Social media is increasingly being overrun by scammers.
A whopping 53 percent of all social media login attempts are made by malicious actors, according to a new report by security firm Arkose Labs. In addition, a quarter of all new social media signups are connected to scammers.
For its Q3 Fraud and Abuse Report, Arkose Labs says it analyzed more than 1.2 billion new registrations, logins, and payments in financial services, ecommerce, gaming, entertainment, travel, and social media. The report found that one in 10 transactions are fraudulent.
SEE ALSO: Don’t make calls with Siri or Google or you could get scammed Read more…
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This afternoon, a prototype of SpaceX’s next generation rocket took to the skies for a second time in south Texas, reaching a height of a small skyscraper before landing back on Earth. The flight demonstrated the vehicle’s ability to take off and land in a controlled manner, and it paves the way for more aggressive testing of the vehicle’s design in the months ahead. The test, commonly referred to as a “hop” test, marked the highest flight yet of SpaceX’s prototype, nicknamed “Starhopper.” Equipped with one main engine, the vehicle flew for the first time on July 25th, but it only got about 60 feet (18 meters) off the ground, and the entire scene was shrouded in plumes of exhaust. Today, Starhopper provided a more impressive sight when it took off from SpaceX’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas, slowly climbing to its target altitude of around 500 feet (150 meters). Once there, the vehicle hovered in the air a full minute, before using its engine to land gently back down on the ground. the vehicle hovered in the air a full minute Starhopper’s tests are supposed to evaluate the design and hardware that’ll be used on the company’s future Starship rocket, a monster spaceship that SpaceX is developing to send people and cargo to deep space destinations like the Moon and Mars. Towering around 180 feet (55 meters) tall, Starship is meant to launch from Earth on top of a giant rocket booster called Super Heavy. When it reaches other worlds, the vehicle will land upright with its onboard engines, similar to how SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets land on the ground today. It’s also supposed to take off again from these distant destinations to return to Earth.
On these test flights, SpaceX has been testing a new engine called Raptor, which the company plans to use to power Starship. Starhopper has only been flying with one Raptor, but the final Starship design calls for the spaceship to have six Raptor engines. Three will be optimized to work best in our planet’s atmosphere at sea level, and the other three will be designed to work best in the vacuum of space. Soon, SpaceX will add more engines to its test flights. The company has been building two new prototype rockets: one in Boca Chica and another at a SpaceX facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, near where the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy fly. These two test vehicles are a bit more robust than the Starhopper, which was never meant to be a faithful replica of Starship. (The top portion of Starhopper also fell over during a particularly gnarly wind storm in Texas, and SpaceX opted not to replace it.)
Image: SpaceX
The newer prototypes will be equipped with three engines each as well as grid fins for steering and better landing gear. The two are meant to perform a series of hop tests that could reach as high as 12 miles (20 kilometers) up in the months ahead. Eventually, SpaceX will fly prototypes that are supposed to achieve orbit during the first launches to space, once SpaceX finishes the Super Heavy booster. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also noted that the two teams building these prototypes are in a friendly race to reach space first. However, the rules aren’t super strict, it seems. “A success by both in close proximity would be amazing
The working logo for Threads, a new messaging app from Facebook and Instagram | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is developing a new messaging app called Threads that is meant to promote constant, intimate sharing between users and their closest friends, The Verge has learned. Threads, which is designed as a companion app to Instagram, invites users to automatically share their location, speed, and battery life with friends, along with more typical text, photo, and video messages using Instagram’s creative tools. The app, which is designed for sharing with your “close friends” list on Instagram, is now being tested internally at Facebook. Instagram declined to comment. In May, Instagram ceased work on Direct, a standalone messaging app that it had been developing since late 2017. At the time, executives said that beta testers were frustrated about having to switch between Instagram and a second app whenever they wanted to send a message. But the company has remained interested in building new messaging experiences, executives have said. Instagram employees who work on messaging were moved to the Facebook Messenger team earlier this year as part of a broader consolidation between the parent company and its prized acquisition. A messaging app built around your close friends might be more popular. That’s what Snapchat already is today for a healthy portion of its users. Reports have indicated that the average Snapchat user spends more time inside the app than the average Instagram user does. For Facebook and Instagram, which have long coveted Snapchat’s strong engagement among younger users, Threads could represent another effort to chip away at their rival’s appeal.
