Technology

JBL has announced an update to its popular lineup of Flip Bluetooth speakers with the Flip 6. Perhaps the biggest change is that the latest speaker is now officially dustproof thanks to its IP67 rating, while the Flip 5 was officially only waterproof (IPX7). Its Bluetooth version has also been boosted from 4.2 to 5.1, and it features a newly redesigned JBL logo. Battery life is unchanged at around 12 hours. It’ll retail for $129.95 when it goes on sale in December in the US, up from the Flip 5’s current $119.95 price. The Flip 6 is just one of a host of new audio products JBL is announcing today. There’s also the Partybox 110 and 710, two large rugged speakers which feature guitar and mic inputs for impromptu music-making and which will retail for $399.95 and $799.95 respectively. Grid Vie...

Following the halt in SpaceX’s Moon Mission due to a Blue Origin lawsuit, Amazon urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject Space X‘s proposal for a second-generation Starlink program to which Elon responded on Twitter: “Turns out Besos retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX..” Continuing the saga between the two space-faring companies, SpaceX is now shining a light on the inadequacies of Amazon’s satellite systems and accusing the company of employing stalling tactics. In the response to Amazon’s initial filing to the FCC, SpaceX complains that while Amazon has filed nothing to the commission to address concerns on how its own satellite project would protect others from interference or meet the rules regarding orbital debris for nearly 4...

Twitter has begun rolling out its new Super Follows on iOS devices, a feature it first introduced back in June. Currently open to a select group of users who applied for the trial, Super Follows allows Twitter accounts to offer subscriptions to their followers similar to that of OnlyFans, locking certain premium content behind paywalls. Tweets allocated to Super Followers will only show up on the subscribers’ feeds, and plans currently range from $2.99 USD to $9.99 USD a month. The social media platform has promised content creators that they can make up to 97% of the revenue from subscriptions after third-party fees are deducted, although those who reach a lifetime earning of $50,000 USD on the platform will then be making roughly 80% instead. For those in the U.S. and Canada on iOS devic...

Keyboard specialist Keychron has revealed the Keychron Q1, a compact and highly customizable mechanical keyboard with a range of functional features. The newest introduction to the Keychron line is also the brand’s most ambitious yet, offering a top-of-the-line product for those looking to upgrade their setup. The Key Chron Q1 arrives in a 75% layout and features a 6063 aluminum body, Gateron G Phantom switches, and hot-swappable OEM ABS Double-shot keycaps. Every key switch, keycap, stabilizer, emblem badge, and plate offers opportunities for personalization. Complimentary items include a Type C to Type C coiled cable, Type A to Type C adapter, gaskets, extra Mac and Windows function keys, and customization tools including a switch puller, keycap puller, hex key, and screwdriver...

Samsung has announced a 200-megapixel image sensor intended for smartphone cameras, by some distance the highest resolution phone camera sensor ever made. The ISOCELL HP1 has 0.64μm pixels and can bin 16 of them at once for the equivalent of a 12.5-megapixel sensor with 2.56μm pixels. Samsung calls the HP1’s pixel-binning technology “ChameleonCell.” The four-by-four 12.5-megapixel setting is intended for low-light usage, but it can also capture full 200-megapixel resolution photos, or use a two-by-two binning technique for 50-megapixel images. The two-by-two binning mode also lets the HP1 capture 8K video. Samsung says it’s capable of shooting 8K without cropping, although standard 8K (7,680 x 4,320) is less than 50 megapixels. Samsung is also introducing a new sensor called the ISOCELL GN...

“Quick phrases” is a new feature currently under development for Google Assistant that could one day let you skip having to say “Hey, Google” for common phrases like “What time is it?” or “Turn the lights on,” 9to5Google reports. The feature is yet to be officially announced, and it’s unclear when it might launch or exactly which devices might support it. The feature emerged back in April under the codename “Guacamole.” At the time it was called “Voice shortcuts,” and its capabilities seemed limited to silencing alarms and timers, or responding to incoming phone calls. But the new menu discovered by 9to5Google shows a much broader range of tasks, or “salsas” as Google is nicknaming them. These salsas include the ability to ask about the weather, skip songs, or set alarms and timers in addi...

It comes as no surprise that riding rockets to space can be a dangerous endeavor. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson have recently decided that space would be their next conquest, igniting the billionaire space race. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space vehicle is supposedly more unique than his competitors SpaceX and Blue Origin. While they use traditional, vertical launch rockets, Virgin Galactic uses a piloted, winged rocket ship. While Branson became the first billionaire to fly to space, he did not chase this feat without challenges and life-threatening dangers. Branson along with four other passengers flew to space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo space plane VSS Unity. One minute into the flight, the VSS Unity flashed a warning light that indicated that ...

In its plan to advance cargo and passenger air transportation options, NASA has begun running test flights of air taxis. The space agency teamed up with electric aircraft company Joby Aviation to design and test the taxis, launching the debut partnership of its expansive Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign when the first flights took off yesterday from a base in California. During these test flights, NASA will be on the lookout for “information about how the vehicle moves, how the vehicle sounds, and how the vehicle communicates with controllers” in various scenarios planned out by Joby Aviation, per NASA’s press release. It will utilize over 50 microphones to gauge the acoustics of the air taxi throughout its flights. Data from the tests will additionally serve to establish base...

Facebook is adding fantasy sports-like prediction games that will let users guess what’s going to happen in sports, TV shows, and pop culture. The new games, called Facebook Fantasy Games, are rolling out first on the iOS and Android apps for users in the US and Canada. The first game available is Pick & Play Sports, a daily sports prediction game it made in partnership with Whistle Sports. (It was already available in the iOS app for me, so it might be for you, too.) In the “upcoming months,” Facebook plans to release additional games for TV shows like The Bachelorette and Survivor, sports leagues like Major League Baseball, and one made with BuzzFeed. Games will have public leaderboards, but you can also make your own public or private leagues if you want to compete with smaller grou...

ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox have secured a victory in their legal fight against Locast, a nonprofit that re-streams their local broadcast stations at little to no cost, much to the consternation of those networks. Locast is a service that makes local broadcasts free — kind of, we’ll get to that — to those who may be unwilling to pony up for cable or live TV streaming services, or just don’t want to hook up an antenna in their living room. Those four networks are already broadcast over-the-air for free; Locast then uses a legal exemption in copyright law to re-transmit their broadcasts and put them online for people to more easily access. Locast doesn’t technically charge for its service, but it does ask for donations that start around $5 per month. Essentially, users can use Locast to bypass tr...

While vocal app developers accused Apple last week of spinning a lawsuit settlement into an App Store change that was barely a change at all, the company appears to be making a true, if small concession today: Apple says it will let developers of “reader” apps (think Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon’s Kindle app) directly link their customers to their own sign-up website, where they could potentially skirt Apple’s in-app payment system (and its 30 percent cut) entirely, in those cases where they haven’t already. In a press release, Apple claims that the move will close an investigation by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), and that it’ll only apply to those sorts of “reader” apps right now — a category that was originally designed by Apple to placate companies like Netflix and Hulu by all...