have a slight overall preference for the Dayton Audio SUB-1200. However, the 9723 often goes out of stock, and while we haven’t had any problems with the three samples we’ve tried, we’ve seen too many complaints about defective units to ignore.

The Monoprice SSW-10 slim subwoofer is very similar in size and performance to the Dayton Audio SUB-1000L, but it’s a little pricier and its low bass performance isn’t as good. We felt that the SSW-10 sounded punchier in the mid bass, while the Dayton SUB-1000L delivered a more even, natural response.

The OSD Audio PS10 is appealingly compact, but it doesn’t deliver as much performance for the price as the Dayton SUB-1200.

The OSD SS8 is a low-profile subwoofer similar to, but smaller than, the Dayton Audio SUB-1000L. It’s very pricey for the performance it delivers.

The Pioneer SW-8MK2 is our former pick for a compact model. It’s a great sub, but we like the Dayton Audio SUB-1000L better as a compact pick.

In our tests, the Polk PSW110 didn’t have much punch or power for its size; the smaller, less-expensive PSW111 is more impressive, but we think the Dayton Audio SUB-1000L is a more appealing and versatile compact pick.

The PSB SubSeries 100 is nice if you really, really need a super-tiny subwoofer, but it can’t touch the price/performance ratios of our picks.

The Yamaha YST-SW012 and YST-SW215 both distorted on deep bass notes and couldn’t deliver much low-frequency rumble.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commissions.

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Regal Cinemas unveils its unlimited movie subscription service

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Regal Unlimited offers three tiers of membership, ranging from $18 to $23.50 per month (plus tax), and you’ll have to download the free Regal App to participate. The “gotcha” is that there is a $0.50 convenience fee for every movie you book through the app, and surcharges apply for special features like 4DX, IMAX, 3D and double features. Though, you’ll get a 10 percent concession stand discount, no blackout dates and free popcorn and soda on your birthday.

Regal Cinemas

Regal Cinemas is far from the first to offer movie ticket subscriptions. MoviePass has a range of plans, and it recently, temporarily revived its original unlimited $9.95-per-month plan. Even Infinity offers movie ticket subscriptions. Some have fared better than others. Sinemia shut down this spring after things got weird with users being terminated from the service. Meanwhile, AMC’s Stubs A-List hit 800,000 subscribers just a month after it launched. We’ll see if Regal Cinemas can keep up with the competition.

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The tech you need to declutter your academic life

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Regardless of the system you’ve picked, you’ll want to make sure you never run out of space. Having to carry around an external hard drive defeats the purpose of decluttering in the first place. You can either go for a device with larger storage (1TB would be plenty but 500GB is adequate) or invest in a cloud service like Google Drive, OneDrive or iCloud. If you’re not already using Google Docs or Microsoft 365, which automatically save your work in the cloud, make sure you’re uploading your work periodically and free up space on your machine.

Replace your books and papers

Once you’ve settled on your main gear, your next goal is to eliminate as much books and paper from your school life as possible. If you’re someone who functions best with a low-tech pen-and-paper experience, this section isn’t for you.

For the rest of you, do the math. If you could convert 10 textbooks into one laptop, how much weight would that reduce? You’d be relieving your shoulders and clearing out some shelf space in your dorm, plus going paperless cuts down on the loose sheets you’d have laying around. Your paper notes and notebooks ultimately become trash that contribute to the mess around your desk or living space and are harder to organize than digital notes.

Chinese Students Prepare For 2019 National College Entrance Exam

A student prepares for the National College Entrance Exam in China.

Most textbooks you’ll need for school today are available as e-books, and you can find them on Amazon, Google Books or Scribd. If they’re not, you might want to consider digitizing them with a service like 1DollarScan or Blue Leaf Book Scanning. These companies will create soft copies of your books, complete with searchable text so you can easily find the keyword you need.

