If you want to add some extra security to your car or keep a record of what’s happening on the road while you drive, then you’ve probably thought about picking up one of the best dash cams. But you might soon be able to rely just on your car’s in-built cameras and Android Auto to do the job.
That’s because Google has recently rolled out a new free Dashcam App via Android Auto, which car manufacturers can easily integrate into the services their vehicles offer (spotted by Android Authority).
A few cars already include dash cam services using their cameras, but these had to be designed by each car maker.
With Google offering this generic service via Android Auto, many drivers are hoping – us included – that manufacturers yet to add this kind of service to their vehicles finally will because Google has made the process much simpler for them.
With Android Auto you may no longer need a dash cam (Image credit: Future)The documentation Google has released is quite in-depth because it’s aimed at software developers looking to adapt its app to fit their vehicles, so we’ve parsed through it and picked some highlights.
For example, the app recommends you use external storage to keep video recordings so you don’t instantly fill your car’s internal storage. We also know that the dash cam service will start automatically when it detects certain triggers, like driving over a certain speed. These customization options potentially let you design your ideal dash cam setup depending on your needs.
Developers can also set up options for notifications, limits on how long files will be stored for before being deleted, and a ‘streaming_module’ reference has us thinking you might be able to remotely view your car’s dash cam clips remotely from another device.
Android Auto already has plenty of useful tools (Image credit: Google Play)Now, Google’s Android Auto app system isn’t quite as perfect as an actual dash cam.
For one, this new system will only work if your car has cameras, and if it does, the cameras don’t usually look at what’s happening inside the car – something you can get from dash cams.
For another, you can’t simply install Android Auto’s dash cam today – you’ll have to wait for your vehicle to get support for it in an update.
But as more vehicles boast cameras to help with parking, basic self-driving capabilities, road sign detection, and other driver-assistance features, this Android Auto update will be a big upgrade for many of our cars and could quickly become one of Android Auto’s best features.
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At least one in every five phishing emails carries a .PDF attachment, researchers are saying, warning that the popular file format is being increasingly used in social engineering attacks.
A new report from Check Point Research claims PDF-based attacks now account for 22% of all malicious email attachments, making them particularly concerning for businesses sharing large quantities of these files every day.
In earlier years, many of the attacks relied on JavaScript or other dynamic content being embedded within the files. While this approach is still seen in the wild, it has become less common, since JavaScript-based attacks tend to be “noisy” and easier to detect by security solutions.
Email remains one of the most popular attack vectors out there, with more than two-thirds (68%) of cyberattacks beginning this way.
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Customizing the linkToday, cybercriminals are pivoting towards a simpler, more effective approach, Check Point says - social engineering.
Generally speaking, the attacks don’t differ much from your usual phishing email. The PDF attachment would serve as a launch pad, often carrying a link that would redirect a person to a malicious landing page or a website hosting malware.
That way, the malicious links are hidden from security filters, making sure the files are received straight to the inbox.
Furthermore, placing the link in a PDF gives the attackers full control - they can change the text, the image, or any other aspect of the link, making it more trustworthy.
The files are often designed to mimic trusted brands like Amazon, DocuSign, or Acrobat Reader.
“Even though these attacks involve human interaction (the victim must click the link), this is often an advantage for attackers, as sandboxes and automated detection systems struggle with tasks that require human decision-making,” Check Point concluded.
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Google has updated NotebookLM, its handy learning tool and AI podcast creator, so that it’s easier than ever to add sources. Now you can “search on the web” for sources of information that it turns into an AI podcast, mind map, or which it can answer questions about.
NotebookLM is designed to help you learn anything by breaking down large volumes of information into easily accessible reports and podcasts.
It doesn’t take a genius, however, to realize that its podcasts are so good they could easily replace real podcast hosts talking about literally any subject, and that’s where the new feature from Google leaves me in a bit of a moral quandary.
State your sourcesSince I run a tai chi podcast I decided to try out the new feature by asking NotebookLM to see what sources it would find on the subject of tai chi, and I was quite surprised at the articles it found.
