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The best online board games 2020: Play with your friends in virtual space

(Pocket-lint) – Boardgames are an absolute stalwart for so many people – while people might go mad for the likes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, or sink hours and hours into Call of Duty: Warzone, many people still have some old favourites in their cupboards.

Best board games: Perfect games to play at home

We love a good tabletop game, but it’s fair to say that even the most cordial households might get a little tired of playing with each other, especially if there’s a limited selection of games at hand. That’s where the internet comes in, though. It’s easier than ever to play board games of all types and genres online, whether through fully released game versions, or via useful websites and servers.

We’ve dug out some of the very best board games you can play online, and where you can do it, to help widen your horizons a bit.

The best online board games to play today

Settlers of Catan

View on Apple App Store | Google Play store | Steam

Settlers of Catan is like the grandfather of board games at this point, a titanic success that’s never really slowed down, and is a staple in living rooms and lounges around the world. It’s no surprise that it’s had a series of swish apps for those who want to play it remotely, with the Catan Universe version being the most recent.

It’s a great way to get online and play with friends, and is quick and responsive to play. Plus, it’s available on both iOS and Android as well as PC. While it won’t integrate with Catan Universe, there’s even a version of Catan available now on the Nintendo Switch.

Ticket to Ride

View on Apple App Store | Google Play store | Steam

Ticket to Ride is another venerable board game, a really fun track-laying competition that has great replayability thanks to randomised goals each time you play. It’s also soothingly simple and colourful.

The game version is as impressive as Catan’s, with lovely sound and animations to complement the action, and again is available across a range of platforms to help you find one that will work for your group.

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game – Digital Edition

View on Steam

This has long been one of our favourite board games in the flesh, based far more on the original books than the TV show, but nonetheless replicating the subterfuge, military brutality and careful strategy of both. You play as one of Westeros’ great houses, and must forge alliances and plan betrayals to grab the Iron Throne for yourself.

All the while, external threats will harry you and all players. It’s terrific fun, and the new digital edition of the game makes it easy to play with friends remotely. It’s a pretty lengthy game, but this could become a staple in your friendship group once you’ve tried it.

Tabletopia

View on Apple App Store | Google Play Store | Steam

If you’re feeling a bit more ambitious, though, you might want access to a platform that carries loads of different licensed games, which makes Tabletopia a great pick. It lets you buy digital versions of seriously popular games, to sit at a virtual table and play in 3D with friends.

The games are all lushly realised, and because it’s all officially licensed you’ve got nothing to worry about in terms of legality or indeed features. That’s why we’ve left its main competitor, Tabletop Simulator, off this list – it’s simply hardle to wrangle for most people. Tabletopia offers up a world of options and great presentation.

Uno

View on Apple App Store | Google Play store | Steam

Of course, some people might favour simplicity, and it doesn’t get much easier to play than Uno, which has a whole heap of games available on different platforms that you can play with friends and family.

While it might not be the most involved game, it’s stood the test of time admirably, and we think that it’s almost guaranteed that, if you offer it, people you know will choose it over more complex options that they’re not familiar with.

Roll20

Visit Roll20.net

Speaking of complexity, why not take the chance to get into full-on tabletop roleplaying? Dungeons and Dragons is just one of countless rulesets you can use on Roll20’s open platform, including the option of creating your own games and campaigns from scratch.

It’s an insanely versatile system, and we recommend buying a module to play at least at first, so that you can get used to its slightly dizzying array of options and interfaces, but once you’re in the swing of things you’ll find that Roll20 could become one of your absolute favourite gaming tools.

Writing by Max Freeman-Mills.

This messaging app uploads every file you send to the internet, which is bad

Messaging app Go SMS Pro, which has over 100 million installs from the Google Play store, has a massive security flaw that potentially allows people to access the sensitive content you’ve sent using the app. And even though the app’s maker was informed about the issue months ago, they haven’t made updates to fix what’s going on.

To give you an idea of just how much information the app leaks, here’s what TechCrunch was able to find: “In viewing just a few dozen links, we found a person’s phone number, a screenshot of a bank transfer, an order confirmation including someone’s home address, an arrest record, and far more explicit photos than we were expecting, to be quite honest,” cybersecurity reporter Zack Whittaker says. Not great.

Here’s what’s going on: Go SMS Pro uploads every media file you send to the internet and makes those files accessible with a URL, according to a report by Trustwave. When you send a message with media via Go SMS Pro, such as a photo or video, the app uploads the content to its servers, creates a URL pointing to it, and sends that URL to the recipient. If the recipient also has Go SMS Pro, the content appears directly in the message — but the app still uploads the file and still creates that publicly accessible link on the internet.

