Tag Archive for: Audio

FTC warns app developers against using audio monitoring software

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 The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has sent warning letters to 12 smartphone app developers for allegedly compromising users’ privacy by packaging audio monitoring software into their products.

The software, from an Indian company called SilverPush, allows apps to use the smartphone’s microphone to listen to nearby television audio in an effort to deliver more targeted advertisements. SilverPush allows the apps to surreptitiously monitor the television viewing habits of people who downloaded apps with the software included, the FTC said Thursday.

“This functionality is designed to run silently in the background, even while the user is not actively using the application,” the agency said in its letter to the app developers. “Using this technology, SilverPush could generate a detailed log of the television content viewed while a user’s mobile phone was turned on.”

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Network World Security

T9000 Skype backdoor malware steals audio, video, chats, screenshots, documents

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Researchers found a complex backdoor malware which targets Skype, capturing video, audio and chat messages, as well as grabs screenshots and steals files, before sending the data back to the attacker.

Researchers at Palto Alto Networks analyzed a new variant of backdoor malware that goes to “great lengths to avoid being detected and to evade the scrutiny of the malware analysis community.” T9000, is a newer variant of T5000, or the Plat1 malware family that APT actors used in spear phishing attacks after the disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH370. T9000 is being used in targeted attacks against multiple U.S. organizations, dropped by a RTF file, but its functionality indicates the malware is “intended for use against a broad range of users.”

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Network World Security

Loopback for Mac Manages Multiple Microphones and Other Audio Inputs

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Mac: If you need to route audio from one Mac to another, say, from a microphont to Skype to Audacity, the go-to tool has long been the often baffling, occasionally unreliable Soundflower. Loopback is a new app that does the same basic thing, but makes it a …
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Dolby Cinema: Twin laser projectors + object-based 3D audio = awesome

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(credit: Iljitsch van Beijnum)

Earlier in the year, our own Sebastian Anthony had the opportunity to experience the new “IMAX with laser” cinema in Leicester Square, and it didn’t disappoint. Not to be outdone, Dolby Laboratories invited Ars UK to the new JT cinema with Dolby Cinema in Hilversum, the broadcasting capital of the Netherlands.

Middle-aged Ars readers may remember Dolby from the Dolby B noise reduction system used with cassette tapes. Younger Ars readers are probably more familiar with Dolby through Dolby Digital, the codec used to encode most digital audio on DVDs as well as TV broadcasts and Blu-ray discs. (Dolby Digital started out as a way to add digital surround sound to film, where the digital information is encoded on the unused space between the perforations of the 35mm film, where it can be read optically.)

The latest Dolby audio technology in cinemas is Dolby Atmos, which supports a few more audio tracks than older systems—128 of them, in fact. However, Dolby Atmos improves upon previous surround sound technologies not by simply adding more channels. Instead, it allows sounds to be dynamically placed in a 3D space. This is used to great effect when noisy objects fly over the audience; it sounds very realistic. To allow for these effects, the JT cinema in Hilversum has no fewer than 60 speakers on the walls and the ceiling of its Dolby Cinema-equipped auditorium. Dolby Atmos is currently installed in several thousand cinemas worldwide and films such as Spectre and the new Star Wars are available with a Dolby Atmos mix (in compatible cinemas).

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Technology Lab – Ars Technica