Technology

Samsung has announced yet another version of the Galaxy S20: the Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition, which promises a “mission-ready military smartphone.” It’s designed for a slightly different customer-base than the already-released S20, S20 Plus, S20 Ultra, or even the Verizon-only mmWave S20. Despite the grand military branding and aspirations, the S20 Tactical Edition is effectively just a regular S20 phone with some extra software features and security options in a rugged Juggernaut case. From a hardware perspective, the Tactical Edition features identical specs, with a 6.2-inch OLED display, Snapdragon 865, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, sub-6GHz 5G support, and triple rear camera system. But according to Samsung, the Tactical Edition “caters to the unique needs of military operators” by of...

Instagram has posted its guidelines for using copyrighted music during live videos, Stories, and other posts on the platform, and part of the announcement includes a new update to the notification that pops up to tell users they’re using unlicensed art in ways that violate its rules. The changes to the pop-up notification are designed around helping users avoid Instagram’s automated interruptions — like muting or outright blocking — that occurs if a piece of licensed music plays for too long over or in the background of a live video. Now, the notification pops up earlier in live broadcasts to give users more time to remove the audio so they can avoid having the stream disrupted or taken down. Instagram will also give clearer instructions to remedy the situation in the event a stream is aut...

Tesla is raising the price of the top tier “Full Self-Driving” version of its Autopilot driver assistance package by around $1,000 on July 1st, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter this week. The company has done this before — a few times. It will probably do it again. The “Full Self-Driving” package, to be clear, does not yet make Teslas capable of driving without human intervention. Right now, it gives customers access to a series of incremental improvements to Autopilot. But Musk believes the value of the feature, which currently costs $7,000, is higher. Much higher, in fact, once the work on the software is complete. “[The] price will continue to rise as the software gets closer to full self-driving capability with regulatory approval. It that point, the value of FSD is probably somewher...

Intel has acquired Rivet Networks, the maker of Killer-branded NICs (network interface cards responsible for managing your connection) found in some laptops from popular brands like Dell, Alienware, HP, and other manufacturers. Killer’s own networking products were noteworthy for providing gaming-centric features like minimizing latency to keep you from missing a beat in-game, and prioritizing network traffic for games and other applications that need it the most. Rivet Networks has been a competitor to Intel in the NIC space for over a decade. With this acquisition, Intel can capitalize on the gaming market. This acquisition isn’t as out of left field as it might seem. A few years back, Intel and Rivet Networks collaborated to develop the Killer Wireless-AC 1550 NIC, with Intel handling t...

Tesla voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Alameda County “without prejudice,” according to documents filed in a California court Wednesday — but the company did not provide any reasoning for why it was dropping the suit. The electric carmaker sued the county on May 9th, amid Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s war of words with county officials over the shuttering of his company’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, California. the company did not provide any reasoning for dropping the suit The orders went into effect in mid-March in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. County officials restricted all but “essential businesses” from performing anything other than the most minimal operations, like processing payroll. After initially fighting the order, Tesla shut down the factory on March 23rd. Mus...

Lego and Nintendo had already announced that their interactive Super Mario Lego starter set and two expansion packs would launch on August 1st, and the two companies announced today that four swappable outfits for Mario, called “Power-Up Packs,” will also be released on the same day. Inspired by the classic costumes from the Super Mario games, the Power-Up Packs not only change the appearance of Lego Mario but will also produce sounds for each corresponding suit. Fire Mario, for example, makes a sound as if Mario is throwing a fireball, and Cat Mario will have him making “meow” noises. Propeller Mario makes propeller sounds when you have him “fly,” and Builder Mario can “break bricks” when you bring Mario down for a ground pound attack. Each Power-Up Pack will cost $9.99 and will be sold s...