That URL is where the trouble is. There’s no authentication required to look at the link, meaning that anyone who has it could view the content within. And the URLs generated by the app apparently have a sequential and predictable address, meaning that anyone can look at other files just by changing the right parts of the URL. Theoretically, you could even write a script to autogenerate sequential URLs so you could quickly find and browse through a lot of private content shared by people using Go SMS Pro.

Worse, the app’s developer has been unresponsive, so it’s unclear if this vulnerability will ever be fixed. Trustwave said it has contacted the developer four times since August 18th, 2020 to notify them about the vulnerability, with no response. TechCrunch tried emailing two email addresses connected to the app. An email to one address bounced back with a message that the inbox was full. Another email was opened but wasn’t replied to, and a follow-up email hasn’t been opened. The Verge attempted to reach the developer for comment through an email listed on the Play Store listing, but the email bounced back with a “recipient inbox full” message. And the developer’s website listed on the Play Store listing appears to be broken.

So if you’re using Go SMS Pro now and want to keep the things you share from being leaked onto the internet, you might want to find a different messaging app.

Facebook content moderators demand better coronavirus protections

More than 200 content moderators at Facebook have signed an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding better COVID-19 protections. They say management has needlessly put their lives at risk by forcing them back into the office, even as full-time employees work from home until July 2021.

On October 12th, content moderators working for the third-party contracting firm Accenture in Austin, Texas were asked to return to the office. The company implemented additional cleaning measures and asked employees to wear masks. Despite these efforts, a contractor tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after returning to work, according to The Intercept.

Facebook has been under intense pressure to stop the spread of viral misinformation and take down incitements to violence, particularly around the 2020 US election. During the pandemic, it relied more heavily on artificial intelligence to detect content that violated its policies. “The AI wasn’t up to the job,” content moderators say in the letter, which was published by the law firm Foxglove. “Important speech got swept into the maw of the Facebook filter — and risky content, like self-harm, stayed up.”

While high-risk workers do not have to return to the office, contractors say the policy doesn’t extend to those who live with high-risk individuals. They’re asking Facebook and Accenture to allow moderators to work from home if they live with someone who is high risk.

Workers are also demanding hazard pay of 1.5x their typical hourly wage and asking Facebook to stop outsourcing their work. “Facebook should bring the content moderation workforce in house, giving us the same rights and benefits as full Facebook staff,” the letter says.

The demands reflect longstanding tensions between content moderators and the big tech companies for which they contract. While these workers are asked to look at some of the most vile content on the internet, their jobs often lack the pay and benefits of full-time employees. Some, at Google and YouTube, have gotten PTSD from their work.

Roughly 63 workers signed the letter to Facebook by name. Foxglove says another 171 across the US and Europe signed anonymously. “This is the biggest joint international effort of Facebook content moderators yet,” the law firm tweeted. “Many more moderators in other sites wanted to sign, but were too intimidated by Facebook – these people are risking their livelihood to speak out.”

In a statement emailed to The Verge, a Facebook spokesperson pushed back on the idea that content moderators aren’t able to work from home and don’t have sufficient protection. “We appreciate the valuable work content reviewers do and we prioritize their health and safety. While we believe in having an open internal dialogue, these discussions need to be honest,” they wrote. “The majority of these 15,000 global content reviewers have been working from home and will continue to do so for the duration of the pandemic. All of them have access to health care and confidential wellbeing resources from their first day of employment, and Facebook has exceeded health guidance on keeping facilities safe for any in-office work.”

A First Look at Project xCloud Running on the Arm-Powered Surface X Pro

(Image credit: Xbox)

While Microsoft’s Project xCloud game streaming platform is already available for Android devices, we’ve known that the company is also working on a Windows 10 version. What isn’t know is when we can expect it to arrive, and this has been a question on the minds of PC gamers whose systems don’t have enough power to play more demanding titles.

And while we still don’t know when xCloud for the PC will be released, we can now at least see Project xCloud in action, thanks to Windows Central. Earlier today, the outlet released a short YouTube video that looks at Project xCloud running on Windows 10.

Interestingly, the video details xCloud running on a Microsoft Surface X Pro, which happens to be powered by an Arm processor, not a conventional x86 processor. When it comes to PC gaming, the market is dominated by x86, and the only way to play just about any PC game on the market with an Arm processor is to emulate x86.

