Apple has been working on a wireless power source for its wirelessly charging products for year and a half, but now the fight to get the product to the market is over. However, not in a way we expected.
After revealing the product in 2017 iPhone event (alongside iPhone 8 and iPhone X), Apple has cancelled AirPower yesterday citing high standards not being achieved. Here's the full quote from Apple:
"After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project."
Simple as that. Apple has a tradition of not cancelling products, which makes this a significant step backwards. In fact, the company became known for its swift release schedule after the initial product reveal to the press.
That has slowed down in the recent years, perhaps after Steve Jobs, and products like HomePod took quite a while to be released to the public.
According to some rumors AirPower's three coil design ran too hot and they couldn't fix it due to simple laws of physics.
Making the cancellation a little bit more painful than it needed to be they just released a new set of AirPods that promote AirPower in the packaging.
YouTube TV, Google's answer to cable TV, was originally founded in February of 2017, but now just over two years ago it has officially been expanded to cover the entire United States.
The online TV service that provides both local channels as well as pay cable TV first started in April 2017 with five markets in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Now YouTube TV's official Twitter account has announced that it is available in every television market in the United States.
The last market to join the YouTube TV family is Glendive, Montana. Unfortunately YouTube TV didn't want to celebrate the occasion by revealing some subscription stats or any other interesting nuggets of information.
YouTube TV starts at $40/mo with around 70 channels, depending on the location, and additional channels increasing the cost. It includes Cloud DVR with no storage limits and works with up to 6 separate accounts within household.
Sony has revealed this week that it has sold 4.2 million PlayStation VR devices worldwide. That's a good amount of virtual reality glasses, but what is the context here?
The glasses originally came out in October 2016, so 4.2 million units in in two and half years. When you also include the fact that Sony has sold over 90 million PlayStation 4 consoles, all of which are compatible with the VR equipment, it seems like they could've done better.
However, perhaps Sony hasn't failed – and them just announcing the figures seems to confirms that they are fairly comfortable with the sales – but it reinforces the fact that virtual reality is still a niche business.
Under 5 percent of PS4 owners have made the move to virtual reality on what is undeniably one of the easier and cheaper ways to get yourself in the VR game.
Ars Technica has compared PS VR's sales to a Sega Genesis peripheral, Sega CD, which sold around 2.2 million units for a 30 million units selling Genesis.
Perhaps VR is in the same place as optical discs were for gaming consoles in the early 90s, but if the same trajectory is to be followed, there will be some amazing years ahead for future VR devices.
Spotify has started testing a new subscription tier which would allow two users simultaneously. Premium Duo offers a discounted price if you want to share the subscription with a special someone.
Currently the only official way to share your Spotify subscription with others is Premium for Family tier, which offers access for up to six people. That tier comes at $14.99, a 50% increase on the regular Spotify price of $9.99.
New Premium Duo is likely to cost a less steep $12.49, which is only a $2.50 premium on the normal pricing. Due to this very slight increase, one would imagine that couples and even friends would see much use for saving a pretty penny with combined subscription.
With Premium Duo you'll also get a new generated Duo Mix playlists which combine both of your music preferences to playlists.
Currently Duo tier is still in testing phase, including tryout periods at least in Ireland but it's not yet available in the US.
There's also no word yet on when Premium Duo would be available worldwide.
Multiple tech giants have been working closely on new technologies that would bring web content closer to being instantaneous.
While there is still clearly need for comprehensive and heavy web experiences, some types of content require lag-free consumption. Facebook has made news articles available in a fast and easy way with their Instant Articles, in a similar fashion Google's technology called Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) has provided people with lightning-fast load times in both Google News and Search.
Google, however, sees potential of AMP not only in news. Now the search giant is bringing their AMP technology to email.
The company hopes to make email faster and smoother, but also to bring along more dynamic and engaging experience to currently a very static environment. The plan is to bring more of an interactive, website-like, experience to email.
It would allow newsletters to have interactive features without having to send an email or open a browser. For example, a hotel chain could promote their vacant rooms and the recipient could seek more information about them straight from the email. Or you could browse Pinterest groups and pin your favorites, like down below.
Earlier in the week the controversial Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei introduced two new smartphones, Huawei P30 and P30 Pro, in their event in Paris, France.
The introduction of these two devices focused largely on their camera prowess, and for a good reason.
The camera benchmarking firm DxOMark was recruited to be the first to test Huawei's cameras, just like they did to P30's predecessor. Turns out that the updated model took the top spot from P20 Pro with a record-setting 112 points.
The new models offer upgraded internals, which are certainly up to date technologically but offer nothing flashy, but camera tech is definitely a step up. But before we get to the cameras, lets go through the other specs quickly.
Both P30 and P30 Pro have the 7nm in-house Kirin 980 chip, found also company's Mate 20 Pro released in October, an OLED display (6.1" or 6.47"), 6 or 8 GB RAM, 128 or 256 GB storage, and an in-screen fingerprint sensor. Both also have a massive 32 MP selfie-camera.
There's also either IP53 (P30) or IP68 (P30 Pro) waterproofing and a sizable 3650 mAh (P30) or 4200 mAh (P30 Pro) battery.
Spotify has announced an update to one of its most liked features. The music streaming king has been working on improving its artificial intelligence based features, and that means that we'll get to soon enjoy even better curated playlists.
