Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Don’t you hate it when those big, market dominating companies put out new products and new versions in rapid succession, in effect making what we have obsolete, or even more obsolete?

And then they come out with patches by the batches, and that makes us think maybe some of those new products hadn’t been tested quite enough, but were rushed to market to boost sales revenues?

Those folks in Redmond! For sha—wait, no, this time it’s not those, it’s the ones in Cupertino. And here we thought Apple and its OSs were like cedar, inherently bug proof.

Well, Microsoft haters and Apple lovers thought that, maybe, but some of us had an idea that malware makers were more interested in the giant with the greatest installed base, and didn’t find the Apple crop that exciting. (I lost count of my metaphors there, but I know there were enough for word stew. Oh, there’s another…)

Apple has just updated its OS X operating system series, as well as its iOS platform for its many i-prefixed gadgets. In so doing it patched 19 security vulnerabilities in the OS X line and 44 serving the handhelds.

Having run out of cats, Apple named its latest OS X “Mavericks.” It is OS X 10.9.3. Back in the day, when we Macsters had to use a System of whatever version and a Finder of whichever version, the combination functioning as an operating system, the lawless software evildoers did not make many viruses and worms to attack us users. My theory is that it was too annoying to have to work through the various combinations of System and Finder.

iOS 7.1.2 is the current version of that. It and its big brother needed some other tweaks besides the security repairs.

Eleven of the Mavericks patches were said to be critical, meaning that an attacker could execute arbitrary code, an admission that Apple uses with regard to the worst vulnerabilities for which it supplies patches.

How about the older Apple X operating systems? Lion, the 2011 OS X, needed three fixes, and Mountain Lion (2012) got eight, all packaged in a separate Security Update 2013-00.

How about Snow Leopard, the 2009 OS X? No more patches. That’s because Apple has stopped supporting it. The version on my Hackintosh is plain old Leopard. Well, maybe not so plain, but Apple considers it old. So Tiger must be prehistoric, so long in the tooth it could be a saber tooth.

The 30 critical iOS were in the open-source browser engine WebKit, the basis of Safari. Safari was updated to 6.1.5 for Lion and Mountain Lion. The Mavericks Safari becomes 7.05, after 12 vulnerabilities were patched.

Because for many of us, browsing is mainly searching, it makes some kind of sense that Ian Beer, a security dude with Google, reported many of the security flaws to Apple.

“Drive-by downloads attacks” can happen when a user drives by or points at a rogue site, using an unpatched browser, such as a pre-update Safari.

Before these fixes, Apple product users had been reporting difficulty automatically connecting to some Wi-Fi networks. Another problem mentioned was occasional failure to wake from a sleep state.

 To get Mavericks 10.9.4 and Security Update 2014-003, use the Apple menu and choose Software Update. You can also open the Mac App Store and click on Update.

iTunes is one place to download iOS 7.1.2 for those portables. An over-the-air method for iPhone users is tapping the Settings icon, then General, then Software Update.

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What’s all this about IoT, the Internet of Things? That’s the phrase being used to describe many products, for the home and for offices and industries and in many settings, where we control “things” using smartphones.

There are blood pressure cuffs and blood glucose monitors, bands that you wear and your phone can read. There are sensors manufacturers include in wind turbines and locomotives and cars.

There is talk of a pill we will be able to swallow that will enable health care professionals to monitor our vitals and more wherever we are, or to keep tabs on us while we are in hospital beds and they are playing golf.

For the IoT to work, there must be smart things—things with communications capabilities, things that are addressable, probably havingIP addresses.

A smart thing needs to have a microcontroller or semiconductor, and a sensor. Most will be wireless because most devices now use Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or a cellular service to connect to the cloud. There will be mobile apps to collect the information and to transmit instructions.

Sensors are becoming widely available at low cost, and so are control circuits operable from afar. Consumers are expected to embrace I0T for such things as unlocking the car or a building when we left the keys inside, turning on lights and adjusting the temperature when we arrive at home, checking on the kids, starting the grill.

An early part of the IoS was the use of security cameras that can be operated from off site and can send images to off-site or distant observers. Baby monitors and nannycams have been in use for years, although they are becoming more sophisticated.

To think that I used to be unnerved by talking elevators, and those talking laundry appliances freaked me out. Clap-on, clap-off lamp controls seemed magical, and remote controls were the height of convenience.