Seeing Project xCloud playing a game that wouldn’t be possible with the Surface X Pro is amazing in its own right. This means that if Microsoft continues to use ARM in upcoming hardware, it will be a viable option for gaming for Project xCloud.

While I don’t have access to Project xCloud for Windows, I did enjoy a lengthy hands-on with the mobile beta before it went public. I see that a lot of the features in the mobile version made it into the Windows version.

This makes me believe that this is some cobbled version of Project xCloud. Especially towards the end of the video, where we see the touch screen controls. Granted, if you played on a Surface X Pro like Zac Bowden is doing in this video, then sure, touch screen controls are possible. I’d imagine that most PC gamers, even those with touch screens, would want to use a keyboard or a gamepad/controller. Now I’m curious to see if I can give this a spin and manage to do the same.

For everyone else who’s waiting on Project xCloud for Windows, you can check it out now for mobile devices. Just keep in mind that the service requires a good internet and WiFi connection. If you’re using an older router or access point in your home, it could interfere with the proper operation of Project xCloud.

GitHub reinstated a YouTube video downloader that the RIAA claimed was a piracy tool

GitHub has reinstated an open-source tool for downloading YouTube videos, and it’s changed its policies to make similar copyright-related takedowns less likely. Yesterday, the Microsoft-owned software repository reversed its removal of YouTube-dl, which lets users save local copies of streaming videos from YouTube and many other sites.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demanded that GitHub remove YouTube-dl in late October. It alleged that the tool “was designed and is marketed” for illegally saving copyrighted music, violating Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. GitHub initially agreed, but its decision drew criticism from journalists and software developers. As TechDirt chronicled, YouTube-dl is valuable for reporters documenting content that might be flagged for removal, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that it’s valuable for educators and people whose internet connections aren’t stable enough to stream video.

GitHub found these arguments compelling. “Although we did initially take the project down, we understand that just because code can be used to access copyrighted works doesn’t mean it can’t also be used to access works in non-infringing ways,” writes platform policy director Abby Vollmer. Vollmer notes that YouTube-dl’s developers also patched their software to remove references to copyrighted works. “When we see it is possible to modify a project to remove allegedly infringing content, we give the owners a chance to fix problems before we take content down.”

GitHub is legally bound to follow Section 1201, which bans tools meant to circumvent copy protections. But there are also several legal exceptions to Section 1201, including breaking copy protection for educational use and accessibility purposes. And following the incident with YouTube-dl, GitHub is formalizing a policy to evaluate complaints. “Every single credible 1201 takedown claim will be reviewed by technical experts” and legal experts, writes Vollmer. It’s also establishing and donating $1 million to a developer defense fund for open-source developers who want to challenge complaints.

But Vollmer encouraged changes to Section 1201 itself — a move supported by many copyright reform advocates. “No matter what we do to protect developer rights, we still must work within the boundaries of the law,” she writes.

Twitter’s disappearing tweets, called Fleets, are now available for everyone

Twitter on Tuesday announced a global launch of “Fleets,” the ephemeral tweeting feature it first announced earlier this year and tested in various markets around the globe.

Now, any mobile Twitter user, regardless of where they live or what platform they’re on, will have access to the disappearing messaging feature, which will sit right at the top of the timeline in a row of Stories-like bubbles. Twitter hopes the new feature will help reduce the pressure around tweeting by letting users express more casual thoughts and feelings while also concerning themselves less with saying something profound or racking up likes and retweets. Fleets starts rolling out today on Android and iOS and should be available for everyone in the coming days, the company says.

“Through our tests in Brazil, Italy, India, and South Korea, we learned Fleets helped people feel more comfortable joining the conversation — we saw people with Fleets talk more on Twitter,” explain design director Joshua Harris and product manager Sam Haveson in a blog post. “Those new to Twitter found Fleets to be an easier way to share what’s on their mind. Because they disappear from view after a day, Fleets helped people feel more comfortable sharing personal and casual thoughts, opinions, and feelings.”

At its most basic level, Fleets is a Stories clone, borrowing all of the best ideas implemented by Instagram and Snapchat. You can share text, respond to others’ tweets, or post videos with the same background color and overlaid text options you get on other messaging apps with ephemeral features, with every message disappearing after 24 hours. You can also respond to others’ fleets by tapping on one and sending a direct message or emoji to the creator, which will start a DM conversation similar to how the story reply process works on Instagram. Twitter says it will also be introducing stickers and live broadcasting at some point in the future.