The company has made it clear a long time ago that machine learning can really help with curating music to personal needs and likes. Things like Discover Weekly were a sign of what to come, and now Spotify is bringing the technology to playlists.
Previously curated playlists have been dumb, which means that they've been the same for everyone. Now Spotify is trying to add a splash of AI to customize their editorial playlists to each individual. While the songs are still selected by hand, the algorithm will modify it slightly to fit better to the ears of each of the listeners.
They've also been testing this and are confident that this will improve the experience. The stats are with Spotify:
When we tested this new system with some of our listeners, we found that they were much more likely to listen longer. Plus, these personalized editorial playlists increase the number of artists featured on playlists by 30% and the number of songs listeners are discovering by 35%.
European Parliament voted earlier on Tuesday about the new Copyright Directive, which including the infamous Article 13. The new directive passed with a result of 348 in favor and 274 against.
The Article 17 (previously Article 13), sometimes called the "upload filter", requires web service providers to block copyrighted material to be uploaded into their service. The internet has called this the meme killer, although it's unlikely to affect memes.
Other controversial legislation include Article 15 (formerly Article 11), also known as the "link tax", which puts in place a linking fee, that services have to pay if they use content from the linked site.
Before passing the directive, Members of parliament voted to remove the upload filter article from the directive but that fell through by only five votes. Thus the directive passed with two of the most controversial articles included.
Now the member states have to adjust their legislation to comply with the new EU directive. Each state has 24 months to change their laws or face consequences in the European Court of Justice.
The Copyright Directive was first introduced to European Parliament on 20 June 2018, was revised in September 2018, and the final version presented in February 2019. It immensely criticized even in its final form, especially by digital rights groups and web companies.
Apple's event today held in Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park climaxed to an expected introduction of a updated streaming video service. Apple TV got a couple new features.
The new Apple TV Channels offers essentially a marketplace and a hub for streaming platforms, and Apple Kids as you'd expect a family-friendly place for content, but the most interesting part of the improved service is the company's own subscription service, Apple TV+.
The service was announced with a thundering and epic video segment featuring Hollywood's cream of the crop explaining the process in which they create films and TV shows. This included the likes of Jennifer Aniston, J.J. Abrams, Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Coppola, Ron Howard, Octavia Spencer, M. Night Shyamalan, and Steven Spielberg, who expressed his excitement by promoting the service on stage.
It was revealed that the service would become available in over 100 countries this fall, but details about the pricing, release date, or scope of content were not yet shared.
What we can expect is that Apple is set to fund original programming by these and other creators with billions of dollars to compete with a modern original programming behemoth Netflix and others.
They announced today a new credit card called the Apple Card. The credit card is an extension of Apple Pay payment system, and is developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs.
However, the card isn't a traditional credit card you carry around. In fact, Apple says it doesn't have many unwanted features of current cards, including late fees, annual fees, international fees or over limit fees. Furthermore Apple promises what they call "lower interest rates," but there are no actual figures yet.
Apple also said that privacy will be a key factor in this new service as well, and they won't collect data on what you purchase and where.
Apple announced today a new game service, called Apple Arcade. The subscription service offers access to over 100 exclusive new games for a monthly fee.
Many of the most influential tech giants are more and more interested in gaming nowadays. Google just announced a game streaming platform called Stadia, and Microsoft, whom of course have long line of Xbox gaming pedigree, are expected to launch xCloud service to rival Google's Stadia at E3 in June.
However, Apple's offering is nowhere close to what Google and Microsoft, and even the likes of Sony and OnLive, are attempting. Apple's service is simply a subscription to hand-selected exclusive games on iOS, although you'll be able to play the games on Mac and the Apple TV as well.
According to the company iOS is the largest gaming platform and the power of over 300,000 games available it's gamer's paradise where over a billion games have been downloaded. Unfortunately it doesn't allow you the access to all of them, unlike some rumored.
Even though Apple did show some sneak peak into what will be included in the first 100 or so titles, we don't have a list of games yet. Neither do we know how much Apple Arcade monthly charge will be.
Tonight's Apple event is still under way in Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park but we've already got some news about, well, news.
Apple's first new release was the updated Apple News, which offers new paid services for people who like to read newspapers.
According to the company the improved Apple News will bring more, and more in-depth, content from leading papers. To acquire access to the best content on Apple News, you'll have to subscribe to Apple News+ which comes at a cost of $9.99 a month.
You'll get more than 300 newspapers with the most exclusive content whether it is about fashion or politics. Articles have been customized to take use of touchscreens, including animations and other graphic elements.
Apple News+ subscriber can share their subscription with their family for free and the service has a one month free trial. You can subscribe to Apple News+ starting today.
Smartphones are becoming an inseparable part of people's lives. An argument can be, and has been, made that we are already cyborg's because of how dependent we are on one piece of technological equipment.
Perhaps we aren't quite the Borg yet, but mobile is becoming more and more pervasive in most aspects of our lives. As expected newest stats from Nielsen support the fact too.
In every target group TV viewing went down while "App/Web on a Smartphone" went up.
In adults 18 to 34 the trend was the strongest, as one can imagine. TV time reduced by 5 percent points to 22% and smartphones went up the same 5 percentage points to 34%.
