Technology

We’re a little over a week away from Samsung’s next Unpacked event, but new photos from 91mobiles may have revealed our first in-person look at two things we could see at the show: the rumored Galaxy Watch 4 Classic and the new smartwatch OS from Samsung and Google. The two photos from 91moblies show off black and silver watches with rounded bezels, matching a design seen in leaked renders from Android Headlines and detailed GIFs posted by noted leaker Evan Blass in July. Perhaps more significantly, the photos show the new smartwatch OS (currently referred to as Wear) on actual devices for the first time. But disappointingly, there isn’t much to see — just an initial setup screen and a screen asking the user to set the time. Google and Samsung announced they would be essentially merging We...

Square plans to acquire Australian company Afterpay, which offers a “buy now, pay later” service that lets you pay for purchases in installments interest-free, for $29 billion in stock, the two companies announced Sunday. It’s the latest big move for Square, which has also announced a Bitcoin business unit and that it bought a majority stake in the Tidal streaming service this year. “Buy now, pay later” services like those offered by Afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna have become increasingly prevalent across the web. And Square may not be the only payments giant jumping into the ring, as Apple is reportedly working on a similar service of its own that’s internally called “Apple Pay Later.” The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 Afterpay already serves more than 16 mil...

If you still have a device running Android 2.3.7 (the final version of Gingerbread) or older, Google won’t let you sign in to your Google account on that device starting September 27th, according to a support document (via Liliputing). “As part of our ongoing efforts to keep our users safe, Google will no longer allow sign-in on Android devices that run Android 2.3.7 or lower starting September 27, 2021,” the company says. “If you sign into your device after September 27, you may get username or password errors when you try to use Google products and services like Gmail, YouTube, and Maps.” Android 2.3.7 was released nearly 10 years ago To give you an idea of just how old a device will be affected by this change, Android 2.3.7 was released nearly 10 years ago. But given that there are more...

Disney’s Jungle Cruise debuted in theaters and as a Disney Plus Premier Access title this weekend, and early revenue totals from the entertainment giant show that streaming accounted for a third of the film’s revenues, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sunday’s Jungle Cruise numbers mark the second time Disney has released figures for a movie offered as part of the Premier Access program, which lets Disney Plus subscribers pay $30 to stream certain films the same day they hit theaters. Jungle Cruise’s $30 million is half of the $60 million Black Widow earned on Disney Plus over the same period following its early July debut, but Jungle Cruise’s Disney Plus revenue represented a bigger slice of the total revenue pie than streaming did for Black Widow’s: Jungle Cruise’s $30 million was ab...

Last week, Epic Games teased that a “record-breaking superstar” would be performing in Fortnite’s upcoming Rift Tour concert series, and now we know that the mystery performer is none other than Ariana Grande. The five-show concert series kicks off August 6th at 6PM ET, and shows will run through August 8th. (You can find the full schedule here.) Epic recommends being ready in-game 60 minutes before any of the performances so that you can jump into the Rift Tour playlist when it goes live 30 minutes ahead of showtime. Fortnite events have filled up in the past — I personally missed Fortnite’s “The Device” event in-game because I signed on too late — so I’d recommend showing up early to the Rift Tour shows just in case. As for what you can expect from the shows? “Building on and incorporati...

At a glance, the video looks like a TikTok. But toward the bottom, where a TikTok’s caption would be, are two large buttons. One reads “Respect But Disagree.” The other reads “Convinced By You.” Across the top is a question, written in white: “Should Dems pack the Court?” “Hell no,” declares a young woman, whom the app labels “Naomi, Political Science” onscreen. “If Republicans are elected in the future, they’re now going to be more likely to stack the court as well.” Swipe up and “Brian, Founder, Oxford Political Review” appears to express an opposing viewpoint. “As much as I believe Democrats ought uphold norms of civility or neutrality and all that, in theory, look: The reality is it’s dirty, and it’s time we fight back,” Brian declares. Brian’s video is the top-voted video on court-pac...