Twitter is testing a way to let you limit how many people can reply to your tweets. If you’re part of the test, when you compose a tweet, you’ll be able to select if you’ll allow replies from everyone, people you follow, or only people you @ mention. Twitter said in January that this feature would be coming to the platform sometime this year. Here’s a video from Twitter showing how the feature works: Testing, testing… A new way to have a convo with exactly who you want. We’re starting with a small % globally, so keep your out to see it in action. pic.twitter.com/pV53mvjAVT — Twitter (@Twitter) May 20, 2020 If you limit replies on a tweet, everyone who can see your tweets will still be able to see that tweet, and they’ll be able to like it and retweet it — they just won’t be able to r...

Apple released iOS 13.5 today with two new features that are a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic: changes to Face ID to make it easier to unlock your phone if you’re wearing a face mask and support for the first phase of Apple and Google’s jointly-developed exposure notification system. On previous versions of iOS, if you were wearing a face mask and tried to use Face ID to access your phone, you’d have to wait for a couple seconds while your iPhone attempted to identify your face before it would let you enter a passcode. In iOS 13.5, though, if you swipe up once from the bottom of the screen while you’re wearing a mask, you’ll see the option to enter your passcode right away. iOS 13.5 also supports Apple and Google’s exposure notification API, meaning you’ll be able to use apps devel...

AT&T’s actual 5G network is rolling out to major parts of the US this year, but the company’s fake 5G network — which it calls “5G Evolution” and shortens to “5G E” when it appears in the corner of smartphones — has remained the subject of controversy for the last two years. Now, the carrier says it may stop the charade after the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) recommended it cease using the misleading term as well as the phrase ”5G Evolution, The First Step to 5G,” in marketing material (via MacRumors). As a reminder, 5G E is simply a faster version of the 4G LTE standard, but it comes nowhere close to the speeds promised by the actual 5G spec finalized by the international cellular standards group 3GPP in 2018. AT&T uses its custom logo anyway, putting it in the corner o...

If you tuned into Microsoft’s Build developer keynote yesterday, one of the things you may have seen was a mysterious “RGV2cw” 3D-printed object on the shelf behind CEO Satya Nadella. It was part of many Easter eggs hidden throughout Microsoft’s Build stream, spelling out “devs” in Base64 format. The shelf also had little Easter eggs hidden away, including an 8-inch floppy disc, an original Microsoft cap, the GitHub Octocat mascot, and even a Gold Master CD-ROM that Microsoft used to use for shipping final software to PC makers. As Build moved on from Nadella’s opening remarks to Scott Hanselman, a partner program manager at Microsoft, the Easter eggs ramped up. With most of Microsoft’s employees working from home and streaming from their living rooms, Hanselman created an hour-long TV sho...

Microsoft is late. The company’s first truly wireless earbuds, the Surface Earbuds, were latecomers when they were first announced back in October, and they are even later now that they are finally available. In 2020 alone, Google has released its second-gen Pixel Buds, Samsung made strides with the Galaxy Buds Plus, and Sennheiser debuted another set of hi-fi truly wireless earbuds. And as always, you’ve got Apple, Sony, and Jabra in the mix. This wide field of competition has already led Microsoft to launch them at a lower price ($199.99) than initially planned. So how does Microsoft differentiate? The company says its Surface Earbuds were built with an eye toward unrivaled comfort, a standout design, rich sound quality, and integration with the Office 365 suite. They deliver on several ...

When you buy a new Windows 10 computer, out of the box, it will default to having you enter your Outlook or Microsoft account password every time you sign in. This can be a hassle, especially if you have a long, secure, and complicated password. Thankfully, Windows has several other ways you can sign in to your laptop that are a little simpler. We’ll walk you through how to adjust your settings and opt into signing in using a PIN, your fingerprint, or picture password. (Facial recognition is also available, but only on specific Windows 10 systems.) We’ll also show you how to remove your password altogether (although, to keep your device secure, we recommend that you go with one of the options above rather than eliminating any kind of sign-in). Windows 10 also gives you the option to use a ...