Unfortunately there is no data for teenagers, but one can imagine the mobile being much more dominant, perhaps capturing more than half of the time spent.
A Sandvine study revealed ealier this month that YouTube is responsible for overwhelming amount of mobile traffic. Even though Netflix is dominant in non-mobile traffic, YouTube captures a massive 37% slice of the pie in mobile.
Second and third, Facebook and Snapchat, have around 8 percent shares, while Netflix is only at 2.4 percent. Perhaps people download Netflix show on WiFi connection and it isn't included.
Microsoft is planning a launch event in early May. The company is said to be launching a new version of their current Xbox One game console.
Rumors have it that Microsoft is releasing a Xbox One S All-Digital Edition on May 7. This new version is a cheaper version of the already affordable Xbox One S, and, as you might decipher from the new name, doesn't include a Blu-ray or any other optical drive.
It is a perfect first step towards the digital content that will be distributed by Microsoft's upcoming xCloud platform, which is due at E3 in June.
At this point there's no word on how much exactly the new Xbox One S All-Digital Edition will cost, but thanks to the folks at Windows Central we have a picture of what the retail box will likely look like.
Apple is readying up the launch of a new streaming video service, and it might be here sooner than we thought in October.
Cupertino giant is focusing much of its efforts to launching this service, and even the new iMacs and iPads released earlier this week seemed like an afterthought, which shows how important the new video service is.
Apple will reveal the new platform next Monday, and while there's no official information yet, Recode says they know what to expect.
According to them, Apple's new platform isn't going to challenge Netflix as much as you and I might have thought. It's not going to be a Netflix clone but instead going to offer other video streaming services a platform on the Apple ecosystem.
Facebook hasn't exactly been the poster boy for a good social network in that recent past, but there might be still things that haven't been uncovered.
In fact, one new issue was revealed by the company just now. Facebook admits that hundreds of millions of passwords were stored in their servers in plain text, that is without encryption of any kind.
While it's unlikely that any outsiders could have accessed the data, there is a possibility that Facebook employees managed to get their hands on Facebook users' passwords and abuse them.
Facebook claims that there is no sign of any Facebook employee abusing the plain text passwords, although that would probably be fairly hard to diagnose anyway.
Some of these passwords have been stored in this internal server since 2012. According to a source within Facebook, who spoke to Krebs on Security, from 200 million up to 600 million passwords were in danger of leaking.
The same source says that more than 20,000 Facebook employees had the capability to leak the data, and a total of 2,000 employees made around nine million inquiries to the database.
Microsoft has released a patch for Windows 7 which brings along a new dialog box reminding of the most unfortunate news. Well, unfortunate if you don't want to change your operating system.
See Windows 7 is about to go obsolete, in terms of software updates at least. The 2009 launched operating system will not receive support after January 14, 2020.
The market share of Windows 7 was still over 35 percent in late 2018, and in fact it was just December last year that Windows 10 managed to overcome the market share of Windows 7.
There's fortunately still plenty of time, 299 days to be exact. Unfortunately the free updates from Windows 7 to Windows 10 are far gone. Enterprise customers can buy an extended security update package that will provide support until 2023.
If you happen to be in a fairly unpopular limbo of Windows 8, you will continue to receive updates until January 10, 2023.
As expected, the European Commission has now come up with a fitting bill for Google's newest strain of antitrust violations.
As reported earlier, Google violated EU's antitrust laws with their advertisement network AdSense.
During the time of previous reports the size of the fine was not revealed, but now we have proper figures from the European Commission themselves. As reported, this one is the smallest of the three antitrust fines Google has gotten from EU, but is still significant and in the same billion dollar range as the others.
Previously Google has been ruled two fees, 4.34 billion euro ($4.91 billion) for abusing competitive advantage with Android and 2.4 billion euro ($2.72 billion) for preferring Google's price comparison data in their search engine.
Google is set to pay a fine of 1.49 billion euro (approx. $1.69 billion) for requiring advertisers an exclusivity, or "relaxed exclusivity", for search adverts. This happened since 2006 up until 2009, after which Google implemented a less strict but still illegal Premium Placement clauses.
Microsoft, like many others, paid close attention to Google's Game Developer Conference keynote this week. Google's new cloud gaming platform Stadia probably sent shivers down the spines of people at OnLive and others, but Microsoft doesn't seem too phased.
According to reports, Microsoft's Xbox boss Phil Spencer sent a memo to employees thanking for the hard work they've done in the recent years.
He said that Google's announcement only validifies their mission during the past two years and which will be unveiled at E3 later this year. Spencer is of course talking about a cloud gaming platform of their own, which is called Project xCloud within the company and is now seemingly confirmed for June launch.
Just Google, Microsoft has a strong cloud service infrastructure which will help in the logistics side of things. In addition Microsoft obviously has strong gaming pedigree, which Google largely lacks.
It looks like the cloud gaming wars are just around the corner, and there's plenty of contender of the highest tech tier.
As expected, Oculus has finally revealed that they'll be bringing a new virtual reality headset to market soon. The device, called Rift S, has been developed, somewhat surprisingly, with the help of Lenovo.
Rift S is a more mobile headset that integrates new environment sensing cameras which means that there's no need for external motion sensing cameras.
