On Thursday's episode of Conan, Ewan McGregor spoke about his upcoming return to the Star Wars universe as Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Fans had been hoping to see McGregor wield a lightsaber once more for a long time, so the announcement of a new live-action Star Wars series was big news.
"It's exciting 'cause I can finally say that I'm doing it," said a relieved McGregor. The actor had been sworn to secrecy, meaning he basically had to lie when asked about a potential return to the Star Wars franchise. And he was asked a lot.
"We've been talking about it for a long time, but it started looking like I was sort of trying to tout for the job! Like I was trying to get the job as Obi-Wan again, at Disney's door saying, 'Hello, sir? I'm available!'" Read more...
Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo appeared on Thursday night's episode of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon to talk trick-or-treating, his last year of school, and where he hopes Dustin will end up in the fourth season of Stranger Things.
Matarazzo claimed to be in the dark about the popular Netflix series' next season, telling Fallon, "I have no idea what any of [the teaser] means. No, genuinely, I do not. I want to know."
But if it were up to him, he'd give his character Dustin a break from the constant horrors of The Upside Down.
"I want Dustin to be completely out of the loop... for like the whole season," said Matarazzo. "Maybe that just means that Dustin's in Florida and, like, every 20 minutes it just cuts to him on Space Mountain." Read more...
Now that it's November, we've reached the release date of Apple's streaming video service, Apple TV+. MacRumors points out an Instagram story post for one of its shows, The Morning Show, with an embedded countdown set for 1PM ET/10 AM PT. That's Apple's favorite time to push out software updates, so it's not surprising they'd pick the same time to launch their original TV efforts.
Oddly, while the story for See is also marked for 1PM ET, other shows like For All Mankind and Dickinson have a countdown set for 3 PM. We'll see if they all launch at once or are just staggered.
The Apple TV+ service will cost $4.99 per month, but there's a seven day free trial available to everyone, and if you purchase new hardware -- iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac -- then there's a free year waiting. If your device was purchased since Apple's press conference on September 10th, then all you should need to do is log in on that machine and open the Apple TV app, where a prompt will initiate the one year trial period.
On iOS and macOS users can download videos for offline viewing, all the shows are promised in up to 4K quality with Dolby Vision HDR, plus Dolby Atmos audio for most of them. It's unclear how strictly Apple will monitor shared account streaming, but each TV+ subscription is good for use with six accounts using Family sharing, each with their own profile and preferences.
On Thursday's episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host examined the US House of Representatives' vote to endorse the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump – a vote that many Republicans had insisted would not pass.
In fact, White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox News claiming "[The Democrats] don't have the votes" — a clip Meyers juxtaposed deliciously with various news bulletins announcing the vote had passed.
"What? We can't trust Kellyanne Conway?" joked Meyers. "I guess up is up and down is down."
Meyers also touched on the possibility that Trump's ex-national security adviser John Bolton will be called to testify, which will be interesting considering their less than amicable split. Read more...
Facebook wants to brings down cybersquatting domains that may be used to scam and phish people. The social network has filed a lawsuit against domain name registrar OnlineNIC and its privacy/proxy service ID Shield for registering addresses that were clearly created to appear as if they're affiliated with Facebook. Among the 20 URLs mentioned in the lawsuit are facebook-pass.com, facebook-pw.com, www-facebook-login.com, www-facebook-pages.com, iiinstagram.com, m-facebook-login.com. As you can see, those domains could easily be used for phishing schemes, fooling users who aren't as vigilant in checking links sent to them via email before clicking them.
In the company's announcement, it explained:
"We don't want people to be deceived, so we track and take action against suspicious and misleading domains, including those registered using privacy/proxy services that allow owners to hide their identity."
The company says it proactively reports instances of abuse to domain name registrars, but they don't always respond to abuse reports -- that was the case with OnlineNIC. It notes that OnlineNIC has a history of allowing cybersquatters to register web addresses pretending to be another company or entity. Other tech companies had sued the domain registrar in the past, including Yahoo and Microsoft. Verizon, Engadget's parent company, won $33.2 million in a lawsuit against OnlineNIC in 2008 for 663 addresses created to look like they were owned by the carrier.
According to a copy of the lawsuit TechCrunch posted, Facebook is asking for a permanent injunction against OnlineNIC's activities and is also asking for damages.
iOS 13.2 can be pretty aggravating to use when you have to multitask across several apps, according to various user anecdotes. Even worse, that seems to be the case even if you have an iPhone 11 Pro or an iPad Pro. MacRumors has collected a bunch of user complaints from various sources, talking about the mobile platform's aggressive RAM management system. Apparently, iOS 13.2 tends to reload apps every time you access them from the background even though not a lot of time has passed. As a result, you lose whatever it is you're doing or watching, making multitasking a lot more difficult.
One commenter said they put YouTube in the background for just a minute to reply to a text. By the time they returned to YouTube -- on an iPhone 11 Pro -- it had already reloaded and lost the video they were watching. Other people had similar experiences and complained that YouTube keeps refreshing every time they pause what they're watching. Similarly, Nick Heer of PixelEnvy said his Messages and Safari apps kept refreshing every time he foregrounded them. "Safari can't keep even a single tab open in the background, every app boots from scratch, and using iOS feels like it has regressed to the pre-multitasking days," he wrote.
