Technology

Burger King has just emailed thousands of customers with a blank order email receipt. The blank emails started appearing at around 12:15AM ET, leaving Burger King customers confused whether the company has been breached by a hungry hacker attempting a midnight feast, or if the emails are simply a giant whopper of a mistake. Twitter users were quick to turn to the social network in a state of confusion over the blank emails, with some even receiving two Burger King emails in an apparent double whopper of a mistake. The order emails are totally blank, and were sent by Burger King’s main promotional marketing email address. Burger King’s blank order receipt.Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge There’s no clear indication that Burger King has been breached, and we’ve reached out to the company...

WhatsApp is rolling out a way to hide your “last seen” status from specific contacts, as well as the ability to leave a group without notifying other users. Last December, WhatsApp started hiding users’ online status from strangers by default. While this was a step in the right direction, it still allows your entire list of contacts to see whether or not you’re online. WhatsApp’s upcoming update is supposed to fix that, though, as it will let you choose which contacts can see your status. So if you don’t want someone to know that you’re ignoring their message, toggle on the setting for that user, and they’ll (hopefully) never know the difference. WhatsApp is also launching another handy feature that will let you silently leave groups. Right now, the app (very obnoxiously) notifies every us...

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo and its sub-brand OnePlus have halted sales of smartphones in Germany after losing a patent lawsuit with Nokia. Nokia has accused the companies of using its patented technology for processing 4G and 5G signals without paying for a license, reports European patent news site Juve Patent, and won an injunction to halt sales last Friday in a German court. (For clarification: this is Nokia the Finnish telecoms giant, a massive player in European telecoms equipment. Nokia the mobile brand is owned by a separate company, also Finnish, named HMD Global.) Oppo and OnePlus have complied with this order, as evidenced by changes to their German web stores. Oppo’s site now makes no mention of hardware devices at all, including phones and smartwatches. Compare this to the c...

Winning first prize at Xiaomi Group’s third annual Online Hackathon, the “MiGu Headband” allows you to control smart devices with just your thoughts. The prototype was designed by a group of engineers and aims to progress beyond controlling smart devices with apps and voice commands. The MiGu Headband is based around electroencephalogram (EEG) technology, commonly used to measure the electrical activity of the brain. The device measures brain function at three points, analyzing the signals with software to determine the “function” of thoughts. The engineers have mapped the function of EEG waveforms through AI machine learning. Xiaomi notes that the MiGu Headband could also be repurposed to detect fatigue in medical settings. It is currently unclear is Xiaomi intends to develop the MiGu Hea...

Last fall during Gamescom, Take-Two studio Firaxis Games announced a new turn-based tactical RPG from the XCOM team called Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Taking place on the “darker side of the Marvel Universe,” and pitting well-known heroes like Iron Man, Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Blade, Captain America, and Captain Marvel against Lilith, a supernatural villain, it was originally scheduled for release in March before being pushed back until October 7th. Along with reporting Q1 2023 earnings, today the publisher announced another delay without many specific details on when the game will be released. Also, the game now appears to have a split release strategy, with PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC versions due before the end of March next year (when Take-Two rolls over its fiscal calendar), ...

We are beginning to live in a world where AI can genuinely do some incredible things, and I’m not just talking about DALL-E’s ability to produce uncanny original art on command. If you’ve ever experienced a shitty Blu-ray and wished someone could just upscale the DVDs for a better transfer, there is genuinely an AI app for that sort of thing. Two, in fact! ExtremeTech managing editor Joel Hruska knows a thing or two about that, having spent the last two and a half years attempting to remaster Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager using these continually evolving tools. And this past week, he wrote a 16,000-word explainer chock full of video samples and image comparison sliders to share it all with you. It’s like a state-of-the-state-of-the-art when it comes to this tech, and a ...

Apple released the iOS 16 beta 5 today and with it comes the long-awaited return of battery percentage to the status bar. Unfortunately, it’s ugly as hell and unreadable to boot. Previously, battery percentage appeared to the left of the battery icon. However, Apple removed it starting with the iPhone X because there wasn’t enough space to cram it in thanks to the notch. To find out battery percentage, you currently have to swipe down to Control Center. In iOS 16, Apple’s “solved” that issue by having the figure appear within the battery icon. (If you’ve updated to the latest version of the beta and don’t see it, that’s because it’s not enabled by default. To turn it on, you have to go to the Battery menu in Settings and flip on the Battery Percentage toggle. The option also appears to be ...

As part of Snap’s child safety efforts, Snapchat is launching a new supervision tool on Tuesday that the company says mimics how parents and teenagers interact in the real world. Snapchat’s new “Family Center” hub allows parents and guardians to keep tabs on who their teens message with on the app without disclosing what it is they’re saying to each other. Both the guardian and the child must accept the Family Center invite before the oversight tools can take effect. Once the invites are accepted, a guardian can see the entirety of their child’s friends list and a list of accounts they’ve interacted with over the last seven days and report concerning accounts to Snap’s Trust and Safety Team. “Our goal was to create a set of tools designed to reflect the dynamics of real-world relationships...

Apple is rumored to introduce its newest line of iPhones and Apple Watches during its upcoming September event. According to reports, the tech giant has begun pre-recording the new product launch for next month’s event, which is expected to unveil the brand new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8. A month later, Apple will introduce the new MacBooks and iPads and possibly the second-generation AirPods Pro. The exact date of the September and October events, however, are yet to be announced. The latest rumors of the iPhone 14 hint at a brand new color of purple as a replacement of the existing pink and sierra blue, while the Apple Watch Series 8 could be able to detect a fever. In other Apple rumors, the company may be developing four new home devices. Read Full Article

Sennheiser just announced the latest addition to its Momentum lineup of premium, noise-canceling headphones. Priced at $349.95, the new Momentum 4 Wireless headphones look much different than past models, with the company trading its signature retro aesthetic for a more lightweight, comfortable design. Sennheiser says the Momentum 4s offer “exceptional comfort” and superior active noise cancellation compared to the Momentum 3 Wireless. They’ll be up for preorder on August 9th and will be in stores as of August 23rd. Aside from the revamped style, the other big selling point seems to be battery life. Sennheiser claims the Momentum 4s can achieve up to 60 hours of playback time on a single charge, far beyond the 20 to 30 hours promised by competitors like Sony’s WH-1000XM5, Bose’s QuietComfo...

It’s fair to say this isn’t what I expected. Sennheiser’s new Momentum 4 Wireless headphones mark a dramatic pivot away from the retro stylings of previous models. The genuine leather headband and stainless steel ear cup sliders that came to represent the Momentum line are now history. Instead, the $349.95 fourth-generation headphones take an unmistakable design turn into Sony and Bose territory, with a lightweight build that puts greater emphasis on extended comfort. Additionally, nearly all of the physical buttons have been removed in favor of tap and swipe gesture controls. And while some of the company’s fans will be repulsed by what I can only describe as a dull, uninspired look, there are at least some reasons to be excited about Sennheiser’s latest cans. Topping that list are improv...