Technology

Apple is shifting how it ships devices to consumers: instead of sending out all of its hardware products directly from China or from local warehouses, the company is now going to use its network of Apple Stores as de-facto fulfillment centers, shipping products directly from the stores to get to customers faster. The change, Bloomberg reports, will use Apple’s nearly 300 stores in the US and Canada to speed up local delivery for customers within 100 miles of a store. The company has already apparently started using the new system with several stores earlier this year, but the broader rollout is coming just ahead of Apple’s upcoming iPhone launch next week (which is already taking place later than usual). The shift is largely an internal one, according to Bloomberg — so customers won’t be a...

Fortnite won’t be coming back to the App Store any time soon. On Friday, Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers refused to grant Epic Games a preliminary injunction against Apple that would force the game developer to reinstate Fortnite on the App Store, while simultaneously granting an injunction that keeps Apple from retaliating against the Unreal Engine, which Epic also owns (PDF). In other words, we now have a permanent version of the temporary restraining order ruling from last month. That means the state of affairs, in which Epic is banned from publishing new games on iOS and cannot distribute Fortnite on the App Store in its current form, will remain in place for the length of the trial — unless Epic decides to remove its own in-app payment mechanism that initiated the bitter legal feud in Au...

Google contractors who recently unionized say their jobs are being slowly shipped to Poland. On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint laying out the allegations against HCL America, an engineering and IT contractor that works with Google in Pittsburgh. Obtained by Motherboard, the complaint argues the jobs are being outsourced in retaliation for legitimate union activity. In particular, the NLRB says the conduct took place “because employees formed, joined and assisted the Union and engaged in concerted activities, and to discourage employees from engaging in these activities.” None of the affected workers are legal employees of Google, but they specialize in engineering and IT tasks for HCL. The contractors voted to unionize in 2019, organizing under the Un...

Twitter announced a slew of temporary changes on Friday aimed at staving off abuse around the November 3rd US presidential election. Tweets that include premature claims of victory will be labeled, tweets intended to incite interference in the election or election results will be subject to removal, and tweets from political figures with more than 100,000 followers — which includes President Trump — that are labeled as “misleading” will be more difficult to access. “Twitter has a critical role to play in protecting the integrity of the election conversation, and we encourage candidates, campaigns, news outlets and voters to use Twitter respectfully and to recognize our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process this November,” ac...

The PlayStation 5 offers backwards compatibility for the existing PlayStation 4 lineup of games, meaning you’ll be able to play almost any PS4 game you already own on the new console. Some games will also offer the option to upgrade to a proper PS5-optimized next-gen title, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Here’s how to get started: How to play backwards compatible PlayStation 4 games The PS5 will be able to play nearly every PS4 game that’s available through backwards compatibility. Sony also promises that some games will actually be able to take advantage of the extra power on the new console to provide a “Game Boost” for faster or smoother frame rates. That said, Sony also warns that some functionality from PS4 titles may not be available, and there may be “errors or un...

Hurricane Delta is the latest storm to threaten the US during a hurricane season that’s smashed records and mangled Gulf Coast communities time and again. The Atlantic hurricane season has lived up to early forecasts of an unusually busy year, and there’s still enough of 2020 left to set new records. There have never been more than nine named storms to make landfall Since modern record-keeping, there have never been more than nine named storms to make landfall in the continental US. That’s forecast to change when Delta hits later today. If it does, it will be the first time since 2005 that five hurricanes have battered the mainland US within a single season. This is the 25th named storm in a season that’s been so prodigious that the World Meteorological Association ran out of storm names t...

Google v. Oracle, a decade-long war over the future of software, neared its end in the Supreme Court this week as a battle of metaphors. Over the course of two hours, justices and attorneys compared Java — the coding language that Oracle acquired in 2010 — to a restaurant menu, a hit song, a football team, an accounting system, the instructions for finding a blend of spices in a grocery store, a safecracking manual, and the QWERTY keyboard layout. “Prediction: The side that wins the metaphor battle will win the case,” tweeted University of Oklahoma College of Law professor Sarah Burstein. The reliance on familiar analogies wasn’t necessarily surprising. Google v. Oracle covers a complex question: what elements of computer code can be copyrighted, and if that code is covered by copyright, w...

Before the pandemic, many companies were already using the videoconferencing app Zoom for business meetings, interviews, and other purposes. These days, many individuals facing long days without contact with friends and family have moved to Zoom for face-to-face and group get-togethers. This is a quick guide for those who haven’t tried Zoom yet or who aren’t yet familiar with its features (or who have used it with friends but want to start initiating their own meetings). It featuring tips on how to get started using the free version. One thing to keep in mind: while one-to-one video calls can go as long as you want, any group calls on Zoom are limited to 40 minutes. If you want to have longer talks without interruption (and want a few extra features), you can either pay for Zoom’s Pro plan...

The US Army is trialing a new technology that could “fundamentally change how military canines are deployed in the future” — a pair of augmented reality goggles for dogs. Dogs are put to many uses in modern militaries, from detecting explosives and searching for targets to accompanying infantry patrols in dangerous areas. Usually, handlers issue commands to their dogs using hand signals or laser pointers, but these techniques require line of sight with the dog, limiting how far canines can stray from their humans. AR reality goggles, though, could let military dogs operate at a distance without handlers losing control. The goggles have a built-in camera that transmits live footage remotely, and a heads-up display that can be used to show commands to the dogs. A dog could be directed to sea...

Yelp plans to alert users when a business on its platform has been accused of racist conduct, the company announced in a blog post. When someone associated with a business is accused of or is the target of racist behavior, Yelp will apply its general public attention alert. But if there’s “resounding evidence of egregious, racist actions” by a business owner or employees, such as using racist symbols or slurs, Yelp will apply a “business accused of racist behavior alert” and link to a credible news source to provide users more information. Image: Yelp “As the nation reckons with issues of systemic racism, we’ve seen in the last few months that there is a clear need to warn consumers about businesses associated with egregious, racially charged actions to help people make more informed spend...

Following an earlier leak of the OnePlus 8T from the front, we now have a pretty good idea of what the phone will look like around the back as well. CEO Pete Lau has posted an official picture of the Aquamarine Green colorway to the OnePlus forums, while leaker Ishan Agarwal has followed up with more renders including the Lunar Silver variant. Lau says that the glossy green cover is the result of four months’ experimentation to land on the right finish. “This version takes advantage of diffuse reflection, a form of light refraction that scatters light in an expansive array of angles and directions, to produce a clean, gleaming surface that effectively mitigates the buildup of fingerprints,” he writes. “Throughout development, we tried and tested hundreds of films before landing on the idea...

A new leak has provided extensive details about what Apple could announce at its October 13th event. In line with previous rumors, the leaker Kang predicts we’ll see Apple announce four new iPhone models at its event, but says we’ll also see a new HomePod mini smart speaker. They also provide a host of extra details and release information for the iPhone 12 lineup. According to AppleTrack, Kang has a reliable track record, and accurately predicted several of Apple’s WWDC and September event announcements this year. Kang says Apple will announce four new iPhones next week: an iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. All four will reportedly feature 5G support, including mmWave in the US. The Super Retina XDR display which was previously exclusive to the iPhone 11’s P...