A bunch of similar complaints were also posted on Apple's support forum, Reddit, Twitter and other avenues. Dealing with a bug that affects your ability to multitask on a phone can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you have one of Apple's most expensive devices. We've reached out to the tech giant for a statement and will update you when we hear back.
Apple TV+ is just hours from debuting and Disney+ will be here in a couple of weeks, giving Hulu less time to catch up with the pack in terms of streaming features. The video service finally added the ability to download shows for offline viewing earlier this month, but until now it only worked on iOS devices. If you use Android or Amazon's FireOS instead of an iPhone or iPad, then we have good news, now you can download shows and movies too -- perhaps something Halloween themed like Castle Rock season two.
There is one catch -- you need to be a subscriber on the more expensive $12 per month Hulu plan without ads. That also means that going forward, people who choose the $13 ESPN+/Disney+/Hulu bundle won't be able to download videos with the plan.
Either way, it's long past time for Hulu to add the feature -- Apple TV+, Disney+ and HBO Max have all announced they'll have it, and Netflix has supported downloads on some items in its catalog for years.
YouTube channel Grandpa Kitchen has announced its beloved star Narayana Reddy passed away on October 27. The 73-year-old resident of Telangana, India, rose to internet fame through his popular cooking videos, in which he prepared ridiculously large portions of food.
Reddy's outsized meals weren't a simple pursuit of internet notoriety, but a reflection of his equally outsized heart. The results of Reddy's cooking went straight into to the mouths of hungry orphans, while the proceeds from his YouTube channel are reportedly donated to charities.
"Our goal is to provide basic necessities like food, clothing, school supplies and birthday gifts to orphans," states Grandpa Kitchen's Patreon. Read more...
Earlier this month Google announced that its new Incognito feature for Maps had started to roll out, and now it should be here on your Android devices. Android Police points out a post on the support page from yesterday indicating that the rollout has begun in earnest. While it could take a few days to reach everyone (iOS support is still "coming soon"), if it's available for you, then enabling it only requires a few steps:
Open the Google Maps app
Tap on your profile picture
Tap on "Turn on Incognito mode"
It's not something you'll want to use all the time as some features will be disabled, and it's important to note that it doesn't turn off all tracking. The places you go won't be saved to your Location History (if you have that enabled), your searches won't be saved to your account and it won't use your information to personalize the experience. Still, you could be tracked by internet service providers, other apps, or if you're using Assistant and other Google services.
Similar to incognito on Chrome, it's more useful as a depersonalized look at recommendations than as a full-fledged privacy protector, and a way to make sure that whatever you're searching for in this instance doesn't affect your recommendations later -- don't worry, we're not judging.
There's a real mix of products in this deals round up, which is great for the window shoppers amongst you. With everything from slow cookers to security cameras on offer, there might just be something for you.
We have tracked down the best deals on speakers, headphones, kitchen appliances, and much more, with all the top brands included in this list. You can save on Microsoft, Sony, Ultimate Ears, Kenwood, Bosch, and other big names.
These are the best deals from across the internet for Oct. 31.
Best of the best
Save on Xbox games, Ring security cameras, Oral-B electric toothbrushes, and more from a number of the biggest brands. Read more...
Attackers have breached Web.com and two top domain name registrars that it owns, NetworkSolutions.com and Register.com, according to Krebs on Security. Web.com issued a security notice advising customers that they will be forced to reset their passwords the next time they log on. Such breaches are particularly worrying, because domain name registrar customers are website owners, and around 8.7 million of them are registered with those companies, according to Krebs.
Web.com said that "a third-party gained unauthorized access to a limited number of its computer systems in late August 2019, and as a result, account information may have been accessed," adding that "no credit card data was compromised as a result of that incident."
However, it determined that contact details like "name, address, phone numbers, email address and information about the services that we offer to a given account holder" were exposed. While Web.com asked customers to reset their passwords, it said that "we encrypt account passwords and do not believe this information is vulnerable as a specific result of this incident."
Such a hack might seem relatively minor, but domain name registrars sell website names like Engadget.com and assign them IP addresses. As such, they're an essential cog in the internet -- if an attacker succeeds in changing a domain name, they can take control of an entire website.
For instance, hackers once compromised the domain name registrar of a Brazilian bank and redirected users to lookalike sites that stole their credentials and installed malware. "If your DNS is under the control of cybercriminals, you're basically screwed," Kaspersky's Dmitry Bestuzhev told Wired about the incident.
Emilia Clarke may be a very good actor, but that doesn't mean she's a good liar.
In the clip above she goes head-to-head with Jimmy Fallon in a game called "Box of Lies," which basically involves taking turns to describe a mystery object to the other person.
The twist? The other person then has to guess whether the first person is lying or telling the truth, with the understanding that the first person wants them to try guess wrong.
Sound complicated? Maybe. But at least you'll get to watch the Game of Thrones star attempting to describe a frog wearing a monocle. Read more...
