Technology

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...

Amazon’s Fire TV platform is expanding its live TV integration to include several key new services: YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Hulu’s live TV offering. The new services join previously available services, including Pluto TV and Prime Video Channels. As part of the new integration, live content from each provider will appear in Fire TV’s live discovery features. That includes the Live tab, On Now rows, and Channel Guide. Amazon has already offered Sling TV, YouTube TV, and Hulu’s live TV service on Fire TV hardware through existing apps — what’s new here is their inclusion in the “live TV” tab. Sling TV’s integration into Fire TV’s live discovery features actually began rolling out earlier this year, YouTube TV will start tomorrow, and Hulu’s integration will occur over the next few weeks. [...

Spotify knows people are changing up their workout routines during the pandemic, so it’s making it easier for them to create playlists to soundtrack their regimens. The company is launching an interactive webpage called Soundtrack Your Workout that’ll let listeners define their workouts and preferences and then will design a playlist for them. Playlists can be as long as two hours and be a mix of both podcasts and music, or people can keep it to just one or the other. Listeners can also choose to block explicit content. They have to select from eight different workouts (including yoga, lifting, cardio, and walking) and tell Spotify who they’re working out with (whether it’s just themselves or with a friend over a video call). They’ll then have to select the “vibe” of their workout, meaning...

Recently, some of the most popular webcams have been difficult to buy at major online retailers as people bought them to help stay in contact while social distancing or working from home during the pandemic. For example, as of this writing, Logitech’s popular C920 HD Pro webcam is sold out on Logitech’s US online store, and its listed price on Amazon US is currently well above Logitech’s own $79.99 asking price. Other models are available, but the situation means you might not get the exact webcam you want. That means people have had to get creative by using standalone cameras or even old iOS or Android devices as replacement webcams. But today, I’ve been trying out a different approach: using an aftermarket lens from Moment to improve my laptop’s existing webcam, rather than replacing it ...

After months of escalating pressure, leaders from the #StopHateForProfit boycott campaign met with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives today. But in a call with reporters after the meeting, organizers from Color of Change, Free Press, the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League described the meeting as frustrating. “The meeting that we just left was a disappointment,” said Color of Change president Rashad Robinson. “At this point, we were expecting a very clear answer to the demands we are making, and we did not get that.” Held on Zoom, the meeting was slightly over an hour, and it included a variety of policy team leads as well as chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and chief product officer Chris Cox. But while the company was eager to continue a dialogue with th...

The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, the electrical engineering and computer science division of the esteemed German research organization, on Tuesday announced VVC, a new video codec standard that promises to bring around 50 percent efficiency gains in streaming video compression. The codec’s full name is H.266/Versatile Video Coding, as Fraunhofer says it’s designed to be a successor to the industry-standard H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) and H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) formats that combined make up about 90 percent of global digital video transmission and compression on the market today. While HEVC was first released in 2013, the codec has proved controversial due to aggressive patent disputes from its various stakeholders. That’s why AVC, the predecessor to H...