Right now, the company says there will be no indicator if someone screenshots one of your fleets, and anyone who follows you will be able to see what you fleet by visiting your profile if they don’t immediately see your bubble at the top of the timeline. So it’s not exactly right to think of Fleets as a fix-all remedy to social media outrage culture or the platform’s propensity to direct large numbers of individual actions toward a single target — what we colloquially call “getting ratioed” or piled on or canceled or whatever name or phrase you’d like to attach to briefly becoming an internet punching bag.

But what Fleets seem likely to help with is dividing the sheer volume of opinions that get trafficked on Twitter every minute of every day into more digestible formats. That may spark changes in how we communicate on the platform. Undoubtedly, some users will try to push the limits of what can be said or shown on a fleet versus a tweet. Twitter is sure to face fresh moderation challenges when deciding whether to write new rules or modify for combating, say, harassment or misinformation as it pops up in Fleets.

But most of us can just use Fleets to send out the one-off reaction or hot take and let it expire in the void like most dumb opinions do anyway, just as Instagram Stories lets you share unpolished and (dare I say) fleeting snippets of our daily lives that don’t have to be framed or filtered to perfection.

That’s, of course, assuming people on Twitter actually want to use this feature and actually follow through in any meaningful capacity. Part of the great stories takeover of social media that Snapchat inadvertently kicked off more than a half-decade ago meant products and services that never needed ephemeral messaging got it anyway — from Facebook’s main app to YouTube to even LinkedIn. Those Stories clones may stick around, but they inevitably become ghost towns.

It’s not immediately clear that Twitter needs a Stories take of its own. But if any platform can benefit from disappearing messages that lower the stakes and promote perhaps healthier and more stress-free communication, it’s the social media platform the sitting president of the US is actively using to undermine election results. If we can’t or won’t log off in 2020, then we all need to chill out a bit — and maybe fleeting is one way to do that and make the internet more bearable in the process.

SPD cultural politicians: copyright reform without upload filter hardly feasible

Experts from several parliamentary groups gave a first outlook on the upcoming parliamentary discussion on the controversial copyright amendment on Monday. In principle, everyone was in agreement with Martin Rabanus, spokesman for culture and media for the SPD. According to him, politicians must find a clever interaction between the various instruments such as extended license models, intelligent barriers and “pre-flagging” in order to preserve user rights.

“Of course we don’t want an exaggerated instrument of censorship,” assured Rabanus at an online conference of the Copyright Initiative, which is close to collecting societies. Freedom of expression on the Internet should not be harmed, but artists should also have their monetary rights. A “sporting coordination process between the departments involved” is currently taking place along with the Federal Ministry of Justice’s draft bill for the implementation of the EU copyright directive.

At the same time, Rabanus reminded that Schwarz-Rot had already agreed in the coalition agreement to exclude upload filters and at the same time to strengthen the position of rights holders and creatives. In the final phase of the negotiations on the EU guidelines, the disputes were then “madly heated up” in parliament. In order to get the guideline “over the cliff” at all, the protocol declaration of the federal government was important. This states that upload filters should be prevented “if possible” and should be made “largely unnecessary”.

It does not work without an upload filter “The fear that the censorship monster will censor away as much as possible is nonsense,” says Rabanus a year and a half later. The declaration was made in a “hysterical situation”. At the moment the debate is more factual, but there is a risk of falling back into the trenches. For the political scientist it is certain that the directive can hardly be implemented without the “technical aids” called upload filters. The 48 – year-old added: “Of course, that’s the only way in the digital world.” Ansgar Heveling from the CDU / CSU parliamentary group agreed with his coalition colleague that the protocol note was created “in a multiple pressure environment” including large demonstrations . On the other hand, it was still comparatively balanced. At the moment the crucial question is whether the cascade of tools brought into play by the Ministry of Justice is properly balanced. This rightly begins with the question of licensing and ends with new exceptions to the exclusive right of exploitation.

Minor barriers Also The legal politician believes that the aim of the proposed “minor barrier”, with which snippets of content such as memes in social media should be royalty-free and subject to compensation, is correct. The set amounts of excerpts from protected works could be too large: “1000 Characters per text are quite a lot.” This is anything but a “minor question”. Above all, the CDU-led Federal Ministry of Economics rejects the blanket exception, even though the Christian Democrats had advocated precisely this approach last year of the Greens, Tabea Rößner. In its statement, the government expressed “legitimate concerns”. The Ministry of Economic Affairs shouldn’t be on the brakes here. On the other hand, politicians have to include the big platforms in regulation, “which make a lot of money by using third-party content”. In addition, the work of the legislature is under the sword of Damocles that the European Court of Justice could collect articles 17 on upload filters in response to an action by Poland. However, the judgment is only expected after the implementation period, which ends in June.

