Technology

Samsung devices that support Samsung Pay can now store digital versions of users’ COVID-19 vaccination cards, through a partnership with healthcare nonprofit The Commons Project, the smartphone company announced. Users have to first download the free CommonHealth app from the Google Play store, and follow the instructions to access their COVID-19 vaccine record, from participating pharmacies, health systems, and health providers (not all providers are connected to the system yet). Once the user has access to their COVID-19 credential within the CommonHealth app, they can add it to their Samsung Pay wallet. The Covid-19 Vaccine Pass will then be available on the Samsung Pay app home page. Samsung Pay lets users store their COVID-19 vaccination pass Samsung For restaurants, schools, offices,...

A Utah man who touted a revolutionary new smartphone for several years but failed to produce one, has been charged by the US Attorney’s office in Utah with securities fraud. a new filing shows. Chad Leon Sayers solicited approximately 300 investors to invest $10 million in Saygus, promising “imminent billion-dollar success,” according to the Justice Department. Instead of using the funds he raised to create the promised smartphone, he paid personal expenses and debts, and paid older investors with funds he raised from newer ones, which the US Attorney’s office in Utah called “Ponzi-like.” Sayers allegedly spent $2.17 million of the money raised on office rent, about $800,000 of the funds to settle other lawsuits, $500,000 on legal fees, $145,000 on shopping, entertainment, and personal car...

Social audio app Clubhouse has joined other social platforms in taking steps to protect the privacy and safety of its users in Afghanistan. Earlier this week, the platform reset tens of thousands of its Afghan users’ bios and photos, and made their accounts more difficult to discover in search. A spokesperson for Clubhouse said the actions didn’t affect the users’ followers, and all of the changes can be reversed if a user prefers. Clubhouse has also been reminding its Afghan users that it does allow pseudonyms for human rights or safety purposes. The company consulted with free expression and violent extremism experts to help craft its approach, the spokesperson said. As the Taliban have regained control of the country, many people in Afghanistan have tried to delete photos from their soc...

China has passed a new privacy law aimed at protecting users’ personal data, state media reported. The new law comes as Chinese tech firms have come under renewed scrutiny in the country, and sets rules around how companies handle users’ information. The law takes effect on November 1st. The law—formally called the Personal Information Protection Law— was passed by China’s legislature on Friday, Reuters reported, and calls for companies to get users’ consent before collecting personal data, and has rules for how companies should ensure users’ data is protected when it’s transferred outside of China. Tech companies that handle personal information must have a designated person tasked with overseeing its protection, and companies must conduct regular audits to be sure they’re complying with ...

The red Apple Watch Series 6 has already seen an array of big discounts, but you don’t always get nice pricing on the more subtle colorways. Amazon and Walmart are both currently offering $75 off the handsome navy-colored watch, as well as the white model, bringing them down to $325. Walmart also has a few more colors available at the same price, and both offer the red at an additional $6 markdown. In addition to a myriad of fun colors, Apple’s latest and greatest wearable also offers built-in sleep tracking, a blood oxygen sensor, and an always-on display. Read our review. Apple Watch Series 6 (40mm, GPS) $325 $400 19% off Apple’s latest flagship wearable features an always-on display and new sensors that provide the ability to monitor your blood oxygen levels. Amazon and Google may be pa...

California’s gig workers law, which allows companies like Uber and Lyft to treat workers as independent contractors— not employees— has been ruled unconstitutional and unenforceable by a judge. Voters approved the law as ballot initiative Proposition 22 in November, with companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash spending more than $200 million to campaign for the measure. Labor organizations, including the Service Employees International Union, opposed it. California Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled Friday that the law illegally “limits the power of a future legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers’ compensation law,” adding that “The entirety of Proposition 22 is unenforceable.” He also ruled that it was unconstitutional to that the law required any future...

Android 12’s public beta is now available, following Google’s deep dive into the new software at Google I/O 2021. My colleague Dieter Bohn got an exclusive in-depth look at the new Material You design language, as well as everything else that’s new. And good news: if you’ve got an eligible device, you can try it out right now, and that’s what I’m going to walk you through. What’s great is that you don’t have to go through the tricky, fail-prone task of flashing your phone. Instead, you can easily enroll it to receive the update with a few clicks from your desktop or mobile browser, and in just a few minutes, you’ll be ready to install it on your phone. When you set up the Android 12 beta on your device, you’ll be set to receive all future beta updates to the OS (including the final release...

Amazon has developed electronic tracking technology for the trucks used by its partners to monitor their movement and hopefully improve driver safety, according to The Information. Electronic logging devices (ELDs) are federally required to prevent fatigue-related accidents on trucks, but now it seems Amazon will offer its partners a custom ELD offering, possibly giving Amazon direct access to a lot more data from a tool it maintains itself. Amazon’s Relay ELD — named after the company’s Relay platform for booking delivery jobs — works by plugging hardware into the diagnostics port of trucks to directly digest information from the engine, The Information writes. It then communicates that data over Bluetooth to be logged in an accompanying app. ELDs typically track location, movement, and w...

On Thursday the video and image sharing site OnlyFans announced plans to ban “sexually-explicit content” starting October 1st. While we’re still not sure exactly why it’s changing so drastically, it just sent out an updated Terms of Service policy to the creators who’ve built the site detailing exactly what won’t be allowed going forward. Comparing the new OnlyFans Acceptable Use Policy to the old one makes the additions clear: Do not upload, post, display, or publish Content on OnlyFans that: Shows, promotes, advertises or refers to “sexually explicit conduct”, which means: actual or simulated sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, between persons of any sex; actual or simulated masturbation; any exhibition of the anus or genitals of any p...

On Wednesday, Facebook released a report about what content was most viewed by people in the US last quarter. It was the first time it had released such a report. But according to The New York Times, Facebook was working on a similar report for the first quarter of 2021 that it opted not to share because it might have reflected poorly on the company. The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the report, says that the most-viewed link in the first quarter had a headline that could promote COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which has been an issue on the social media platform. The headline read, “A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why.” The article was published by The South Florida Sun Sentinel and republished by The Chicago Tribune, The New...