Apple’s “root” problem has a solution. The company said on Wednesday that it has issued a software update for the High Sierra version of its MacOS that closes up a glaring vulnerability. The flaw let you log in to any Mac running on High Sierra by simply typing in “root” in the username field and …

Were it not for Gertrude Jekyll, much of the world might be a much drabber place. Born in 1843, Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, artist and writer who created more than 400 gardens in Europe in the US and wrote 15 books and more than 1,000 magazine articles on garden design. To honor Jekyll, described as “a premier …

Andy Rubin, known as the father of Android, has taken a leave of absence as CEO of upstart smartphone maker Essential, according to The Information (subscription required).  The Information, citing unnamed people, reported that Rubin left Google three years ago after an internal Google investigation found he had carried on an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. The people didn’t elaborate …

Remember how we mocked early adopters for those jumbo Galaxy Note phones just a few years ago? Nowadays, big phones are everywhere.  Samsung may have blazed the trail, but other handset makers like Apple have followed suit with their own supersized smartphones, also known in the industry as phablets. The pace of phablet growth is expected to be 18.1 percent …

Instagrammers sure do love popstars. And soccer, aka football. Instagram on Wednesday revealed its annual list of most popular accounts, with Selena Gomez at the top for the third year in a row. The singer and actress has 130 million followers, beating fellow singer Ariana Grande by about 15 million. Quickly climbing the ranks is soccer/football star Cristiano Ronaldo, who …

It was apparently a Black Friday bonanza for Apple. Over the long holiday weekend, buyers snapped up 6 million iPhone X handsets, according to analysts from Rosenblatt. The analysts estimate that this brings the total of iPhone Xs sold so far to about 15 million. That’s a lot of phones in just three weeks since the official sale date. The iPhone X, Apple’s most …

Get ready to watch a lot more bite-size videos on YouTube. Reels, a feature announced Wednesday, lets YouTube’s “creator” community string together videos of up to 30 seconds long to fashion a sort of playlist separate from their other work.  It’s the latest example of a tech company borrowing from Snapchat’s popular “stories” function, which was instrumental in making Snapchat …

A bug was discovered in MacOS High Sierra on Tuesday that allows anyone to log in to your computer using the username “root” with no password. Originally brought to light on Twitter by developer Lemi Orhan Ergin, the bug appeared when you opened System Preferences and go to Users & Groups. To make changes in this menu normally requires a password — you have to click …

Apple and Qualcomm probably won’t be wishing each other a happy holiday.  The battle between the two tech heavyweights rose another notch as Apple filed a countersuit against Qualcomm, alleging that the chipmaker is using some of Apple’s technology in its line of processors that power rival smartphones.  The legal spat comes down to an argument about battery life. In …

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives. And all you got me was a phone? Samsung/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET Oh, those tech companies. They preach diversity, but the reality is a little less all-embracing than some might hope. So what are they supposed to do when the holidays come along? For …