The Berlin legal scholar Axel Metzger described the de minimis barrier as an opportunity to pacify the various interest groups and to find a workable compromise. Currently, the copyright law has acceptance problems “among the generation of YouTube users”, for which in the end the creative minds paid the price. The proposed mechanism, which reminds of the existing rules for private copying, is well compatible with social media. The fact that it is not specified in the directive does not have to be an obstacle.

Remuneration claims and blocking The planned The professor of intellectual property law can also understand the direct remuneration claim of the authors, whereby money from the conclusion of contracts with platforms should not remain with the right holders alone. Otherwise the exploiters could take the point of view that the creatives have already been rewarded. With the pre-flagging the user rights would also be strengthened, even if the assumption of the “role of an arbitrator” for smaller service providers is likely to be complicated according to the existing notice-and-takedown procedure. What is new is that the right holder has to provide the necessary information. Even the lawyer left no doubt about it: “In the end it will only be possible via the upload filter”, even if the word is not in the draft. Platforms such as YouTube are already filtering today, so that such activities would take place in the future at least in a “codified framework” and possibly “not all nightmares will materialize”.

(olb)

Children's peace prize for action against cyber bullying

The 17 – year-old Sadat Rahman from Bangladesh was honored with this year’s Children’s Peace Prize for his work against cyber bullying and online crime. Rahman received the prestigious award from the Netherlands-based KidsRights foundation yesterday Friday; The ceremony took place online due to the Corona crisis.

Call for help via app “If I can protect teenagers from cyberbullying, why can’t others do the same,” said the young man, according to the foundation. He developed the “Cyber Teens” app, which children and young people in his home region of Narail can use to report bullying attacks and other criminal activities confidentially to a team of volunteers. The team then ensures that the police take action in an emergency. Several perpetrators have already been arrested.

The idea for the app and the establishment of the helper group came to Rahman after he was told by a 15 -year-old girl heard about suicide after bullying attacks on the Internet. According to experts, many young victims of cyberbullying do not receive any help because they do not dare to inform the police or their parents out of shame and insecurity.

The prize was symbolically presented by the Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who 2013, as a 16 – year-old, too was honored by KidsRights. She had campaigned for girls in her home country to have access to education and was seriously injured in a Taliban assassination attempt. Last year, the Swedish climate protection activist Greta Thunberg received the Children’s Peace Prize. The award is endowed with 100. 000 euros, which can be used for projects. Rahman said he wanted to use the money to further develop his app.

(dwi)

Internet with national borders

The European IP address administration office RIPE has received an unusual request: The makers of Scalabilty, Control, And Isolation on Next-Generation Networks, (SCION) also need new addresses to build a “new Internet”. Could this output the European IP address registry RIPE?

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), over which Internet subnets of companies and providers are connected connecting with each other to the big internet has some security gaps. For example, wrong BGP routes can be published with little effort so that the traffic is then directed to the wrong destinations (BGP hijacking, also known as prefix or route hijacking). The traffic can then be spied on on its way via the foreign subnets. A remedy for this scenario was specified in the form of cryptographic protection of the routes via RPKI (BGP Route Origin Validation, ROV), but RPKI is only spreading gradually. And one is far from comprehensive protection of the entire path through the old best-effort Internet.

BGP-free Internet This is where SCION comes in (originally under the label “Secure Communication Infrastructure for a Future Internet”, SCI-FI). Instead of best effort routing, the transmission paths between the subnetworks are determined in advance. The makers around the Swiss computer scientist Adrian Perrig speak of path-aware routing. The pre-calculation of the routes is done by central autonomous systems (Core AS) for all participants within a subnetwork they manage (Isolation Domain, ISD), which is the root of a trusted domain.

The classic model, in which every Internet host can connect to any other end point on the Internet, does not exist with SCION. Instead, the Core AS in the ISD works as an intermediary who checks the routes for the users in the ISD and suggests suitable ones for selection. These can be internal ISD routes or external routes to other ISDs. The makers see it as an advantage that internal traffic can be handled strictly locally and does not have to take detours via external ISDs.

No public addresses for end points The SCION addresses differ from IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, Perrig explained to the administrators and network developers at the 81 . RIPE conference at the end of October. They consist of three parts: the first part of the address is the number of the ISD, the second the number of the AS and the last part designates the end system (simplified example: 1, 10, 1.2.3.4).

