We seem to be reaching an inflection point for car manufacturers’ embracing of electric vehicles. Whether it’s for financial reasons, a response to customer’s embracing of Tesla, or other reasons we don’t exactly know, it’s great to see nearly every company make public statements. They are not designing prototype or “compliance” cars for California. They’re making full-fledged EVs for everyone. Personally, I believe a car needs to look normal. It should be electric as an “extra” in order to appeal to people. Nobody wants a Jetsons car. With the F150 Lightning, Ford is ready to make waves. Ford says its…
Tag: tech
In less than 15 years, the gargantuan Blackberry went from “must-have” to “see ya later”. If it wasn’t the iPhone who did it, Android certainly would’ve been the one to hammer the first nail in the coffin. For anyone who truly was hanging onto their “crackberry” devices, January 4th signals the shut down of everything that made Blackberry worthwhile. On January 4th, Blackberry will be shutting off all the key services — data, SMS, phone calls, and 911 support. In official terms, they are ending network provisioning for these older devices, meaning that they won’t be able to join any…
For many cord-cutters out there, YouTube TV has been a good option as a replacement service. The Alphabet-owned streaming service carries a bunch of live channels for $65 a month. Unlike cable, there’s no contracts or hoops or bundling or any other nonsense. One thing however that has carried over from cable-land are disputes with networks. As of today, YouTube TV lost access to all Disney channels it was carrying. Jon Brodkin as more at Ars Technica. YouTube TV was seeking a most-favored-nation (MFN) clause from Disney. “Our ask to Disney, as with all our partners, is to treat YouTube…
There are two types of companies most people can agree we all hate: cable / ISP companies and cell phone carriers. Verizon, being both, doubly-sucks when news broke of its data collection it’s beginning to turn on. They are rolling out something called “Custom Experience” which collects data about your apps and web browsing activity to help “provide you more personalized experiences with Verizon.” Even worse: Verizon is opting in everyone by default. Yes, if you do nothing, you are giving them permission to collect everything they want on an ongoing basis. Emma Roth at The Verge has more details…
December now can mean one sure thing on YouTube: Mark Rober puts out a Glitter Bomb video. This year has him iterating on his designs and rolling out version 4 of his Porch Pirate Bait. The idea is simple: invent a package that tempts thieves to steal it. When it opens, it wreaks havoc on those scummy people who stole it. Plain and simple. Oh and it records everything. Mark Rober has a great channel that makes science and engineering fun. This video in particular is always a great one. It’s now a December tradition.
An article that flew under my radar was this one over on Krebs on Security wherein Brian Krebs explains Zelle scams. It’s a fascinating breakdown of fraudsters anticipating how the system works and manipulating victims into bypassing Zelle’s security. Here’s the kicker: it’s not about giving up your password. An important aspect of this scam is that the fraudsters never even need to know or phish the victim’s password. By sharing their username and reading back the one-time code sent to them via email, the victim is allowing the fraudster to reset their online banking password. Brian Krebs Zelle, for those…
Earlier this past week Epic dropped a ten minute demo of the upcoming game The Matrix Awakens. This uses the latest Unreal engine to render the gameplay on Xbox Series X and PS5. I could keep talking about it, but you need to see just how incredible this game looks. Epic says, and it all looks incredibly real – there will be moments in which you won’t be able to discern whether you’re watching a real-life movie or a game. The environment in which the action is happening is an open-world city, full of AI-controlled characters and vehicles which make…
Palm was a trailblazer in the late 90’s and 2000’s with great hardware. They were THE company with their Pilot line of PDAs and the Pre will forever live in nerds hearts (I’m looking at you Dieter Bohn). Palm’s last gasp of air came not long before the calendar flipped to 2010. It exists in name only. And that’s where the Palm Buds Pro come in. Like Kodak, RCA, and Polaroid, Palm is a dead brand but continues to produce stuff crap that is simply tech products with the brand slapped on them. Samuel Polay over at InputMag reviewed Palm’s…
SONOS makes really good speakers. They hook into a number of music services, come in a few different configurations, and (to me) sound great. They’ve had their ups and downs, especially after a short-lived policy of bricking perfectly-good speakers when customers were upgrading. They’ve now announced that speakers coming in 2023 will be more repairable and use less energy. They call it their “Design for Disassembly” program. This includes changes like swapping out adhesives for fasteners, which can make it easier for consumers to take apart Sonos products for repair. But the program is intended to “make it easier to repair,…
Streaming TV service Pluto is coming to the Google TV platform. Pluto does something pretty revolutionary: they have liner TV channels that run commercials and doesn’t let you rewind, skip, or pause. It’s literally the style of live TV but on a streaming app. And I love it. Catie Keck at The Verge has more: Beginning today, Google TV will now support Pluto TV within the live TV tab, meaning users can easily access more than 300 free channels from the platform’s primary live TV hub. Pluto TV is the fourth streaming service to grab a spot on Google TV’s tab. …