Similarly, note-taking apps use handwriting recognition to help you keep track of your frenzied lecture scribbles. You can look for the notes from a specific date or search by specific topics, and you can also back everything up to the cloud for easier access (and safer storage). My colleague Nick Summers wrote a notetaker’s guide that lays out the best apps for different use cases: Check it out here.

Go wireless

In most messy tech setups, wires are the culprit. You already have cables that are necessary for things like your lamps, appliances, laptop, phone and power strips, so why add to the pile? Swap your wired headphones for a wireless set — there are plenty of good options from true wireless ear buds like the AirPods ($159+) to noise-cancelling headsets.

Sony wireless earbuds

Opt for a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and invest in a wireless-charging station. Chances are, if you own an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy or Pixel, it can recharge wirelessly, so you can set your phone down at the end of the day to juice up without fumbling around for a cable. AirPods and other accessories also support this, so if you own compatible devices, the wireless-charging mat is a worthy investment.

Alternatively, you can consider a table lamp with a built-in wireless-charging base, which once again reduces the number of cables you’ll need. For those of you who have an external monitor set up at your desk, get a hub that you can use to wirelessly link your accessories to the screen.

Images: Cao Zhengping/VCG via Getty Images (student surrounded by books); Sony (wireless earbuds)

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Justice Department has approved T-Mobile / Sprint merger

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The companies will have to sell the prepaid parts of Sprint’s business — Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint prepaid — to Dish, while that company will gain a chunk of Sprint’s spectrum. T-Mobile and Sprint will have to open up more than 20,000 cell sites and dozens of retail locations to Dish. In addition, T-Mobile has to offer Dish “robust access” to its mobile network for seven years while the latter creates a 5G network of its own.

If Sprint and T-Mobile don’t meet those conditions, the department and five state attorneys general offices (Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota) will proceed with a lawsuit to block the merger. Following the agreement, Dish plans to establish itself as a fourth nationwide carrier. It aims to build a 5G network that’ll reach 70 percent of the US population by June 2023.

The Dish Network proposal will “enable a viable facilities-based competitor to enter the market,” while the merger will speed up the rollout of “high-quality 5G networks for the benefit of American consumers and entrepreneurs,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The proposed settlement would smooth out regulators’ concerns that the combination of the third- and fourth-biggest carriers in the US would reduce the number of options people had for phone service. Sprint and T-Mobile announced their plans to merge in April 2018, claiming that by joining forces, they’d be able to build out a “broad and deep” 5G network more quickly than if they had to keep going it alone.

The merger isn’t done and dusted quite yet. The Justice Department’s proposed settlement is open to public comment for 60 days. The Federal Communications Commission has to approve the deal, though that isn’t likely to pose a problem for Sprint and T-Mobile, given Chairman Ajit Pai’s recommendation to green-light the merger. Perhaps a more pressing concern is that the companies are facing lawsuits from several states hoping to block the move over competition concerns.

“Today, the Department of Justice gave its blessing to the largest wireless merger in history,” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told Engadget in a statement. “I remain skeptical that this combination is good for consumers, good for competition, or good for the economy.”

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Samsung opens up Galaxy Note 10 reservations before official reveal

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The company is also offering up to $600 of trade-in value towards a Note 10. Depending on your current device’s condition, you can get that huge discount by swapping your Galaxy Note 9; Galaxy S10 series handset; Pixel 3 or 3 XL; or iPhone XS, XS Max or XR. You can still save if you trade in some older phones, but not quite as much as with those newer devices.

The reservations page also seemingly reveals the release date for the Note 10. If you sign up, Samsung suggests you should “look for an email to complete your Galaxy pre-order for August 23rd delivery.”

Meanwhile, a leaked Verizon pre-order hints the carrier will toss in a free Galaxy Note 10 if you buy the larger Galaxy Note 10+ 5G on an Unlimited plan. That should offset the cost of the handset somewhat (especially if you sell the freebie), and if that offer stays in place when pre-orders actually go live, you can expect rival carriers to offer deals of their own.

