Technology

When we think about privacy and who can access our location data, we’re often focusing on our phones, and not on the machine that actually takes us places: our car. A recent report from NBC News goes into just how much data is collected by our vehicles, and how it can be used by police and criminals alike. Your car, depending on how new it is and what capabilities it has, could be collecting all sorts of data without your knowledge — including location data, when its doors were opened, and even recordings of your voice. The NBC article uses the example of Joshua Wessel, a man who’s been charged with murder because the victim’s truck has a recording of his voice at the time of the killing. The report also looks at a company called Berla Corp., which has built a business out of extracting th...

Pixel 5 and 4a 5G users can no longer use their ultra-wide cameras to take pictures of the stars: Google apparently removed the lens’s astrophotography capabilities with the Google Camera 8.1 update. The feature was a selling point of the Pixel 4, and was available on the regular and telephoto cameras. When the 4a 5G and 5 were announced with new wide-angle lenses, the feature was added to those as well. Now it’s been taken away. The astrophotography feature lets users capture the night sky by pointing their phone up and keeping it still, either by balancing it on a nearby object or putting it on a tripod. The feature is still available on the phones’ other cameras, but if you go to Night Sight mode and switch to the ultra-wide angle camera you’ll now get a warning saying “Zoom to 1x for a...

Coinbase announced today that it is halting all trades of XRP on its cryptocurrency exchange, according to an official blog post (via Coindesk). Certain kind of trades became restricted today, and the full suspension will go into place January 19th, 2021 at 10:00AM PT. Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange, and suspending a currency like XRP naturally casts doubt on the currency’s future, even before the SEC lawsuit over it is settled. Coinbase says it made the decision to suspend XRP “in light” of the suit the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed against XRP’s original creator, Ripple. With the suspension in place, people will no longer be able to trade XRP on Coinbase, though they will still be able to deposit and withdraw from their XRP wallets. In the suit that s...

The Trump administration has gained some experience losing in court recently, and has suffered setback after setback in its stance that TikTok should be banned in the US. Still, its pursuit of the video sharing app continues. On Monday, the Department of Justice filed an appeal of a judge’s order that blocked restrictions on TikTok in the US from taking effect. US District Judge Carl Nichols issued an order December 7th that blocked the Commerce Department’s restrictions on TikTok, which would have prevented new downloads of the app from US app stores. Nichols’ order followed an October order from US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania, who issued an injunction against the ban. In that case, three content creators had argued that a TikTok ban would have a negative effect on th...

A computer repair shop owner cited in a controversial New York Post story is suing Twitter for defamation, claiming its content moderation choices falsely tarred him as a hacker. John Paul Mac Isaac was the owner of The Mac Shop, a Delaware computer repair business. In October, the New York Post reported that The Mac Shop had been paid to recover data from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and it published emails and pictures allegedly from a copy of the hard drive. After the Post’s sourcing and conclusions were disputed, Facebook and Twitter both restricted the article’s reach, and Twitter pointed to its ban on posting “hacked materials” as an explanation. Mac Isaac claims Twitter specifically made this decision to “communicate to the world that [Mac Isaac] is a hacker.” He sa...

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical has some big Broadway talent on board for its January 1st streaming performance. Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, Kevin Chamberlin, Mary Testa, and Priscilla Lopez will play key roles, with Tituss Burgess starring as Remy, the sophisticated rat who loves fine food. The one-time only performance will benefit the Actors Fund. Based on the 2007 Disney-Pixar movie Ratatouille, the musical came together on TikTok, with creators composing songs based on the original film, building the “show” piece by piece. Emily Jacobsen (@e_jaccs) made the original “Remy the Ratatouille” song for TikTok, and composer Daniel Mertzlufft, created the very Broadway-esque arrangement of Jacobsen’s song that really started the ball rolling for a full-blown show. Honestly it’s so good. “The ...

If you intend to fly a drone in the US, you’re going to want to pay attention: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just issued the single biggest set of changes to US drone law since the agency first took an interest in the technology. With the proper license, you’ll soon be able to fly at night and over people. But the biggest change is this: in 2023, it may be illegal for you to fly some drones at all unless you retrofit them with their own broadcasting equipment. In 2022, the US government will require every new mass-produced drone weighing over 0.55 pounds (0.25kg) to broadcast your location — and I do mean your location, not just the location of your drone. You’ll also be broadcasting an identification number that law enforcement can cross-reference with your registration number...

The first thing to do when you get a new phone is to log back into all your accounts — email, Facebook, Signal, and so on — to make sure you’re getting all the important notifications you need and messages from friends. But after that, you’ll want to install apps that replace the default tools (like the web browser or weather app) with something better, along with apps that’ll just make your day-to-day usage of the phone a lot more helpful. Here are our suggestions for where to start when setting up an Android phone. We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass; and our top choices for gaming PCs, the PS5, Xb...

The quest to banish the notch from modern smartphone design has resulted in some pretty clever innovations, the latest of which happens to be the under-display selfie cam on the ZTE Axon 20 5G. The 32-megapixel camera hiding underneath the screen didn’t quite impress us in our review of the device earlier this month, but it is a worthy sidestep to the hole punch or the pop-up selfie cam we’ve seen in past devices. Now, a new teardown video from YouTuber JerryRigEverything gives us a closer look at how exactly the Axon 20’s under-display camera works. Beyond being just a generally insightful breakdown of the various components of a modern smartphone, the Axon 20 teardown shows us how ZTE is actually using two screens stacked on top of one another (a small, square, and low-resolution one on ...

You can pick up Vizio’s 65-inch M-series (model M65Q7-H1) 4K TV for just $580 at Best Buy when you’re signed in with a free My Best Buy account. Otherwise, it’s $600. This model regularly costs $700, and today’s offer is a good one considering its size and specs. Not many TVs at this price point are going to be worth your money, but this one stands out with a QLED panel that offers more accurate contrast and colors than a standard LED. It also has four HDMI 2.0 ports with support for FreeSync variable refresh rate (up to 60Hz at 4K resolution). Vizio actually advertises HDMI 2.1 support here, but review site Rtings tested this model in-depth and claims that, even after a recent firmware update, all of its ports are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. Vizio has a large offering of TVs, and the M...

AT&T says its services have mostly recovered from a bombing that caused multi-state internet outages on Christmas. The explosion of an RV in Nashville injured three people and destroyed a section of the city’s downtown, including “significant damage” to a key AT&T transmission facility. This brought down wireless and wired networks across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama — disrupting cell service, some 911 networks, and communications at the Nashville International Airport, which briefly grounded flights as a result. The AT&T building, located blocks away from the company’s better-known office tower, provides a regional network connection point in addition to local service. The blast reportedly damaged the building’s structure and facade. Combined with water and fire d...

If you’re lucky enough to have unwrapped a new iPhone as a holiday gift this year, you’ll probably want to install some new apps on it. Fortunately, we’re here to help with some suggestions. We’ve included great apps that are just generally fun or useful to have on your phone, and apps that you should download to replace the default ones that Apple ships. We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass; and our top choices for gaming PCs, the PS5, Xbox One and Series X / S, Nintendo Switch, and VR. We’ve also listed our favorite streaming shows on Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus, and Netflix; some great sci-fi book...