Aqib Raja

Finally, it’s here!  Apple   AAPL   +0.7%  has released  iOS 8.4  to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners today and with it comes one of the company’s most anticipated services in years… ‘Apple Music’ is built into iOS 8.4 and it represents Apple’s long awaited debut in the streaming music space and gives Spotify another whale to compete with as Google   GOOGL   -0.29%  steps up its own streaming offering ‘Google Music’ (spotting a trend here?). As well as quietly killing Beats Music . So let’s break Apple Music and the rest of iOS 8.4 down: What Apple Music Brings To The Table It may be arriving years later than many expected, but Apple Music debuts as a remarkably well rounded service. Apple Music will face up to Google Music and Spotify – Image credit Apple Perhaps most importantly it fuses some of the best aspects of Google Music and Spotify in one, namely: A 30M track library from major and independent record lab...

A 22-year-old Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) who calls himself Patrick  has hit the media spotlight with a  blog article  about Samsung's updating software. As a result, Samsung is in the computer security news again for all the wrong reasons. Last week it was bad press over its  exploitable keyboard  on Android. Samsung phones, it seems, regularly call home looking for keyboard updates, even if you turn the built-in keyboard off (you can't uninstall it altogether) and replace it with your own. The problem is that when your phone calls home, it doesn't verify that it got through to the right number, metaphorically speaking. Crooks with a hacked-up Wi-Fi access point, for example, could intercept the call home, feed you a fake update, and run just about any sort of malware they wanted, with system-level privileges. But it seems that phones aren't the only place where Samsung has its own ideas about how to keep you up-to-date. Windows...

There's a handy little application programming interface (API) in iOS called "canopenURL." It's supposed to make it easier for apps to communicate. But Apple said recently that app developers and advertisers like  Twitter  and Facebook are using it to snoop on what apps we've downloaded (better yet, which apps we've actually  paid  for), so that they can then target-pitch their own wares - be they games, camera apps, or whatever our download histories reveal we might go for. Privacy-loving Apple, winner of a 5-star review for protecting user privacy in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) fifth annual  Who Has Your Back report,  won't stand for it. Apple compares the app-download information to our web browsing histories, both of which reveal what can be intimate personal information. In the upcoming iOS 9, due out in the autumn, advertisers won't be able to get their hands on that app-download data, the company announced in...

If you found a wallet lying in the street that contained thirty dollars and the owner's address would you return it? 'Atechdad' would. Atechdad is the creator of the hacked site gallery  urhack.com  and he's more familiar than most with the bits of the web where personally identifiable detritus washes up from so many internet break-ins. He is, in his own words, somebody who runs "across lots of passwords on the webs". What if someone returned your wallet, but cloned your credit card? You probably wouldn't know anything was amiss. Losing a password is a bit like having your credit card cloned. Unlike losing your wallet, there isn't a particular moment when it's no longer in your possession, only the moment where it's no longer exclusively yours. Which makes learning that your password has been stolen an unpleasant but necessary step in re-establishing the integrity of your privacy and security. The web is, as Atechdad attests, litt...

It was almost funny - nearly, but not quite. Until the FTC decided that it very definitely wasn't. The FTC, of course, is the Federal Trade Commission, the consumer watchdog in the United States that takes action against dodgy business behaviour. Unsurprisingly, the  FTC  is increasingly  standing up  against  digital rip-offs , as well as old-school shysters. In this case, announced at the end of June 2015, the FTC has slapped a $50,000 penalty on a company called Equiiv  over its mobile phone app , Prized . Prizes that weren't It turned out that the "prizes" you were supposed to be able to win by running the app and playing games or other online activities didn't go to you. The app was actually just a cover for cryptocurrency mining, essentially co-opting people who downloaded it into a mobile botnet of coin-mining. Cryptocurrencies, as they are called, of which the best-known is  Bitcoin , are essentially digital protocols that l...

Cricket Wireless is a popular prepaid carrier that offers a wide selection of free phones and high-end devices like the Cricket Wireless Galaxy S6 on plans that start at $35 a month for smartphones. Before you sign up for Cricket Wireless and spend money on a new phone there are some things you need to know about the service. We’ll walk you through what Cricket Wireless plans offer, what you need to know about Cricket Wireless phones and other details that customers need to consider when choosing a new carrier. There is no Cricket Wireless  iPhone 6 , but there is an option to use the iPhone on this carrier. In the last year Cricket Mobile gained more exposure thanks to a widespread commercials touting the $35 a month plan option that includes taxes and other fees in the base amount, taking the guess-work out of knowing how much you will pay each month. Read:  Galaxy S5 Tips and Tricks Advertisement There are no contracts with Cric...

Apple refuses to talk about the new  iPhone 6s release , but after the  iOS 9  reveal this month and several important reports we are slowly learning more about key iPhone 6s upgrades that Apple will use to convince buyers to upgrade to the new iPhone this fall. Even though some rumors call a new device the iPhone 7, all signs still point to an iPhone 6s that delivers important, but restrained upgrades like we typically see on the second generation of the iPhone model. One interesting change this year may include a design change that adds a thicker iPhone, but that is one upgrade that might not actually come to life based on comments from Apple’s Phil Schiller right after WWDC. For buyers who are tempted to wait for the iPhone 6s release date to upgrade to a new phone, these are the latest details that point to what Apple may deliver to stores and to your pocket this fall. While this focus is on the iPhone 6s, which will likely come with a 4.7-inch display, m...

Forget a cheaper  PS4 , Sony is delivering more storage to users with a new PS4 model an updates to the older PS4 console to address user complaints. Sony announced the 1TB PS4 release date in an official blog posting today and small, but needed updates to the current 500GB PS4. The new PS4 for 2015 isn’t cheaper or slimmer, but it does address one major complaint from gamers who are running out of space on new consoles far too fast now that it’s no surprise to see a game take up 50GB or more of space on a console. Read:  PS4 Tips and Tricks Sony’s new PS4 comes with a 1TB hard drive and it carries the name PS4 Ultimate Player edition. This updated version of the console includes double the hard drive space This upgrade comes just after the end of E3 2015 and weeks after Microsoft announced a new 1TB Xbox One model for $399. The current 500GB PS4 is $399 at retailers in the U.S. and the new 1TB PS4 will likely come at a premium. For now the 1TB PS4 Ultima...