As is the way of things, plenty of details about the Note 10 lineup have emerged through leaks and rumors. They suggest the series will have a hole-punch notch for a front-facing camera, triple rear cameras, a Snapdragon 855 processor, 8GB or more RAM and as much as 256GB base storage for the Note 10+ 5G model.

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Local governments are still woefully unprepared to fight ransomware

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A string of high-profile attacks over the past six years have brought the threat of encountering ransomware to the forefront of public consciousness. However, the practice of remotely encrypting data and holding it for ransom is nearly 30 years old. 1989’s PC Cyborg virus, colloquially dubbed the AIDS Trojan as it initially targeted AIDS researchers, marks the first known such attack.

AIDS Trojan was designed by biologist, Joseph Popp, distributing 20,000 infected disks at the World Health Organization’s AIDS conference that year. Once loaded onto an unsuspecting PC, the program would hide all directories and encrypt all files on the C drive. The only way, initially, to unlock the computer involved mailing a check for $189 to a PO Box in Panama. Luckily, Popp utilized an easily broken cryptography scheme and tools were quickly developed to counter the Trojans effects without having to pony up cash.

AIDS trojan

For the next nearly three decades ransomware attacks faded into the background of computer technology. If there were any such extortion cases, they were not large or heinous enough to warrant much attention from the computer security community or the media. That changed in 2013 with the release of CryptoLocker and its variants. That year, the program targeted the Swansea Police Department in Massachusetts via a malicious email attachment, locking down the department’s computer file system until the police relented and paid a $750 ransom fee. How quaint.

The problem has only gotten worse in the six years since. A study complied by Recorded Future and published this May scoured local news sources and found 169 instances of ransomware attempts against state and local governments since the Swansea attack. That’s roughly 45 a year on average between 2016 and 2018, with the number spiking last year with 53. Hackers have launched another 21 reported ransomware attacks in the first half of this year alone, though those numbers may be higher given that the FBI relies on ransomware targets to self-report their attacks.

“Overall trends show a drop in volume for the year, but an increase in focused, sophisticated attacks aimed at businesses,” the 2019 Malwarebytes’ State of Malware report found. “Indeed, the only real spike in numbers has been in the realm of the workplace, with a distinct lack of interest and innovation aimed at consumers.”

These attacks aren’t particularly effective and the likelihood of receiving payment from a target varies widely, which is part of the reason that perpetrators have stopped fiddling around with individual marks and largely moved onto bigger prey like hospitals, universities, and government agencies.

A 2019 report from CyberEdge found that only 45 percent of organizations hit with ransomware paid the fee, though 17 percent of those who paid lost their data anyway. The corollary to that is 19 percent of firms who refused to pay were unable to recover their data via alternative methods, so you’re nearly equally screwed whether you pay up or not. The numbers are even worse if government agencies are targeted. Recorded Future’s study found that only 17 percent of afflicted agencies actually paid the ransom while a full 70 percent told the hackers to go kick rocks and decrypted the data themselves.

A third of Baltimore employees have computer access restored after ransomware attack and most will be online this week

But when the government does pay, it pays through the nose. In late June, the town council of Lake City, Florida — population 65,000 — agreed to shell out 42 bitcoins, valued at nearly half a million dollars, in order to regain access to their administrative network. The city had been shut out of their systems for nearly two weeks after suffering a massive “triple threat” malware attack earlier that month. Compared to Rivera City, Florida, Lake City got off light. Rivera’s leadership had to hand over 65 bitcoins worth an estimated $600,000 a few weeks before — and that’s after they’d already agreed to spend nearly a million more dollars to rebuild their digital infrastructure from the ground up. These follow a $400,000 attack against Jackson County, GA in March, a strike against Albany, NY that same month, and an attack against the parking meter system in Lynn, MA in May. Heck, Johannesburg, South Africa suffered a malware attack against its electrical grid just this morning.

“We were crippled, essentially, for a whole day,” Gregory McGee, vice president of the Albany Police Department’s union, told CNN.