There were some academic articles on tai chi in there, as I'd expect, along with articles from various tai chi websites, but also a Reddit discussion offering various perspectives on tai chi’s spirituality, and a YouTube video.
NotebookLM takes all these sources and produces various media for you, including an Audio Overview (it’s basically a podcast) that takes a deep dive into your subject.
It made me ponder whether all those article writers and Reddit commentators were happy that I was using their thoughts as fuel for an AI-generated podcast.
Credit where it's dueIt’s not like Google has added any new abilities to NotebookLM – you could always add any source you wanted – but at least you had to add it manually.
Making it actively scour the web to find a curated list of sources for you, without really asking the permission of any of these sources, then turning them into other types of media, does feel a little bit questionable.
If you are using NotebookLM purely as intended - i.e., to learn about a subject I don’t see a problem, but if those AI podcasts that are based on other people’s work, for example, get used in other ways, perhaps as income-generating podcasts, then that doesn’t always feel justified.
You might also likeMany businesses are still using weak passwords that can be cracked in less than a second in the event of a brute force attack to secure their accounts, new research from one of the best password managers, NordPass, has found.
Passwords such as ‘123456’, ‘secret’, and even ‘password’ are being used by thousands of businesses across the world, resulting in easy picking for hackers.
The research also found Germany was top in the world for password breaches, with 582,067 incidents, closely followed by the US with 502,435, and China at 448,375.
The password is ‘password’NordPass’ research used a 2.5 terabyte database compiled from numerous publicly available data sets, including some from the dark web that covered 11 industries.
For enterprise, the most common password in the database was ‘123456789’ with 378,182 uses, followed by the much easier to remember ‘123456’ with 356,341 uses, and just to round it all out ‘12345678’ comes in third with 145,688 uses.
Small and medium businesses don’t fare much better, with ‘123456’ topping the list for both with a total of 852,861 across both business sizes. Other classic passwords such as ‘qwerty123’, ‘abc123’, and ‘iloveyou’ also appear on the list, taking less than one second to crack.
Interestingly, the 28th most used password in NordPass’ dataset was ‘TimeLord12’, possibly suggesting that an IT worker with a love for Peter Capaldi’s work as the twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who was in charge of creating over 30,447 accounts that were later exposed.
NordPass also found many users who didn’t use the most common passwords would often use their own email address as their password, making it fairly easy for an attacker to crack their accounts. Names were also a common inclusion in the database, suggesting that employees were using their own names as a password.
(Image credit: Passwork)If you’ve seen your password somewhere in this article or in NordPass’ research, it might be time to change it to something more secure, lest you be responsible for a breach.
In order to better protect corporate accounts, businesses should put in place password creation rules that make it harder to use simple passwords that can be easily cracked. NordPass also offers a business password manager tier to help businesses generate and store passwords securely.
Businesses should also implement two-factor authentication when signing in to accounts to help verify that the person accessing the account is a legitimate user, and not a crook with stolen credentials. Businesses can also switch over to using passkeys, which use secure authentication to log in without the need to remember complex passwords.
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Remember last week, when Netflix added HDR10+ support in a move that looked like great news for Samsung TV owners? Well, I assumed that this would be an instant win for the best Samsung TVs across the board, but it seems that's not the case – and Samsung is surprisingly cagey about which of its existing TVs will see the benefit, and when.
Samsung released a statement saying that all of its 2025 TVs, including the Samsung S95F OLED TV, will support Netflix's HDR10+ implementation, as will its 2024 and 2025 HDR computer monitors – but no one owns the 2025 TVs yet, so what about current TVs?
Samsung says there will be "support for additional models in the future", but hasn't offered any further information so far. I've asked Samsung if it's able to share any more specific information for users of these TVs, and will update if I hear back.
My guess is that Samsung will actually bring support fairly broadly, and fairly quickly – but this cagey announcement feels like dropping the ball just seconds away from a touchdown.
The Samsung S95D, our TV of the Year 2024, may or may not get Netflix's HDR10+ support… (Image credit: Future)HDR10+ is a more advanced kind of HDR, with scene-by-scene metadata, like Dolby Vision. In theory, it can help TVs better 'tone map' the levels of HDR brightness onto the capabilities of the TV's screen, meaning more detail is retained in the brightest and darkest areas of the image, even if your TV isn't great at going especially bright or dark.
