Tag: Cars

How to stay safe shopping online this holiday season? Stay away from fake websites

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Since I started shopping online, I have noticed that scams have been increasing more than before. There have been so many hackers attacking websites, stealing data, sending social engineering emails which trick you. There are so many threats to keep track of in this age; the average citizen has no clue as to what to focus their energy on to keep the money in their wallets.

The sliest trick: The Fake Website Email or Message

In the early days of the internet, most hackers tended to focus on the inexperience of the users. As users got more comfortable with using the internet, they became even more cunning, attempting to weaponize what they saw as their home in cyberspace.

The culture we have now in cyberspace is under attack from all sides. We have outages happening more often than even in the 1990s. These outages are occurring almost every month, affecting economies.

The hackers and scammers are damaging the economy to gain an advantage. You should be steely prepared for scams throughout the holiday season.

The most important scam you be aware of is this one: the fake website.

The fake website is very common scam that hackers use but it is probably one of the most insidious out there and I have even come close to falling for it, almost giving a hacker some of the money in my bank account here.

The main aspect you need to consider is to look at the address in the email or message sent to you here.

You must check the address carefully. If the address is saying that it is from the official site and has the “.com” in it, then it should be a legitimate email or message.

However, if the address looks really strange and not like an official address, you should not be clicking any links in the message. Generally speaking, the strangeness is that address has not form or structure in here.

You should also watch for the emails that aim to copy the style of the website. Some of the details are not authentic to the actual website.

Check your original website emails and then compare them to these emails. If they look sketchy, then they are.

With these steps, you will be able to stay safe this holiday season.

The increasing cost of streaming: Apple TV is now not worth your money

Apple HQ in Cupertino, California. Also known as the Spaceship or Apple Park in some articles.

Apple has become a behemoth in the software and hardware worlds. It is a megacorporation in the truest sense, a 1 trillion dollar company at market cap and it shows.

Look at the Apple HQ in Cupertino, California. It looks like spaceship landed in the forest but it is a testament to the strength and glory of Apple now. It is the palace of software and hardware engineers who now seek to change the world and make it into their vision.

However, they have been making missteps with Apple TV+. They raised the price of Apple TV+ from $9.99 to $12.99. This is a 30% increase in prices. Many users are angry with Apple and I can’t really blame them.

Since launching Apple TV+, the company has only really raised prices three times. The starting price was $4.99 with no ads here. However, the price is now $12.99 a month without ads but a very insufficient library now. In 2019, users would be willing to give them a chance as it was new; now, consumers have more choices.

Apple cannot rely entirely on its mythic power now. In the past, Apple was attempting to create a culture where people would be creative with their computers; it was not about them using them as lifestyle extensions of their own egos. Apple by the time the iPhone came out has just become about pushing expensive pieces of glass into people’s faces. Why do we need phones costing nearly $1000 dollars here?

Everything about this company is expensive here. The price is simply too high for many people in this current age.

Another issue is that many of their best series would be better served on another platform. Apple should have simply made the series and then release them on Netflix. The company lacks an ability to make Apple TV + actually profitable. These series are stuck as cult series which isn’t necessarily an issue for science fiction series such as Severance, but this mind bending show would better served on Netflix alongside Squid Game for added synergy.

Jason Momoa’s passion project about the unifier of Hawaii in the 18th Century, Chief of War is stuck on Apple TV +. I was highly intrigued by the story but the price is getting in the way now and I just did not want to create yet another account to watch yet another series.

Apple TV+ at this current moment has about 40 million subscribers. That pales in comparison to what Netflix has or other places have on their sites. Apple TV + simply does not have enough content to justify the cost. The people who are largely on the app now represent a certain kind of viewer who wants higher quality, but Apple should have pared some of their expectations with this service and expand it slowly. They simply do not have enough content in order to support more viewers. What they have is a base of viewers who support the Apple brand more than they do the shows they have on there.

Apple TV + price hikes may seem the app start to have issues maintaining its viewer counts.

Tesla and Waymo wars ramp up in Austin with geofence expansion.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-kicks-robotaxi-geofence-expansion-into-high-gear-austin/

Tesla and Waymo are continuing to increase their presence in the Texas capital which has been a hub for driverless car experimentation. While America is somewhat behind China in the implementation of a revolution in auto mobility, we are seeing some changes here.

What I think will be most important here is that the companies have affordable rides for customers of every stripe in the city and other places. Safety is important but we also need to have people willing to take risks so that we become less reliant on cars and help to improve our urban mobility in this era of change. Hopefully, these rollouts are smooth and we are able to enjoy transport without the baggage that so often made our lives too chaotic. We may have a chance to be more creative and conscious of each other as humans if we can just take our hands off the wheels and enjoy our cities.