The working logo for Threads, a new messaging app from Facebook and Instagram Illustrated screenshots from Threads, a new messaging app from Facebook and Instagram
Screenshots reviewed by The Verge show an app that’s designed to promote constant, automatic sharing between users and the people on their “close friends” list on Instagram. Opt in to automatic sharing, and Threads will regularly update your status, giving your friends a real-time view of information about your location, speed, and more. At the moment, Threads does not display your real-time location — instead, it might say something like a friend is “on the move,” according to sources familiar with the matter. You can also update your status manually, with statuses appearing in the main feed along with messages. It’s the latest effort to automate status sharing using mobile phone sensors and one-tap status sharing. (An app called Status tried something similar in 2014, and Danny Trinh’s Free app took another approach in 2015.) The core of Threads appears to be messaging, and it looks very similar to the existing messaging product inside Instagram. Messages from your friends appear in a central feed, with a green dot indicating which of your friends are currently active. If your friend has posted a story recently, you can view that from inside Threads as well. Threads also has a camera, which you can use to capture photos and videos and send them to your close friends. It’s unclear when Threads might launch. Facebook might end development before shipping the app to the general public, as it did with Direct. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in March that he sees private messaging as the future of the company. Threads appears to represent the company’s latest effort to make that vision a reality.
Image: Zens It’s been nearly five months since one of the all-time great Friday news dumps: On March 29th, Apple abruptly canceled the AirPower wireless charging mat that would supposedly be able to charge your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously no matter where you placed them. But wireless charging firm Zens is betting it can do some of what Apple couldn’t by introducing the Zens Liberty. Zens claims the Liberty uses a set of 16 overlapping wireless charging coils to let you charge your Qi-compatible devices from any spot on the mat — just like AirPower was supposed to, though AirPower was rumored to have 21 to 24 coils. The Zens Liberty can charge two devices at once, unlike AirPower’s planned three, but it charges each at 15 watts, faster than most wireless chargers. Your Apple Watch may not work, by the way: none of Zens’ promotional materials show it on the charger.
Image: iFixit Patent filings show what Apple’s AirPower charger might have looked like inside.
We also don’t know if the Zens Liberty’s multi-coil design overcomes the engineering challenges that were rumored to have sunk AirPower, including overheating and possibly emitting signals more powerful than US or EU regulations would have allowed. If Apple couldn’t figure it out, I’m pretty skeptical Zens managed to do so. If you’re willing to roll the dice on such a new product, though, Zens says the Zens Liberty will be available in two flavors this November: a $139.99 “Kvadrat edition,” which has a nice-looking fabric on top of the aluminum mat, and a $179.99 limited glass edition, which replaces the fabric with a pane of glass that lets you see the mat’s charging coils underneath.
Image: Zens
For an AirPower alternative that’s available now, we recommend the Hard Cider Labs SliceCharge Pro, which, though it only has six charging coils, can charge two devices on the mat as well as an Apple Watch via an integrated watch charger.
Image: Lucasfilm The first public trailer for Jon Favreau’s highly anticipated Star Wars series The Mandalorian has arrived, and it looks fantastic. Although a similar trailer was shown at Star Wars Celebration, it was never made available to the public. The trailer opens with helmets on stakes, and ominous shots of people hanging out in the desert. Then it moves into Star Wars action — fighting spaceships, battling droids, and face-to-face confrontations. It certainly feels freakier than a traditional Star Wars movie, but it also feels extremely Star Wars. The Mandalorian is one of the biggest launch titles coming to the new streaming service Disney . It’s heavily inspired by fan-favorite character Boba Fett and his father, Jango. The new Mandalorian character, played by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones) will also help fill in the gap between Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, just after the fall of the Empire, and the rise of the First Order. The goal is to bring a “darker, freakier side of Star Wars,” executive producer Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Lion King) told The Hollywood Reporter. He wants to use the show’s aesthetic to answer questions about what it’s like to be on Tatooine during the era between trilogies. The original Star Wars trilogy, especially the first film, used Tatooine as a significant setting, and Favreau wants to use that area to tell new stories. The Mandalorian gives Favreau the “opportunity to tell a story that’s bigger than television, but you don’t have the same expectations that a big holiday release has, which to me isn’t that type of Star Wars that comes out of me,” he told the Reporter. “The type of Star Wars that I’m inspired to tell is a smaller thing with new characters,” Favreau said. The Mandalorian is also the first Star Wars live-action TV series, and a major play to bring subscribers to Disney . The company is hoping to build up a significant subscriber base — around 10 million subscribers by the end of 2020 — and having shows like The Mandalorian to bring people in is important to hitting that goal. The Mandalorian will be available to stream when Disney launches on November 12th. The service will cost $6.99 a month or can be purchased as a bundle with ad-supported Hulu and ESPN for $12.99 a month.