Samsung's TVs support HDR10+, and don't support Dolby Vision – it's the only maker of the best TVs that has rejected Dolby's HDR format. And this has been a frustration, because Dolby Vision HDR is the advanced format used by most of the best streaming services.
The lack of Dolby Vision is the big complaint we hear from people when we post about Samsung TVs, and having HDR10+ support on the biggest streamers (Prime Video also supports it) helps mitigate that – so I would've expected Samsung to embrace this instantly. In fact, I just assumed Samsung would have everything prepped in advance for it, given how tied the company is to HDR10+ as a format.
But that's been changing over time, and Netflix supporting HDR10+ felt like a key shift to offer all Samsung TVs an instant boost… but only once Samsung supports it.
When Samsung confirms that it's supporting the Netflix update on more TVs, we'll let you know straight away, Samsung TV owners.
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VistaPrint offers eight photo book sizes in square, portrait, and landscape formats, which range in size from 13 x 10cm (5.1 x 3.9 inches) to 39 x 29cm (15.4 x 11.4 inches). You can have up to 120 pages in a single photo book, although you’ll have to pay £1.50 extra for every two pages beyond 24. Layflat binding is also available on selected sizes for an extra £1.50 per page, and two stocks are available to choose from: Standard and Premium Glossy, the latter of which costs £10.50 more. A photo cover costs an additional £6.50.
The editor for creating a VistaPrint photo book is available both online in a browser and offline as an app for Windows or macOS systems. Books can be created from scratch or using VistaPrint’s Smart Assistant, which judges your best photos from those you’ve uploaded and automatically sets the layout, while still letting you edit as you wish.
(Image credit: Future)Navigating the editor is easy thanks to its clear interface and toolbars for easy access to common elements. I created a book from scratch, although, annoyingly, VistaPrint still thrusts a preset layout upon you, which adds to the labor as you delete the blocks you don’t want.
On the other hand, if you need some inspiration, a menu of template layouts is available for instant insertion, with options containing various combinations of image and text blocks.
Inserting photos is simply a case of inserting image blocks and adding your photos, which can be done in three ways: uploading them in bulk and selecting them from a menu, clicking on a block to bring up a file explorer, or dragging and dropping the file from your computer.
(Image credit: Future)You can then drag the corners and sides to resize your photos as you see fit. However, you’ll be disappointed if you want exact measurements, as there aren’t any, so you’ll have to rely on your eye. Thankfully, moving boxes can be made using the arrow keys, which certainly helps with fine-tuning layouts.
Other common keyboard shortcuts also work in the editor, such as those for copying, pasting, and undoing. However, you can’t select multiple blocks with Ctrl- or Shift-clicks, which is a shame.
Snap lines for horizontal and vertical centers are present, although somewhat frustratingly, they don’t always appear. For instance, I didn’t get a vertical center line when trying to align an image block on the back cover. However, both horizontal and vertical snap lines also appear when lining up a block with another, which is very useful.
(Image credit: Future)When you click on an inserted photo, a popup menu appears with a slider that lets you zoom in and out of the image within its box. You can also drag the image around within the box, allowing you to effectively crop photos with ease.
This menu also has options for moving your image to the front or to the back relative to other boxes, as well as rotate and flip functions. There’s also a filter menu with Black & White and Sepia effects to choose from.
There’s also an Auto Enhancement feature, but there’s no explanation as to how this actually works. As far as I could tell, it makes images brighter, which works well in some cases, but can lead to overexposure and oversaturation in others. More annoyingly, I couldn’t find a way to turn it off permanently; the best I could do was click the delete enhancement button in the top toolbar, but I had to do this every time I inserted a new photo, which was mildly irritating.
(Image credit: Future)Different background colors are available should you want them, but the options are limited since there’s no color wheel or hex code input for inserting any shade you like.
