Tag Archive for: January

State of the Word, Gravatar Breaches, Log4J, Alexa Retires, Lawsuits, and More 🗞️ January 2022 WordPress News w/ CodeinWP

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Publishers sue Google and Facebook over ad revenue

In a newly consolidated antitrust lawsuit, more than 30 companies that collectively own 200+ local newspapers are suing Google and Facebook, alleging that the two companies manipulated the digital ad market and caused local publishers to lose money.

The goal of the lawsuit is “to recover past damages to newspapers,” as Axios reports.

As part of the lawsuit, the companies allege that Google and Facebook colluded to maximize Google and Facebook’s take-home of advertising revenue (at the expense of local publishers).

This comes on the backs of another lawsuit from publishers with respect to Google AMP, which we got an unredacted look at in October 2021.

If you’ve been building websites for a while now, you probably remember the massive push to adopt Google’s AMP framework around 2016.

AMP content was supposed to load faster on mobile, thanks to a stripped-down code base and caching on Google’s servers.

Google also gave AMP content special placement in the mobile SERPs, as your site needed to be using AMP to show up in the “Stories” section. Side note – this is no longer the case, in part because of what I’ll discuss below.

Because of this push, a lot of publishers did adopt AMP…and now they also aren’t happy with Google, in large part because of details such as Google’s knowledge that publishers using AMP were getting ~40% less revenue and that AMP might not have actually made things faster (and that Google might have actively throttled non-AMP content).

Put these cases together and you can definitely notice a trend of publishers pushing back against large tech corporations. This is especially true of local media publishers, who are in tough straights with the shift to the digital economy.

Are these the last gasps of a slowly dying industry or will we see meaningful reforms over how large tech companies interact with media publishers? Well, I guess we’ll find out when we see how the lawsuits go.

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Classic BlackBerry phones will stop working January 4

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Starting Tuesday, January 4, the company will stop running support for its classic devices running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier. This means all of its older devices not running on Android software will no longer be able to use data, send text messages, access the internet or make calls, even to 911.
While most mobile users have moved on from BlackBerry — the last version of its operating system launched in 2013 — the move to discontinue support for its phones represents the end of what was once considered bleeding-edge technology.
The company originally announced the news in September 2020 as part of its efforts to focus on providing security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world under the name BlackBerry Limited.
BlackBerry (BB) has been mostly out of the phone business since 2016, but over the years it continued to license its brand to phone manufacturers, including TCL and more recently OnwardMobility, an Austin, Texas-based security startup, for a 5G Blackberry device running on Android software. (BlackBerry’s Android devices are not affected by the end of service.)

BlackBerry’s old school cell phones with physical keyboards from the late 1990s and early 2000s were once so popular people nicknamed them “CrackBerries.” The keyboard appealed to professionals who wanted the flexibility of working outside the office with some of the tools they used on a desktop computer.

The devices became a status symbol and fixture for people on Wall Street, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, and even President Barack Obama, thanks in part to its great reputation for security. At its peak in 2012, BlackBerry had more than 80 million active users.

The company got its start in 1996 as Research In Motion with what it called two-way pagers. Its first gadget, the “Inter@ctive Pager,” allowed customers to respond to pages with a physical keyboard, a kind of text messaging/email hybrid. Three years later, RIM introduced the BlackBerry name with the BlackBerry 850.

Eventually, BlackBerry phones gained support for email, apps, web browsing and BBM, an encrypted text messaging platform that predated WhatsApp and survived long after BlackBerry was surpassed by its…

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BlackBerry phones will finally rest in peace on January 4

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The pioneer of the smart phone before the smartphone BlackBerry has announced devices running on its BlackBerry OS software will stop working as of next week.

From January 4th, BlackBerry OS device owners won’t be able to make or receive calls, send texts, use Wi-Fi, or access mobile data.

That includes all smartphones running on BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, the ill-fated BlackBerry 10 operating system and even the tablet-based BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 (and earlier).

“As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality,” the company said in a support post (via Liliputing).

However, if you have one of the few BlackBerry devices that launched running Android, such as the 2017 BlackBerry Priv, you won’t be affected.

The company had already announced over a year ago that its transition to a software company had been completed. Back in September of last year it would be “taking steps to decommission the legacy services” ahead of the termination date of January 4.

So, this has been coming for a long, long time but it still feels like the end of an era. Since it got out of the smartphone game Blackberry has reinvented itself as an internet security software company that assists governments and such. The company was initially renowned for the security of its email and BlackBerry Messenger platform so this isn’t too great of a leap.

In the announcement in September 2020, the company said: “Today BlackBerry is focused on providing intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world. Since pivoting to an enterprise software and cybersecurity company, we have received questions about our plans to provide ongoing support for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier and BlackBerry 10 devices. In 2017, we committed to providing at least two more years of support for BlackBerry 10 and at least two years of BlackBerry network access for BBOS…

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Best bitcoin and crypto wallets for January 2022

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Prices go up and down, but bitcoin is here to stay. Sooner or later, you’re going to need a place to store yours as cryptocurrency continues its march toward the mainstream and becomes more entwined with the global economy. So if you’re looking to invest in bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, you should consider a crypto wallet. 

“Wallet” is a metaphor, given that we’re talking about digital currency. As a secure place to store your proof of ownership, a cryptocurrency wallet can take the form of physical hardware or software installed on your computer or smartphone or in the cloud. Well-known services like Robinhood, PayPal and Venmo allow you to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrency quickly and with little technical know-how. Most of these online services, and their integrated cryptocurrency wallets, are “custodial,” however, which means you’re trusting the company to secure, protect and hold your cryptocurrency. Ultimately, they have control — and your crypto is in their proverbial hands. 


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Crypto wallets explained



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As such, unless you’re making a daily crypto transaction or have only a modest amount of money involved, we recommend you not store your cryptocurrency in an exchange account. The best practice is to invest in a hardware wallet for offline storage. The next best choice is a “noncustodial” software wallet or wallet app, which give you more control over your digital assets. We’ll look at both here in our quest to…

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