Apple’s special event on Monday has coincided with software bumps for most of the firm’s gadgets.
The iOS, tvOS, watchOS and Mac OS X platforms all received boosts with various new features launched for consumers immediately following the event. Here’s what’s contained within each: iOS 9.3 For iPad, iPhone and iPod touch users, Apple rolled out iOS 9.3, which has been in preview in recent months. As detailed during the on-stage presentation, iOS 9.3 now features Night Shift, the F.lux-inspired feature which enables users to set the colour temperature of the display depending on the time of day. The warmer tones will remove the blue light given off by the display, which can have a negative affect on sleep. Related: iPhone SE: All you need to know Elsewhere, Notes are now protected by Touch ID, News gets offers Editors Picks and Trending Topics in the For You section. iPhone users can also view the app in landscape. CarPlay now has better Apple Music integration while Maps offers a Nearby feature. tvOS 9.2 Owners of the new Apple TV can now benefit from Siri Remote dictation, meaning they’ll no longer have to use the cumbersome keyboard. Passwords can be dictated one letter at a time. The Siri Remote can also be used to voice search for App Store content, while users will now need to pause before using the touch sensitive panel to scrub through video content. There’s also the addition of app folders, integration with the iCloud Photo Library and the option to use Bluetooth keyboards. Mac OS X 10.11.4 The latest version of El Capitan is a relatively minor release that enables Live Photos to appear within the Mac’s Messages app. It also gains the ability to protect Notes entries with a password. watchOS 2.2 The launch of watchOS 2.2 enables users to pair multiple watches with a single iPhone and boasts a better Maps app with shortcuts to Home, Work, Search and Nearby. There’s also a My Location button which takes you directly to a map view. All of these updates can be downloaded immediately.
Apple could be about to rename its operating system for computers. The company could stop calling the software that powers its Mac laptops and desktop computers OS X and instead start referring to it as macOS, according to code found deep in a current version of the system. The new name was found by a developer in a special framework called "FlightUtilities" -- apparently software that allows apps to track flights, but which isn't actually available in any publicly existing version of Mac OS. The new name would bring it online with the rest of Apple's operating systems: watchOS, tvOS and iOS. watchOS and tvOS are both relatively new, having been launched in the last year or so, and iOS was launched as iPhone OS in 2001 and got its current name with iOS 4. If the new name is arriving this year, it's likely that it will be announced along with the new versions of Mac OS and iOS at the June Worldwide Developers Conference. The move could come with a more major redesign of the operating system. The company has concentrated in recent years on tweaking and refining parts of its Mac experience, rather than launching major overhauls -- but it could choose to do that alongside the new name. Such a move would be far from unprecedented. Apple used to call its Mac operating system Mac OS until it got to Mac OS 10, which represented a major break from what had come before and was the time that Apple moved to calling the software OS X. The company appeared to confirm during a discussion with marketing head Phil Schiller last year that it was looking at new naming conventions for some of its software. After journalist John Gruber mocked the company for calling its Apple Watch operating system watchOS -- with a lower caps w -- the company appeared to confirm that similar changes might be coming. "I think, you'll see," Mr Schiller said. "Give us time, we've been through many fun naming things. This is an easy one. There have been many fun naming things through the years -- some very emotional, some very easy -- and most of the time, when all's said and done, you look back years later, people say 'Yeah, you guys were right, it all made sense together'.
Giphy introduced a new tool for Mac users that’ll make it easy for you to turn anything on your desktop into a GIF. It allows you to resize the capture area, add captions, or trim the GIF where you want to. You can use this for things like favorite parts of a video or even use it to make short how-to tutorial GIFs. Plus, the tool is completely free. You just need to head to the Mac Store to download it.
