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Because, let's face it, Cortana is a bit dull. Microsoft is adding further speculation about the future of its voice assistant, Cortana, after revealing that it is looking at ways to give other services deeper integration with Windows 10. At the moment, although Alexa is supported by Windows, it is part of the quid pro quo arrangement with Amazon that has brought Cortana functionality to Echo devices. In both cases, the non-native assistant plays a fairly convincing bridesmaid to the bride.nBut now, several under-the-hood hackers have reported code commits that would see a deeper integration, allowing you to pick your preferred primary partner in proverbial poigniance. It could even mean replacing Cortana in the search bar, following the recent decision to split the digital assistant's development from that of the search. This could, in turn, mean banishing Bing to the sidelines too after the option was removed in the first big Windows 10 update.

Germany’s cyber security authority says claims that Huawei is spying on customers are not backed up by evidence and has urged caution before boycotting the Chinese telecommunications giant. “For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof,” head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) Arne Schoenbohm told Spiegel. Huawei is accused of having ties to Chinese intelligence, and countries like the US, Australia and New Zealand have recently blocked it from being part of building their 5G internet networks. According to Der Spiegel, the US is pressuring other countries like Germany to do the same. In March, Schoenbohm told telecommunications company Telekom there were “currently no reliable findings” to back up US security agencies’ warnings about Huawei.

Facebook announced that a bug in its application programming interface for photos may have allowed third-party unauthorized access to images on 6.8 million accounts. Apps that receive user-permission to access photos are typically restricted to the content published on the Timeline. However, for a period of about two weeks between September 13 and September 25, an error in the code update for the Photo API extended this permission to other sections of the profile, such as Marketplace or Facebook Stories; furthermore, the pictures that the user did not publish were also exposed. "For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it - maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting - we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post," Facebook explains in its notification. Image content shared through Messenger conversations was not impacted. Facebook found the issue internally and has already fixed it. The company estimates that the issue affects up to 6.8 million users and that 1,500 apps from 876 developers could have accessed the image content without consent. It is important to note that the apps had Facebook's approval to access Photos API and the authorization from the user to reach their photos. It is suspected that the number of people affected will ultimately be smaller, but it is too soon into Facebook's investigation to know for sure at this point. More details can be found on OUR FORUM.

 
  

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