The malware, known as xHelper, started appearing on devices early this year with infections concentrated in Russia. It has not appeared in the Play Store because Google’s automated systems would immediately flag it as suspicious. Once installed on a device, xHelper attempts to gain root access, which allows it to modify the system software and set up a backdoor through which it can install other applications. 

In February, Malwarebytes confirmed that xHelper could survive factory resets thanks to an undetectable file inside a hidden folder. The file would re-infect the device after each reset, but researchers couldn’t determine how the file got there. Now we know this is the result of a group effort between xHelper and a trojan called Triada that downloads after xHelper has a foothold. 

Once installed, Triada manipulates the system partition to add the re-infection framework. It also gives those files special status so they can’t be deleted even by other root functions. Researchers at Kaspersky Labs were even unable to mount the system partition in write mode to remove the malware because Triada modifies important OS libraries. 

Luckily, you don’t need to fret about getting this unkillable malware on your phone. As previously mentioned, it’s not spreading via Google Play. The only way to get infected is to sideload APK files from shady third-party websites. Plus, the rooting capabilities of xHelper and Triada only work on Android 6.0 and 7.0 (Marshmallow and Nougat). Newer versions of Android will block xHelper from making any changes to the OS and installing Triada. Ideally, you should always use devices that have current security update support.

The developers behind Gauss Surgical’s life-saving Apple Design Award winning Triton Sponge solution have turned their attention to COVID-19, introducing an iPhone-based testing solution that helps reduce risk and speed up the testing process.

Apollo, an app for COVID-19 testing and research

I spoke with Gauss CEO Siddarth Satish over the weekend. He discussed what he found during a day spent at a COVID-19 testing center.

He found the current testing process to be heavily paper-based, and observed that this exposes testers to potential risks as they interact closely with people during the tests – not least during the testing itself.

Given that the advice is to maintain two-meter distance from others and try to avoid spending too much time in proximity to others, he was concerned to find frontline testing staff could be spending as much as 15-minutes an hour closely interacting with others.

He felt the risk of contagion for all parties could be minimized by reducing the amount of contact time between tested and tester. Since then, Satish has pulled many late nights as he and his teams attempted to pull together a solution.

“We embarked on Apollo because we felt strongly that our expertise in clinical-grade digital decision-support tools enables us to build a valuable tool for screening and triage of COVID-19,” he said.

Satish teamed up with Evive.Care, a national database of COVID-19 test centers to develop the app, which includes Stanford Medicine’s Apollo COVID-19 Screening Survey (the Apollo Study). Gauss is among a large group of Stanford alumni, scientists, and physicians participating in the StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force.

How Apollo works

1. Features

Apollo integrates tools that work across the current testing process:

• Self-testing diagnostic checks based on CDC guidelines, which helps users  figure out if they are eligible for testing.
• A tool that locates your closest available testing center on a map.
• Tools for testers. Frontline health workers can scan the data through car windows.
• Tools for communication between tester and tested.

At its very simplest, Apollo is designed so a person can analyze their symptoms and if necessary, drive to their closest testing center.

2. Speeding up testing procedures

It is once a patient reaches testing that Apollo makes the biggest difference.

The self-diagnostic checks the potential patient has already transacted are made available via the app to the testing agent, reducing duplication of the same process. This data is made available in the form of a QR code (the “Apollo Pass”) on the screen of the patient’s iPhone, which is read by the equivalent app on the tester’s smartphone.

Cutting contact, speeding testing

The electronic procedure means patients can share their information while the car windows remain shut, minimizing contact time with the tester. It automates the manual, time-consuming paper-based process, which includes around four pages of questions.

The tester can review this information and then call the patient using smartphones to direct them to the test sample collection point.

Once the test is complete and patient sample collected, the tester adds the kit to Apollo and sends the sample to test. Results can be quickly shared once the procedure is complete.

While the iPhone can’t (yet) check for COVID-19 symptoms (though watch this space), the app optimizes existing testing procedures by eliminating paperwork, reducing the need for direct contact between patients and staff.

This also helps reduce use of precious PPE resources.

The app does not store personally identifying information and health workers must register with a hospital- or government-issued email address to use the app as a provider.

What is the Apollo Study?

Stanford Medicine’s Apollo Study is built into the Apollo app. It is designed to gather data in order to provide insight into the prevalence and characteristics of COVID-19.

The goal is to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on all aspects of life including symptoms and how the pandemic has affected individuals and their entire households.

“We want to learn how people are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the impact on their lives,” said Melissa Bondy, PhD, professor and chair of epidemiology and population health, who led the team developing the survey. “We don’t know how many will complete it, but we hope thousands will soon be filling it in.”

Up next: iPhone diagnosis?