Time and time again companies (admittedly Apple a lot) will beat the drum with a simple mantra. If a service is free, YOU are the product. Reporting from By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng at The Markup detail how the app Life360, marketed as a “family safety” app, traffics in user data to make all their cash. A former X-Mode [a data broker] engineer said the raw location data the company received from Life360 was among X-Mode’s most valuable offerings due to the sheer volume and precision of the data. A former Cuebiq employee joked that the company wouldn’t be able to run…
No thanks. I don’t know how else to respond to this announcement by Qualcomm where they showed off the newest version of their Snapdragon Generation 8 processors. This chip supports an always on camera. The Snapdragon is the heart of nearly every Android phone on the market, not to mention many electronics out there. Mark Hachman over at PC World has more details about this privacy invasion. Essentially, it will be able to automatically unlock your phone, but also notice when someone may be peering over your shoulder and alert you… Qualcomm also showed off a video where a cook…
It was only a matter of time before antitrust investigations landed on a negative ruling for Facebook Meta. The independent CMA panel reviewing the merger has concluded that Facebook would be able to increase its already significant market power in relation to other social media platforms by: – denying or limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs, driving more traffic to Facebook-owned sites – Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – which already account for 73% of user time spent on social media in the UK. – changing the terms of access by, for example, requiring TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat to provide…
From the “things I didn’t see coming” category is the announcement by Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s co-founder) that he is stepping down as Twitter’s CEO. He, of course, announced it in a tweet. It’s more of a one-liner of text accompanied by a screen shot of his email he sent to the company. not sure anyone has heard but, I resigned from Twitter Originally tweeted by jack⚡️ (@jack) on November 29, 2021. To tl;dr the whole thing, he basically doesn’t want Twitter to be a “founder-led” company at this time and feels it would be better if someone else were at…
Sometimes an announcement out of Apple’s Cupertino newsroom comes from left field. Cue a press release that went out this morning informing of a “Self Service Repair” program. Apple today announced Self Service Repair, which will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access to Apple genuine parts and tools. Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, Self Service Repair will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022. Apple Press Release Apple has been, rightly,…
The much-awaited Grand Theft Auto compilation for Nintendo Switch is out and talk about a disappointment. After Rockstar released the game, people have been tearing it to shreds due to an awful conversation, especially on Switch. In some ways GTA runs even worse than on PS2, a console 3 generations behind the Switch. [It’s] one of the worst user-rated Switch game [on Metacritic] ever. After its release on November 11, 2021, it became the focus of much ire, mainly due to poor optimization, bugs, glitches, graphical inferiority compared to the original PlayStation 2 titles, and more. iMore I was pretty…
People have praised Tesla’s buying experience for years. It’s unconventional and one the company isn’t even legally allowed to offer in every state. No dealerships, no haggling, no nonsense. You configure your car online and it’s ready for delivery or pickup when it’s ready. Unfortunately the dreaded supply chain / chip shortage has caused Tesla to be short some key parts for their cars. But, they forgot to tell their customers. In some cases, there are only holes where the USB ports are supposed to be. That’s purportedly what’s been happening to some Tesla owners who got their cars delivered in November, and…
It’s no secret that Uber upended the taxi industry and have caused real hardship. The price of NYC taxi medallions plummeted because of ridesharing. Getting around went from standing at the curb with an outstretched arm into tapping some buttons in an app. It’s really convenient but convenience comes at a price. Uber was thought to be rich with cash prior to going public. After disclosing their financials people learned that Uber was subsidizing every single ride in order to keep fares low. They paid good fares to drivers in order to entice them to drive for Uber. It was…
In the early 2010s there were two mighty giants in the social media landscape: Facebook and Twitter. One behemoth was scrapping its way in an attempt to be a third. This company was backed by lots of money, a thoughtful design, and a single focus to topple the others. It wanted to be king. But this is not about Google with their Plus endeavor or even the weirdly-limited Path wherein you were only allowed 50 friends. This is the story of a scrappy startup that set its sights on Twitter. A company that felt that enough people were willing to…
Something I never thought would be reality in 2021: graphics cards being so desirable that people are stealing them. That is exactly what happened last week though. Thieves made off with a whole truckload of EVGA RTX 30-Series graphics cards. The graphic cards were in transit from San Francisco to EVGA’s southern California distribution center at the time of the theft, and it remains unclear how many cards were affected. The Verge There is the chip shortage affecting everything lately. Another constraint are the groups mining crypto with these cards. However, it is crazy to think that people are resorting…