Amazon has just been slapped with a record-breaking $888 million USD fine by data privacy regulators in the European Union. The fine comes following complaints made against the e-commerce giant back in 2018 by French privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net, which has long been taking tech giants to court following the establishment of the GDPR, a data privacy framework within the EU. Amazon disclosed the fine in a new SEC filing on Friday, although it contests the decision, calling it baseless. “There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party,” Amazon wrote in a statement to Bloomberg expressing its desire to appeal the decision made by Luxembourg. “These facts are undisputed. We strongly disagree with the CNPD’s ruling.” Amazon’s GDPR fine comes a...

A Tesla Megapack has caught fire on the site of Paris-based renewable energy company Neoen‘s Victorian Big Battery site in Australia. According to a statement from Neoen Australia’s managing director Louis de Sambucy to CNBC, the fire took place “within one of the Tesla Megapacks at the Victorian Big Battery” during its initial testing stage on Friday. Thankfully, the site was duly evacuated and there were no injuries suffered from the incident. “Neoen and Tesla are working closely with emergency services on site to manage the situation,” he added. “The site has been disconnected from the grid and there will be no impact to the electricity supply.” So far, the cause of the fire has yet to be determined. The Victorian Big Battery is a joint project between Neoen, Tesla and AusNet Services l...

An Ethereum whale has spent $6 million USD on purchasing CryptoPunks. According to new reports, the single buyer has now accumulated more than one percent of the entire CryptoPunks collection, a limited series of 10,000 non-fungible tokens with an extremely active resale market. In 2017, its creators handed them away for free, and they’ve since collectively been sold for 232,000 ETH, equating to roughly $573 million USD. Over the past year, a single CryptoPunk has been averaging a whopping 22 ETH, or around $54,000 USD. As for the Ethereum whale, virtually nothing is known about him, her, or perhaps them. All of its purchases have been “force funded,” which means they were acquired through a wallet specifically created for those transactions, leaving no trace of prior history behind. In ot...

North America was hit by “the most extreme summer heatwave” in June. According to analyses from the nonprofit group Berkeley Earth, the North American region experienced temperatures a whopping 20 degrees Celsius (or 36 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average during the month of June. In Canada, a village in British Columbia named Lytton was hit by the hottest temperature ever recorded in the area on June 29, hitting an incredible 49.6 degrees Celcius (121 degrees Fahrenheit), as compared to its usual averages of 20 to 30 degrees Celcius (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit) in June. As a result of these catastrophic heatwaves, wildfires flared and burned down 90 percent of Lytton, while Canada at large suffered 570 heat-related deaths, with another 194 in the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmosph...

Championed by The Axios Harris Poll, Americans ranked 100 of the most visible companies. Based on a survey of 42,945 Americans, the Axios Harris Poll 100 measures what people think about companies that permeate so many facets of our daily lives. The two-step process begins each year by surveying consumer’s awareness of companies that either succeed or falter in society. This is formulated by asking respondents their opinions on which two companies have the best reputation and which two have the worst reputation. All nominations were then compiled to form the “most visible” companies. Next, brands and subsidiaries were tallied within the parent company to create a total number of nominations for each company. Then, the 100 companies were rated by a second group of Americans across seven key...

Earlier this week during Apple’s earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said that the iPad had experienced its most successful June quarter in nearly a decade. And now IDC is out with its latest worldwide shipment figures that underline Apple’s commanding lead over the tablet competition. After refreshing the iPad Air in 2020 and launching an upgraded iPad Pro earlier this year, Apple is next expected to update the iPad Mini. IDC estimates that Apple shipped 12.9 million iPads in the second quarter. Its nearest competition is Samsung, which hit 8 million shipments. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S7 tablets offer fantastic hardware and punchy OLED screens, but they remain hamstrung by Android’s less-than-stellar selection of tablet apps. Lenovo, which continues to release well-received Chromebooks and Chrome OS...