iPhone Can Identify Any Song With Just A Tap

Apple Bytes: 

The iPhone has a feature that syncs with Shazam and helps you identify any song with one tap.

It can also save a history of the songs you've identified, so you can add them to playlists later.

Your iPhone has a useful feature you might not know about. You can identify the song that's playing on the radio at a bar, in your car or at a friend's house, all without having to open an app. All you have to do is swipe down and tap a single button.

It's part of the iPhone's and iPad's integration with music-recognition service Shazam, which Apple acquired in 2018. It's been available for a couple of years but might be more useful now that people are out and about again. You don't even need Shazam installed.

Here's how to set it up

• Open Settings on your iPhone
• Tap Control Center.
• Scroll down under "More", tap the green '+' button next to Music Recognition

That adds the music recognition function to Control Center, which you access by swiping down from the top-right of your screen or from the bottom of the screen if you have an iPhone with a Home button.

How to identify a song from your iPhone

Once you've done that, you can use your iPhone to identify a song by swiping down from the top-right of the screen to open Control Center and then tapping the Shazam button.

Your phone will listen for a few seconds, then show the artist and title at the top of your screen. And it'll save a history of the songs you've identified so you can go back and see them later. To do that, just press and hold the Shazam button.

Credit: cnbc.com

Warning: Actively Exploited 'DogWalk' Windows Bug

Microsoft has warned its customers that a vulnerability known as DogWalk, which affects every recent version of Windows and Windows Server, is being actively exploited by attackers.

DogWalk (CVE-2022-34713) is a high severity vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) that can be exploited to enable remote code execution on vulnerable devices, the company says in a Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) update.

There are many such devices; DogWalk affects Windows 7, 8.1, 10, and 11 as well as several versions of Windows Server, Microsoft says in the MSRC update. More than 1.4 billion devices currently run Windows 10 or 11 alone, the company says on its website.

Microsoft does reassure Windows users that "exploitation of the vulnerability requires that a user open a specially crafted file," which means attackers can't just force their way onto a vulnerable system, but it's not particularly hard to get someone to open a malicious file.

"In an email attack scenario," Microsoft says, "an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending the specially crafted file to the user and convincing the user to open the file." Or they could upload the malicious file to a website and just wait for someone to download it.

This update has prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to add CVE-2022-34713 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. That means federal agencies have until 8-30-22 to patch their systems against the vulnerability.

That might not seem like a long time, especially since Microsoft released the Windows and Windows Servers patches related to DogWalk on 8-9-22 as part of Patch Tuesday. But attackers have known about this flaw in MSDT for at least 2.5 years at this point.

BleepingComputer reports that DogWalk was initially disclosed by a security researcher named Imre Rad in January 2020. Microsoft initially dismissed the report, Rad says, but now it's finally released a fix and confirmed that attackers have exploited the flaw.

Credit: pcmag.com

Executive Board Minutes

Computer Technology Club, Inc.
Executive Board Minutes
August 12, 2022

Alan Marcus, President, called the meeting to order at 9:00AM. Members in attendance: Jim Trimboli, Bob Kenlay, Bob Roesener, Bob Leiner, Linda Tingley, Bill Balch, Don Forgette and Alan Marcus.

The Secretary’s report was read by Bob Kenlay. No corrections or additions necessary.

Jim Trimboli then read the current Treasurer's report. The current balance is $1568.85.

Alan Marcus asked the Board if there were any suggestions for future membership meetings. Alan Marcus will contact the Ocala IMHC (Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition) for a possible presentation.

Future meeting topics:

Aug 17 – “Internet Sources for Personal Growth” by Mike Metelits.

The meeting adjourned at 9:45AM.

Respectfully submitted,
Bob Kenlay, Secretary

Who's Winning The Speed Wars?

T-Mobile continues to lead mobile speeds while COX wins fastest broadband

Ookla is out with its latest report for mobile and fixed broadband Internet speeds in the US. Continuing a string of wins, T-Mobile came in first for best mobile performance with download speeds almost 2x faster than AT&T and Verizon along with having the strongest consistency and 5G availability. For fixed broadband, COX beat out XFINITY for the fastest download speeds.

Ookla, the maker of Speedtest, shared its report for US mobile and broadband internet performance during Q2 2022 on its website.

For mobile, T-Mobile again outperformed the competition, corroborating results seen from recent Opensignal and PCMag studies.

However, a J.D Power study showed Verizon as the most reliable carrier in the US.

US Mobile speeds for Q2 2022

The median download speed for T-Mobile came in at 116.54 Mbps for Q2 this year in Ookla’s study. Verizon and AT&T came in at roughly half the median speed at 59.67 and 54.64 Mbps, respectively.

For median upload speeds, the major US carriers were much closer:

When it came to consistency, here’s what Ookla found:

For 5G, T-Mobile led for both median download speeds and availability, although Verizon and AT&T made up a slight bit of ground:

US broadband speeds for Q2 2022

For fixed broadband Internet, COX took top honors with a 196.73 Mbps median download speed with XFINITY and Spectrum following closely behind at 184.08 and 183.74, respectively.

Interestingly, COX ranked last for median upload speed at just 10.6 Mbps. Frontier, Verizon, and AT&T led that with 100+ Mbps median upload speeds.

Check out the full Ookla report for more details like regional/city performance and more.

Credit: 9to5mac.com

Did Windows 10 Update Stop Your Printer?

It seems one of the security patches in a recent Windows Update has stopped printers from working for some users on Windows 10.

The problem stems from update KB5015807 (released on 7-12-22), which is simply classed as addressing "security issues for your Windows operating system." Microsoft made it available for all editions of Windows 10 (21H1 and 21H2), as well as Windows Server (20H2) and Enterprise editions.

While it may fix a number of security bugs, the update is also preventing printers from working properly. Microsoft acknowledges this, stating it has "received reports of issues affecting some printing devices following installation of this update." The impacted Windows 10 users can't print anymore.

Thankfully, the fix is relatively simple. First of all, navigate to Settings > Devices and check the "Bluetooth & other devices" section. Multiple copies of your printer may be present and it's just a case of checking which one works before deleting the other copies.

If that doesn't work, Microsoft tells you to update the printer driver for your PC, or to be even more thorough, uninstall and then reinstall the printer. After that, printing should be back to normal. Hopefully the duplicate printer deletion option works so you don't have to go through the frustration of a printer reinstall.

Credit: pcmag.com