The Spectre and Meltdown processor vulnerability revelations were a shocking start to the new year in cybersecurity. The vulnerabilities affect almost every processor, across almost every operating system and architecture. Processor manufacturers and operating system developers swiftly issued patches to protect against the vulnerabilities — but there were some serious teething issues, too. Now, over a month on from the initial reports, are we any closer to truly fixing the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities? Spectre and Meltdown Vulnerabilities Everywhere The recently discovered security problems will impact computing for a long time. Meltdown specifically impacts Intel microprocessors stretching back to 1995....
Read the full article: Are We Secure From Spectre and Meltdown Yet?
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Evan Spiegel secretly tried to hire away the team at Secret, but the price was too high. That’s according to three sources familiar with the deal who spoke to TechCrunch. The information expands and clarifies a report from the new book about Snapchat’s origin story coming out next week called “How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars” by former TechCrunch writer Billy… 
The courtroom has been cleared, the lights are off in the spillover room on the 19th floor and the initial takes are in on the Uber vs. Waymo trial. Uber will give Alphabet, the parent company of both Waymo and the search giant Google, some $244 million worth of stock, and agree to ensure that no Waymo intellectual property will make its way into Uber autonomous vehicles. While Uber has… 
Whether you’re trapped on a futuristic island prison full of blood-thirsty gang members or simply stuck in a two-hour meeting, the LifeClock One might be the watch for you. Inspired by the movie Escape From New York starring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, the watch is an homage to Plissken’s wrist-worn LifeClock, a device that would trigger the an injection of micro-explosives in… 
Uber has agreed to settle the lawsuit brought against it by Waymo for theft of some of the company’s trade secrets. As part of the settlement Uber has agreed to work with Waymo to ensure that the company’s LIDAR and software represents just the work of Waymo engineers. The agreement also comes with a financial settlement that is 0.34% of Uber’s equity, valued at Series G-1… 
Aurora, the self-driving startup founded by Google self-driving car project alum Chris Urmson, along with Tesla Autopilot developer Sterling Anderson, CMU robotics expert and Uber vet Drew Bagnell, and a team of industry experts, will be making the autonomous smarts for Byton’s forthcoming electric vehicle. Byton, a startup that had a splashy debut at CES earlier this year.… 
Facebook will award up to $1 million to five community leaders and $50,000 to 100 more to fund their ideas for how to strengthen people’s online and offline connections. Facebook will also hire double the number of engineers currently working on safety-related causes in its London office. These were a few of the big announcements made at today’s Facebook Communities Summit Europe.… 
Hacker group fail0verflow shared a photo of a Nintendo Switch running Debian, a distribution of Linux (via Nintendo Life). The group claims that Nintendo can’t fix the vulnerability with future firmware patches. #switch pic.twitter.com/4iTjTk9D59 — fail0verflow (@fail0verflow) February 6, 2018 According to fail0verflow, there’s a flaw in the boot ROM in Nvidia’s… 
After teasing the feature back in September, Apple is adding support for live news in the TV app on the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV — 9to5mac first spotted the new section. For now, it’s quite limited as it only supports a handful of channels for American users. If you’re running the most recent versions of iOS and tvOS, the feature should now be live. I’m running iOS… 
More problems and controversy for Logan Paul, the YouTube star who caused a strong public backlash when he posted a video of a suicide victim in Japan. Google’s video platform today announced that it would be pulling advertising temporarily from his video channel in response to a “recent pattern of behavior” from him. This is in addition to Paul’s suspensions from… 
Another antitrust fine for Google. India’s competition commission has issued a 1.36BN rupees (~$21.1M) penalty on the search giant for abusing its dominant position in the local search market for online general web search and web search advertising services. 
Attorneys for Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle spinout, are nearing the end of their plaintiffs presentation against Uber in a trial that is likely to have broad ramifications for the common Valley practice of acqui-hiring talent. The case hinges on whether the jury believes Uber’s assertion that the technology used in its autonomous car project was developed and acquired… 
How can Facebook promote meaningful interaction between users? Apparently by letting them downvote inappropriate, offensive, or misleading comments to hide them. Facebook is now testing a downvote button on a limited set of public Page post comment reels, the company confirms to TechCrunch. A Facebook spokesperson tells us “We are not testing a dislike button. We are exploring a feature… 