Android Q Beta upgrades with Google Assistant

TECH NEWS

From the very start, Google intended to fine-tune the gesture-based navigation system it introduced with Android Pie in an effort to make poking around phones with edge-to-edge screens feel a lot more natural. One of the gestures it was working on would summon Google Assistant with a swipe – now that feature is rolling out with Android Q's fifth beta version that's available for Pixel devices. Users can swipe from one of the bottom corners of their phone to call on the platform's high-tech helper if they need it. The feature also comes with "handles," presumably on those corners of the screen, to serve as the gesture's visual representation.


Zoom turns on your camera by default

Video conferencing app Zoom has a major security flaw in its Mac client, letting any website turn on your Mac's camera without a warning, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh claims. In a blog post, Leitschuh detailed the vulnerability, which he says he’d disclosed to Zoom more than 90 days ago, and the company still hasn't fixed it. The problem lies in Zoom's usage of a web server on users’ local machines. This makes some of Zoom’s cool features possible, for example, clicking on a simple link in your web browser automatically starts the app. The main question users should be asking themselves is whether they want to sacrifice their system's security for a bit of added functionality – likely, functionality they can live without. Zoom's ability to re-install itself without user permission after it's been uninstalled is particularly worrisome. 

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