Technology

Amazon is updating Alexa to allow it to automatically switch between more languages. The update comes after a flurry of small Alexa additions over the course of November, increasing functionality and making Alexa more useful. Alexa first gained the ability to automatically respond to requests in English and other languages in 2019. However, you were limited to only two languages at a time. That hasn’t changed, but now users can enable a few more languages in the Alexa app. Alexa can speak German, French, Canadian-French, Japanese, Spanish, US-Spanish, and Hindi — all paired with English. Additionally, users can switch languages without pulling up the app by saying “Alexa, speak Spanish” to set a new primary language or “Alexa, speak Spanish and English” to set up a pair to switch between. ...

When Apple released iOS 14.2 last month, it didn’t mention that FaceTime calls would now be in 1080p for older iPhones. As MacMagazine notes, Apple has updated the product comparison pages of the iPhones 8, X, XR, XS, SE, and 11 (including the Max and Pro versions) to show that they now support FaceTime at 1080p over Wi-Fi, as opposed to before when they only supported 720p. Calls made over cellular will still be at the lower resolution, but if you’re FaceTiming over Wi-Fi you may notice increased clarity after the update. That is, unless both callers had the iPhone 12, which has had 1080p FaceTime calls from the start (including over cellular if you’re on 5G). My sister has an iPhone 8 with the update, so I called her up on FaceTime. I had her take a screenshot when we were calling over W...

Verizon revealed this morning that Samsung’s Galaxy S20 lineup will be the first Samsung phones to receive Android 11 and Samsung’s One UI 3.0 in the US, and now the software has already started trickling out to customers, according to Droid Life. One UI 3.0 has been in public beta for the last two months, but this marks the official release of the final software. One UI 3.0 has the messaging, notifications and security features of Android 11, along with some add-ons specific to One UI. Samsung has added easier ways to access widgets, take screenshots, and double-tap the screen to put your phone to sleep, to name a few, but if you want a more exhaustive list of all of the One UI 3.0 changes, you can check out this roundup at Android Police. An example of the new lock screen and notificatio...

A class action lawsuit was filed against General Motors alleging that the Chevy Bolt’s battery is “prone to burst into flames.” The lawsuit comes on the heels of GM announcing that it was recalling 68,000 Bolts over a malfunctioning battery. The lawsuit, which was filed in Northern District of Illinois, claims that the Bolt’s battery is defective and dangerous. Specifically, when the batteries in the electric vehicle are charged to full, or very close to full, they pose a risk of fire. The lawsuit accuses the company of fraud, negligent practices, and “knowingly introducing defective vehicles into the marketplace and defrauding consumers across the country.” The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages. “Knowingly introducing defective vehicles into the marketplace and defrauding consumers ...

As part of its $1 billion investment in partnerships with news publishers, Google will start paying for some paywalled content for its News Showcase program. News Showcase, a new addition to Google News that launched in October, displays story panels curated by publishers — but its not available in the US yet. News Showcase will “start offering people access to paywalled content in partnership with select news publishers,” says a Google blog post. Google will pay partners for limited access to paywalled content. To access that content, users will still have to register with the individual publishers. Users in the US shouldn’t get too excited about free articles just yet. Google lists partnerships with publishers in several countries, but the US is not currently on the list. News Showcase w...

Dangerously high temperatures put hundreds of thousands of people’s health and livelihoods at risk every year, and a major new report shows how much the threat has already grown in a warming world. Among other alarming statistics, heat-related deaths among older adults grew by nearly 54 percent between 2000 and 2018, the report finds. The sweeping health and climate change report was published today in the prominent medical journal The Lancet. The report was produced by more than 100 experts from academia, the World Health Organization, and other UN agencies. The report offers proof that climate change will not only reshape life in the future, but it is actively endangering lives now. Health care providers already see themselves treating a climate crisis. “We don’t want our health system t...

Ecobee’s SmartCamera has received a firmware update that may interest Apple users who are feeling a little burnt-out on subscriptions. The camera, which doubled as an Alexa speaker when it launched this April, generally has the standard smart camera features: you can stream video from it to your phone for free, and with a $5-a-month subscription you can have it record video and notify you of any movement (or just human movement, if you prefer). But today’s update adds Apple HomeKit Secure Video support, and it may give you another, cheaper way to record and store that footage. If you’re a little unfamiliar with the service, you’re probably not alone. HomeKit Secure Video was launched at WWDC in June of 2019, but so far only a handful of cameras support it. Like Ecobee’s service, it lets yo...

Hulu was first among the major streaming services to roll out a way for multiple people to watch its shows and movies together at the same time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, that Watch Party feature is expanding to all subscribers — not just those people paying for the ad-free plan. Watch Party is available on Hulu’s website. You’ll see the icon on a title’s details page. From there, you can share a Watch Party link with up to seven other Hulu subscribers so that everyone can watch the same content together from afar. Hulu says that “while watching, group members will be able to react in real-time through the chat function and control their own playback.” If you find yourself having to pause while your friends keep watching, there’s a “click to catch up” button to get right back to ...

Fortnite is no stranger to tie-ins — the battle royale’s season 5 battle pass has already kicked off with a picture-perfect Mandalorian and Baby Yoda skin, for example — but its next character appears to be coming not from a popular film or movie franchise, but from a different video game universe: God of War’s Kratos. The image, first posted by noted leaker HYPEX on Twitter, depicted a version of the Ghost of Sparta (in his more recent, bearded form from 2018’s God of War), albeit with a softer animated style look that’s more in line with Fortnite’s art style. Another tease from the PlayStation account further hints at Kratos’ pending arrival, with an unseen character panicking about “the next guy you’re picking up has literally vanquished multiple gods with his bare hands in a fit of unc...

Massachusetts lawmakers this week voted to ban the use of facial recognition by law enforcement and public agencies in a sweeping police reform bill that received significant bipartisan support. If signed into law, Massachusetts would become the first state to fully ban the technology, following bans barring the use of facial recognition in police body cameras and other, more limited city-specific bans on the tech. The bill, S.2963, marks yet another state government tackling the thorny ethical issue of unregulated facial recognition use in the absence of any federal guidance from Congress. It also includes bans on chokeholds and rubber bullets in addition to restrictions on tear gas and other crowd-control weapons, as reported by TechCrunch. It isn’t a blanket ban on facial recognition; p...

European mobile carrier Vodafone has partnered with Disney to launch a new wearable for kids called the Neo. Vodafone says the Neo combines its technological capabilities with Disney’s entertainment chops to offer a wearable that gives kids a sense of independence while letting parents stay in contact. The Neo’s most notable feature is its Disney branding. The Yves Béhar-designed watch lets kids choose from a collection of “Sidekicks” that will hang out on the main clock screen, including The Child / Baby Yoda / Grogu from The Mandalorian, Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, and Minnie Mouse. Vodafone says the Sidekicks will animate throughout the day, and the company plans to add more characters over time at no additional cost. An example of the Neo smartwatch with the Vodafone Smart app for c...

Alphabet’s Loon, the team responsible for beaming internet down to Earth from stratospheric helium balloons, has achieved a new milestone: its navigation system is no longer run by human-designed software. Instead, the company’s internet balloons are steered around the globe by an artificial intelligence — in particular, a set of algorithms both written and executed by a deep reinforcement learning-based flight control system that is more efficient and adept than the older, human-made one. The system is now managing Loon’s fleet of balloons over Kenya, where Loon launched its first commercial internet service in July after testing its fleet in a series of disaster relief initiatives and other test environments for much of the last decade. Loon’s internet balloons are now piloted by an AI f...