Apple fined by French regulator over App Tracking Transparency

Close-up photo of the App Store on an iPhone illustrating that Apple has been hit with a €150 million fine by France's competition regulator, the Autorité de la concurrence, for its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) system implementation on iOS and iPad OS devices that excessively complicates the user experience within the environment for third-party applications.

Apple has been hit with a €150 million fine by France's competition regulator, the Autorité de la concurrence, for its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) system implementation.

While a smaller fine than expected, the regulator’s decision follows an in-depth investigation into the merits of the case, even after the authority had previously rejected a request for interim measures.

While the French regulator acknowledged that the objective of the ATT system – enhancing...

31 March 2025 | Developer

Discord releases free Social SDK for game developers at GDC

Photo of a Discord friends list as the platform releases a free Social SDK at GDC for game developers that integrates the platform’s renowned social features directly into their games.

Discord is releasing a Social SDK, a free tool for game developers that integrates the platform’s renowned social features directly into their games. The announcement was made at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

"While the industry continues to face hard challenges, GDC stays strong as a place where the most passionate, creative minds from across the world come together and connect over their love of games," said Stanislav Vishnevskiy, CTO and...

17 March 2025 | Developer

Google unveils free Gemini AI coding tools for developers  

Mobile displaying the Gemini AI icon as Google Cloud rolls out out free Gemini-powered artificial intelligence coding and code review tools to software developers across the globe.

Google Cloud is rolling out free Gemini AI coding and code review tools to software developers across the globe.

The tech giant has announced the public preview of Gemini Code Assist for individuals and Gemini Code Assist for GitHub.

According to Google, this launch aims to enable anyone – from students working on academic projects to startup developers testing new ideas – to enhance productivity and code quality without worrying about cost or restrictive usage...

25 February 2025 | Artificial Intelligence

Lazarus Group infiltrates supply chain with stealthy malware

Man in the shadows illustrating analysis from SecurityScorecard that finds a stealthy new malware campaign by North Korea state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus Group that targets developers through the software supply chain and can infect NPM packages and more, particularly targeting the cryptocurrency and web3 sectors.

SecurityScorecard has uncovered a stealthy malware campaign orchestrated by North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group. The operation, dubbed "Marstech Mayhem," reveals the deployment of an advanced malware implant specifically designed to target cryptocurrency wallets and infiltrate the software supply chain.

The campaign, which began emerging in late 2024, centres around a newly identified implant called "marstech1." This sophisticated tool marks a significant evolution in the...

13 February 2025 | Developer

MIT researchers develop ‘Oreo’ to protect against hardware attacks

Photo of an Oreo as MIT CSAIL researchers develop a solution named after the famous cookie to enhance the ASLR security measure found in modern operating systems, including Linux and Windows, to protect computers against hardware attacks.

Researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed an innovative new method to protect computers against hardware attacks.

Within a computer's physical memory, program instructions are stored at specific addresses. Despite efforts to obscure these addresses with techniques like Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR), crafty hackers have found ways to exploit hardware flaws to hunt them down.

Dubbed ‘Oreo’ after...

12 February 2025 | Hacking & Security

The role of AI in streamlining workspace management processes

As businesses and professionals adapt to the evolving needs of the modern workforce, traditional office spaces are increasingly being replaced by dynamic and inspiring work environments. However, numerous organisations are still limited by traditional office management systems. These systems often lack the agility, automation, and the scalability necessary to keep up with the intricacies of contemporary work dynamics. In the past few years, artificial intelligence has emerged as a prominent...

31 January 2025 | Artificial Intelligence

JetBrains Junie: An AI coding agent to enhance developer productivity

Digital being helping a human developer as JetBrains announces Junie, an agentic AI virtual assistant solution that integrates into IDEs to improve developer productivity.

JetBrains has announced the launch of Junie, an AI-powered coding agent designed to redefine how software developers interact with code.

Dubbed as a step towards the future of co-creation in integrated development environments (IDEs), Junie promises to improve productivity, code quality, and task execution for millions of developers worldwide.

JetBrains says the introduction of Junie is a testament of its mission to "enable and scale the next generation of technologies...

23 January 2025 | Artificial Intelligence

Game Porting Toolkit 2 exits beta amid Mac gaming drive

Closeup of a MacBook keyboard as Apple takes its Game Porting Toolkit 2 out of beta amid a broader push to boost Mac as a gaming platform.

Apple has quietly taken its Game Porting Toolkit 2 out of beta amid a broader drive to boost the appeal of Mac as a gaming platform.

First introduced at WWDC 2024, the Game Porting Toolkit 2.0 promised enhanced tools and capabilities to better facilitate the process of bringing games developed for Windows to Apple’s ecosystem.

While the Game Porting Toolkit provides developers with the ability to emulate Windows games on macOS, Apple is quick to stress that its purpose...

16 January 2025 | Developer

Is your Mac’s startup process slow? Here’s how to fix it

Sometimes your Mac may appear to be running slowly, and a sign that there are issues can be a long, slow wait for the computer to start up and come to readiness. Improving the processes behind startup can be done with the right tools.

Use a Mac cleanup tool

One of the most effective ways of speeding up a Mac's startup is to use a cleanup tool. Such apps will remove specific items known to slow a Mac down. These could be temporary files, unused features, and other items that...

11 December 2024 | Developer

Operation Digital Eye: Chinese hackers exploit Visual Studio Code

A digital eye illustrating cybersecurity researchers unveiling the "Operation Digital Eye" cyberespionage operation linked to a suspected Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group that exploits the Remote Tunnels feature of Visual Studio Code (VS Code).

A sophisticated cyberespionage operation dubbed "Operation Digital Eye" has been attributed to a suspected Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group. 

According to Aleksandar Milenkoski, Senior Threat Researcher at SentinelLabs, and Luigi Martire, Senior Malware Analyst at Tinexta Cyber, the campaign targeted large business-to-business (B2B) IT service providers in southern Europe between late June and mid-July 2024.

Visual Studio Code hijacked

In what...

10 December 2024 | Developer