Technology

Google is introducing a new feature to Google Photos that lets you hide specific pictures so they won’t show up in your photo feed or in other apps. The feature, called Locked Folder, will put whatever sensitive pictures you’d rather not share behind a password. In its I/O presentation, Google used the example of parents trying to keep a puppy purchase secret from their kids — though the feature should be useful for any sensitive images that you don’t want to share with others. It’s easy to see how this feature could be useful: who hasn’t handed their phone to someone to show off one or two pictures, then suddenly realized, “Wow, I hope they don’t scroll too far to the left or right”? Locked Folder will help Photos users avoid that fear by keeping whatever sensitive pictures you’ve got on ...

There are over 3 billion active Android devices in the wild now. Sameer Samat, VP of product management at Google, announced the news at Google I/O 2021, which is live, but totally online, this year. Google added over 500 million active Android devices since its last developer’s conference in 2019 and 1 billion devices since 2017. (That was when it hit the 2 billion mark.) The number is taken from the Google Play Store, which doesn’t take into account devices based on Android but that use alternative stores, including Amazon Fire devices and the myriad of Chinese Android-based devices that avoid using Google’s apps altogether. That means the number of active Android devices is likely much higher than what Samat announced on the live stream. The news feels like a flex against Apple, too. Ap...

Google is announcing the latest beta for Android 12 today at Google I/O. It has an entirely new design based on a system called “Material You,” featuring big, bubbly buttons, shifting colors, and smoother animations. It is “the biggest design change in Android’s history,” according to Sameer Samat, VP of product management, Android and Google Play. That might be a bit of hyperbole, especially considering how many design iterations Android has seen over the past decade, but it’s justified. Android 12 exudes confidence in its design, unafraid to make everything much larger and a little more playful. Every big design change can be polarizing, and I expect Android users who prefer information density in their UI may find it a little off-putting. But in just a few days, it has already grown on ...

Nvidia is extending its cryptocurrency mining limits to newly manufactured GeForce RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards. After nerfing the hash rates of the RTX 3060 for its launch in February, Nvidia is now starting to label new cards with a “Lite Hash Rate” or “LHR” identifier to let potential customers know the cards will be restricted for mining. “This reduced hash rate only applies to newly manufactured cards with the LHR identifier and not to cards already purchased,” says Matt Wuebbling, Nvidia’s head GeForce marketing. “We believe this additional step will get more GeForce cards at better prices into the hands of gamers everywhere.” These new RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 cards will start shipping later this month, and the LHR identifier will be displayed in ret...

Ford is set to unveil its next major electric vehicle, the F-150 Lightning, at 9:30PM ET on Wednesday, May 19th. But this isn’t just another EV event. An electric version of the automaker’s iconic F-series pickup truck is a very big deal for Ford, for the auto world, for car buyers, and even for the US economy. Ford is very proud of its F-series trucks, and for good reason. It’s the bestselling truck in the US for 44 years. It’s also the bestselling vehicle in the country, period. According to Edmunds, F-series trucks are the most popular vehicle in 30 out of 50 states in the US. That means the F-Series trucks create a huge windfall for Ford. The Detroit automaker netted around $42 billion in revenue in 2019 from nearly 900,000 F-series truck sales in the US, according to a Boston Consulti...

Spotify announced multiple updates to make its app more accessible across iOS and Android today, including a beta version of a podcast transcription feature. The company says it’ll start auto-transcribing certain exclusive and original shows over the coming weeks as part of a beta rollout. People will be able to read the transcript with or without audio and can tap on text to jump to that point in the audio. The company says the goal is to eventually “enable transcripts across all podcasts on Spotify.” This is an especially helpful feature for people who want to scan and move around a podcast, possibly to hear a specific segment, and for people who would rather read than listen to a show. Spotify is one of the first major podcast apps to make this an automated feature. Along with transcrip...

What exactly is lost in translation when TV shows and films are subbed or dubbed into a new language? It’s a hard question to answer, but for the team at AI startup Flawless, it may be one we don’t have to think about in the future. The company claims it has the solution to this particular language barrier; a technical innovation that could help TV shows and films effortlessly reach new markets around the world: deepfake dubs. We often think of deepfakes as manipulating the entire image of a person or scene, but Flawless’ technology focuses on just a single element: the mouth. Customers feed the company’s software with video from a film or TV show along with dubbed dialogue recorded by humans. Flawless’ machine learning models then create new lip movements that match the translated speech ...

The first all-electric Lamborghini is on the horizon. The Italian automaker finally unveiled its electrification plans, which will proceed in two distinct phases over the next decade. By the end of 2024, the company plans to roll out gas-electric hybrid versions of its entire lineup. Following that, Lamborghini will debut its first all-electric model sometime before the end of the decade. That means plug-in hybrid versions of Aventador, Huracán, and Urus models will be arriving within the next three years, as well as limited production Sián roadsters. And sometime before 2030, Lamborghini will unveil a completely new all-electric fourth model. “For sure, it’s the torque and the acceleration” Like other sports car companies, Lamborghini has been slow to embrace electric drivetrains, fearful...

Fox has announced its upcoming animated comedy Krapopolis, from Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon, will be “the first-ever animated series curated entirely on the Blockchain.” The company plans to try to generate buzz for the show with its own brand-new NFT company dubbed Blockchain Creative Labs, THR reports. Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier told advertisers during its upfronts presentation on Monday that “as an advertiser-focused, artist-first and animation-obsessed company, Fox is going to take advertisers into the world of Blockchain-powered tokens, including NFTs.” It will launch a dedicated marketplace for Krapopolis, a show set in mythical ancient Greece “centered on a flawed family of humans, gods, and monsters that tries to run one of the world’s first cities without killing ...

London’s long-awaited electric scooter trials will begin next month on June 7th, the city’s transport authority and local councils announced today. Three scooter companies have been selected to offer rentals for up to 12 months as part of the pilot program: Dott, Lime, and Tier. Privately owned electric scooters will continue to be illegal to ride on streets. The selected companies will initially offer scooters to rent across six boroughs and local authorities in London: Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Richmond upon Thames, the City of London, and Canary Wharf. While rentals will not be available in Tower Hamlets, Londoners will be able to ride their rented scooters through the borough. Lambeth and Southwark boroughs are also seeking to participate in the trial. Thi...

Oculus will soon roll out its v29 software for Quest and Quest 2 headsets, and this one adds more features and functionality to the lineup. The most exciting one is a new Live Overlay casting feature that will give you an easy way to capture a view of you using VR superimposed over the content displayed in first-person within your headset. Any VR app that supports casting and recording will work with this feature, according to Oculus. All you’ll need is at least an iPhone XS or newer, a Quest headset, and the Oculus app for iOS updated to a new version that’s coming to “a subset of users.” Then you turn on the feature and have someone aim the camera at you (or aim it at yourself). If this sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Oculus’ Mixed Reality Creator Tool (MRC) for Quest and Rift ...

We’ve gotten through the expert witnesses of Epic v. Apple, and as a reward, Phil Schiller — currently an “Apple Fellow,” whatever that is, and previously the senior vice president of worldwide marketing — took the stand like a twinkly App Store St. Nick. To hear him tell it, Apple is a wonderful partner to developers, selflessly improving dev tools and responding to their needs. At times the testimony feels like a prolonged ad for iOS. The goal of the testimony is to paint the App Store as a part of the iPhone that can’t be removed or replaced by a competing alternative. To this end, we heard in exhaustive detail about the improvements made to the iPhone that benefit the developers in the App Store. The chips. The Retina display. The accelerometer. The wireless upgrades. It’s practically ...