Technology

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• New TechRadar Pro survey shows many people don't own a printer
• Despite this, HP has cornered a significant portion of the market
• Japanese brands are the most popular to own

The role of home printers might seem to be diminishing to many, as cloud storage, document sharing, and mobile devices, are quickly replacing the many tasks once reliant on physical prints.

However, for millions of people, printers remain an essential tool for everything from school projects to remote work and small business operations.

A recent survey conducted across our WhatsApp community revealed intriguing insights into printer ownership trends. With a sample size of 3,676 respondents across nine brands, the survey’s single question — “What printer do you have?” — yielded both expected and surprising results.

HP and Japanese brands lead the pack

HP emerged as the clear leader in this survey, with 38% of the total sample stating that they own a printer made by the company.

HP’s sheer market dominance is particularly interesting when compared to those who do not own a printer, which accounted for 21% of respondents. While HP has cornered a significant portion of the market, a growing number of people are either opting for alternatives to personal printing or simply choosing not to own a printer at all.

What’s perhaps even more intriguing is the dominance of Japanese brands within the top four. Brother, Canon, and Epson collectively account for 37% of the total, showing the significant influence that Japanese technology has in the global printing market.

Brother in particular commands 11% of the total share, with Canon at 14%, and Epson close behind at 12%. The remaining brands, Kyocera, Oki, Ricoh, Xerox, and Lexmark, collectively make up less than 5% of the responses. This indicates that these brands have their niches but have limited awareness or availability among respondents.

The number of people forgoing printer ownership might also reflect urban living conditions where access to printing services is readily available through libraries or office supply stores. In such environments, individuals may find it unnecessary to invest in personal printers.

Furthermore, high ongoing costs associated with ink cartridges and maintenance might deter potential buyers from investing in printers.

Another recent survey by TechRadar Pro reveals that while the shelf price of many printer cartridges is less than $20, in the long run, printer owners will have to spend between $5,000 to $10,000 per liter of ink.

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• Fujitsu and AMD partner to develop energy-efficient HPC/AI platforms
• Partnership aims to broaden access to AI, support open-source
• Monaka chip features 288 cores, 2nm process, Armv9-A architecture

Fujitsu and AMD have announced a new strategic partnership focused on developing HPC and AI platforms.

This collaboration will combine Fujitsu’s ARM-based processor technology with AMD’s GPU expertise, aiming to build energy-efficient and open-source solutions addressing the growing demand for diverse, cost-effective computing architectures.

The partnership, formalized in a memorandum of understanding, covers joint efforts in technology development, commercialization, and ecosystem expansion, with a goal of creating powerful computing platforms by 2027.

Instinct accelerators

Central to this partnership is Fujitsu’s next-generation Arm-based processor, the Monaka chip, set for release in 2027.

As we first reported in July 2024, Monaka will feature Armv9-A architecture, a 2nm process for high performance and power efficiency, and a 288-core structure (144 cores per socket). Notably, Monaka moves away from high-bandwidth memory in favor of PCIe 6.0 (CXL3.0), enhancing scalability and connectivity. This processor is expected to build upon Fujitsu’s work with the A64FX chip, used in the Fugaku supercomputer, and could support the upcoming FugakuNEXT project planned for 2030.

AMD will support Monaka with its Instinct accelerators, providing customers with flexible options for handling massive AI workloads while optimizing data center costs. The collaboration will also make use of AMD’s ROCm software stack and Fujitsu’s proprietary software, developing an open source ecosystem to accelerate the development of AI and HPC applications.

This joint venture will also involve global marketing efforts and customer engagement, as well as a shared customer center to support the development and implementation of AI technologies.

“By combining AMD’s innovative GPU technology with Fujitsu’s low-power/high-performance processor Fujitsu-Monaka, we seek to create an environment in which more companies will be able to utilize AI while reducing the power consumed by data centers," noted Vivek Mahajan, CTO of Fujitsu.

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• Another RCS upgrade has been spotted on iOS 18
• Android emoji reactions now show up properly on iPhones
• The change may have been made by Apple or Google

While messaging between Android phones and iPhones still isn't perfect, it's a lot better than it used to be – and users have now noticed that emoji reactions from Android devices are now showing up correctly in the iPhone Messages app.

As spotted by The Verge, Android Central, and others, if RCS (Rich Communication Services) is enabled on both Android and iOS, then emoji reactions sent from Android will now actually be stuck to the message they're responding to – rather than appearing on a separate line, which was rather confusing.

It's not clear what has changed on Apple's end or Google's end to make this happen, but the iOS 18.1 update seems to have something to do with it. Make sure you're running the latest iPhone software, and check RCS is enabled, and it should work.

The RCS option on the iPhone can be found in Settings: tap Apps, Messages, and then RCS Messaging. Your carrier needs to support RCS for the option to be visible though – you can check this from Settings by tapping General, About, then Carrier.

An improving situation

RCS is also supported in Google Messages on Android (Image credit: Google)

You may remember Apple announcing that it would support RCS messages back in November 2023, though we had to wait for the iOS 18 software to roll out in September before the functionality actually became available.

