Technology

Amazon is planning to expand its in-house moderation team for Amazon Web Services, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing two sources within the company, the report says Amazon is planning to develop a proactive threat monitoring capability within AWS, which will seek out prohibited content on AWS servers and remove it before it’s reported by users. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Companies need to proactively monitor what’s on their platforms” The company has long maintained an Acceptable Use Policy for AWS, which forbids using the service for computer intrusions, spam, or the promotion of violence or other crimes. But enforcement of those terms has been largely reactive, often relying on external user reports to identify prohibited content. While the...

Labor Day in the US is a great opportunity to get deals on many types of tech products. Of course, we’re covering all of the best discounts across categories in our detailed guide to the best Labor Day sales, but we’ve made this post just to focus on the many 4K TV deals happening this weekend. There are deals on value-focused models that make it easy to get started right away with streaming TV and movie content, as well as TVs that have high-end features and a higher cost. The best Labor Day deals on affordable 4K TVs TCL is usually known for TVs that come with Roku TV hardware built-in, but has started more recently to put out models that run on Android TV. Not to be confused with the even newer Google TV-equipped models that have a microphone built into the TV, you can get the 55-inch v...

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shared more details Thursday about what to expect from the rumored bigger screens coming to the next Apple Watch. Gurman has previously reported that the next watch, which he says will be called the Apple Watch Series 7, will be offered in 41mm and 45mm screen sizes. In his new article, he reiterated those sizes and added that the larger model’s screen will measure 1.9 inches diagonally, up from 1.78 inches on the bigger Series 6, and offer about 16 percent more pixels with a resolution of 396 x 484, up from 368 x 448. Both Series 7 watches will also have thinner borders around their screens, Gurman says. Apple is working on new watchfaces Apple is also working on new watchfaces. One, called Modular Max, will apparently show the time, one small complication, and the...

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration completes and signs off on an investigation into the company’s high-profile test flight carrying Richard Branson, the agency said Thursday. During that July flight, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo veered out of its approved airspace on its descent toward land, the FAA said. The company “may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety,” an FAA spokesperson said on Thursday. SpaceShipTwo, a winged suborbital space tourism plane that launches to the edge of space from a carrier aircraft, landed its crew of Branson and three company employees safely. But it wasn’t until this ...

Apple reportedly plans to expand the Apple Watch‘s health capabilities. Specifically, the tech giant has aspirations to implement new monitoring features such as temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar and sleep, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The watch’s original primary health feature was its ability to detect heart rate and irregular heart rhythm. The most recent model, Apple Watch Series 6, was expanded to include ECG monitoring and blood oxygen monitoring as well. The current features broadened the possibilities of health monitoring from an everyday device. The ECG feature specifically is similar to a single-lead electrocardiogram, which can detect heart rhythm. To bring about the newly proposed features, Apple has to implement a new range of watch sensors. Regarding the bloo...

Samsung has just unveiled two new impressive mobile phone camera sensors. First is the ISOCELL HP1, the industry’s first 200-megapixel image sensor with 0.64μm pixels. This sensor brings ultra-high-resolution and low-light performance. Using ChameleonCel pixel-binning technology, the HP1 is able to shift to a 12.5MP image sensor with large 2.56μm pixels by joining 16 pixels as one. The HP1 can also record 8K videos at 30fps without having to crop or scale down the full image resolution. The ISOCELL GN5 sensor revolutionizes mobile imaging with the ability to focus in all directions. This can focus both horizontally and vertically to adjust to pattern changes with the help of one million phase-detecting multi-directional photodiodes. “Samsung has been pioneering ultrafine pixel technologies...

Asus’s Zenbooks are known for being quite lightweight and quite affordable. But the company is adding another calling card to the line: OLED display technology. The new 14-inch Zenbook 14X OLED will be available with either a 4K OLED HDR display or a 2.8K OLED 90Hz display. Given those resolutions, either should be a significant step up in picture quality from the Zenbook 13 OLED, the ultraportable OLED model Asus released earlier this year. That device has an FHD OLED display (which was still quite vivid and bright in our testing). The Zenbook 14X OLED will cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and a 0.2ms response time. Asus claims it will emit “70 percent less harmful blue light than normal LCD”. Screen aside, the 14X weighs 3.09 pounds and is 0.67 inches thick — decently portable...

Samsung has announced new sizes for some of its best TVs, giving more choices to consumers who want the option of either a small or massive flagship TV. Samsung has added 43-inch and 98-inch sizes to its QN90A lineup of “Neo QLED” 4K TVs and an 85-inch option for its The Frame TV. The Neo QLED TVs have Samsung’s flagship panels, which use Mini LED backlights to improve contrast and picture quality. These kinds of flagship-class panels used to be limited mostly to the 55- to 77-inch range, but they seem to be making their way to size classes that used to be reserved for budget TVs. Samsung hasn’t yet announced pricing for these TVs. At the moment, the 50-inch QN90A sells for $1,400 (with an MSRP of $1,500), and the 85-inch model can be had for $4,000, a cool $1,000 less than its list price....

Twitter is planning new features to give people more privacy options, according to Bloomberg. The social network’s plans reportedly include the option to archive old tweets so they’re not visible to other users after a given period of time (like 30, 60, or 90 days or a full year). They also include possible options to limit who can see which tweets you’ve liked, to let people remove themselves from a conversation on Twitter, and to let people remove followers without outright blocking them. Bloomberg describes the new features as a suite of “social privacy” changes that are aimed at making people more comfortable engaging on Twitter. Internal research at Twitter apparently found that many users don’t even understand whether their accounts are set to public or private — something the compan...

The first trailer for The Wheel of Time TV series has arrived, giving an early look at Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic 14-book fantasy series ahead of its November 19th release date on Amazon Prime Video. The trailer sets the stage for the series, establishing some of the basic tenets of Jordan’s world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a member of a group of female magic wielders known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of wielding the One Power to accomplish feats like controlling the elements and healing others. The trailer also shows off a first look at The Wheel of Time’s younger cast: Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon, Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al’Meara, and Josha Stradowski a...

Yahoo and AOL, formerly known as Verizon Media, have officially been acquired by their new owners and renamed as simply “Yahoo.” Verizon announced it was selling the properties to Apollo Global Management in May in a deal said to be worth $5 billion, around half of the nearly $9 billion the telecom giant originally paid for them, and a fraction of the hundreds of billions the two companies were worth at their peaks. Verizon originally purchased AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, and acquired Yahoo in 2017 for $4.5 billion. After completing its Yahoo acquisition, Verizon placed both brands under the woefully bland “Oath” brand. “#TakeTheOath” proclaimed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. The media divisions, which include properties like Yahoo Sports, TechCrunch, and Engadget, were officially renamed “Veriz...

We don’t often write about bicycle components, but it’s not everyday that an innovation like the Schaeffler Free Drive is announced for pedal-assisted e-bikes. The so-called “bike-by-wire” system, first spotted by Electrek, dispenses with the need to string a chain or belt between the pedals and wheel hub. It’s an all-electric drive system that allows for entirely new bicycle designs with fewer moving parts. The Free Drive system works by converting the rider’s pedaling power into electrical energy via a small generator housed between the pedals. It then delivers this energy to the rear wheel (or wheels) via cables strung inside or outside the frame of the bike, rather than sending it mechanically through a chain or belt. Excess energy created by pedaling is fed back into the battery. The ...