Technology

WhatsApp on Friday announced a three-month delay of a new privacy policy originally slated to go into effect on February 8th following widespread confusion over whether the new policy would mandate data sharing with Facebook. The update does not in fact affect data sharing with Facebook with regard to user chats or other profile information; WhatsApp has repeatedly clarified that its update addresses business chats in the event a user converses with a company’s customer service platform through WhatsApp. WhatsApp is trying to clear up confusion about its privacy practices “We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There’s been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts,” the compan...

According to 9to5Mac, Apple will be extending its free year-long trials of its TV Plus service to customers until July 2021. The trials were originally included with the purchase of any Apple device (e.g., an iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV) and were initially set to last until November 1st, 2020. This is the second extension, with the first extending from November 2020 to February 2021. Subscribers who had free subscriptions that were set to expire any time from February 2021 to June 2021 will also get an extension until July. The extension comes in the wake of production delays. Only one of the shows the service launched with (Dickinson) has had its second season premiere, while others — like For All Mankind, The Morning Show, and See — are still waiting for their second seasons to come out....

A discount on HBO Max that was supposed to end today, January 15th, has been extended until March 1st, 2021. The fine print of the offer hasn’t changed: you can get six months of HBO Max for 20 percent off the normal total cost, which is usually $90 before tax. You’ll pay $70 with this deal (it’s like paying just under $12 per month instead of $15), but the catch is that you have to prepay in full and it’s nonrefundable. This discount is open to both new and returning HBO Max subscribers, but it can’t be stacked with a free trial or any other promotion. WarnerMedia kicked off this deal in early December 2020 on the heels of Warner Bros. announcing that its 2021 slate of films would debut on HBO Max alongside the theatrical releases and remain available to stream for 30 days. Wonder Woman 1...

Getting a MagSafe car charger for your iPhone seems like a simple process, but the current landscape is one of trade-offs: there are no all-in-one solutions that will wirelessly hold and charge your phone and are MagSafe certified to provide up to 15W of power. However, manufactures have been finding workarounds. First, there’s Belkin’s Car Vent Mount Pro, which is the only MagSafe Certified car mount, and it sells for $39.99. Being certified doesn’t mean it provides power, though. You’ll have to plug your phone in with a Lightning cable (which you’d have to do anyway for wired CarPlay compatibility). This does technically let you charge your phone faster than regular wireless charging, but it leaves you messing around with a cable. Then there’s the Scosche MagicMount, which provides a 20W...

\\If you’ve finally given up on the world’s most popular social media network, it’s not too complicated to remove yourself from the service. But before you delete all of those pictures, posts, and likes, you should download your personal information from Facebook. Your Facebook archives contain just about all of the pertinent information related to your account, including your photos, active sessions, chat history, IP addresses, facial recognition data, and which ads you clicked, just to name a few. That’s a ton of personal information that you should probably maintain access to. To download your archive using the web: Click on the “down” arrow in the upper right corner. Go to “Settings & Privacy” > “Settings.” In the left-hand column, click on “Your Facebook Information.” In the ce...

Briana became Storymodebae when she started her Twitch channel in January 2018. Back then she was still a year away from graduating from college, and in her own words, got the idea to start making things online after she started watching Let’s Plays on YouTube when she found herself stuck in games. “I was like, ‘I mean, I like playing video games and I think I can crack a joke on occasion. So maybe I should give this a try.’” Three years later, Storymodebae has made Twitch her full-time career — though she’s still understandably a little nervous about putting her full name online. (“You know, I don’t put the government out there,” she jokes.) Last year, Storymodebae hosted three shows for Twitch — This is Dope, Follow Fridays, and The Weekly — and also live concert shows for Live Nation. H...

WandaVision, the first original television series produced by Marvel Studios, isn’t quite like anything Marvel has released before. It’s absurdist and pays authentic tribute to some of the best American sitcoms produced in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, including Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show. WandaVision is still a Marvel Studios show, however, and that means it ties into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first two episodes, now streaming on Disney Plus, set up a key organization that ties WandaVision into the current Marvel Cinematic Universe’s moment, while also setting up the enticing “cosmic universe” era it’s about to enter. [This is your mandatory spoiler warning. Stop reading here if you don’t want to know anything that happens in the first two episodes.] A S.W.O....

Let’s just get to it: Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro are the best true wireless earbuds that the company has made yet. For their $200 asking price, you get a comfortable fit, effective active noise cancellation, and good, punchy sound quality. These earbuds improve on Samsung’s prior efforts with clever features like a speech detection mode that automatically lowers your music and lets you hear the outside world as soon as you start talking. But they also inch Samsung closer to a siloed-off world, not unlike Apple, where the best experience is reserved for people who stick to Samsung-branded devices. A few features like 3D audio and automatic device switching — sound familiar? — only work if you’re using these earbuds with a Samsung phone or tablet. Most people aren’t going to be cross-shopping...

Dating app Bumble has temporarily disabled a feature which allowed users to filter potential matches based on their political leanings, the service has announced. The feature allows users to identify and filter matches with options such as “Apolitical,” “Moderate,” “Liberal,” and “Conservative.” In a statement given to Mashable, Bumble said it had temporarily removed the feature in the US to “prevent misuse and abuse.” News of the change emerged after Bumble users reported seeing individuals on the app who appeared to have participated in the riots at the Capitol building last week. On January 7th, Twitter user Alia Awadallah reported seeing “dozens” of men on dating apps that appeared to be in Washington, DC on the day of the riots. They suggested taking screenshots of these profiles, and...

Apple is planning a major MacBook Pro redesign for the third quarter of 2021, according to a research note written by TF International Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo and reported on by MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and Apple Insider. Kuo calls it the first major redesign of the MacBook Pro since the introduction of the current generation in 2016. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has followed up with a report corroborating many of the same details. The new MacBook Pro is said to have squared-off sides like the iPad Pro and the iPhone 12; the current laptop already has sharp edges, but it sounds like the top and bottom panels are going to be flatter than before as well. The new model will reportedly come in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes both featuring Apple-designed Arm processors, with no Intel options. Kuo says...

Intel is updating its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) lineup of miniature computers with its 11th Gen processors, and it’s again including a gaming-focused model. The NUC 11 Enthusiast is a follow-up to the NUC 8 Hades Canyon from 2018, which managed to pack triple-A gaming performance (not to mention I/O that rivaled a full-size desktop) into a tiny enclosure. Included in the refresh are updates to the company’s more traditional small-cube NUC Performance Mini computers, which previously had 10th Gen processors. The upgrade brings Wi-Fi 6 and Intel Xe graphics to the i5 and i7 models. Intel has also added a NUC Pro line, some of which have vPro-enabled CPUs and all of which can drive 8K displays. There’s also a NUC 11 compute unit, which is just a board meant to be integrated into future com...

BMW is suspending its two-year-old car subscription service, The Verge has learned. Access by BMW was launched in 2018 in Nashville as a pilot project to test out whether customers would want to have access to a fleet of fancy cars but not necessarily own one. But recent requests to sign up have been met with a disclaimer that the service is in the process of shutting down. A Nashville resident who was interested in applying for the subscription service was told that it was going to be defunct by the end of January. “Unfortunately the Access by BMW subscription program is ending on January 31st and we are no longer taking new members,” a sales representative said in an email. “Unfortunately the Access by BMW subscription program is ending on January 31st” A BMW spokesperson confirmed to Th...