However, to keep the price down they've had to make some compromises compared to previous Rift headset. While the resolution has gone to 1280 x 1440 from 1080 x 1200, the refresh rate is actually lower at 80hz (was 90hz) and OLED panels have been changed to less impressive LCD technology.
There's no setting for the optics either, so you won't be able to change the distance of the lenses to your specific needs.
The headphones are also a downgrade to what Oculus uses in it's cheapest Go headset, which are near-ear speakers. There are other slight changes too which TechCrunch has listed nicely.
Oculus has confirmed the price at $399 and they should become available some time this spring.
Norwegian public broadcaster NRK has found out that Nokia's Android phone, Nokia 7 Plus, leaks data to servers in China.
The data leak was found out by a Norwegian citizen, Henrik Austad, who wanted to find out what his phone sends over the Internet. He found out that his phone sent an unencrypted data burst every time a phone was switched on. This data package included phone's location, SIM card number and phone's serial number among other details.
The data was sent unencrypted over the Internet to a server located in China, operated by Chinese government-owned ISP China Telecom.
Nokia itself doesn't manufacture phones nowadays, but instead, has licensed its brand to another Finnish company called HMD Global. HMD Global says that the claims are true, but were caused by a bug in specific production batch - and that the issue has since been fixed with later production phones. HMD Global also says that the information leak didn't include anything that could be associated to a specific person or to allow tracking of a specific person.
As HMD Global is based in Finland (as is Nokia whose license they are using), the Finnish Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman has announced that they will start an official investigatio into this matter. European Union's GDPR data procetion directive states clearly that while data can be pretty much freely transferred within the European Union, with user's consent, the transfer of data to outside of the European Union is a different matter. With such case, there needs to be a legal rationale behind the data transfer and the user should know about it.
Google announced a new cloud gaming platform called Stadia earlier this week. Few of the luckier gaming reporters have managed to get some hands-on time with the service, and we've got some news about some of the platforms issues.
If you aren't familiar with the new service, well, read our previous article, but in short terms it is a game streaming platform that allows you to enjoy performance intense games on any screen.
This means that the heavy lifting is done in Google's services and the picture is just transferred to your phone, PC or even TV screen.
However, one problem remains. Latency.
Latency of course being the time it takes for the command to go from your button press to the servers and them come back as an accordingly updated frame to your display.
When you are doing the calculations locally you need to take into account the time it takes to transfer the data back and forth. Eurogamer have done a little bit of a test with the help of Digital Foundry on Stadia's latency, and determined that in very ideal conditions it could provide as good latency as a locally operating Xbox One X.
As Google announced their upcoming cloud gaming platform, they also introduced their newest piece of hardware. While Stadia doesn't require any hardware boxes to operate, Google did reveal the Stadia controller.
The Stadia controller looks like a typical console game controller, perhaps a combination of both Xbox controller and the Sony's DualShock.
The controller connects straight to the Stadia server using WiFi and it recognizes which device or screen you are going to play the game on.
The controller has two dual triggers for index fingers, a D-pad, two analog sticks, and four ABXY buttons like the Xbox controller.
It also features both a dedicated capture button for YouTube streaming as well as Google assistant. Pressing the latter will open up Google Assistant which you can use by voice with the built-in microphone. Google Assistant is said to have special in-game features that are put in place by the game developers.
The controller comes in three different colors, and just like the service itself will be available later this year.
Google has revealed that it is introducing a new gaming service to the public later this year. The service called Stadia offer games as streamable content to all screens.
The search giant's new service isn't really anything new in the gaming sector. Services like OnLive, Nvidia's GeForce Now, and others already offer a cloud gaming service. Google plans to expand the experience to more screens, and with some impressive specs.
According to them, everyone with a Chromecast, or even a Chrome browser, could play the newest games in 4K and 60 fps. This includes graphics intensive games like Doom Eternal in HDR.
The company compared the processing power dedicated to player to PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. In fact, they said that the 10.7 teraflots beats both, even combined, since PS2 Pro calculates at the speed of 4.2 teraflops and Xbox One X at around six.
Google also announced partnership with AMD which has developed a chip for Google's data centers. This allows the closest possible location to deliver gamers the performance they need.
Being close is probably the toughest problem for game streaming platforms. You cannot have too high of a latency, especially in action-packed games. There is no word how they are going to tackle the problem, except relying on extensive data center network.
In addition to new iPad models, Apple has already this week revealed new iMacs. While iMac Pro was left untouched, both 4K and 5K models of the iMac got some improvements.
The first update in two years to regular iMacs comes with improved performance but same design. After such a long time you are rightly expecting a fair bump in computational prowess, and you'd be right.
According to Apple, the 21.5 inch 4K iMac improves performance up to 60 percent over its predecessor, while the 27 inch 5K iMac destroys the previous model with 2.4x (240%) the performance.
The new 21.5 inch model features a generation old Intel Core processors but the 27 inch 5K iMac at least offers in the highest tier the newer 9th gen Intel Core processors. The CPUs in the new 21.5 inch models are either quad-core or 6-core ones while the 27 inch model offers 6-cores except for the top tier 8-core processor.
Both have AMD's Radeon Pro Vega GPUs, and Apple claims that the graphics performance has been improved by 80 percent in the smaller iMacs and 50 percent in the 5K models. The cheapest model has a Radeon Pro 555X, the top 21.5 inch model a Radeon Pro 560X, and the three tiers of 27 inch models have Radeon Pro 570X, Radeon Pro 575X, and Radeon Pro 580X.