Mobile devices are already becoming essential tools in the fight back against COVID-19. Apple and Google are working together to develop contact tracing tools to help in the battle against the disease. In some nations, members of the public seek and carry permission to go outdoors in locked down areas using their device. Today, news of the new Apollo app should help accelerate the testing process.

It won’t stop there.

I’m in no doubt at all that some of the finest minds in digital health are exploring the entire testing ecosystem in order to identify other ways in which mobile devices may help fight back against the pandemic.

In the short term, these will likely extend to making the entire process more efficient, while in the slightly longer term we can easily imagine use of AI, machine imaging and wearable technologies (such as an Apple Watch) to deliver early warning of potential diseases symptoms.

Data analytics will also come into play, working to identify at risk communities, supply chain risk, and more.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

The iPhone 12 series will sport a brand new design, several leakers said over the course of several months. The phone will resemble the iPad Pro and iPhone 5 more than the iPhone 6 and iPhone X designs that we saw in recent years, these leaks said.

The iPhone 12 will have a chassis with flat sides, and the phone is getting an entirely flat display as well. Only a few days ago, we saw the purportedly leaked iPhone 12 design that revealed, among other things, that the new handset will have even smaller bezels than before.

The one thing that’s not going away this year is the Face ID notch that sits at the top of every iPhone launched since iPhone X with the exception of the iPhone SE. However, that notch is getting a lot smaller, and a well-known leaker just posted schematics for the massive notch design change.

Jon Prosser is the source in question, a YouTuber who was the first to reveal the sky-high Galaxy S20 prices before the phone was launched in mid-February. Since then, Prosser shared a variety of Apple-related scoops on Twitter and YouTube, culminating with his most significant leak to date, the iPhone SE. Much to the dismay of others, Prosser found out weeks ago details about the iPhone SE launch date from sources within Apple and shared that information with the world.

It’s no surprise to see Prosser continue to leak Apple-related information. After all, he teased in during a recent podcast that he has additional details about unreleased Apple products at hand. On Monday, he posted an image of a purported iPhone 12 design document, as well as a render (above) that explains it better — we’re looking at the iPhone 12’s notch:

The notch will still house a large number of components that make possible 3D face recognition, which are placed next to the regular FaceTime camera. Here’s the current notch design that Apple shared in September 2017 when the iPhone X was unveiled:

One significant change concerns the front speaker. The speaker sits right in the middle of the notch, but it’ll move to the top bezel of the phone if Prosser’s leak is accurate. The microphone will sit next to the speaker.

In a separate tweet, Prosser said the iPhone 12 will not get a smart connector, which was featured in the most recent iPhone 12 design leak. He said the smart connector might be present on a future iPhone version, and it might be used to charge a portless device. Moreover, the iPhone 12 is not getting pencil support according to him:

Prosser isn’t the only leaker claiming the iPhone 12’s speaker will sit inside the thin bezel at the top of the phone. A person who goes by the name of @L0vetodream on Twitter refers to the speaker as a “hidden receiver.”

The same leaker posted an image with an example of such speakers on Android devices that feature hole-punch display designs:

Both the Chinese leaker and Prosser said in the past that the iPhone 12 will come in four distinct sizes, seemingly confirming a leak from Ming-Chi Kuo. Both of them also said the iPhone 12 might be delayed.

Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 12 series in mid-September, but some versions might be delayed anywhere from a few weeks to a few months because of the current coronavirus health crisis.

When the iPhone X was unveiled in 2017, it became the phone everyone else in the industry would try to copy. The iPhone X was hardly the only “all-screen” phone at the time, but it was the best option out there.

While most Android rivals copied the iPhone X design in the year that followed, they all focused on the notch aspect of the phone, failing to copy the most brilliant feature of the iPhone X design. Android vendors perfected their all-screen designs last year and shifted away from copying the notch in the process. When the iPhone 12 arrives, however, it will kick Android right in the “chin.” At least, that’s what a long-time Samsung leaker says.

The iPhone X wasn’t the first phone to feature a notch, something Android enthusiasts will be quick to point out. It’s not Android that copied Apple, it’s Apple that followed the lead of an old LG phone from 2015 and another handset from a phone company Andy Rubin created that was never relevant. That’s not entirely accurate, however. Apple’s notch houses a sophisticated 3D face recognition system that had no rival in 2017. That’s why the design compromise exists. A few phones came out with 3D face recognition support in 2018, and Google finally copied the feature last year.