Amazon, a company worth $1.75 TRILLION, uses normal people to deliver goods from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh. Amazon calls their program Amazon Flex. It’s a near-identical setup to DoorDash and Uber Eats jobs. Normal people use an app for “gig work” and deliver stuff using their own vehicles. Earlier this month Amazon settled a lawsuit with the FTC about pocketing the tips of Flex drivers. Earlier this year, the FTC sued Amazon for withholding tips in its Flex program between the years 2016 and 2019. Amazon continued to collect portions of the drivers’ tips up until the government filed…
An funny thing happened on the way to getting Pixel 6 phones out the door: Google has no inventory. The phone, which was announced only a couple weeks ago, seems difficult to obtain depending on the color, capacity, and carrier. When visiting Google’s store for the Pixel 6, you need to choose the normal or Pro model. Afterward you can go down the decision tree of carrier, capacity, and color of the Pixel 6 you want. Depending on what phone you choose, Google will tell you if there’s a waitlist you can join. As of this writing, it’s the Pro…
A sort-of curveball announcement from Netflix (if you didn’t hear about their upcoming plans) is the launch of their new gaming service. Yes, Netflix who is known for streaming movies and TV shows, will now stream video games. Now don’t be confused with this launch. It is not a competitor to anything Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft are doing. This is a direct assault targeted at the likes of Apple’s Arcade and Amazon’s Prime Gaming. The games shown are more mobile-style than something you would see on a console. This is not stuff you’d want on your Xbox. Netflix’s gaming service…
It’s hard to believe, but The Verge is celebrating 10 years this week. They’re posting a bunch of retrospectives that are great reads. One of them takes the cake. In “The Worst Gadgets We’ve Ever Touched” they lambast tech that should’ve been great but fell short in the worst ways. Notable entries include the awful Red Hydrogen phone, Ouya, and Apple’s butterfly keyboard debacle. Apple inflicted the butterfly keyboard on millions of customers for years, giving it the dubious distinction of causing the most tangible badness of anything we’ve ever reviewed. Some products on the Verge’s list are obvious while…
Two things I never expected to find entertaining when put together are Microsoft Excel and TikTok. Those are two diametrically opposed things. One is fun and has whimsy, while the other is a Chinese-owned social network that’s basically overtaken Facebook Meta. I kid, I kid. In actuality, Excel can be a wondrous tool in the hands of someone who knows even 25% of its power. I’ve seen colleagues work their magic on a spreadsheet in seconds simply because they knew a certain formula or function. Enter Kat Norton, an Excel guru that Quartz has profiled. Norton found herself in similar…
On Wednesday Apple released version 15.1 of Safari. This is momentous because it finally puts the tab disaster officially in the past. Since WWDC back in June, people have been adamant that Apple does not need to mess with Safari’s tabs. But Apple did, stuck with the design, and even shipped it out as full release-worthy software. The revolt didn’t stop. With this update, the Tabs section in Safari’s Preferences now offers a “Separate” option. This is the classic style we all know and is the most usable. I’m happy, everyone else using Safari should be happy, and Apple will…
One of the silliest accessories Apple ever released were the iPod Socks. For $29 you could get a set of six socks for your iPod. It was weird but a fun accessory. I bought and still own my set (minus my green one which went missing) that came out in 2004. In today’s modern time, NativeUnion has gone ahead and released “beanies” for your AirPods. Our latest product is a tribute to one of the creations that’ve inspired our teams and the 10th anniversary of the visionary Steve Jobs’ passing. But more so, it’s just a fun way for us…
Interesting that a constant flow of crisis’ leads to “solutions” such as this: Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be known for more than social media and all the ills that entail. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as one of…
Well, I stand corrected. Days after lamenting the fact that MagSafe accessories for the iPhone are a mess, Anker went ahead and dropped no less than SIX MagSafe products in a family called MagGo. Anker gives each item an arbitrary number (Anker 613 or Anker 610) instead of a name. This makes it difficult to refer to them individually. The gist of the rollout are three desktop chargers, one MagSafe battery pack with a built in kickstand, a Magsafe ring (ala PopSocket) and a car mount. The 623 and 637 desktop chargers seem nice, but nothing to write home about.…
Last year with the iPhone 12, Apple announced MagSafe. The idea was simple: the back of an iPhone is now magnetic and you could attach accessories easily. Need to change accessories? Swapping one would take only a few seconds. Apple rolled out a charging puck and a wallet. As someone who purchased an iPhone 12, I was excited to see what other companies would release in the coming months. Disappointment was abound when the reviews for Belkin’s Car Vent Mount Pro started rolling in. At a $40 price point I was not about to drop down the cash for something…