To start off the week Apple revamped their iPad lineup with two new models. Neither the iPad Air (pictured below) or the iPad (pictured above) mini are the cheapest iPads around but they do bring something new to the table.
The more expensive of the two, iPad Air, offers the newest A12 Bionic chip you find in the iPhone XS. Not quite as fast as iPad Pro but still blisteringly quick. Also it supports Apple Pencil, although not the 2nd gen one like iPad Pro.
There is no 120hz ProMotion support like in the iPad Pro in iPad Air's 10.5 inch display but it does support TrueTone colors, just like the bigger brother. Talking about size, Air weighs one pound just like the newest regular iPad. They've shaved off some thickness though, it being only 0.24 inches thick. Still not quite as thin as the largest iPad Pro.
The new iPad mini on the other hand features similar specs with a 7.9 inch TrueTone display, same A12 Bionic chip, and support for 1st gen Apple Pencil. The resolution in 2048 x 1536, which is lower due to the size but gives it nice 326 ppi pixel density, a little bit above aforementioned larger siblings.
The FaceTime cameras are a big upgrade from regular iPad. Both iPad Air and iPad mini can now take 7 megapixel selfies and record Full HD video. The back camera is still just a 8 MP f/2.4 shooter.
The United States regulatory body for telecommunication, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has decided to create a experimental license for a new terahertz spectrum.
Like the gigahertz spectrum in use today, and far into the future, it will provide means for wireless communications but at far greater speeds and provide new possibilities. The new spectrum ranges from 95 GHz to the new tera terrority at 3THz.
Some of the spectrum, 21.2 Ghz to be exact, was set aside for scientific and governmental purposes.
The FCC terahertz test license is going to be valid for testing during the upcoming 10 years in which FCC believes new technologies using denser wavelengths will emerge. However, the license also allows the sale of terahertz equipment during this 10 year test period.
While increasing the frequency of the wireless connection increases the potential speed, it also makes the range much shorter and connection more susceptible to obstacles. Perhaps terahertz will bring along a new wireless data transfer technology for equipment that is nearly touching, maybe between components of the same device.
Google is about to receive a third fee for antitrust violations from the European Commission. Again Google has violated the laws by preventing third parties from displaying Google competitor advertisement on its AdSense network.
According to the Reuters, EU's legislative and regulatory body is going to address Google a fine next week. The fine is not going to be as high as the previous ones, but at this time there's no word on how much Google has to pay for the violations.
Nonetheless this one will certainly sting too, as just the fact that EU is striking down anything that smells like a monopolistic policy or practice is going to tighten Google's ropes.
Previous billion dollar fines came from Google giving themselves an unfair advantage regards to Android against competitive platforms and price comparison data in the search engine.
The former was the larger one at 4.34 billion euro ($4.91 billion) and the latter cost Google another 2.4 billion euro ($2.72 billion).
This is likely not the last we hear about EU and their antitrust battles with Google. European Commission has recently started new investigations into Google's search engine data and how they treat competitors.
Spotify and Apple are one of the more important modern day tech rivalries. The David vs. Goliath setup is definitely there, and makes it all the more interesting.
While Apple tries to abuse its power and reach with its own mobile operating system, Spotify fights back with innovation and carefully directed attacks at Apple policy.
Recently Spotify has addressed Apple's App Store royalties to the European Commission, accusing Apple of building an unfair competitive advantage with rules and regulations for competitors in the store.
Apple's response couple days ago claimed that Spotify wants to use their product but aren't willing to pay the price everyone pays for participating. Now Spotify has come out of the woodwork and responded once more, Variety reports.
Spotify reiterates its case about the 30 percent cut that Apple takes each time a person makes a purchase in the App Store. This 30 percent cuts deeply into the margins of a streaming service, and obviously Apple doesn't have to pay it.
While iMessage is the king of messaging platforms on iPhones, there's one cross-platform messenger that has held the crown for years with active users in the billions. It is of course WhatsApp.
WhatsApp offers a range of impressive features, including end-to-end encrypted messaging, calls, and even video chat. However, it's not always easy to know if you can use any of these features, if the recipient has blocked you.
If you have been blocked by the person you are trying to contact, you aren't made aware of it. Fortunately there are a few ways that indicate you might have been blocked.
There's no certainty, since WhatsApp doesn't allow the blocked person to know the status, but with the help of a few indicators you might get closer to the truth.
You cannot see the contact in online mode or the time when the contact has been last seen
You cannot see changes in the contact's profile picture
Sending a message to the contact always results in one, and only one, checkmark. One means sent, two means received.
Calls never reach the recipient.
If you can check all these checkboxes, and it continues to be the case, it is likely that you have been blocked. However, remember that this isn't conclusive, since WhatsApp doesn't want the blocked to know for sure.
Microsoft has been developing a port of Xbox Live to mobile platforms for a while now. Now it has officially confirmed that Xbox Live is coming to both Android and iOS.
Just as we are ready to enter this years Game Developer Conference, or GDC, Microsoft has revealed that it is going to release a version of Xbox Live to Google's and Apple's mobile platforms.