SCION works without public addresses, all hosts sit behind the ISDs of their providers. Public servers would have to be addressed using the address of their ISD. But you need a few bits more than classic IPv4 / IPv6 addresses. The communication between today’s IP Internet and SCION could be mediated by gateways.

Sovereign network islands The SCION developers promise “more security and a new sovereignty for the independent ISD subnetworks”. And they also advertise that national sub-networks could be set up with SCION: “A possible model for ISDs would be a design along national borders or along the borders of state alliances, because parties within their own jurisdictions can enforce contracts and rely on a trusted root configuration ( TRC) agree. ”

What from the point of view of the makers is an advantage for the operators, namely the regaining of sovereignty over their sub-networks and over the routes that their own traffic takes, makes others concerned. Because the “governing” Core AS in the ISDs could, for example, only offer selected routes and limit incoming and outgoing traffic according to their own ideas. According to DTAG’s former routing expert, Rüdiger Volk, new checkpoints are emerging.

Perrig confirms that the question of censorship by governments is often received. But SCION is prepared for this. The end systems could bypass the core AS through direct peering (using the provider’s local path servers). The TLS encryption, which is already common today, prevents eavesdropping. Anonymity could guarantee additional extensions, so the promise.

Help from the IP address administrators? Currently around 600 SCION end users in 36 ISDs active. The ETH spin-off Anapaya supplies data centers with SCION access points. Swisscom, the Swiss research network SWITCH, DFN and four Swiss banks are involved in the pilot operation. So far, Anapaya has assigned the required AS addresses itself. The SCION scientists are looking for support. At the RIPE conference, David Hausheer from Otto von Guerike University Magdeburg asked whether the NCC, the operational arm of RIPE, could issue such new addresses.

Daniel Karrenberg, chief scientist of RIPE NCC replied: “The RIPE members have to decide whether the RIPE NCC will participate in a pilot project.” Karrenberg’s colleague Marco Hogewoning criticized that one is not happy with the fact that SCION wants to set up its own standardization organization in the form of a foundation. The SCION developers reported that they had put out feelers both in the direction of the IETF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). But you’d rather keep the new Internet in your own hands.

(dz)

heise + | Typography: Tips, tricks and rules for more beautiful fonts and types

We all design documents with text or even a website. In order to achieve a successful result, one should know the basics of good typography.

Typography: Tips, tricks and rules for more beautiful font and typography What typography is Font basics Anatomy of the letters Font classes Unicode Font formats Font licenses Free fonts Microtypography Punctuation marks Numbers and numbers: Structure of numbers From whore children and cobbler boys What is to be considered in the digital Item in Mac & i 13 / 2020 read Do you know that? You want to write a letter, design a flyer or an invitation, have downloaded a template from the Internet, selected a nice font, used different sizes – and yet the result looks mediocre at best. Sometimes it’s just the little things: too little line spacing, holey justification or an unbalanced headline.

Thanks to the democratization of resources, everyone can now design everything themselves. Fonts cost little or nothing and inexpensive programs like Affinity Publisher can create professional layouts. But for this to succeed, you need basic typographical knowledge. What typography is Typography, which sounds so eccentric, means, in short, the use of type, which is omnipresent in our everyday lives. It informs us about the next motorway exit, at how many degrees we should wash the sweater and when the yogurt expires. Typography is not art, but laborious and thankless work. Because if you do everything right, hardly anyone will notice. Bad typography, on the other hand, may be difficult for laypeople to name, but it results in the printed matter being put aside and not read through. Or about the 2011, the late typographer Kurt Weidemann, the designer the Mercedes corporate typeface to say: “You don’t notice good typography any more than good air you breathe. You only notice bad ones when it stinks. ”

Access to all contents of heise + exclusive tests, advice & background: independent, critically sound c’t, iX, Technology Review, Mac & i, Make, c’t read photography directly in the browser register once – read on all devices – can be canceled monthly first month free, then monthly 9, 95 € Weekly newsletter with personal reading recommendations from the editor-in-chief Start FREE month Start your FREE month now already subscribed to heise +?