There are far more framing and masking options, ranging from basic looks to more ostentatious offerings. Various clip art stickers are available too. As for text, VistaPrint offers a good number of fonts to choose from as well, along with the usual point sizes, colors, and basic formatting options.
(Image credit: Future)There are a few snags with the editor that are worth pointing out. Firstly, I couldn’t find a way to remove a frame or mask once inserted, which was frustrating and meant I had to delete the block entirely to eliminate it. I also couldn’t scale our TechRadar logo small enough to fit along the spine, despite being able to fit text here.
Other issues include black backgrounds obscuring the margin lines of the spine, and smaller images appearing with strange artifacts, which thankfully remedies itself once you zoom in, so it seems this is merely a GUI issue.
Popups occasionally appear reminding you to save your work, although an autosave feature wouldn’t have gone amiss. Saving is usually quite quick, although it was somewhat sluggish when returning to a saved session.
(Image credit: Future)I also had a popup stating that photos were taking longer to load than usual when starting a new session, recommending I wait before making further changes to the book. Thankfully, this was only a momentary issue.
The projected delivery date for my order of a XL Square (30 x 30cm / 12 x 12 inch) photo book was two weeks, and unfortunately, unlike other services, there’s no expedited option for quicker turnarounds.
Such photo books cost £49.99. I was lucky to catch VistaPrint in a sale, so claimed a 40% discount, bringing my order to £35.69, which included a photo cover and a few extra pages beyond the default 24. Delivery cost an extra £5.50, bringing my overall total to £41.19, although orders over £40 have free delivery.
(Image credit: Future)The book arrived about four days earlier than estimated, which was a pleasant surprise. However, unfortunately there was some damage to the top of the spine and consequently the inside corners of nearly every page, as if it had been crushed from the top.
This wasn’t exactly surprising given how thin the cardboard sleeve was, with no bubble wrap or protective padding of any kind around the book. Thankfully, the damage was subtle, and much of it was hidden from view by the curve of the pages towards the binding.
The printing quality was excellent, though. Images were sharp with no blurring or artifacts. Colors were rendered with plenty of accuracy and vibrancy, which was especially noticeable on full-page spreads, making them a real highlight of the book.
However, some images and text had a slightly jagged edge to them, as did the solid blocks of color, which also contained a few outlines in a darker shade. There were also a few stray dots of color on white backgrounds, but these were infrequent and hard to notice owing to their minute size.
On the whole, though, the VistaPrint photo book delivers pleasing results, especially for those looking to showcase larger photos. Combined with its capable and intuitive editor, this is a service worthy of your attention.
Should I buy the VistaPrint photo book? Buy it if…You want an easy editor to use
For the most part, the editor is clear and simple, and various standard keyboard shortcuts can be used to make things even easier.
You want a good price
VistaPrint’s photo books are good value for money, undercutting many of its rivals, and by a considerable amount in some cases.
You want precision and color options
Unfortunately, VistaPrint’s photo book editor provides no photo measurements nor a color wheel or hex code input for backgrounds and solid blocks of color.
You want a quick turnaround
Two weeks is the fastest delivery time VistaPrint provides, which is a shame since there are quicker services out there (I did receive mine earlier than expected, though).
Shutterfly
If you’re looking for precise control over photo resizing, then Shutterfly could be for you. It displays image dimensions in inches, which is very useful for those with specific layout requirements. The options for tailoring templates are limited, and we didn’t find its editor the easiest to use, but it’s still competent enough. Read our Shutterfly photo book review.
Mimeo
Mimeo offers another simple and easy to use photo book creator, which we found helped to offset its rather limited design and material choices compared to the competition. We also thought the shipping costs were too steep, but if you prize a great user experience and a high-quality end product, this could be the service for you. Read our Mimeo photo book review.
I used VistaPrint’s online editor to order a 12 x 12 inch (30 x 30cm) XL Square photo book with 28 pages, following our TechRadar template, which includes a variety of photos, containing both people and landscape, with varying colors palettes and exposure levels, as well as some black and white images.
Our template also contains various page layouts, in order to test the versatility of the service in question, both in terms of its editing capabilities and the final result.
Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.
(Image credit: Keith Necaise)