Code dive Apple's much-hyped rootless security mechanism in OS X can be evaded even in the latest version of the operating system, according to a top researcher. The Cupertino goliath fixed an exploitable bug in its rootless code in the latest round of patches for Macs and iThings. But that's the not the end of the story, we're told. Apple's rootless design, aka System Integrity Protection (SIP), marks sensitive directories in the computer's file system as being off-limits even to the root user. Normally, on Unix-flavored OSes, root is all powerful and can do whatever it likes. Well, Apple hates that idea: it means malware with elevated privileges or a clumsy user can infect or trash vital executables and other files. On OS X El Capitan, root is no longer allowed to rule the roost and take over all aspects of the computer. The way SIP works is simple: mark /System, /bin, /sbin and /usr except /usr/local with a special flag that means only programs with a particular attribute can modify files in those directories. And very few programs – the software update tool being one of them – are given this special com.apple.rootless permission to access SIP-guarded folders. A shell running as root certainly doesn't have it. There are other restrictions imposed by SIP, such as limiting the debugging of certain apps and the blocking of certain kernel extensions from being loaded. Earlier this month, Apple squashed a logic bug in SIP found by SentinelOne researcher Pedro Vilaça. It could be exploited by software already running on a Mac to bypass Apple's SIP defenses, rendering the safeguards useless. Vilaça demonstrated at the SyScan360 2016 conference the design weakness using GDB to modify and create files in /System as a normal root user. However, flaws within SIP remain. One problem is that just like bugs lingered in root-owned setuid binaries that were exploited by hackers, flaws present in SIP-entitled programs can be abused, too. Stefan Esser of German security biz SektionEins also gave a talk at this year's SyScan360 during which he highlighted a bunch of SIP-related vulnerabilities. Esser told The Register "everything in my slides is unfixed" by Apple in the latest version of OS X 10.11 except for two flaws: the kas_info syscall and a malicious mount. The evil mount worked by mounting a file system over /System and replacing supposedly SIP-protected core OS utilities with attacker-controlled ones (yes, that really worked). It was fixed in OS X 10.11.2. The kas_info() bug leaked the kernel's ASLR slide to the root user, and was fixed in v10.11.3. That, we're told, leaves some vulnerabilities that remain today in a fully patched OS X 10.11.4, which can be exploited by bad software to claw back all-powerful root access. One example Esser gave is /sbin/fsck_cs, which verifies and repairs CoreStorage logical volume groups. It has the com.apple.rootless.install attribute, meaning it can modify SIP-protected files. Here's how you can use it to wreck a crucial OS X configuration file that not even root is normally allowed to touch; the code fits in a tweet: This expands out to... ln -s /System/Library/Extensions/AppleKextExcludeList.kext/Contents/Info.plist /dev/diskX fsck_cs /dev/diskX 1>&- touch /Library/Extensions/ reboot ...which creates a symbolic link to AppleKextExcludeList.kext's Info.plist from /dev/diskX, and then gets fsck_cs to work on /dev/diskX and pipe stdout to that linked Info.plist file, thus trashing it with garbage. We then touch all the extensions and reboot to let our changes take effect. We can do all this on the locked-out /System file because fsck_cs has the all important com.apple.rootless.install attribute. The aforementioned Info.plist file, now destroyed, is used by SIP to whitelist some kernel extensions and specifically block others from being loaded. It normally blacklists Apple's own kernel extension AppleHWAccess.kext, but with the configuration file destroyed, we can now load it and use it to read and write as we please from and to system RAM. It's game over at this point for Apple's space-age SIP technology, and now a process running as root can once again do exactly as it pleases, according to Esser. He also pointed out what he calls a backdoor in OS X's dyld_sim executable. "It took years to eradicate exploitable bugs from SUID binaries. Apple has to harden every single binary they gave entitlements," Esser noted in his talk. If you can run software on someone's Mac, root or not, you're able to deal a good amount of pain already, that's true. When a miscreant gets code execution on your machine, you're not going to have a good time. However, SIP is supposed to limit the damage and prevent malware from burying deep into the operating system so that it cannot be easily detected and removed. A rootless Unix – honestly, Cupertino, nice try, but this isn't the magic bullet against malicious code some may think it is. ®
Bitcoin Press Release: Amid the Bitcoin block-size debate Bitcoin exchange platform XML Gold CEO believes new decentralized apps will be built on Bitcoin’s blockchain, the current debate will be resolved, and the Internet will get its first real payment protocol. In a recent blog post, the CEO of Bitcoin and digital currency exchange platform XML Gold outlined why he believes the future of Bitcoin is bright. If the growth and adoption of Bitcoin as a technology is compared to that of another disruptive technology, the Internet, it can be seen that Bitcoin is still in its infancy, comparable perhaps with the world wide web in the early 1990’s: “Bitcoin is only seven years old and has many problems typical for other technologies in the early stages of development. But despite that, investors have already invested huge amounts of money in its ecosystem.” But according to XML Gold’s CEO Bitcoin is growing up: “The developers of new Bitcoin exchanges and infrastructure have a more responsible approach to their security and regulation. The number of Bitcoin network users, and the volume of transactions is growing constantly. Such companies as Purse, ChangeTip and ZapChain offer current services on the basis of the technology, including instant online payments for goods, micropayments, and more.” He went on to conclude that: “This “civil war” inside the Bitcoin community will end with the fact that Bitcoin Classic will release a hard fork after coming to consensus in the circle of miners and developers. New killer apps will appear and make the Bitcoin user base bigger. And finally the Internet will get its first real payment protocol.” About XMLGold: Founded in the year 2000, XMLGold has established a reputation as a reliable Bitcoin and digital currency exchange platform. All transactions are protected with SSL 256-bit encryption. XMLGold is designed for those who wish to safely and profitably exchange cryptocurrencies. XMLGold services are compatible with Perfect Money, Bank wire, Bitcoin, Litecoin, MoneyPolo, Payeer and PayPal. XMLGold also offer a generous affiliate program where affiliates receive 10% of the profit. XML logo Screenshot XMLGold is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to FDIC and other consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.
