Technology

“I’d be more worried about the camera on your phone than I would be about a drone,” Amazon devices SVP Dave Limp told me in an interview a few hours after yesterday’s big Echo event. The drone in question is the Ring Always Home Cam, an autonomous indoor drone that can use a map of your home to independently fly around to check out strange noises or run a patrol when you’re not home. The drone was just one of well over a dozen product announcements Amazon made yesterday — including a full-on game streaming service to compete directly with Microsoft and Google. But everybody’s visceral reaction to the idea of an Amazon-powered drone flitting its camera about your house is what will be remembered. Box CEO Aaron Levie pretty much summed it up, tweeting, “If 2020 wasn’t already dystopian enoug...

Apple has quietly removed the 5W USB charging brick that it had been previously including with its pricier Apple Watch Edition and Apple Watch Hermès models, bringing the luxury models in line with the remainder of the company’s lineup, as spotted by MacRumors. At its “Time Flies” event earlier this month, the company announced that it would no longer include the USB power brick with its cheaper Series 6, SE, Series 3, and Nike models in an effort to reduce its environmental impact. Apple’s old website, noting the included 5W adapter.Image: Apple However, it was quickly noted that Apple was still including that brick on its luxury models, which was seemingly inconsistent with its new environmental goals, despite the fact that Apple likely sells fewer Watches from those product lines. (The ...

In July, amid the rise of the buzzy audio-only social network Clubhouse, some users reported being harassed by other members. This seemed obviously bad, but at the time the company had no guidelines about how users should behave on the site. Moderation duties were left to the two co-founders, then the company’s only employees, and it’s fair to say that enforcement was not their full-time focus. When I wrote about the situation at Clubhouse, responses were divided. Some readers said that because the app was still in private beta, and had just two employees, users ought to cut it some slack. Moderation would come as the app scaled, they said, and to beat up the founders for not having every detail in place during the launch stage was unfair to the team. The other view, which I took, is that ...

Earlier this year, Facebook launched a new feature that let small businesses create paid online events. The company framed it as a way of helping organizations struggling with lost revenue during the pandemic, and said that because of the exceptional circumstances, it would not collect any fees on purchases for these events until August 2021. But the social network also stressed that any payments made on iOS would be subject to Apple’s standard 30 percent platform fees, noting this meant less money for small businesses. As Fidji Simo, head of Facebook’s main app, said at the time: “We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19. Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and [small...

We’re expecting Apple to announce four new iPhones later this year, and signs and portents increasingly suggest that the smallest will be named the iPhone 12 mini — a title new to the iPhone range but with a solid Apple heritage. Past and present mini Apple products include the iPod mini, iPad mini, and Mac mini. So it might be time for a mini iPhone, too. The name was mentioned earlier this week by established leaker @L0vetodream, who suggested that the four new iPhones would be called the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Now another leaker, @duanrui1205, has shared images showing Apple’s “silicone case stickers,” complete with names and hand-labeled screen sizes. They match previous rumors for sizes and specs, with the line-up as follows: Apple iPhone 12 m...

Twitter says it’s working on bringing its “read the article before you retweet it” prompt to all users “soon.” The company began testing the prompt in June, which shows up when people go to retweet a story they haven’t clicked through to actually read. Twitter says its motivation is to “help promote informed discussion.” Headlines often don’t tell the whole story and can even be actively misleading. Encouraging people to at least read the article they’re sharing seems like a smart way to promote media literacy and stop some of the knee-jerk reactions that can make misinformation viral. More reading – people open articles 40% more often after seeing the promptMore informed Tweeting – people opening articles before RTing increased by 33% Some people didn’t end up RTing after opening the arti...

Microsoft’s source code for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 has leaked online. Torrent files for both operating systems’ source code have been published on various file sharing sites this week. It’s the first time source code for Windows XP has leaked publicly, although the leaked files claim this code has been shared privately for years. The Verge has verified the material is legitimate, and we’ve reached out to Microsoft to comment on the leak. It’s unlikely that this latest source code leak will pose any significant threat to companies still stuck running Windows XP machines. Microsoft ended support for Windows XP back in 2014, although the company responded to the massive WannaCry malware attack with a highly unusual Windows XP patch in 2017. While this is the first time Windows XP ...

Microsoft Flight Simulator has got a lot of people hankering to take to the virtual skies. But for many the experience isn’t complete without a flight stick of some sort. With lots of these now sold out that can be tough. But here’s a solution: 3D-printed parts that snap onto an Xbox One controller for a DIY conversion into a hands on throttle-and-stick or HOTAS. This amazing little mod is the work of Akaki Kuumeri, a 3D printing tinkerer who maintains a YouTube channel showing off some of his creations. Kuumeri has made a video for this mod, too, and it’s well worth a watch, just for the groanworthy selection of puns alone. The mod takes just $10 and “an afternoon of your time” to make If you want to made the mod yourself, Kuumeri has uploaded the plans to Thingiverse to download for free...

You might be wondering: “Did Amazon just break Apple’s App Store guidelines by bringing a cloud gaming service to iPhone?” And I can understand why, given that I told you just last week how Apple doesn’t permit Google Stadia in anything close to its current form, and Amazon’s just-announced Luna is a lot like Stadia. Wouldn’t the same rules apply? But the truth is that Amazon has a simple way to get around Apple’s App Store rules entirely — and it’s making me wonder how long it’ll be before Google, Nvidia, Microsoft and others follow suit. Hello, PWA The short version: Amazon Luna on iOS is not a traditional app. It’ll never appear in the App Store, and it doesn’t need to. As Engadget reports, it’s a progressive web app (PWA), which is mostly a fancy name for a website that you can launch ...

Ring’s flying drone camera, the Always Home Cam, was easily the most surprising hardware announcement at today’s Amazon event. It won’t actually be available until next year, but the company has already put together a short ad to demonstrate how the camera can give you a flying, go-anywhere perspective on whatever’s happening in your home. In the video, we see Ring’s security system tripped when a burglar breaks in, and the homeowner immediately dispatches the Always Home Cam to check in. As soon as the careless thief sees Ring’s “compact, lightweight, autonomously flying indoor camera,” he immediately flees. If you were hoping to get an idea of just how noisy the Always Home Cam is, well, this doesn’t really provide that. You can hear the regular drone buzz, but it’s drowned out by a very...

One of the nice new features of iOS 14 was the ability to set your own default mail and browser apps. However, users who tried this out were finding that, after they restarted their device, the default would reset to Mail or Safari. Today, Apple has taken care of that with its first updates for the iPhone and iPad, bringing them up to 14.0.1. The Apple Watch will also update to 7.0.1. Now, when you set your preferred browser defaults to Google Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge, or your mail defaults to Gmail, Outlook, or Spark, they should stay that way, even after a restart. Other fixes in the release notes, according to 9to5Mac, include problems that could keep camera previews from displaying on iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, keep iPhones from connecting via Wi-Fi, and could keep images from appe...

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip usually costs $1,380 if you buy it new, but Back Market is selling refurbished units for $799. If you’ve wanted to own one of these but couldn’t justify spending the equivalent of two Xbox Series X consoles and a PS5 digital edition on a phone, now’s your chance to jump in. This version of the Z Flip is compatible with GSM carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile. This isn’t the Z Flip 5G that was announced more recently; it’s the one that supports LTE. In the review, which you can watch above or read here, The Verge’s Dieter Bohn lauds its performance and battery life, as well as its “solid-feeling, smooth hinge” design. Keep in mind, though, that its foldable glass is still fragile to scratches, and its cameras aren’t much to write home about. Back Market lists t...