Technology

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• Prime video app code tease 'Multiview'
• YouTube TV multiview lets you watch several sports games at once
• No official word yet on when or if it'll arrive in the app

Prime Video could be getting a YouTube feature, which will be perfect for its expansion into live sports. Leaked code suggests the best streaming service could soon be adding multiview.

That’s according to Android Authority, who dug through the code of the Prime Video app – specifically v3.0.389 – and found several strings referencing “multiview”. Such as:

Set up your multiview Pause unavailable during multiview Rewind unavailable during multiview

Beyond setting up a multiview it appears that Prime Video's version of the feature won’t let users pause, rewind, or fast forward while it’s active.

What is multiview?

While a name alone isn’t much to go on, we can turn to Prime Video competitors to learn what multiview might entail. YouTube TV’s multiview version of the tool allows you to watch four sports live streams at the same time.

The advantage of this is if there are several matches on at the same time that you’re keen to tune into you can do it all on one screen without ever needing to change channel.

In some versions of the tool, you could even throw on an entirely different video feed – perhaps in Prime Video's case a new episode of a show you love – so you can watch that with sports happening in the background. Perfect for when a game gets stale, or if you can’t agree who should control the TV.

All of this is speculation for now. There’s no word yet on when Prime Video will get multiview – assuming it even does at all – and if multiview does arrive we’ll have to see what form it takes. It would make a lot of sense, so hopefully it does land in the near future, but we’ll have to wait and see.

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• Fitbit has a Sleep Journal feature in the works
• An APK Teardown revealed the feature under construction
• It could be an AI-powered feature

According to a recently-unearthed bit of code, Fitbit is looking at introducing a new sleep feature soon to Fitbit Premium subscribers. A Sleep Journal functionality would allow users of the best fitbit trackers and smartwatches to log their sleep as usual, and make notes in-app when prompted, about any sleep problems they had via text or even a voice note. The Fitbit app then uses this information to generate more personalized sleep tips.

Discovered by Android Authority during an APK teardown (a process that looks at unfinished app code) the feature is still bare-bones and under construction, but it looks as though the feature will be AI-powered. Fitbit may plan to use generative AI to pick up on key words and phrases in your journal entries, offering you advice based on those key phrases.

The feature was found by Android Authority in the Fitbit app (version 4.30.fitbit-mobile-110146981-694155636), and it allegedly “appears to be early on in development”. The UI is apparently quite basic at the moment, although the development team is clearly keen for Fitbit’s big userbase to engage with the feature - one message suggests “To get deeper insights and more personalized suggestions for better sleep, complete your journal each day.”

If you don’t submit an entry, a reminder pops up saying “Sharing what impacted your sleep helps create more personalized insights and tips”, with an option to go back if you decide not to fill in the Sleep Journal feature.

This is likely to be a Fitbit Premium feature, based on the pricing schemes for other experimental AI services like Oura Advisor. Given that it’s fairly early on in development, we wouldn’t expect it to land until 2025.

Analysis: generative AI is coming to Fitbit

I imagine this service will be similar to Oura Advisor, the experimental generative AI service used by the Oura Ring companion app, in that it uses text prompts to summon the correct wellness advice, personalized to your needs by cross-referencing your sleep and exercise data. If you sleep poorly and do a lot of exercise, you might be encouraged to dial it back in the evenings. Such is the power of generative AI.

We may be jumping ahead of ourselves (after all, there’s no hard evidence it will be an AI feature) but entering your sleep data into an artificial intelligence owned by Google, a company with a notoriously loose grasp on data privacy, may be a sticking point for some users.

Some, but not all; for others, the convenience will be worth it. A report from the National Institutes of Health found that “sleep diaries are the gold standard for subjective assessment of sleep variables in clinical practice. Digitization of sleep diaries is needed, as paper versions are prone to human error, memory bias, and difficulties monitoring compliance.” This live, responsive version of a sleep diary could be just what the doctor ordered.

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• A spike in returning lease volumes will peak in 2026
• Market could be flooded with cheap used EVs, new report claims
• Uncertainty about tax credits could upset the supply/demand balance

According to a recent study from J.D Power, which forms part of the 2024 E-Vision Intelligence Report, there will be a 230% spike in returning lease volumes of electric vehicles in 2026, potentially opening the floodgates to a swathe of cheap, second hand EVs.

It goes on to state that nearly 280,000 EV leases will end in the next two years in the United States, but thanks to the falling prices of recently introduced EV models (or those about to be launched) it means that for many, it will make more financial sense to simply lease a new car rather than buying out their current lease vehicle.

According to J.D Power, it would cost the average returning lessee in the electric compact SUV segment $477 per month to buy out the lease, while the average lease payment on a new EV in the same category would be just $457 per month.