But Apple made no compromises when it comes to the other three bezels. The sides and the bottom one all have the bezel size as the screen stretches from edge to edge. Android makers weren’t able to copy that particular design choice immediately. That’s because Apple did something quite unusual with the OLED screen, and this picture explains it all:

The bottom part of the screen curves behind itself, and that’s why Apple could stretch it almost all the way down to the bottom edge. The fact there’s no headphone jack there also helped with space. Now, Apple paid top dollar for that OLED screen, which was the most expensive component of the phone at the time. Here’s what Samsung’s Galaxy S9 looked like when it launched nearly six months after the iPhone X:

Samsung could not afford to replicate the notch. Not because it wasn’t able to, but probably because it would have sparked a wave of criticism for copying Apple again. Instead, Samsung perfected the hole-punch screen; here’s last year’s Galaxy S10:

Since the iPhone X, however, everyone compared the bottom bezel (the chin) of Android phones to the iPhone X. Fast-forward nearly three years later, and the iPhone 12 is rumored to come with an even smaller bezel. A YouTuber and a prominent Samsung leaker gave us a good look at the rumored design of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, prompting long-time Samsung leaker to post this response:

If you’ve been following Ice Universe’s leaks, then you know he’s always been comparing the size of bezels between iPhone X designs and Samsung handsets. If the design is real, it means that Apple was able to increase the screen-to-body ratio of the upcoming iPhone even more than before. The leak also says the notch will be much smaller than before.

Apple is looking to make a phone that’s all-screen in the future, other leaks say, a device that will have no notch, buttons, or ports. Shrinking the bezels is a big part of that process.

As for Android phones, they all look the same right now. Whether it’s the Galaxy S20 (above), Huawei P40 Pro (below), or OnePlus 8, we’re looking at punch-hole all-screen displays with tiny top and bottom bezels. Of all of them, it’s the P40 that came out with a novelty this year, a display that bends around all four edges to further minimize bezel size. But that’s a phone that’s a tough proposition for Android fans, as it ships without any Google apps on it.

Others, meanwhile, have much bigger problems than just the chin, and it’s not the rear camera design either — this is what the Pixel 5 is rumored to look like:

The iPhone 12 series is supposed to launch in early-September, but the actual release date could slip to October or even later than that due to the novel coronavirus health crisis.

Microsoft on Thursday gave the newest Windows 10 upgrade a name, calling it the “May 2020 Update,” signaling that it will launch the refresh next month.

Computerworld had argued that Microsoft would be better served, and better serve customers, if it pushed back the release of Windows 10 2004, the four-digit label it had assigned earlier, by several months. The COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on businesses, notably a massive shift to working at home, the argument went, had so stretched IT resources that adding a Windows upgrade risked breakdowns or even catastrophic failure of core business tools.

If Microsoft ever entertained a delay, it clearly rejected the idea.

“We are now getting the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (20H1) ready for release,” wrote Brandon LeBlanc, a senior program manager on the Windows Insider team, in an April 16 post to a company blog. “We believe that Build 19041.207 is the final build and we will continue to improve the overall experience of the May 2020 Update on customers’ PCs as part of our normal servicing cadence.”

Microsoft began delivering build 19041.207 to a subset of Windows Insider’s Release Preview ring, the channel that provides testers the most stable code. More Insider participants will receive 19041.207 as time goes by. Insiders can also manually trigger an upgrade to this build.

LeBlanc did not hint at a specific availability date for Windows 10 May 2020 Update’s final, polished code. One obvious date would be May 12, that month’s Patch Tuesday. Of the last three Windows 10 feature upgrades, two started shipping on the month’s Patch Tuesday.

Code name, short name, long name

Like all Windows 10 feature upgrades, this one goes by any of three names that Microsoft had assigned. Some were less accurate than others.

The 20H1 identifier used by LeBlanc was Microsoft’s code-named label for the year’s (2020) first-half (H1) feature upgrade, presumably one of two assuming the company follows its 2019 cadence.

Its newest name, Windows 10 May 2020 Update, is in the form Microsoft’s used since 2018, when it began applying month and year, spelled out, rather than coming up with monikers like 2017’s Fall Creators Update or 2016’s Anniversary Update. Because Microsoft has tended to wait until later in the development process to assign such names, they’ve been the most accurate of the bunch.

Finally, Microsoft had earlier tagged this as 2004, the four-digit number in its yymm format. The company had altered it from the usual yy03 for 2020’s spring feature upgrade because the resulting 2003 because it was afraid it might be confused with the long-obsolete Windows Server 2003.

Free support to business customers

Perhaps in an attempt to coax more commercial customers into participating in Windows Insider — specifically the Windows Insider for Business spin-off — Microsoft also said that it would provide support to those running the Release Preview ring or the Slow ring builds. (The Slow ring is more polished code issued about once a month to Insiders.)

The support is free of charge and limited to “business use cases” for customers running Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Enterprise. They can file a support request by completing this form. (LeBlanc’s post included instructions on filling out and submitting the form.)

“If you run into a severe issue that prevents you or other users in your organization from using a device or compromises security or personal data, you can use our online form to request assistance directly from Microsoft Support­,” LeBlanc said.