What this means is that game developers can use the Xbox Live platform and its features in their mobile games for Android and iOS. This includes the likes of achievements and community features.
Some games, developed by Microsoft, already support Xbox Live features, but now the Xbox Live ecosystem will become available to all game devs.
In the future with features like the achievements you can easier compare games to their cross-platform counterparts. It can also bring together different platforms in larger communities.
Microsoft is clear that they are trying to bring Xbox Live to as many platforms and gamers as possible. You shouldn't be surprised if Microsoft will eventually try to conquer PS4 and Nintendo Switch, or their successors, as well.
Yesterday Tesla introduced their upcoming crossover vehicle, Model Y, but we also got a little taste of more distant future. Even though Model Y did complete Elon Musk's pun-ful S3XY collection, this is not the end for new Tesla models.
In fact, the ending of the webcast that featured the amazing soundtrack from the original Blade Runner also quickly flashed a teaser we didn't expect. Thankfully Elon Musk revealed this teaser in his Twitter post.
Around a minute in they flashed a picture which features the silhouette of a futuristic looking vehicle. Elon Musk calls this "Tesla cyberpunk truck," a model that has been talked about for quite a while. Trucks are of course hugely popular in America, and would be an obvious next move for Tesla and its high-torque electric motors.
It's hard to say what the picture is, but it kind of looks like the back of a pickup with a bed cap and a Tesla logo on it. The light strip would act as backlights.
Obviously at this point it might just be a drawing that won't get even close to production, after all even some of the now introduced Model Y versions will take another year and a half.
Apple's annual developer conference, known as Worldwide Developer Conference or WWDC, is again held in June. Just like last year, and a few year before that, it will be held in San Jose, California.
Thousands upon thousands of developers and press attend the McEnery Convention Center on June 3 when Tim Cook will host the annual WWDC keynote.
The 30th Worldwide Developer Conference is primarily for the third-party developers and partners of Apple but obviously there will be some news that we, the customers, are anxious to hear about.
There will likely be news about both new versions of iOS (iOS 13) and macOS (macOS 10.15), as well as perhaps an improved tvOS and watchOS. Some are expecting even new hardware, like the hotly anticipated new Mac Pro.
Android Pie's market share among Android versions is probably in the low single digits still, but that doesn't stop Google pushing on with new versions of world's most popular mobile operating system.
Google has now officially released their first beta version of upcoming Android Q. The test version is available for all Google's Pixel phones, and you can download it here if you want to be one of the first to try it out.
Unlike in previous years this time the first version is not named Developer Preview, instead it is a proper beta release, and seems like it is further in to the development than previous Android iterations were at this point in the year.
There's still almost two months before the big reveal at Google I/O, so we can expect fairly complete Android Q by the time we reach Shoreline Amphitheatre on May 7.
There's always a possibility that Google is readying an earlier launch for new Android version, but that is not likely. Like past years, we'll probably see Google releasing the first stable version to the public in the third quarter, and new Pixel phones right after.
Android Q has a lot of upgrades under the hood, but there are some that are more visible too. One of the more hyped features is foldable phone support, which after Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X is a no-brainer. Other improvements include connectivity features like P2P connectivity and WiFi Easy Connect as well as better privacy features.
Teenagers, be it whichever generation, always find new ways to communicate to each other, often trying to stay hidden from the grown-ups.
Every time we think we've figured out what kids use to chat and share their literally premature ideas, they've moved onto something new. Apparently now it is Google Docs.
You might be thinking I've confused the service for another, but nay, the document editing software creates to compete with Microsoft Word, is the hottest tool for communication among the youth.
According to a report by The Atlantic, Google Docs, which offers a communication platform of sorts for shared documents, is the newest covert communication channel at school.
Kids can edit documents, I mean pretend to edit documents, all the while they indulge in the juiciest rumors making rounds in the school.
You can either join the live chat, or if you want to stay more covert, you leave coded messages between the lines of your fake document or add comments to specific parts of the text.
Best of all, you don't have to use your smartphone so taking them away doesn't deter you whether you are at school or at home. Obviously things like WhatsApp Web don't require your phone either, so taking away homes probably never really worked if you still had computers.
Spotify, the Swedish music streaming powerhouse, is one of the toughest competitor to the near trillion dollar behemoth that is Apple.
While Apple has destroyed many larger companies on their way to dominance, Spotify has managed to not only stay as the number one streaming platform for music, but in many markets even increase the lead.
One of the ways Apple strenghtens their own standing is taking a 30 percent cut from iOS purchases. Obviously 30 percent price difference cuts heavily into competitors' bottom line, and even worse it goes straight into Apple's pockets, and Spotify has been recently very vocal about this.
Spotify has complained about it to the EU Commission, but Apple is not going to let claims slide without responding.
They've released a statement where they simply offer an explanation that Spotify seems to want to use the platforms with its straightforward tools for customer acquisition but do not want to pay the price.
They also address a few other claims, including blocking access to products and updates, all of which they say are false, obviously. In addition Apple seems to want to throw a little bit of dirt, and claims Spotify is in it for the money and doesn't treat artists and music industry right.
Tesla has today announced their newest vehicle. The hotly anticipated Model Y is a crossover vehicle that fits right in between Model 3 and Model X.
Built largely on the same base as Model 3, it is a compact crossover/SUV which both looks similar to Model 3 and has the same kind of technology.
