Tech News Roundup for February 22-ish, 2022
Here are a few of the stories I found interesting over the weekend. This will cover things up until Tuesday as normal, even though it comes a day late.
Google Tests Updates To Homepage
Google’s homepage remains one of the most visited pages on the internet, and one of the more important pages at that. That makes even small changes to it noteworthy, and now Google is testing the biggest change in a long time, possibly ever. The changes come in the form of news and information cards below the search box. I personally don’t mind this, though considering how iconic the Google website is, the change, if implemented worldwide, should prove to be controversial.
The Future of Mozilla Firefox
Ars Technica has a good read about the future of the Firefox browser. Once the best alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the browser is now little more than an afterthought, with Google’s Chrome and other Chrome based browsers the dominant windows to the internet.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/02/is-firefox-ok/
Donald Trump’s Truth Social Social Network Launches
After being banned from most of the social media platforms, a company owned by Donald Trump has launched a new Social Network, called Truth Social. Truth Social appears to be little more than a poorly coded Twitter clone, with “Truths” instead of tweets, and “ReTruths” instead of ReTweets. Unsurprisingly, the launch was marred by technical difficulties. Currently the service is only available on iOS, with an Android version coming at some point in the future. We’ll see how long this lasts before the platforms step in.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/21/22944179/truth-social-launch-ios-donald-trump-twitter-platform
Wordpress Forces Plugin Patch for Millions of Websites
Many people aren’t very familiar with Wordpress, but the website platform runs a huge number of websites on the internet. Part of Wordpress’ appeal is the plugin system, allowing extensive customization. But plugins are often vectors for vulnerabilities and attacks, and not updating Wofdpress plugins remains one of the biggest risks on the web today. A vulnerability was discovered in Updraft plus, a plugin for backing up a Wordpress site (a plugin I have experience using, actually) that was deemed so severe that the Wordpress corporate entity decided to force the update to Updraft plus to every managed Wordpress website. This is unprecedented for the company, and while there will be some grumbling about it, something like this is good for the health of the internet. This likely won’t effect the millions of websites running on the open source Wordpress platform, but everything that the corporate entity can control is getting the update.
Google’s New Nest Cam Doorbell Doesn’t Function in the Cold
This one is mind boggling. The newest versions of Google’s Nest Doorbell Cam, released in 2021, do not work in temperatures below freezing. Once the temperature hits 0C or 32F, the battieries will no longer charg, even if hooked up to power. This is a bit of an absurd oversight, and something Google needs to resolve, and make right for existing customers.
New Legal Filings Show how the Microsoft Purchase of Activision Blizzard Came Together
A good read about SEC filings on the process that led to Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision Blizzard.
https://www.theverge.com/22941636/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-sec-filing-came-together