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Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge Spotify pulled the rug out from developers last week, announcing sudden changes to its API policies just before Thanksgiving that cut new apps and apps in development off from access to the platform’s data. As of November 27th, the day Spotify revealed the changes, new “Web API use cases” will lose access to certain kinds of music data, according to the announcement. The data includes the ability to access Spotify’s catalog information about related artists and Spotify’s algorithmic and editorially-curated playlists. This change affects apps that are in development mode, meaning they’re under construction or used by up to 25 people, and new apps registered on or after the day of the announcement. If you already have an app that’s widely available, it appears that your app can still access the affected endpoints as it could before. But for developers who have been working on an app or building one for more limited use, this is a major and disheartening change. “Without warning and on a major holiday, Spotify cut access to a bunch of very useful API endpoints” “Basically, without warning and on a major holiday, Spotify cut access to a bunch of very useful API endpoints that they’d been providing for years,” Faisal Alquaddoomi, who had been working on an app to visualize music on a DIY LED display, tells The Verge. Alquaddoomi wasn’t aware of the changes until seeing the blog post and says that Spotify didn’t send a proactive notification. Douglas Adams, a software engineer (who is not the famous author), uses Spotify’s APIs to “measure the therapeutic impact of music on patients undergoing life saving treatments” as part of a project he’s working on with UCLA. He says the APIs are “critical” to the study and that he had to work through the holiday weekend to mitigate the impact of the changes on the project. “The alternative is not a straight-forward replacement and will take weeks of work to approach the capability I had before Spotify’s change,” Adams says. Broken Holiday, a lo-fi producer, has been working on an app for artists to manage multiple playlists using automation. But with the API changes, the app can’t see what’s on a given playlist, Broken Holiday says. Spotify has vaguely attributed the need for the API changes to improving security: In its blog post, Spotify says that it rolled out the changes with “the aim of creating a more secure platform.” In a community forum post, a Spotify employee says that “we want to reiterate the main message from the blog that we’re committed to providing a safe and secure environment for all Spotify stakeholders.” The post has many pages of replies from frustrated developers. In a statement to The Verge, Spotify spokesperson Brittney Le Roy says that “as part of our ongoing work to address the security challenges that many companies navigate today, we’re making changes to our public APIs.” The company hasn’t explained why it changed its policies so suddenly and with no warning. But like with Strava’s recently-announced API changes that restrict data sharing to other apps and Reddit’s API pricing changes that sparked protests last year, Spotify’s API changes are yet another reminder of the tenuousness of building apps for other platforms.

US telecom companies, including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen, have been the target of massive and seemingly sophisticated spying attacks for several months now. China is the main suspect behind the hacks. As a result, law enforcement is advising the general public to use encrypted apps for their messages and calls to avoid having hackers potentially access their communications. Using unencrypted apps like regular SMS always poses the risk of interception by a nefarious party who obtains access to a telecom's network. In this case, AT&T and Verizon customers are at risk of having their communications spied upon. Luckily, in the age of smartphones, there are plenty of end-to-end encrypted apps for messages and calls. End-to-end encryption refers to the kind of strong security that hackers can't breach. And the best part is that you might already have encrypted apps on your iPhone and Android device without knowing it. Whatever the case, the following solutions can help until law enforcement says the hackers have been thwarted for good. Continue reading... The post 5 encrypted apps you should use while US telcos are under attack appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Cyber Week deals: $180 iPhone SE 3, $199 Bose QC headphones, $29 Roku Stick 4K, $279 Google Nest WiFi Pro, more Sonos has 10 Black Friday deals that are all at record-low prices Early Black Friday deals: $159 AirPods Pro 2, $99 Ninja blender, $998 Sony 85-inch TV, $199 Bose soundbar, more Black Friday blowout: Massive Apple sale, LG OLED TVs, KitchenAid mixers, Instant Pots, laptops, more

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The campaign of President-elect Donald Trump used streaming services to match ads to individuals so it could reach a disproportionate share of persuadable voters in seven swing states, a strategic move that helped offset Vice President Kamala Harris' huge financial advantage.