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    Lawsuit accuses DoorDash of charging iPhone users more for identical orders

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · 7 days ago - 17:29

Bike rider delivery DoorDash in Manhattan

Enlarge / A class-action lawsuit claims that DoorDash makes it seem to customers like the distance and effort of a delivery change its fees, when the company's algorithm—and their phone choice—allegedly have more of an impact. (credit: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty)

A class-action lawsuit claims that DoorDash uses hard-to-pin-down delivery fees to systematically charge the delivery service's iPhone users more than others.

The lawsuit (PDF), filed May 5 in the District of Maryland, came in hot. Plaintiff Ross Hecox, in addition to his two children and a presumptive class of similarly situated iPhones, briefly defines DoorDash as an online marketplace with 32 million users and billions of dollars in annual revenue.

" Yet, DoorDash generates its revenues not only through heavy-handed tactics that take advantage of struggling merchants and a significant immigrant driver workforce, but also through deceptive, misleading, and fraudulent practices that illegally deprive consumers of millions, if not billions, of dollars annually," the suit adds. "This lawsuit details DoorDash’s illegal pricing scheme and seeks to hold DoorDash accountable for its massive fraud on consumers, including one of the most vulnerable segments of society, minor children."

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    Doom II RPG is what it says on the label, and it’s ready for PC 13 years later

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 9 May - 17:00 · 1 minute

Chainsaw held up by player character

Enlarge / Doom II RPG isn't exactly like Doom , but you can't accuse it of lacking chainsaws. (credit: id Software)

"Mobile games" were something else entirely in 2005, a time in which Windows Mobile was a viable platform, the only Apple phone was a Motorola ROKR , and none of them had a shot at running Doom , let alone its sequel. That's why id Software made Doom RPG , the weirdest official Doom game that is also still a bit fun. A group of fans known as GEC.Inc ported that game to modern PCs, and they've finally gotten around to its sequel.

Doom II RPG , the iOS version from 2009, is playable the same way Doom RPG was: with an understanding that you, a person in 2023, will somehow have access to the original, potentially still copyrighted assets of the game. The instructions lead you through setting up OpenAL , then loading in an .ipa iOS file (the Internet Archive has a copy). You can use a touchscreen, most modern game controllers, or just your keyboard and mouse. You'll then get to play a Doom II that's not quite like what you're thinking of when you think of Doom II.

How does it play? A bit awkwardly, unless you're used to the turn-based, grid-moving, RNG-dominated RPGs of earlier eras. With each turn, you can move in one of four directions, attack with a weapon, or perform some other action, like ripping a toilet fixture off the wall for later throwing (if you're strong enough). If you end up face to face with an imp, there's not much else to do except trade blows, hoping the random hit/miss mechanics are in your favor or that you have enough health packs or snacks to hold out.

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    Burglars tunnel through Apple Store’s neighbor, allegedly steal $500K in iPhones

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 7 April - 18:36

The store recently burgled is in Lynnwood, Washington. The one pictured is in Palo Alto, California, but last year was infamously robbed.

Enlarge / The store recently burgled is in Lynnwood, Washington. The one pictured is in Palo Alto, California, but last year was infamously robbed. (credit: Getty Images )

Breaking through an Apple Store's secured doors sounds like a tall order, even for ambitious burglars. But what if you didn't have to get through the Apple Store's doors after hours and could instead break into the unassuming store next to it? Tunneling into an Apple Store to steal an alleged $500,000 worth of iPhones sounds like something out of a (not particularly exciting) heist movie. But as the gaping hole in the espresso machine store Seattle Coffee Gear's bathroom will tell you, this is no Ocean's Eleven .

As reported by Seattle's King 5 News on Tuesday, two people allegedly broke into Lynnwood, Washington's Seattle Coffee Gear before creating a large opening in the store's bathroom wall, which connects to the neighboring Apple Store's backroom.

Mike Atkinson, CEO of Seattle Coffee Gear, said on Twitter that surveillance footage shows the two perpetrators getting in and out "in under 15 minutes."

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    Apple Pay Later turns Apple into a full-on money lender

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 28 March - 22:29

With the limited launch today of a new service called Apple Pay Later , Apple will now lend money directly to users through the Wallet app on devices like the iPhone.

We first  heard about the service in 2021, and it was officially announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2022. It faced several delays, though, as iOS 16 began to roll out last September.

Now Apple is "inviting select users to access a prerelease version of Apple Pay Later." The service will roll out to everyone "in the coming months."

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    8BitDo makes the Mac great for retro games—iPhone? Not so much

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 20 March - 21:41

The 8BitDo SN30 Pro is now supported on Apple platforms.

Enlarge / The 8BitDo SN30 Pro is now supported on Apple platforms. (credit: 8BitDo )

The 8BitDo SN30 Pro has repeatedly been called one of the best controllers for playing retro console games, particularly those originally made for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)—which makes sense, since its design is based on the SNES controller.

Now that controller works much better on Apple platforms like the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV thanks to new firmware updates from 8BitDo. That's great news for folks who want to play 16-bit classics on their Macs, but the lack of retro console emulators on the iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV makes it a bit of a waste on those platforms.

Granted, the firmware update applies to more than just the SN30 Pro. 8BitDo's Ultimate Controller 2.4g, Pro 2, and Lite SE also got the firmware update—as well as the SN30 Pro variants, the SN30 Pro Plus and the SN30 Pro for Android. The Ultimate Controller, Pro 2, and Lite SE aren't so much meant as retro controllers as just good all-arounders, and so that's welcome for folks who enjoy games on Apple Arcade and the like.

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    Ukraine Intercepting Russian Soldiers’ Cell Phone Calls

    news.movim.eu / Schneier · Tuesday, 20 December - 23:04

They’re using commercial phones, which go through the Ukrainian telecom network :

“You still have a lot of soldiers bringing cellphones to the frontline who want to talk to their families and they are either being intercepted as they go through a Ukrainian telecommunications provider or intercepted over the air,” said Alperovitch. “That doesn’t pose too much difficulty for the Ukrainian security services.”

[…]

“Security has always been a mess, both in the army and among defence officials,” the source said. “For example, in 2013 they tried to get all the staff at the ministry of defence to replace our iPhones with Russian-made Yoto smartphones.

“But everyone just kept using the iPhone as a second mobile because it was much better. We would just keep the iPhone in the car’s glove compartment for when we got back from work. In the end, the ministry gave up and stopped caring. If the top doesn’t take security very seriously, how can you expect any discipline in the regular army?”

This isn’t a new problem and it isn’t a Russian problem. Here’s a more general article on the problem from 2020.

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    Apple Patches iPhone Zero-Day

    news.movim.eu / Schneier · Thursday, 15 December - 16:43

The most recent iPhone update—to version 16.1.2—patches a zero-day vulnerability that “may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS released before iOS 15.1.”

News :

Apple said security researchers at Google’s Threat Analysis Group, which investigates nation state-backed spyware, hacking and cyberattacks, discovered and reported the WebKit bug.

WebKit bugs are often exploited when a person visits a malicious domain in their browser (or via the in-app browser). It’s not uncommon for bad actors to find vulnerabilities that target WebKit as a way to break into the device’s operating system and the user’s private data. WebKit bugs can be “chained” to other vulnerabilities to break through multiple layers of a device’s defenses.