Technology

YouTube channel EverythingApplePro E A P recently posted a 3D rendering video of the upcoming iPhone 14 Pro. The concept video showcases the highly-anticipated iPhone from all facets based on leaked rumors and schematics. The video envisions the narrow bezel that appears to replace the notch to the punch-hole camera and pill-shaped face ID sensor. With rounded corners, the rumored aesthetic provides a more slender look to the phone, matching that of the screen aesthetic of the Apple Watch Series 7. Previous rumors have indicated that the iPhone will have a dual-hole design with a 48MP and A16 processor. The iPhone 14 model is also said to have the same notch design as the iPhone 13, however, the iPhone 14 Pro versions are expected to have a 21.2% increase in width for the camera sensor and...

Struggling EV company Lordstown completed the sale of its Ohio factory to Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles Apple’s iPhone. The factory, which sold for $230 million, will now become the site of a joint venture between the two companies. The deal was originally set to close last month, but Lordstown kept pushing back the deadline. If the sale wasn’t completed before May 18th, the company would have had to pay back the $200 million that Foxconn put down as a deposit — an amount that Lordstown has said it does not have. The deal was originally set to close last month, but Lordstown kept pushing back the deadline The new joint venture will be called MIH EV Design LLC and will be 55 percent owned by Foxconn and 45 percent by Lordstown. Foxconn will commit $100 million to the joint v...

The controversial Texas social media law HB 20 will take effect following a ruling today from a US appeals court. The tech industry trade groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) managed to block HB 20 in court last year, but that victory has been undone by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today granted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for a stay in NetChoice and CCIA v. Paxton. NetChoice and the CCIA were successful in blocking a similar law in Florida last year. HB 20 allows Paxton’s office or Texas residents to sue social networks that moderate based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” among other offenses — language that potentially makes basic moderation decisions legally risky. The ruling follows a confusing he...

Big white bezels. Matte, looks-like-plastic back. Thick profile. 2023. Android. That’s about all we know about Google’s forthcoming Pixel Tablet, which the company teased during its keynote presentation for the I/O 2022 developer conference this week. Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of devices and services and head of the Pixel program, confirmed to my colleague David Pierce that the tablet is coming to fill out the range of Pixel devices and provide a complete ecosystem in Google’s lineup. But as I saw the image of the Pixel Tablet pop up in the livestream during the keynote, I couldn’t help but react with, “That? That’s Google’s big return to tablet hardware?” The device that Google showed off brings to mind the front of a Samsung tablet from circa 2013 or 2014 with the bac...

Jack Dorsey is trying to squash rumors that he’ll be reinstated as Twitter’s CEO once Elon Musk takes charge. On Wednesday he tweeted “nah I’ll never be CEO again” in response to someone predicting he would be returning to lead the company he co-founded, before going on to say that he doesn’t want the role. In another response, Dorsey says that “no one ultimately” should be Twitter’s CEO, perhaps referring to Bluesky, a project meant to turn Twitter into a decentralized protocol, rather than a traditional social network. Dorsey has a contentious history with the leadership role at Twitter. The company’s board fired him from his role as CEO in 2008, just two years after he helped start the company (though he stayed on the board). He returned to the chief executive position in 2015 after Twi...

Google Maps is getting a new “Immersive View” that will provide users with digitally rendered previews of major cityscapes, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google’s I/O 2022 keynote on Wednesday. The imagery included in Immersive View pulls from a combination of computer-generated satellite visuals and Google’s Street View shots. “With our new immersive view, you’ll be able to experience what a neighborhood, landmark, restaurant or popular venue is like — and even feel like you’re right there before you ever set foot inside,” said Miriam Daniel, VP of Google Maps, in a statement. Within the new feature, users will be able to see what various areas look like at different times of the day and under different weather conditions. Additionally, users can “glide” down to street level to exp...

On an earnings call earlier today, Disney CEO Bob Chapek sounded like someone who has clear ideas of ESPN’s fully streaming future. He told analysts and investors that “when it comes time to actually pull the trigger,” he believes ESPN can create “the ultimate fan offering that will appeal to the superfan who loves sports,” and “I think there’s nobody but ESPN who could frankly pull that off.” This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a Disney exec reference the potential of ESPN streaming — former CEO Bob Iger said in 2015 that it will happen eventually but projected the possibility as more than five years out. In contrast, Chapek said Disney isn’t ready to share the specifics of its model on how long it would take to reach profitability or the impact such a shift would have on its existing c...

Google just revealed the Pixel 6A at Google I/O on Wednesday, and while it has a number of impressive specs for a midrange device, it’s missing one that the company has celebrated on its A-series line for years: a 3.5mm headphone jack. As many smartphone manufacturers have moved on from the headphone jack — a trend largely kicked off by Apple with the iPhone 7 in 2016 — its presence on the A-series line has become more and more of a distinguishing feature. Google even made a ridiculous two-minute ad celebrating the headphone jack in the Pixel 5A that parodied Apple’s elaborate design videos. That video was titled, in part, “The Circle Comes Full Circle.” Well, it seems the circle is coming full circle again, as now Google is the one set to drop the headphone jack from its next phone. The c...

Activision Blizzard said on Twitter Wednesday that its Battle.net service was suffering from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A little over an hour later, reported that the attacks it was monitoring have ended. In the initial tweet, sent at 7:11PM ET from the @BlizzardCS Twitter account, the company cautioned that the attack “may result in high latency and disconnections for some players.” That first tweet mentioned a singular attack, but a second one reporting that things had ended, sent at 8:29PM ET, referenced attacks — plural. [#BNet] We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack, which may result in high latency and disconnections for some players. We are actively working to mitigate this issue. — Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) May 11, 2022 [Bnet] The DDOS ...

The coolest feature of the Steam Deck — bar none, if you ask me — is how the portable gaming PC lets you get the absolute most from its AMD RDNA 2 graphics and 40 watt-hour battery. As of the last update, you could lower the screen’s refresh rate to increase your effective framerate and lower latency, and you’ve been able to throttle the CPU, GPU and frame limiter since launch. The catch: even if you figured out a great combination that gave you the battery life and/or performance you crave, the Steam Deck wouldn’t save those settings per game. You’d have to memorize them, and flick the toggles appropriately, every time you switched to a different game. That changes today. Wednesday’s update now comes with per-game performance settings, letting you flick a single switch in the Quick Access...

OpenSea is rolling out features to “improve authenticity” on the digital marketplace, the company announced in a series of blog posts today. The updates include a new system to detect and remove copycat NFTs and an overhaul to the account verification process. “Copymints” are tokens ripping off other NFTs and have proved to be a problem for platforms like OpenSea. Last year, the platform banned two collections that mimicked Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs by flipping them so the image is mirrored. And though the owner of an NFT is recorded on the blockchain, fakes are rampant. In February, OpenSea said that over 80 percent of items it removed for violations were created with its free minting tool. OpenSea says it’s implementing a new two-part copy detection system, noting copies make it harder f...