Microsoft: cybercrime gangs working more closely with nation states, Amazon announces colour Kindle
Microsoft users face more than 600 million cyber attacks every day, partly fuelled by a growing trend of cyber crime gangs working with nation states, according to a new report by the company. In this year’s Digital Defence report, Microsoft said countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea have changed how they worked in the last year, including starting to experiment with AI. “We must find a way to stem the tide of this malicious cyber activity,” said Tom Burt, the company’s vice president of customer security and trust. Sky News
The UK government is considering whether to require all new electronic devices to use the same type of charging cable. A call for evidence launched in October is asking for views on the benefits of using a particular charging cable – such as USB-C, which is used by many modern devices. It comes after the European Union passed a law on a common charging cable in 2022, which firms must adopt by December. The UK government said at the time it was not considering similar rules. The EU’s law aims to cut electronic waste by requiring small to medium electronic device manufacturers to use USB-C chargers. BBC
Amazon just announced four new Kindle e-readers. The Colorsoft Signature Edition is the first color Kindle, there’s a new Kindle Scribe note-taker, a faster version of its most popular Paperwhite, and a new entry-level Kindle. The Spanish-language announcement with US pricing was accidental as the original amazon link was redirected after a few hours (here’s an archive). It’s light on detail and none of the links to the product pages are live but here’s what we know so far. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is “designed to offer a rich and paper-like color” for book covers and highlighted text. The Verge
It’s been less than a month since the latest iPhone was released, but already Apple has a new device to show off. The tech giant has unveiled the 7th generation iPad Mini – the first update to this product line for more than three years. The ‘ultraportable’ £499 device has a 8.3-inch screen and ‘all-day’ battery life and works with the £129 Apple Pencil Pro, released back in May. Just like last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, the new iPad is powered by the A17 Pro chip, meaning it will be able to run ‘Apple Intelligence’. Daily Mail
More details have emerged concerning the recent cyberattack against the Internet Archive, which appears to still not be fully recovered. The archive is now back online, in a preliminary ‘read-only’ capacity whilst it continues to recover. Some services still remain offline, but the Wayback Machine operations have been resumed, although founder Brewster Kahle warned it may be suspended again in the case that it needs “further maintenance.” The incident came in the form of a Distributed Denial-of-service (DDoS) attack – which involves flooding a site with traffic to overwhelm a server, making it impossible to access. Tech Radar
The mass rollout of Android 15 is now underway and as usual Google’s own Pixel phones are first in line for the big update. You’ll need a Pixel 6 series or newer phone to get the update and Google shared an official blog post detailing the headline features with its latest Android release. Private space allows you to lock sensitive apps behind an extra layer of authentication. When enabled, apps in Private space will be separated from the rest in your apps and will not be visible in the app drawer, recent apps, notifications and settings. GSM Arena