Sign in and read Register now and read the article immediately More information about heise + Typography: Tips, tricks and rules for more beautiful font and typography What typography is Font basics Anatomy of the letters Font classes Unicode Font formats Font licenses Free fonts Microtypography Punctuation marks Numbers and numbers: Structure of numbers From whore children and cobbler boys What is to be considered in the digital Item in Mac & i 13 / 2020 read

Macs paralyzed by server failure: Apple raises privacy concerns

Apple first commented on the massive macOS problems last Thursday evening. In connection with the release of macOS 11 alias Big Sur, various servers at the company went on strike for hours, which led to a certificate check that was not possible. Macs that were on the Internet then refused to start numerous apps, and neither a restart nor other measures seemed to help. If the machine was disconnected from the network, the OCSP server request (Online Certificate Status Protocol) was automatically stopped and the apps ran as desired.

How gatekeeper works In a freshly supplemented support document, Apple now writes what the group is actually doing – and even praised improvement. macOS is “designed in such a way that it ensures user security, protects their data and at the same time respects their privacy.” The gatekeeper routine carries out an online check to determine whether an app contains malware and whether its developer signature has been withdrawn. Apple has “never combined data from these reviews with information about Apple users or their devices.” The data obtained during these checks are also not used to “find out what individual users start or run on their devices”.

IP addresses were saved The notarization checks whether an app contains known malware and uses “an encrypted connection that is” stable “against server errors. Why did the outages on Thursday nevertheless occur? Unfortunately, Apple does not explain. Furthermore, the company announces that these security checks “never” included the Apple ID of the user or the identity of the device. However, the company apparently saved the associated IP address until recently, but it now has “ended”. In the future, IP addresses in connection with developer ID certificate checks will no longer be logged, and they will also “ensure that all IP addresses collected are removed from the logs.” This is the first time that Apple is involved to this logging that poses a problem in terms of data protection, extremely.

Apple wants to revise the protocol and offer an opt-out Furthermore, the group announced that it will work in the future with a “new encryption protocol” to check developer ID certificates for their withdrawal – why this is planned – and whether the existing protocol has any weaknesses – says the company Not. In addition, Apple promises “strong protection against server failures” in the future, as well as a new settings menu with which users can completely switch off these security checks (opt-out). Apple did not specify the time for this.

(bsc)

heise + | Tutorial for beginners: Easily implement IoT projects with ESPEasy firmware

Many IoT projects with the ESP 8266 do not need sophisticated programming. ESPEasy is easy to install and offers tons of customization options.

Tutorial for beginners: Easily implement IoT projects with ESPEasy firmware Preparation Installation sensors Regulate MQTT Article in c’t 24 / 2020 read The popular WLAN microcontroller ESP 8266 is in all of them d devices such as switch sockets and LED lamps, but it is also an inexpensive and easy-to-program candidate for self-constructed Internet of Things (IoT) projects. The firmware projects Tasmota and Espurna are particularly popular; they remove finished smart home actuators from the manufacturer cloud in just a few steps so that they can be integrated into local smart home management using protocols such as MQTT.

The projects support many devices out of the box with finished profiles so that you no longer have to worry about GPIOs and drivers. However, both are primarily designed to execute received commands, and less to control logic that runs directly on the ESP. That makes Tasmota and Espurna only of limited interest for their own projects or self-sufficient smart home devices.

But thanks to ESPEasy you don’t have to delve into the depths of C programming yourself: The open source firmware is just as easy to install as Tasmota and Espurna, but offers more flexibility in terms of the sensors and protocols used and even its own set of rules with which you can teach the ESP logic, for example to switch a switch socket using a soldered-on sensor depending on the room temperature. ESPEasy has a web interface through which all settings can be changed remotely. This saves valuable time that you would otherwise have to invest in programming and debugging.

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User: macOS 11 “Big Sur” can make older Macs unusable

Users on various forums report problems with their Macs when trying to install Big Sur. The setup then stops and makes the computer unusable, a restart is no longer possible.

The new operating system, including macOS 11 has been available since last week. A large number of MacBook Pro machines of the years 2013 and 2014 be – and here in particular the 13 – inch model, according to a five-page thread in the Apple Support Communities. Common debugging methods seem to fail According to users, the big sur remains -In the meantime the installation shows a black screen – nothing seems to happen after that. Attempts to revive affected computers – for example by resetting, starting safe mode or restoring the Internet – seem to fail, the MacBook Pro remains “bricked”. If Apple is asked what to do, the service is said to have suggested a visit to the Genius Bar in the local Apple Store, reports a user.

Apple itself seems to be informed about the problem in the meantime. One affected person reported that the support team had told him that the bricking had been “escalated” to Apple’s engineering team. What exactly leads to bricking is currently completely unclear – including why older machines of all things are affected. In addition, it cannot yet be said whether only the 13 inch MacBook Pro of these years is subject to a risk of bricking and whether it is possibly a Hardware problem that is revealed by the Big Sur installation.

