My kids love their Fire tablets, and I love the convenience of parental controls they offer. Maria Diaz/ZDNETAmazon is offering some huge deals on its latest Fire Kids Tablets, my kids’ favorite device for home and on-the-go entertainment. The newest Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids tablet More
<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways At $130, the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera is a practical, battery-powered solution for darker areas around your house that lack wiring and outlets. The AA batteries allow the floodlights to beam at 700 nits of brightness, which is not the most powerful on the market but good enough to see […] More
<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways Samsung’s Galaxy A35 5G is a well-rounded smartphone for $399 You’ll love the two-day battery life, amazing screen quality, and four years of software updates The biggest issue? Performance tends to vary from day to day and can lead to overheating. more buying choices What’s the deal? Amazon currently has a […] More
Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images *** Deep sigh *** This is the part of the article where I usually drop a witty line to spark your curiosity or offer a fresh perspective on something intriguing. But today, I’m literally at a loss for words. (If you know me, you know how hard it is to leave me […] More
ZDNETCybercriminals who specialize in phishing attacks often spoof popular companies and products to trick unsuspecting users. By impersonating a well-known brand, the scammers try to convince their victims that their malicious emails and web pages are legitimate. A new report from cyber intelligence firm Check Point Research highlights the most spoofed brands so you’ll know which emails and pages to scrutinize.Top 10 most-phished brandsAmong the top 10 most-phished brands in the fourth quarter of 2024, Microsoft remained in the top spot, appearing in 32% of all attacks seen by Check Point. Apple and Google took second and third place, respectively, each appearing in 12% of the attacks.LinkedIn was next with 11%, followed by Alibaba with 4%. Rounding out the list were WhatsApp, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook, each with 2%. In the tenth spot was Adobe, found in 1% of the phishing campaigns.Also: How to protect yourself from phishing attacks in Chrome and FirefoxAs last quarter marked the traditional holiday season, retail brands were also targeted in phishing attacks. Scammers often create fraudulent retail domains with phony sales and fake discounts to try to steal the passwords and sensitive data of innocent visitors.During the fourth quarter, malicious domains like nike-blazers.fr and adidasyeezy.ro mimicked the legitimate sites of Nike and Adidas. Other retail brands recently exploited included Lululemon, Hugo Boss, Guess, and Ralph Lauren.In its report, Check Point focused on two especially deceptive phishing campaigns. In one attack, the phishing site impersonated PayPal’s login page to try to capture the credentials and financial data of users. In another, a phony website imitated Facebook’s login page to trick people into sharing their account details. Though both sites are now flagged as deceptive, the phishing threat remains in full force. More
ZDNETPerplexity AI is going mobile with a new digital assistant for your Android phone. The company announced the feature this week, explaining that it lets you use Perplexity as usual, but takes things a step further by integrating with other apps on your phone and chaining commands — meaning you can play media, set reminders, send texts and emails, book rides, learn about things using your camera, and more. Also: Operator isn’t worth its $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro subscription yet – here’s whyPerplexity’s phone assistant is free and doesn’t require a Pro subscription. It’s not available for iOS just yet.I decided to give it a try for a while and made it my default phone assistant. Just one thing is keeping me from sticking with it for good: its current lack of integration with my calendar. What Perplexity could do on my Android phoneI started simple. I asked Perplexity to make a list of the best local date-night restaurants and text them to my wife (I used her name). At first, it made a list of restaurants in Orlando, Fla., over 500 miles away. I asked Perplexity if it knew my location, just to make sure I had all the proper permissions turned on, and it identified where I was. A second attempt, asking the same query, produced a much better list of restaurants in Charlotte, NC — all swanky options perfect for a date night.To push things a little further, I replied that all of those were too far away and asked for restaurants specifically in my city, just outside Charlotte. It populated another list of nice restaurants limited to my city and asked if it could text the list. When I approved, it sent the list as a text message.Also: I changed these 12 settings on my Android phone to instantly improve battery lifePlaying around with examples I had seen other people use, I was able to get Perplexity to connect with quite a few apps. When I asked for a ride, Perplexity asked where I wanted to go and then fired up Uber with my destination set. Asking it to “Play the most popular songs from the 1960s” brought up Spotify and started playing songs. After a request to “Send an email saying I’m running 10 minutes late,” the assistant asked where it should be sent, asked my preferred email client (Gmail), and sent the message.To test out the Google Lens-style capabilities, I pointed it at my TV and asked what movies this actor was in (it was Steve Martin in an episode of Only Murders in the Building). Perplexity told me it couldn’t identify people. I asked what TV show I was watching, though, and Perplexity not only identified all three actors on screen, but also identified and summarized the specific episode I was watching. More
ZDNETAs TikTok went dark briefly for the app’s 170 million US users last Saturday, tech giants began rolling out various incentives to attract TikTok creators to their platforms. Snapchat launched a new public marketing campaign featuring trendy influencers known for posting on TikTok. Substack, meanwhile, used a 25,000 cash prize and expanded live-streaming capabilities to TikTok users on its platform. However, one of TikTok’s biggest social media rivals, Meta, is further capitalizing off the legal uncertainty around the ban with a multifaceted, more aggressive approach to lure creators and their followers. Also: No, RedNote is not the new TikTok – and here’s whyMeta’s Breakthrough Bonus program will award TikTok creators — who have larger digital presences on TikTok, but not Meta-owned platforms — up to $5,000 in bonuses for posting short-form content on Facebook and Instagram. If a creator meets all the eligibility requirements, including being US-based and 18 or older, Meta will award the bonus based on an “evaluation of your social presence.” More
Businesses face mounting pressure to secure their networks, infrastructure, and data. Cyberattackers often target employees through phishing and social engineering to defraud them or to obtain sensitive data, and this may include credentials. Alternatively, it’s possible to purchase initial access through the Dark Web or to take advantage of leaked username and password combinations to enter a target system quietly. Also: The best password managers: Expert testedSecurity measures to stop unauthorized access vary from company to company, but one solid solution is to use a password manager designed for the enterprise. By doing so, organizations can streamline credential management, enforce password refreshes, stop the use of weak or already-leaked credentials, and improve their overall security posture. What is the best password manager for business right now?If you’re looking for a password manager suitable for your business, our top pick is 1Password More