RCS is the successor to plain old SMS, adding modern features such as read receipts, group chats, and higher resolutions for photo and video sharing. It's used by default in the Google Messages app on Android.

While this doesn't solve the green bubble problem, and has a few security issues that need to be ironed out, it brings iPhone-and-Android chats closer to the level of iPhone-to-iPhone chats using Apple's own iMessage.

Of course, for a lot of users outside the US, WhatsApp is the primary messaging tool – it offers end-to-end encryption, a whole pile of messaging features, and works more or less the same on both Android and iOS.

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The internet is in a precarious place. It’s assaulted from all sides - not by technological problems, but by social ones. Misinformation is rife, marketing and advertising covers every facet of the web, and armies of politicized and automated bots roam the wilds of its social media landscapes, all of which are filtered down to you through carefully curated algorithmic posts designed to induce endorphin kicks and keep you on your platform of choice. Right now, everything is changing, and not necessarily for the better.

For many of us, looking back 10 or 20 years, the 'world wide web' looked radically different in that golden age. The social media platforms, the communities, the gaming landscape, the knowledge and accessibility, the shopping - all of it felt different, and it was different. This goes beyond rose-tinted glasses. The companies that joined into the foray were incredible, almost revolutionary. Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Uber: all remarkably impressive, market-upsetting ideas that broke the mold. They drew in masses of customers, users, and consumers with awesome features and affordable pricing.

Yet over time, those same features and costs have gotten predominantly worse for the average Joe, as the companies have scooped out the investment in the middle for the sake of greater margins. This usually occurs once they become publicly-traded entities; driven by shares, investors, and board members clamoring for greater profits rather than the ideals and concepts that founded them.

A digital world in decline

The same sadly goes for the scientific endeavors too. Educational tools and access to information are equally falling apart. So much of the information out there has now been muddied and diluted by TikTok Reels and YouTube Shorts in their thousands, spewing forth all manner of falsehoods from anyone who can pick up a phone and film a 60-second clip. Flat-earthers, fitness and diet influencers, climate-change deniers, moon-landing hoaxers, political “activists” on both sides of the spectrum, so-called journalists pandering to clickbait, you name it. It’s increasingly difficult to identify what’s real and what’s not, what’s true fact and what isn’t. It’s partly why Google changes its search ranking algorithms so often, as it continually tries to promote correct and accurate information over AI-regurgitated content and misinformation.

Millions of people filming themselves dancing probably isn't what the founding fathers of the internet had in mind. (Image credit: Nattakorn_Maneerat via Shutterstock )

We’re in a world of demagogues and social media personalities, where your reach and the number of views on your content dictate whether you’re taken seriously or not. Whether your facts and statements are taken as truth. We saw it during COVID, we saw it during the US elections, we saw it with the war in Ukraine, and the recent UK riots. It isn’t slowing down either, and the impact it has is arguably getting worse.

We even have services now that capitalize on that too. Ground news, collating all the media together to give you the full spectrum of political opinion on any one given event, fact-checkers covering masses of social media platforms, and Community Notes pointing out when folks with lots of clout spout utter nonsense. Hell, there are even entire divisions of scientists out there now making a living out of debunking the empirically-incorrect insanity spewed by other social media influencers. It’s absolutely wild.

Algorithmic Echo Chambers

The problem is systemic. It started in social media, with algorithms delivering 'curated' content rather than just showing you a historical timeline of those you follow. Your likes and dislikes, what you spend time watching, reading, listening to, it all became fuel for the fire. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - all of them feed you content in that manner. If that’s right or left-wing politics, or 9/11 conspiracy theories, or cute black labradors, it didn’t matter: as long as you stay on the platform and consume more ads. In fact, it's become so prevalent that it’s hard to find a feed system on any social media platform today that doesn’t do that.

The problem with this is that it has effectively stifled creative debate. No longer are your opinions challenged or questioned, no longer do you have meaningful conversation and discussion, but instead you're fed more and more of the same content. That in turn reinforces and influences your beliefs as a consequence, as you sit in an echo chamber of like-minded people repeating the same things. It’s not difficult to see how this actively leads to an increase in extremist beliefs and views.

How can your opinion change or evolve if there’s no one there to challenge it? It’s part of the reason why so many in the last few elections across the planet are almost in utter disbelief when their political candidate of choice doesn’t win. Because to them, all they see is a deluge of support online for their chosen party and nothing else.

Hope for the hopeless?

It’s a bloody mess: a relatively free market, held back only by the sparsest amount of regulation. 31 years—that’s how long it’s been since the World Wide Web made its first foray into the public arena. It’s hard to imagine what Sir Tim Berners Lee envisioned; it’d be like this far into the future. I doubt this is what he imagined (although Tim, if you’re reading this and are free for a chat: hit me up, I’m so up for that).

The man who started it all, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. No, you can't blame him for all the TikTok dances. (Image credit: Paul Clarke)

That said, there’s still hope. The amount of good that’s come out of the WWW since its conception, and even today, is still far greater than the net negatives (no pun intended). Even if in ten years it’s just filled with AI-generated articles and gradually degrading memes while Amazon charges you $90 a month for next-week delivery, as long as people are still using it to actively and openly communicate with one another, it’ll be a net positive.