This is based on the fact that the average buyout price for most electric compact SUVs is higher than the $25,000 threshold that would qualify for the used EV tax credit.

Although this is potentially good news for those in the market to make the switch to an electric vehicle, seeing as there will be plenty of affordable used stock in two years, it also presents numerous complications for the used car market as a whole.

J.D Power says that uncertainty about whether the federal EV tax incentive will continue and how long high manufacturer incentives will last, concern about long-term battery health, and a shortage of used gas-powered vehicles will complicate the traditional balance of supply and demand.

Analysis: Disastrous depreciation doesn't help

(Image credit: Porsche)

So far, electric vehicle sales have been skewed towards the premium end, targeting early adopters with deep pockets. For years, they have been seen as overpriced and out of reach for many mainstream buyers.

Although that is now changing, with a slew of more affordable models hitting both the US and Europe, it is already presenting a problem for the used car market.

Put simply, depreciation of some premium EVs has been huge, with models like the $130,000 /£120,000 Porsche Taycan dropping to as little as $35,000 or around £40,000 for three-year-old examples in some markets.

An investigation by Wired earlier this year found that some premium EVs, including the Mercedes-Benz EQE, Audi e-tron GT and Polestar 2, could lose up to half of their value in the first year of ownership.

The reasons for this worrying trend are numerous, from the lingering range-anxiety among buyers to the fact that battery technology is moving at such a rate that older models are being updated or replaced at a much faster pace than their internal combustion engine counterparts.

Rather than a mild mid-life facelift, as was the way with older ICE cars, today's electric vehicles are having battery packs replaced and improved, offering much greater range and improved performance.

It’s potentially putting off private buyers of new electric vehicles, worried that their latest ride will be worth a fraction of the cost that they paid for it in a couple of years.

The world of used EVs is going to create a buyer’s market in the coming years, which is great news for those holding off and waiting to make the switch, but not particularly positive for those struggling automakers, such as Ford and Volkswagen, that so desperately need to sell new cars to stay afloat.

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• Iranian state-sponsored actors are targeting aerospace pros with fake jobs
• The goal is to install backdoors and exfiltrate important data
• The style mimics that of Lazarus, a known North Korean actor

Iranian state-sponsored hackers have been observed targeting victims in the aerospace industry with fake job offers, which resulted in the deployment of the SnailResin malware, as part of their cyber-espionage campaign.

Cybersecurity researchers at ClearSky revealed how the threat actor, known as TA455, created fake recruitment sites, and fake profiles on social media sites such as LinkedIn. After that, they would approach their targets, and get them to download files as part of the onboarding process.

Among the files was SnailResin, a piece of malware that acts as a loader for the SlugResin backdoor, capable of data exfiltration, command-and-control (C2) communication, and persistence on victim systems.

Iranians? Or North Koreans? Or both?

The campaign, dubbed “Dream Job” started in September 2023, if not earlier, ClearSky noted.

TA455 is a well-known cyberespionage group, linked with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and shares similarities with other groups like APT35 and TA453. Besides the aerospace industry, TA455 was seen targeting defense, and government entities, in the Middle East, Europe, and the US. Its goal, for the most part, is cyber-espionage, gathering sensitive information for geopolitical intelligence purposes.

What makes this campaign particularly interesting is the fact that it mimics the style of Lazarus, a North Korean state-sponsored group. Fake job attacks are basically synonymous with Lazarus at this point, as they were used in some of the most destructive campaigns against firms in the crypto industry. At this point, ClearSky doesn’t know if TA455 is mimicking Lazarus, tries to hide behind the group, or is in cooperation with them.

“The similar “Dream Job” lure, attack techniques, and malware files suggest that either Charming Kitten was impersonating Lazarus to hide its activities, or that North Korea shared attack methods and tools with Iran,” they said.

In any case, be careful when getting new job offers, especially if they sound too good to be true.

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• Earlier this week, researchers discover a 9.2 flaw affecting multiple NAS models
• D-Link says it won't patch them since they reached end-of-life status
• Crooks are now targeting them with available exploit code

Cybercriminals have begun targeting D-Link NAS devices, recently found to have a critical vulnerability, but which will not be patched due to being at their end of life.

Threat monitoring service Shadowserver recently sounded the alarm in a brief thread posted on X.

It was recently reported multiple versions of D-Link NAS devices were vulnerable to a 9.2-severity flaw that could allow hackers to interfere with the endpoints. However, as the devices had reached their end-of-life, the company said it would not be addressing the flaw, and would not be issuing a patch - instead, advising users to replace the devices with newer models.

Thousand(s) of victims

While the researchers said the exploitation was somewhat difficult since the complexity of an attack was relatively high, they did stress that there is a publicly available exploit out there.

