Technology

We knew a 5G variant of Samsung’s vertically folding Galaxy Z Flip clamshell was on the way, after the first images leaked earlier this month. Now, we have an entire leaked video and a set of rumors about the new “Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G” that seems to leave nothing to the imagination — and suggest it might be ready for Samsung’s upcoming August 5th Galaxy Unpacked event. Basically, it looks like it’ll be practically the same folding phone but with a faster processor and 5G. Based on phone leaker Evan Blass’ video — which shows the phone from practically every angle — it looks practically identical to the original LTE version that went on sale on February 14th. The only differences other than 5G support and a new “mystic bronze” color, according to XDA-Developers’ Max Weinbach, is that it...

Makeup retailer Morphe has parted with YouTuber Jeffree Star, after weeks of public acrimony in the YouTube beauty community. Star has been accused of using racist and offensive language, as well as manipulating other creators and people close to him. “Today we’ve made the decision to cease all commercial activity related to Jeffree Star and affiliated products,” a tweet from Morphe’s account reads. As of right now, Star’s products remain on the site, but a tweet from the Morphe account says that will change in “the coming weeks,” without giving a specific date. Star’s relationship with Morphe was once a major source of income for the creator, who’s launched several lines with the company and become a face for its brand. “We’ve made the decision to cease all commercial activity related to ...

Though it might strike some people as obvious advice, Apple has published a support page that warns MacBook owners not to close their laptop with a camera cover in place. Damage like a cracked display could result, according to the company, because “the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances.” MacRumors spotted the advisory, which Apple posted on July 2nd. Those little plastic camera covers with a sliding mechanism are super common nowadays. Heck, I remember getting one as a holiday gift from The Verge’s parent company, Vox Media. But they could spell disaster for your laptop screen if you shut the laptop with the cover still on, and Apple’s laptop repairs are extremely costly. Even with AppleCare+ accidental coverage, the deductible isn’t cheap. In...

Amazon has delayed its upcoming open-world MMO New World, one of two tentpole games from its burgeoning games studio, from August 25th to an undefined spring 2021 date. The announcement comes less than two weeks after Amazon brought its other tentpole game, the free-to-play shooter Crucible, back into closed beta following barely a month of wide availability. It sounds like Amazon may be taking a more cautious approach to game development after early feedback from testers that the games weren’t quite what they hoped. The New World team wants to add “more features and content before we share it with a wider audience,” including “plenty of middle and endgame experiences,” studio director Rich Lawrence said in a blog post that was also shared on Twitter. “We want our players to feel completel...

Tesla has finally settled on a date for its delayed annual shareholder meeting and “battery day” for investors: September 22nd. The meeting will be held in person at the company’s vehicle factory in Fremont, California, though it will presumably also be live-streamed. Only people who are shareholders of the company’s stock can attend. The annual shareholder meeting was originally scheduled for July 7th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The company planned to have shareholders attend in person and watch online, and said at the time that it would “monitor public health and travel safety protocols required or recommended by federal, state and local governments.” But large gatherings have remained banned in California because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so CEO Elon Mus...

There used to be something called the public intellectual. A class of thinkers — mostly writers with prestigious degrees and academics with a knack for writing — set the Discourse. They told other people what to think, or rather, they told the unwashed masses what was going through their own heads lately. These disclosures were taken with great seriousness, even if they tended toward rambling, incoherent, or obvious. From there, the educated and those who wanted to be seen as educated would pick and choose the opinions they wished to align themselves with. It is through this process that politics were created, refined, and rehashed. (Indeed, the phrase “Overton window” was popularized by them.) This was part of what it meant to participate in the public sphere. I used to be told, in all se...

Google’s 2020 Pixel lineup may look a bit different than usual if the latest product names found in the company’s Google search app are any indication. Instead of the expected Pixel 5 and Pixel 5 XL monikers, Google is apparently working on a “Pixel 4a (5G)” and a “Pixel 5,” via 9to5Google. Those two phones were previously discovered under the codenames of “redfin” and “bramble” by XDA-Developers. Both were set to offer a Snapdragon 765G processor with built-in 5G support. There was also a third device, codenamed “sunfish,” featuring a Snapdragon 730. But today’s leak confirms which phone names go along with each of those codenames, and it could indicate a big shift for Google’s Pixel strategy this year. The last device is the simplest: “sunfish” is the already thoroughly leaked Pixel 4A, ...

HBO Max has announced a new TV series focused on the Gotham City Police Department, which will be a spinoff of Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman film (which is set to star Robert Pattinson at Bruce Wayne / Batman). The new series will be set in the same world as Reeves’ film and will be produced by Reeves and Dylan Clark (who’s also producing The Batman). Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter is set to write the series. The series promises to “build upon the motion picture’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City” and “further explore the myriad of compelling and complex characters of Gotham,” with the goal of launching a “new Batman universe across multiple platforms.” The new TV series emphasizes how important DC properties are to the overall HBO Max strategy The new TV...

Amazon asked employees to remove the popular social video-sharing app TikTok from their mobile devices on Friday, as first reported by The New York Times. “Due to security risks, the TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices that access Amazon email,” the company said in an email to employees Friday morning. “If you have TikTok on your device, you must remove it by 10-Jul to retain mobile access to Amazon email. At this time, using TikTok from your Amazon laptop browser is allowed.” The email was obtained and independently published by multiple reporters on Twitter. TikTok was recently caught accessing user clipboard data when running in the background, potentially exposing passwords or other sensitive data. The behavior was revealed because of a new feature in iOS 14, and it’s u...

All of those obnoxious marketing emails that crowd your inbox aren’t just pushing a product. They’re also tracking whether you’ve opened the email, when you opened it, and where you were at the time by embedding tracking software into the message. Just type “email tracking” into your search engine and watch all the software apps appear. There are a variety of methods used to track emails. For example, one of the simplest is a redirect link. Let’s say you click a link in a promotional email that leads to the page for a product you want to buy. The link has been coded to be trackable; it will go to another server with a variety of data, like what browser you are using or where you clicked the link from, before it takes you to the article. But while it’s fairly easy to spot a redirect link (f...

I. Yesterday we talked about how a recent social media conflict between journalists and the tech world might be better framed as a conflict between managers and their employees. Today I want to look at that conflict from another angle — how it played out on the buzzy, audio-only, invite-only social network Clubhouse. Like many social startups before it, the company neglected to develop or enforce strong community guidelines before launch — and the oversight could derail a company valued at $100 million while still in private beta. Let me acknowledge up front that Clubhouse is barely a few months old, and currently has just two full-time employees — its founders, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth. I’ve known Davison for about seven years, and have always found him fun to talk to. He’s charming, h...

The last big tech event I attended in person was Samsung’s launch of the Galaxy S20 line of smartphones. Now Samsung will join everybody else in tech by trying to capture some semblance of that experience and hype in a purely online event with the upcoming Unpacked event scheduled for August 5th. We are, of course, expecting to see the Galaxy Note 20 lineup announced that day. Though the rumors initially waffled a bit on what exactly that lineup would entail, more recent leaks point to a Note 20, a Note 20 Plus (which will be bigger), and a Note 20 Ultra (which will be… “Ultra,” whatever that means). In addition to the Note 20 line, there are plenty of other Samsung devices that are due for an imminent release. There’s the 5G version of the Galaxy Z Flip folding phone, the Galaxy Z F...