Model Y starts at $39,000, just above the $35K price tag of the smaller sibling. Long Range version will put you back $42,700 (RWD) or $46,700 (FWD). The Perfomance version is the most expensive at $55,700.
Standard Range model has a range of 230 miles, Long Range 280 miles (FWD) or 300 miles (AWD) and the Performance package limits the range back to 230 miles.
0-60 speeds range from Standard's 5.9 seconds down to Performance's 3.5 seconds.
Even though Model Y is fairly small, it can still transport up to seven people with optional row of seats like many modern SUVs.
Tesla will start selling Model Y in late 2020 with everything except the cheapest version. The Standard Range version will become available in fall 2021.
All major Facebook's properties - Instagram, and WhatsApp - are experiencing a global hiccup. All services are either unavailable or having problems as of now.
The problems started around 17:00 UTC and have continued at least until now, according to thousands of Twitter messages and monitoring sites such as DownDetector.
Some of the services seem to be working partially. WhatsApp users are reporting that normal text-based messages can be sent normally, but messages including multimedia cannot be sent. Instagram showed just an error message on its frontpage. Also, WhatsApp calls seem to be working only for some users.
It is not known what has caused the outage, but Twitter hashtags such as #whatsappdown are trending globally.
Can txt but not send multimedia or status updates. Anybody with same prblm? #whatsappdown
Originally an autonomous vehicle project inside Google, Waymo became their own subsidiary within Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in late 2016.
While self-driving cars seem to be the future, not everything has been sunshine and rainbows. Apparently the parent company Alphabet is tired of putting in money by themselves, and Waymo is now looking for outside investors, The Information reports.
According to the report, Alphabet has been in talks with European car manufacturers in terms of investing in Waymo, and even becoming a majority owner.
One of the manufacturers is Volkswagen, which could employ Waymo's autonomous technology in their future vehicles. One would assume that Waymo's tech is maturing now since they are looking for manufacturers to bring it to the customers.
Obviously selling a majority stake to a single car manufacturer is only one way to get the tech to cars, so perhaps there is also a licensing deal in the works.
However, Alphabet is losing money quickly, and something needs to be done. Waymo is spending a billion dollars a year, and the parent company dearly needs a return for the investment.
Adobe has developed some of the most influential computer tools ever created, including the likes of Photoshop. There are a few bad apples too among their inventions, though.
Digital online media was largely built on previous generation tools, such as Flash and Shockwave. Both software allowed the creation of multimedia and interactive media in completely new ways, and both developed by Adobe, of course.
They both were great for a while, but also are, and have been for a fairly long time, very clearly obsolete for today's world.
Fortunately neither of them is really used anymore, but officially they are both still supported by Adobe.
Now Adobe has announced that they'll seize the distribution of the Shockwave, and that means the end of official support for the platform.
The death certificate of Shockwave will be signed on April 9, after which Adobe will no longer support Shockwave's Windows version. Mac version was killed already in 2017 but some support is offered for corporate clients until 2022.
Flash won't be around too long either. Adobe plans to stop supporting Adobe Flash Player in 2020.
Only a week or so ago Tesla was moving towards closing brick and mortar stores and focusing on online sales. Now the company has backtracked and intends to keep some of the stores open.
This also means that the savings coming from closing stores, that were going to be directed at providing more competitive prices, are not going to happen. In fact, Elon Musk has revealed that the prices of most Tesla models are going up soon.
Just under two weeks ago Tesla was going to decrease the prices of their cars an average of six percent. The new plan instead moves the price up three percent, except for the $35k Model 3 which won't see a price hike.
At this point there is no reason given to the sudden change of mind. Musk, however, commented on Twitter that stores are still closing but at a slower pace, which is why they can only afford half of the price drop.
This indicates that prices would have gone up significantly more (perhaps around 10%) if the store closing plan didn't proceed at all.
Clearly Musk still believes in streamlining the sales to largely online with just few showrooms, but perhaps it was a little too much a little too soon for the board.
In Finland, a petition to ban 5G networks completely is pushing forward. The reason for such petition? Electromagnetic radiation. Or actually the fears of electromagnetic radiation.
For as long as various radio equipment have existed, there have been people who claim to get ill due electromagnetic radiation. Despite all the scientific studies debunking such claims, the claims persist - and tend to strengthen every time a new radio frequency is being taken into use. In this case, Finland already operates handful of 5G networks in 3.5GHz radio frequency and operators plan to roll out networks nationwide within next year or two.
People behind the petition are concerned about the new frequency and also about the fact that 5G networks require much more network towers than the previous 3G and 4G networks, as the coverage area of one cell tower is smaller in 5G networks.
For initiative to be Legally binding and to force the national parliament to officially consider the merits of the petition, it requires 50,000 people to sign the petition. So far, the petition has appx. 2,000 signatures. Finland has population of appx. 5.5 million.
The petition is based on Finnish law of citizen initiative that has managed to change handful of laws already. The official "ban the 5G networks" initiative can be found here(in Finnish).
Tesla has introduced V3 Supercharging, which will dramatically speed up car charging at its supercharger stations.
With the V3 Supercharging infrastructure, a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour. The goal is to reduce the amount of time that commuters spend at the charging stations by an average of 50 percent.