Baltimore, Maryland has been especially hard hit. The city’s 911 and 311 systems were knocked offline in 2018 due to a ransomware attack, then a majority of the city’s servers were infected this May. Luckily, none of the city’s essential services were disrupted. The group behind the heist demanded 3 bitcoin (around $17,500) per server unlock or, generously, they’d take 13 bitcoin (a little over $76,000) to decrypt everything. The city refused to pay the ransom and has since set about restoring its impacted systems, albeit at an extravagant cost. The city estimates that it will cost $18.2 million to undo the damage caused, including potential revenue losses. The city expects to spend at least $11 million of that total by the end of this year.

“You’ve got increasingly sophisticated and very persistent bad guys out there looking for any vulnerability they can find and local governments, including Baltimore, who either don’t have the money or don’t spend it to properly protect their assets,” Don Norris, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, told the Sun at the time of the attack.

“I’m not surprised that it happened,” he continued, “and I won’t be surprised when it happens again.”

The parties behind these attacks are quite varied. Some are individuals, others part of a criminal enterprise, and still others operate under the (unofficial) auspices of nations. “It definitely encompasses a lot of people, a lot of nation-states. You see some of these groups sort of doing both,” CNBC cybersecurity reporter Kate Fazzini told NPR in June. “So we’ve had issues with ransomware being deployed by criminals who were also doing some work for the Iranian government or the North Korean government. It’s almost impossible to tell right away, and even after a lengthy investigation, it’s still very hard to tell.”

Petya ransomware cyber attack

Turns out, these bad guys don’t even need to be particularly proficient in cybercrime to pull off these sorts of incursions. As Akshay Bhargava, SVP of Malwarebytes, points out that part of the overall increase in attacks stems from the ease of entry into the space. While it’s no longer a case of simply hopping on an illicit IRQ channel and trading malware code as script kiddies did throughout the early 2000’s, “it’s easier for smaller actors to participate,” he told Engadget. “At the same time, the bigger actors, the more strategic are becoming much more coordinated, much more persistent and well funded to do these things.”

Bhargava also notes that more professional groups are spending a significantly larger amount of effort and longer amount of time performing their initial reconnaissance of their targets. This could involve anything from probing a network’s defenses to building dossiers on employees for use in spear phishing attacks. “What you’re seeing is a lot more sophistication,” Bhargava said. “A lot of social engineering, a lot of understanding how to really target the specific company and make it seem very legit.” Doing so ensures that when the malware is launched, it lands at a point in the system where it can do the maximum amount of damage in a minimal amount of time.

Unfortunately, those organizations which are attacked don’t often have much recourse. There is no singular law enforcement agency tasked with monitoring, much less responding to, these events. The FBI is often the first to be alerted but, again, the agency relies on the organizations being hit to reach out proactively. And even if the Feds do manage to track down those responsible for an attack, unless they live in or travel to a country with a US extradition treaty, there’s not much that the FBI can do.

Rather than wait around for the next ransom demand, a number of online security firms have begun to develop proactive defenses against this strain of malware, however their efficacy has yet to be demonstrated. Whether these new systems set off an electronic arms race of tools and exploits remains to be seen but there seems little doubt that ransomware attacks will ever be viewed as a price of doing business.

Images: Baltimore Sun via Getty Images (Doors); Donat Sorokin via Getty Images (Computer screen)

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Epic Games Store cloud saves roll out for two games

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Epic plans to expand cloud saves to many more games in the future, allowing players to seamlessly continue playing on a different PC and keep their save data somewhat more secure than if it were stored locally. Rival Steam has offered cloud saves since 2008.

However, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company has more work to do before it rolls out the feature more broadly, so it might be a while before it comes to more games. He noted the Epic Games Store team has to manually add cloud saves to titles, and that developers usually won’t have to update their games for the feature to work.

Cloud saves were included on the product roadmap Epic revealed for the store back in March. Among the other features Epic plans to add in the next several months are a user review system, wishlists, personal play time tracking and Humble Bundle integration.



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