Technology

Apple rolled out a small but meaningful update to senior executive Eddy Cue’s job title on Thursday that features an area of interest the company has long been focused on: services (via 9to5Mac). Eddy Cue is a longstanding veteran at Apple who helped build iTunes and the App Store, but his new title of “Senior Vice President, Services” reflects the company’s increasingly important side hustle, if not outright transformation into a media business and subscription peddler. Prior to Thursday, Eddy Cue was senior vice president of internet software and services, with responsibilities that included overseeing the iTunes Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, Maps, Search Ads, iCloud, and iWork. His new job description emphasizes Apple’s subscription darlings: Eddy oversees the full range of Apple’s ser...

15 months ago, Facebook said it was buying the popular GIF search engine Giphy for about $400 million. Now the acquisition may be a bust, thanks to an antitrust probe by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. In a preliminary findings report published Thursday, the CMA said the deal should be unwound because it will “negatively impact competition between social media platforms.” The CMA’s reasoning for wanting to block the Giphy deal is as follows: “Millions of posts every day on social media sites now include a GIF. Any reduction in the choice or quality of these GIFs could significantly affect how people use these sites and whether or not they switch to a different platform, such as Facebook. As most major social media sites that compete with Facebook use Giphy GIFs, and there is on...

Your Amazon packages may be getting an express ticket — Amazon has finished building its $1.5 billion air hub, located at the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport, and has started operations there. Amazon started building the 800,000-square-foot facility in 2019, and it now boasts robots, miles of conveyor belts, and more. A big benefit of having a centrally located place to process packages and get them on planes is speed — that’s why UPS has a hub in Louisville, Kentucky; FedEx ships many packages through Memphis, Tenessee; and DHL has a hub in the same airport as Amazon. Amazon’s press release says that the cargo hub will help with the “rapid transport of customer packages throughout the U.S.” Jeff Bezos also made that argument, tweeting that the hub would help customers...

In lieu of putting out yet another Galaxy Note to succeed its Note 20, Samsung has opted to welcome a new foldable model into the Galaxy family, unveiled at its Galaxy 2021 Unpacked event on Wednesday. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is a device designed to maximize productivity through the convenience that a tool like a folding screen provides. In addition to packing 120Hz displays, the creators of the Z Fold 3 took heed of the Galaxy Note’s potential and incorporated its same S Pen stylus support. The model was also given an attractive makeover to strengthen its durability, as well as lengthen its lifespan. Samsung has put out a few Folds before — but the device won’t suffer from the risks of cracked screens as its predecessors. The screen’s protective film is 80 percent stronger and layered...

It’s another day ending in -y so Fortnite is having a new crossover event. Today, Fortnite players can complete quests in order to earn a new Free Guy skin and emote. It was inevitable that Free Guy would get a Fortnite crossover in some way. Fortnite is slowly gobbling up every video game and pop culture IP known to man, so it’s only natural that the video game movie would get a piece of that action, too. After all, Free Guy is the closest we’ve ever gotten to an actual Fortnite movie — for now. (Which is exactly the threat it sounds like.) The “Dude” skin is a super beef-ified version of Ryan Reynolds’ character Guy and looks like the kind of person who routinely sets off the lunk alarm at Planet Fitness. Dude curiously has a blue button up shirt tattooed on one of his pectorals which, I...

Audi released details of a new concept car this week called the Skysphere, a self-driving roadster that can change shape at the touch of a button. The sleek, villainous-looking convertible pairs an electric powertrain with luxury amenities for a result that even Batman would find a bit over the top. Notably, the vehicle features an adaptable wheelbase that can change size based on the driving mode, as well as a digital cockpit with a retractable steering wheel and pedals that stow away when the car drives itself. It’s a more fantastical outlook on the future than some of the German automaker’s other recent concepts It’s a more fantastical outlook on the future than some of the German automaker’s other recent concepts. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less achievable; at the unveiling event, ...

Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 4 has a feature that can calculate body fat percentage and muscle mass, the company announced yesterday. It’s the latest tech company to offer a body composition feature, joining Amazon, which has a body fat percentage feature in its Halo Band. Body fat is generally a better way to assess health than weight, but it’s often calculated using a metric called the body mass index (BMI), which is crude and inaccurate. If wearables prove accurate, they could give people a better resource to monitor their health, Diana Thomas, a mathematician who studies body weight regulation at West Point, told The Verge in June. The Galaxy measures body composition using a technique called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), which sends a weak electric current through the body. It...

Microsoft is improving some of the built-in apps available in Windows 11. Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel can now test new updates to the Snipping Tool, Calculator, Mail, and Calendar apps. Some of the updates are minor, but all are designed to match the new visual style in Windows 11. Microsoft is replacing the classic Snipping Tool and Snip & Sketch apps in Windows 11 with a new Snipping Tool app that combines the best features of both apps. The Win + Shift + S keyboard shortcut will be the main way to take a screenshot in Windows 11, and it will activate the snipping menu with various options for selecting what content to screenshot. The updated Snipping Tool now has a dark mode.Image: Microsoft Once a screenshot has been taken, the Snipping Tool includes edit options for croppi...

Fresh from unveiling its upcoming partnership alongside ADER error, Hong Kong-based tech label CASETiFY now showcases its newest collaborative release with the world famous fast food chain KFC. In typical CASETiFY fashion, the collection comprises a selection of iPhone cases featuring sticker-style patterns and fried chicken-effect designs, as well as AirPod cases, stainless steel water bottles and an all-new chicken-inspired phone lanyard and fried chicken charms. The iconic slogan “It’s Finger Lickin’ Good” can be found on an array of products, while the famous red and white striping the fast food chain has become synonymous with dresses the majority of the collection. Launching globally on August 26, you can sign up for the CASETiFY x KFC waitlist here and view the full collection in th...

Reddit, the self-declared ‘front page of the internet,’ says it is now valued at more than $10 billion after raising an additional $410 million in funding, with the final round expected to grow to up to $700 million. The company continues to build and sanitize its business, removing racist, misogynist, and otherwise controversial communities, as it prepares to go public at some point in the future. “We are still planning on going public, but we don’t have a firm timeline there yet,” Reddit’s co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman told The New York Times in an interview. “All good companies should go public when they can.” The company previously raised $250 million in funding earlier this year for a valuation of $6 billion. But Huffman told the Times the company was approached with this recent fi...

It seems like the market for true wireless earbuds becomes more and more crowded each week, with products like Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 and Nothing Ear 1s being two of the latest contenders to jump into the already-burgeoning field. And while the Jabra Elite 65t are beginning to show their age in comparison and are by no means top of the field, they’re still a great pair of earbuds with enjoyable sound and a customizable fit, not to mention a two-year warranty that covers any potential damage they may sustain from prolonged exposure to sweat or dust. Normally $80, you can pick up the copper-black model at Best Buy for $50, slightly more than their best price. Read our review. Jabra Elite 65t $50 $80 38% off Jabra’s previous-generation Elite wireless earbuds have a subtle design, and for the...

Honor has announced its first flagship smartphones since being sold off by former parent company Huawei: the Magic 3 series. The lineup consists of three phones, the Magic 3, Magic 3 Pro, and Magic 3 Pro Plus. They’re coming first to mainland China, but Honor says they’re getting a global release at a later date. When they launch globally, the phones will come with Google’s apps and services, which Honor wasn’t previously able to include while a subsidiary of Huawei due to US sanctions. It should make the Magic 3 series much more competitive outside of China compared to Honor’s recent Huawei-era phones, which had to rely on Huawei’s own services and AppGallery to download software. This setup came with significant drawbacks. The Honor Magic 3 (left) and the Honor Magic 3 Pro Plus (right).I...