A new 1MW power cabinet supports peak rates of up to 250kW per car, so no more splitting power with a vehicle in the stall charging next to yours. Another innovative feature is the On-Route Battery Warmup. When a Tesla driver is navigating to a Supercharger station, the car will automatically warm the battery to an optimal temperature for charging, which can reduce average charging times by 25 percent.
Tesla has more than 12,000 Superchargers across North America, Europe, and Asia, covering more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. By the end of the year, Tesla aims to be able to say the same for Europe, while it already covers 90 percent of the population in China.
More information on v3 Supercharging can be read at Tesla.com.
More than four years after launching for Android devices, the PS4 Remote Play app has launched for iOS devices so you can use it with iPads and iPhones.
Sony first made the Remote Play app available for its own Xperia Z3 handset in October 2014. It allowed players to stream PS4 games to their device and control them with a DualShock 4 when they are away from the TV, or from home entirely.
In the meantime, there have been some third-party apps available to achieve the same thing for iOS, but they typically come with a fee whereas the PS4 Remote Play app is free.
It works more or less the same for iOS but DualShock 4 controllers are not supported, meaning users will have to rely on third party controllers or rely on on-screen controls overlaid onto the stream. Setting it up is as easy as downloading the app and pairing the devices.
You can download PS4 Remote App for iOS from the App Store.
Uber is not liable for a death related to an accident with one of its self-driving vehicles and will not face criminal charges.
The accident occurred in March 2018, when a Volvo XC90 that Uber had been using to test its self-driving technology struck a pedestrian walking with a bicycle. A police report of the incident had found it was 'entirely avoidable,' but prosecutors have said Uber is not criminally liable.
"After a very thorough review of all evidence presented, this office has determined that there is no basis for criminal liability for the Uber corporation," wrote Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Sullivan Polk.
However, the backup driver of the vehicle may still face criminal charges related to the incident. The driver had reportedly taken her eyes off the road moments before the accident, and records from Hulu suggested she was streaming video from the service at the time of the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is still investigating the incident.
Numerous reports predict the release of a discless Xbox One console in May this year.
It had been previously been rumored that Microsoft was planning a new Xbox One console that did not feature a Blu-ray disc drive. This all-digital console could reduce the cost of the console by up to $100, and would be suitable for those who never use physical discs.
Original reports revealed that the discless project is an Xbox One S variant codenamed Xbox Maverick.
Rumors this week have not only reinforced the previous reports, but also come with a planned release target. According to a report by Windows Central, Microsoft will release the "Xbox One S All-Digital Edition" worldwide in early May this year. Pre-orders would begin in April.
Windows Central sources also said that Microsoft is planning to announce a Fortnite Edition console with a custom Fortnite design, but did not specify whether it would be an Xbox One S, Xbox One X or if there will be a discless version of the console.
Electric car company Tesla has decided to renew their sales strategy slightly. To help with the bottom line, the company is closing some of its brick and mortar stores and focusing on online sales.
The web store is going to be the primary point of sale internationally, and part of the change in strategy is simply closing Tesla dealerships for good.
According to the company, the renewal of strategy is going to not only save the company plenty of money but will also be transferring to lowered vehicle costs for the consumer. An average of six percent price decrease is expected to the current lineup of Tesla models.
This of course includes the newest and most affordable car they build, Model 3, which will be available for $35,000.
Tesla isn't going to get rid of every brick and mortar location, some of them are to be converted into showrooms.
There's no word on how much of the sales staff will be laid off, or the exact number of closing locations.
Late last year Bloomberg reported on rumors that Facebook was developing a virtual currency meant for their world-leading messaging platform WhatsApp. Now reports from The New York Times seem to corroborate this.
Information from the NYT report reveals that Facebook has already discussed the move with cryptocurrency exchanges, and perhaps would be soon ready to roll out their own cryptocurrency.
Facebook has hired around 50 software developers to build their Bitcoin competitor, and the leader of the group is former PayPal president David Marcus. To avoid the volatility of the likes of Bitcoin, Facebook intends to peg the value to conventional currencies.
This would also make the new currency better suited for smaller transactions.
Report also reveals that not only is Facebook trying to get their chips in on the blockchain revolution, but also Telegram and Signal are looking into developing their own currencies.
Screenshots are a versatile tool that have been a significant part of every operating system at least ever since the Print Screen (PrtScr) button was invented. Obviously mobile operating systems are no different, and you can take a screen grab on all of them.
Taking a capture of your mobile game highscore or error message on an app is as easy as one-two-three, but you don't always remember how it's done if you haven't used it in a while or perhaps switched the phone recently.
So lets go through the most common ways to take a screenshot on each platform.
iPhone and iPad
Press and hold power button
While holding power button, quickly and simultaneously press home button, and release all buttons
Screen flashes and the screenshot has been taken
You can find screenshots from the Photos app by pressing Albums and Screenshots
Apple has been working on a wireless power source for its wirelessly charging products for year and a half, but now the fight to get the product to the market is over. However, not in a way we expected.
YouTube TV, Google's answer to cable TV, was originally founded in February of 2017, but now just over two years ago it has officially been expanded to cover the entire United States.
Sony has revealed this week that it has sold 4.2 million PlayStation VR devices worldwide. That's a good amount of virtual reality glasses, but what is the context here?