We don’t hear about the number of scientific breakthroughs that have been accelerated by the internet, the discoveries, the health conditions cured, or the humanitarian aid organized; we don’t hear about any of that because that’s not what makes the news. It’s not interesting. That’s not included in the scientific journals or the papers. We don’t hear about the relationships formed or how integral it is to our modern society’s infrastructure as a whole.

How do you fix it, then? Well, it’s not so simple as slapping a band-aid on something. By its very definition, the World Wide Web is exactly that: global. To get some form of consensus on how to improve the current cesspool that it is requires collective effort. We’ve seen that happen before in the tech industry. There’s a reason JEDEC exists, and standards like USB and DDR are a thing; we need one for the internet, one with teeth on a much larger scale. One with smart minds behind it, looking at the monopolization of segments of the internet and pushing governments to act on it. Suggesting legislation. Looking at patterns and predicting what might occur. One that can react rapidly without necessarily being hindered by bureaucratic nonsense.

The USB Implementers Forum incorporates many major players in the tech industry, including Apple, Intel, and Microsoft. (Image credit: ShutterStock / kontrymphoto)

Then there’s education, and I’m not talking just about kids and young adults, but for all ages. In a similar manner to how we strive for complete adult literacy, we need to have a big push to make each nation-state computer literate as well, beyond talking about “how to turn on the PC” and “this is the internet," but how to identify fake posts, how to fact-check statements, how to find multiple sources, and the legality behind what you post and how you post online. So much of that is just not available, or not known to the public, of all ages.

Learning new critical skills as a global society is hard. But we did it for the threat of nuclear annihilation in the Cold War; we did it with the introduction of the seat belt in cars; we did it for reading; it needs to be done again, but for the digital age. Is it a challenge? Yes, but this isn’t the first time we’ve faced technological turmoil, nor will it be the last.

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• Research shows that Manifest V3 could suffer from security issues
• The upgraded Chromium manifest still allows malicious extensions
• Some security tools struggle to identify dangerous extensions

Browser extensions have long been a convenient tool for users, enhancing productivity and streamlining tasks. However, they have also become a prime target for malicious actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities, targeting both individual users and enterprises.

Despite efforts to enhance security, many of these extensions have found ways to exploit loopholes in Google’s latest extension framework, Manifest V3 (MV3).

Recent research by SquareX has revealed how these rogue extensions can still bypass key security measures, exposing millions of users to risks such as data theft, malware, and unauthorized access to sensitive information.

Browser extensions now pose greater threats

Google has always struggled with the issues of extensions in Chrome. In June 2023, the company had to manually remove 32 exploitable extensions that were installed 72 million times before they were taken down.

Google’s previous extension framework, Manifest Version 2 (MV2), was notoriously problematic. It often granted excessive permissions to extensions and allowed scripts to be injected without user awareness, making it easier for attackers to steal data, access sensitive information, and introduce malware.

In response, Google introduced Manifest V3, which aimed to tighten security by limiting permissions and requiring extensions to declare their scripts in advance. While MV3 was expected to resolve the vulnerabilities present in MV2, SquareX’s research shows that it falls short in critical areas.

Malicious extensions built on MV3 can still bypass security features and steal live video streams from collaboration platforms like Google Meet and Zoom Web without needing special permissions. They can also add unauthorized collaborators to private GitHub repositories, and even redirect users to phishing pages disguised as password managers.

Furthermore, these malicious extensions can access browsing history, cookies, bookmarks, and download history, in a similar way to their MV2 counterparts, by inserting a fake software update pop-up that tricks users into downloading the malware.

Once the malicious extension is installed, individuals and enterprises cannot detect the activities of these extensions, leaving them exposed. Security solutions like endpoint protection, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and Secure Web Gateways (SWG) cannot dynamically assess browser extensions for potential risks.

To address these challenges, SquareX has developed several solutions aimed at improving browser extension security. Their approach includes fine-tuned policies that allow administrators to decide which extensions to block or permit based on factors such as extension permissions, update history, reviews, and user ratings.

This solution can block network requests made by extensions in real-time, based on policies, machine learning insights, and heuristic analysis. Additionally, SquareX is experimenting with dynamic analysis of Chrome extensions using a modified Chromium browser on its cloud server, providing deeper insights into the behavior of potentially harmful extensions.

“Browser extensions are a blind spot for EDR/XDR and SWGs have no way to infer their presence," noted Vivek Ramachandran, Founder & CEO of SquareX.

"This has made browser extensions a very effective and potent technique to silently be installed and monitor enterprise users, and attackers are leveraging them to monitor communication over web calls, act on the victim’s behalf to give permissions to external parties, steal cookies and other site data and so on.”

“Our research proves that without dynamic analysis and the ability for enterprises to apply stringent policies, it will not be possible to identify and block these attacks. Google MV3, though well intended, is still far away from enforcing security at both a design and implementation phase,” Ramachandran added.

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