“We have observed D-Link NAS CVE-2024-10914 /cgi-bin/account_mgr.cgi command injection exploitation attempts starting Nov 12th,” the researchers said. “This vuln affects EOL/EOS devices, which should be removed from the Internet.”

They added that in total, there were more than 60,000 endpoints out there that could be compromised, including different models such as DNS-320 Version 1.00,

DNS-320LW Version 1.01.0914.2012, DNS-325 Version 1.01, Version 1.02, and DNS-340L Version 1.08.

Shadowserver also said that it observed roughly 1,100 potential victims, significantly fewer than the 60,000 that were originally claimed.

A NAS device is a dedicated data storage unit connected to a network, allowing multiple users and devices to access and store data centrally. It provides secure file sharing, data backup, and storage, making it ideal for both home and business use. NAS devices are typically easy to set up and scale, offering RAID support and other protections against data loss.

Cybercriminals frequently target NAS devices because they often hold sensitive data, including personal documents, financial information, and business files. By compromising NAS systems, attackers can steal, encrypt, or delete valuable data, with ransomware being a common threat.

Via BleepingComputer

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“Developer productivity” can be an emotive, and occasionally misunderstood term. It is not the output of individuals that we are seeking to understand, but the effectiveness of the development system as a whole.

A few percentage point increases in development efficiency in a large organization can represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost reduction, better time to market and improved product quality. That, coupled with the promise of significant productivity increases from AI code companions, means that being able to understand and measure the productivity of the engineering workforce should be a key priority for business leaders.

But doing so can be complex and requires a shift in perspective away from merely counting lines of code, toward evaluating the broader impact on business goals. By adopting modern productivity measures, business leaders can better understand and enhance the effectiveness of their development teams, ultimately leading to more innovative and successful projects.

Dropping esoteric productivity measures

Historically, businesses have looked to metrics like lines of code or story points to gauge developer productivity. However, these measures often don’t reflect the true value that a developer brings to a project and they can also be easily influenced. For example, developers can artificially inflate their productivity by writing verbose code or overestimating story point values.

Separately, such measures can be weaponized by management and business stakeholders to apply to deliver keystrokes more quickly, without appropriate consideration for the real drivers of value. So, it usually doesn’t serve a business well to closely monitor the arbitrary output of individual developers, because it simply doesn’t directly equate to efficiency or effectiveness. Instead, the merits of measurement lie in understanding the development team’s ability to create outcomes.

Looking to modernized measures

Healthy developer metric measurement begins with understanding the outcomes you’re trying to drive within your team, not the pace at which code is created; after all, there’s no point delivering the wrong thing more quickly. This means questioning what value you’re hoping to achieve by improving developer productivity. For example, this could be reduced delivery time and cost; increased deployment frequencies; or reduced defects and rework. The aim is then to identify metrics that will provide insight into these areas and guide you towards achieving your desired business outcomes.

To adopt modernized developer productivity measures, it’s essential to first assess and understand the existing ways of working across all aspects of value delivery – from processes and practices to tools. This helps to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies and areas of potential improvement. To do so, it’s vital to look beyond individual developers and understand the entire system surrounding delivery, including business analysis, team structure, sign-offs and DevOps infrastructure.

Designing outcome-oriented targets

Once an understanding has been reached about where improvements should be made, it is possible to then define leading and lagging indicators and proxies. In turn, these can be meaningfully tracked to help businesses make the right decisions. From a practical perspective, there are numerous tools on the market that can give insight into DORA and other measures, simply by connecting to issue tracking, project management and version control systems.

Armed with an understanding of the current state, as well as a set of areas for improvement, it is then possible to define outcome-oriented targets that are achievable, but ambitious enough to create meaningful value for the organization. By linking the targets to the outcomes that the company most values, the impact of change can be maximized without changing processes that don’t positively influence broader goals.

Once targets have been set, a clear Target Operating Model can be established to help the organization deliver in the most efficient manner. This helps to ensure that all aspects of delivery (beyond lines of code and even DORA metrics) are aligned to support the desired outcomes. At this point, developer productivity tools can be put in place to help enable the development capability, and to track its progress towards the outcomes.

Track, assess & reassess

Developer productivity is a journey, and it is essential to regularly reassess the outcome-oriented targets. In doing so, new areas might be uncovered that are more urgent than those currently focused on. Alternatively, targets might already have been exceeded and it is time to push the delivery capability to the next level.

By continuously improving and using the right tools and expertise, organizations can boost developer productivity and build a strong foundation for future growth. As technology evolves, staying adaptable and proactively refining productivity strategies will keep businesses competitive and efficient in delivering high-quality outcomes.

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