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FORD JOINS RANKS OF SELF-DRIVING CAR TESTERS

Self-driving cars from Ford may soon join those from Google on Bay Area city streets.

The giant automaker said Tuesday it has officially joined California’s Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program. That program allows companies to test self-driving cars on city streets, as long as they meet certain conditions.

The company plans to start testing its self-driving Fusion Hybrid in the state next year.

Ford is one of 11 companies to which California has issued permits as part of the testing program. Among the others are not only Google, but Mercedes-Benz, Tesla Motors and Honda Motor.

Autonomous vehicle technology is one of the key focuses of Ford’s new research lab in Palo Alto. That lab now has more than 100 employees, Ford reported. About 80 percent of those have been recruited from the technology sector, while the remaining 20 percent were Ford employees whom the company moved to the area to work in the lab.

In the past year, the lab has worked on a virtual reality environment that simulates the interactions between autonomous cars and pedestrians; sensors that can give a self-driving car a full-360 degree view of its surroundings with the ability to detect and track pedestrians, signs and other cars; and using cameras to detect pedestrians.

— Troy Wolverton

MORE APPLE PRODUCTS TARGETED BY MALWARE

Apple’s iPhone and Mac, long touted for their security, aren’t nearly as safe to use as they once were, new research suggests.

Record amounts of malware targeted and infected Apple computers and smartphones this year, security researchers say. And next year is likely to be even worse.

“Apple remains a relatively safe platform, but Apple users can no longer be complacent about security,” Dick O’Brien, a researcher with security firm Symantec, told BBC News.

In 2014, 10,000 to 70,000 Macs were hit with malware each month, according to Symantec. That was a small fraction of the amount of malware targeting and infecting computers running Microsoft Windows. But in the first nine months of this year, the total number of Apple computers infected by malicious or unwanted applications was seven times higher than all of last year.

Apple’s mobile devices, which generally can get applications only via Apple’s app store, are relatively safer. Some 96 percent of all mobile malware is targeted at devices running Google’s Android operating system, according to FireWire, another security firm.

But malware writers are increasingly targeting Apple’s iPhones and iPads. Symantec has identified seven new security threats aimed at those devices. And earlier this year, applications infected with a particular piece of malware — including the popular WeChat messaging app — were listed in the App Store. Apple quickly removed them, but not before they were downloaded by numerous customers.

Malware authors are increasingly “finding ways into Apple’s walled garden, and that will ramp up next

year,” said Bryce Boland, chief technology officer at FireEye.

— Troy Wolverton

TWITTER WARNS OF THREATS BY ‘STATE-SPONSORED ACTORS’

Twitter has a warning for some of its users: Your account may have been hacked by “state-sponsored actors” that may be associated with a government.

Nu Wexler, a Twitter spokeswoman, said in an email that the company had nothing to add beyond the notice that was sent to users. Though the notice mentions that only a “small group of accounts” may have been targeted, the company declined to say how many people were warned about the possible threat.

In October, Twitter reported that about 320 million people logged into the microblogging site at least once a month.

The San Francisco tech firm said in the notice that it was investigating the possible hacking threats.

Twitter isn’t the only tech company that sends out notices to users if it thinks an account may have been hacked by “statesponsored actors.”

Google has notified users in the past and so has social media giant Facebook, which notified users in October of these hacking threats.

— Queenie Wong

APPLE TV JAZZED UP IN TIME FOR HOLIDAYS

Just in time for the holidays, the new Apple TV has become a bit more attractive for consumers.

Apple last week pushed out a software update for the recently released digital settop box that addressed two of its notable shortcomings. And Internet radio pioneer Pandora Media released an app for the gadget.

The software update allows owners to use Apple’s Remote app, available for iPhones and iPads, to control the new Apple TV. When the device launched in October, that feature was conspicuously absent.

Remote was designed to work with earlier versions of Apple TV, and the fact that it didn’t work with the new model meant that owners could only control it with the physical remote control that shipped with the device. That remote relies on a touchpad; users navigate the interface by swiping left and right or up and down. That works fine if users are scrolling through icons, but it can be a challenge to use those gestures to input text using an on-screen keyboard when they want to enter a password or a search term. Now that the Remote app works with the new Apple TV, owners can enter text on the device by typing on the virtual keyboard on their iPhone or iPad.

Next year, the experience could be even better. Right now, unlike the remote control, the app doesn’t allow users to access Siri, Apple’s voice assistant technology, on the TV. But Apple is working on an improved version of the app that will duplicate the features of the remote, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, told BuzzFeed. The company plans to release the new version of the app in the first half of next year, he said.

In addition to making the device compatible with Remote, the new software update makes Siri more useful. Apple TV owners can now use Siri to search for and play music from Apple’s Music app. Previously, Siri on Apple TV was limited to searching for apps or videos from certain providers or to providing information such as the weather and sports scores.

With the new Pandora app, Apple TV owners now have direct access to the most popular Internet radio service. Previously, in order to listen to Pandora on the new Apple TV, users had to beam music from the service to their TV using an iPhone or iPad via Apple’s AirPlay technology.

Pandora is one of 2,000 apps now available for Apple TV, Cue said. Among the most popular so far are games, he said.

The new features and apps on Apple TV come amid news that Apple has put on hold what was rumored to be one of the highlight features of the new device — a pay-television service that would potentially compete with the likes of those offered by Comcast or Dish, but would be streamed to Apple TV over the Internet. Apple has reportedly been working on such a service for several years.

— Troy Wolverton