Make a backup Until Apple has addressed the bug, users of older Macs can only wait with the Big Sur installation; However, not all machines are affected by any means, so that bricking becomes a gamble. You should urgently create a backup before starting the installation of macOS 11.

The update brings In addition to a new surface, various changes under the hood. There are numerous programs that have not yet been or only partially adapted to Big Sur, so there is no rush to install them. However, Apple has apparently only fixed a number of security problems with macOS 11. 0.1, older macOS versions are still waiting for fixes. (bsc)

Silicon Valley investor Libin: Video conferences stay because they are better

Silicon Valley veteran Phil Libin assumes that video conferences will not only remain an integral part of everyday life after the end of the corona pandemic, but that the possibilities of technology will also change the way we work.

Imitation of the old At the moment you are still trying to have the usual kind of meetings with people in one Recreate boring space on the Internet, said Libin in an interview with the dpa. “The first generation of something new often tries to imitate the old reality.” But video conferences would feel different in just a year, predicted Libin, who previously headed the Evernote note-taking app, among other things.

Among other things the trend to individualize background and environment in video conference apps such as Zoom or Google Meet will intensify. “We sometimes spend more time in these virtual rooms than in real rooms – in this respect it is logical that one thinks about how to decorate or individualize them.”

Improvements remain Video conferences would also remain outside of the working world where they were better than previous attendance models, said Libin. “I will definitely not make an appointment for many visits to the doctor, go there, sit in the waiting room with other patients, 20 spend minutes with the doctor and then drive back.” Video conferencing could also be better in education if you do it the right way Future.

After leaving Evernote, Libin became a partner at the venture capitalist Catalyst in San Francisco and then founded the app developer studio All Turtles. During the pandemic, the mmhmm app was developed there, which aims to bring new types of video conferencing functions to platforms such as Zoom. This includes the option of fading in a presentation while the speaker remains in the picture.

Another innovation is “Big Hands”: software recognizes gestures made by a user such as raised and lowered thumbs – and blinds them a larger hand drawn over it so that it can also be seen in the small gallery view.

(kbe)

Psychological design tricks: EU Commission wants to take action against “dark patterns”

On Friday, the EU Commission presented its new consumer agenda for the next five years. Above all, it wants to empower European consumers to “play an active role in ecological and digital change”. It is also planning mechanisms to better enforce consumer rights within the EU and internationally also in third countries.

Dark Patterns In view of the increasing digitization of everyday life, the Commission considers it necessary to take action against controversial online business practices such as “dark patterns”, secret profiling and hidden advertising. Such activities, some of which are misleading, disregard the right of consumers to make an informed choice, abuse their behavior or distort their decision-making processes. According to a study by the Bundestag, these are designed to ensure that users of online services and social networks do things that run counter to their actual interests and can have negative consequences. As a rule, certain human behavior or perception patterns are abused and emotions are addressed, for example, in order to entice users to buy something on the Internet or to click a certain link.

Digital Service Act According to the Brussels government institution, the draft Digital Services Act (DSA) expected for the beginning of December will initially aim at Define “new and expanded responsibilities” for online platforms and increase their accountability. The DSA will ensure that consumers are protected against illegal products, content and activities online as effectively as they are offline. In addition, the Commission announced a draft law on digital markets to regulate platforms with a “gatekeeper” function more strictly from the outset planned requirements for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are “duly considered”. Relevant applications should ensure the protection of fundamental rights. If they cause damage, consumers should enjoy the same protection as with existing product or service categories. It also confirms that the Product Safety Directive will be revised.

The Commission also wants to ensure that sustainable products are available to consumers in the internal market. We want you to have better information in this area so that you can make an informed decision. To this end, the executive body wants to make a legislative proposal next year. In this way, practices such as “green dyeing” or the premature obsolescence of products can be better combated.

Action plan with China for the security of online goods The agenda also addresses the question of how consumer protection and “resilience” can be increased during and after the coronavirus pandemic. In dialogue with platform operators and other stakeholders, the Commission wants to continue making life difficult for fraudsters and analyze the longer-term effects of the disease on the behavior of citizens.

Innovative online tools will improve the national authorities enable them to take action against illegal online business practices and identify unsafe products, it said. 2021 the Commission also intends to develop an action plan with China to increase the safety of goods sold online. (bme)