PC Pro January 2020

THANK YOU, EVERYONE, for gathering here today. I know that Virtual Reality, or VR as he liked to be called, lives on in all our hearts. I would like to celebrate what might have been. You soared too close to the stars, young VR, but my how you soared. Some of you will know that I was a friend of VR’s almost since the beginning. When others pointed, even laughed, I jumped to his defence. “Too heavy,” you taunted, “too sweaty, too demanding”. And while I would never have said this to his face – VR had feelings too – there were elements of what you said that were impossible to deny. Let us tackle those criticisms one by one. Too heavy. Yes, it’s true. He demanded we cover our eyes with…

Davey Winder While it’s easy to blame service providers for playing fast and loose with our data security, Davey sets out the steps we can take ourselves. See p118 Dick Pountain Think you make your own decisions? Dick examines the larger forces that guide our decisions through “nudges”, and why it’s only going to get worse. See p22 Nik Rawlinson Things people never say #77: “Windows is brilliant at finding the files I’m after”. Luckily, Nik provides the tools to make us all search wizards on p42 Jon Honeyball If you have a slow laptop then Jon has some useful advice – but unless you’re a friend from his local pub, he won’t fix it for you. Find out why on p130…

BT’s Openreach is primed for yet more government handouts BT IS SET for another major cash injection from public funds as it sits in pole position for £5bn earmarked for nationwide fibre broadband. A week after the government set out plans for “full fibre Britain” with a £5bn fund, BT announced a series of 13 provincial areas where it will run trials to cost rural connections. BT’s dominant position as owner of the UK’s legacy infrastructure saw it land almost all of the £540m allocated under the previous rural broadband rollout (known as BDUK) and industry experts expect a repeat performance. “I suspect that it will be a similar model to the BDUK money,” said Matthew Evans, CEO of the Broadband Stakeholder Group.“The challenge for the sector and government is that the more competitive…

1 Google reveals updated Pixels Google took the lid off its latest box of hardware toys, with the company announcing the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL phones (see p62), Pixel Buds 2 earphones, the Pixel Go Chromebook as well as smart home devices. At its Made by Google event in New York City, the company also announced that its Stadia gaming platform would launch on 19 November and be supported by the Pixel 4 handsets. 2 Bogus adware plaguing Google’s Play store Adware is thriving in Google’s Play store, with research from security firm ESET spotting 172 malicious apps in the shopfront and 335m installations in September, despite Google’s efforts to reduce harmful software. According to the research, revenue-generating code hidden in apps meant ads were served even when the apps were…

▶Microsoft Surface Duo Microsoft’s record with smartphones is roughly akin to Donald Trump’s record with international diplomacy, but the company is giving it yet another go. The latest Microsoft phone is the surface Duo, a clamshell device that will run on Android. The Surface Duo is a foldable phone, in a similar vein to Samsung’s recent Galaxy Fold. But instead of using a folding screen, the Surface Duo has two distinct 5.6in panels linked by sturdy-looking hinges. Microsoft foresees the two screens displaying separate features or apps, a different take from other foldable handsets that double the screen size of a single app. APIs will allow developers to tailor apps to the dual displays. The company believes it is creating a device that’s better for productivity than a standard phone, and envisages people…

DATA ABUSES FROM Twitter and Facebook could damage the uptake of important security protocols such as two-factor authentication (2FA), experts have told PC Pro. Twitter has been criticised after admitting it used phone numbers provided by customers for 2FA security for marketing purposes. “The result is likely to be a reduction in 2FA adoption and, consequently, more users having accounts compromised, more revenge photos stolen and posted on the internet, and ultimately maybe even real physical harm,” said Matthew Green, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s impossible to overstate how foolish this practice is.” Twitter admitted in a statement that email addresses and phone numbers collected “for safety or security purposes (for example, two-factor authentication) may have inadvertently been used for advertising purposes”. Twitter would…