Technology

Apple products are often leaked because they’re immensely popular, the company is protective of its plans, and people are willing to pay for just about any information on a new product. A new must-read report from Motherboard shows that not everyone selling Apple leaks is on the up-and-up, and not because of the information they’re peddling. Some leakers are working for Apple. Motherboard’s Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai spoke to a double agent named Andrey Shumeyko, an Apple leaker who began offering information to the company in 2017. By the time 2020 rolled around and iOS 14 leaked, Shumeyko was actively trying to become Apple’s mole, tracking leaked hardware and software and sharing it with Apple’s Global Security team in the hopes of getting paid, and to “redeem himself for being part ...

Dom Hofmann, one of Vine’s founders and the creator of Byte and Peach, has a new project called Supdrive. In his tweet announcing Supdrive, he calls it an “on-chain fantasy game console,” which doesn’t necessarily make it any more obvious as to what this project will look like. He’s since explained in an announcement post, which you can read below, that it’ll be a video game console that plays classic-style games (in the vein of Pacman or Asteroid), with NFTs acting as a sort of virtual cartridge. In a Discord set up for Supdrive, Hofmann wrote that the games will be NFTs, running on virtual firmware. The fact that games will be released as NFTs means that there will only be so many “editions” or copies available. Hofmann also says that each copy of a given game will be unique, with player...

An international coalition of policy and civil rights groups published an open letter Thursday asking Apple to “abandon its recently announced plans to build surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads and other Apple products.” The groups include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, Privacy International, and the Tor Project. Earlier this month, Apple announced its plans to use new tech within iOS to detect potential child abuse imagery with the goal of limiting the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. Apple also announced a new “communication safety” feature, which will use on-device machine learning to identify and blur sexually explicit images received by children in its Messages app. Parents of children age 12 and younge...

Twitter on Thursday said it’s introducing several new updates to its direct messages, which will roll out to some users in the next few weeks. The changes include the ability to send a direct message to multiple people in separate conversations because who among us has not accidentally started a group chat that way. Now, you can share a tweet in up to 20 separate DM conversations, if the goss is hot enough to share with that many individual tweeters at once. The feature is coming to the iOS and web versions of Twitter first, and Android “soon.” No more (awkward) accidental group chats when you DM a Tweet to multiple people. Now you can share the same Tweet in up to 20 different DM convos, separately. Rolling out on iOS and web, and soon on Android. (2/5) pic.twitter.com/oHYseF3EJE — Twitte...

Content subscription service OnlyFans is prohibiting its creators from posting sexually explicit content beginning on October 1, the platform announced today. “OnlyFans will prohibit the posting of any content containing sexually explicit conduct,” a representative for OnlyFans said in a statement to HYPEBEAST. “In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform, and to continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines.” “Creators will continue to be allowed to post content containing nudity as long as it is consistent with our Acceptable Use Policy,” the statement added. The site boasts a community of 130 million users and over two million creators that have earned $5 billion USD from dedicated fan subscriptions. According to ...

The Pavilion label on the HP Pavilion Aero 13 is misleading. The rule of thumb with HP’s consumer laptops is: Pavilions are cheap, Envys are midrange, Spectres are expensive. But the Pavilion Aero 13 is much nicer (and a bit more expensive) than your typical budget laptop, with plenty of features — like a 16:10 screen, a 10-hour battery life span, and a mind-blowingly light chassis — that are typically reserved for premium Windows devices. While testing this device, I’ve been having flashbacks to my review of the Envy x360 13 last summer. I remarked that it felt a lot more like a Spectre than an Envy, and that many of the Spectre’s best features appeared to have trickled down. The same appears to have happened here. This Pavilion feels like an Envy — and it’s priced like one, with models s...

Razer is suddenly becoming a seasoned earbuds brand: the new $130 Hammerhead earbuds are the company’s third pair of true wireless buds. They follow the original Hammerheads released in 2019 and the Hammerhead True Wireless Pros that I reviewed earlier this year. The latest set is more “Pro” than not in both looks and features: they offer active noise cancellation, a low-latency gaming mode, and have switched to a in-ear design with silicone tips. But these days (and at this price), those features are no longer enough to stand out from a hugely crowded field. So Razer decided to add something to its new earbuds that’s impossible to miss: RGB lighting. Just like many of the company’s laptops and gaming accessories, the 2021 Hammerhead True Wireless include Razer’s full Chroma RGB system, wh...

Twitter is testing a feature that makes it even more enticing to use its recently acquired Revue newsletter platform: the ability to subscribe to a newsletter directly from a Twitter profile, without having to follow a link to a separate website. The feature can be enabled by all Revue newsletter writers, but the button is initially only being shown to a test group of Twitter users on Android and the web. The subscribe button has to be turned on in Revue’s settings before it can show up on Twitter. Visually, the new button and newsletter card appear underneath your Twitter bio almost like a pinned tweet, populated with the title of your Revue newsletter, a photo, a short description, and the actual subscribe button. Tapping the button pulls up a dialog box reminding you what you’re getting...

A fugitive who Justice Department officials say had scammed more than 20 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, after being on the run for almost 15 years. Austrian authorities were able to identify Randy Levine, 54, of Boca Raton, Florida, due to a facial recognition system according to the DOJ, after he tried to use an alias to open a bank account, leading to his arrest in June 2020. Levine fled the US in 2005, after authorities seized his passport as part of an investigation into an alleged scam he had been running, the DOJ said in a release. According to Levine’s plea agreement, which he signed in May, he would offer to set up gambling accounts for people if they sent him money. To help sell the idea that he really could help peo...

Corsair impressed me last year with its $150 HS75 XB Wireless, an Xbox-exclusive wireless headset that looked and felt more like a high-end set of headphones than a gaming accessory. They also had great sound quality and an easy-to-learn button layout with the right amount of features. It wasn’t necessarily a flaw that they only worked with Xbox consoles, but no one likes to be excluded. The company has now released the HS80 RGB Wireless for the same $150 price with PlayStation compatibility, but these aren’t quite the successor that I was expecting or hoping for. This one works with the PS4, PS5, as well as PC with its USB-A wireless transmitter. Unlike most wireless headsets that use a dongle like this, I couldn’t get it to work with my Nintendo Switch dock. Corsair says you’ll unlock hi...

The latest iPad Mini is back at Cyber Monday-level pricing, offering the best deal possible for Apple’s most compact tablet. Walmart has it on sale today for $100 off, clocking in at $299 and matching the lowest price we’ve seen for one of the most powerful small-format tablets on the market. The 64GB Wi-Fi model is perfect for casual reading, consuming content, controlling smart home functions, or just browsing the web on the couch on a nice 7.9-inch screen. Apple is expected to release a new model this fall, but here’s a prime opportunity to save on the current version right now. Read our review. iPad Mini (2019, 64GB Wi-Fi only) $299 $400 26% off The 2019 iPad Mini features the same 7.9-inch display as its predecessors, but it includes a powerful A12 Bionic processor, the same one used ...

A year after The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon had an interest in using empty mall spaces as fulfillment centers, the business paper is back with a rumor that Amazon is planning to open department store-style locations of its own. The reported plan is for stores that are smaller than your average 100,000-square-foot Macy’s or JC Penney location, with a footprint that’s only about 30,000 square feet, which is closer to the size of Kohl’s stores that already handle Amazon returns. Without specific information on what they might sell, they could stock clothing, electronics, and household items. While private equity firms did their part, Amazon is now in the odd position of replacing stores that it helped kill off. If the plans turn into action, the first locations could show up in Calif...