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Roscomnadzor has warned Google to stop promoting 'illegal mass events' through YouTube as protesters target the government.

Russia has seen some of its largest protests in years ahead of elections in Moscow. Some opposition political candidates have been blocked from taking part in the elections, sparking demonstrations which have since widened to protests against the Russian government.

The communications regulator in Russia, Roscomnadzor, sent a letter to Google complaining about the use of its platform to organize and raise awareness about 'illegal mass events'. It says that some YouTube users have been buying advertisements on YouTube and using push notifications to spread information about the protests.

If Google fails to respond and address the issue, Roscomnadzor warned that it will be seen as interfering in the country's sovereign affairs.

Russia has introduced tough laws in recent years that can force search providers to remove results, messaging services to share encryption keys, and social networks to retain users' personal data on servers within the country.

Source: Reuters

While Google Search seems like the same service you started using perhaps 15 or even 20 years ago, it has evolved massively over time.

The illusion is, one might suggest, of just having a single search field and list of results in the same vein as years ago when it started as a tiny startup. However, the world's most influential company is constantly developing new features and tweaking the layout to serve the customer better – and make more money.

The newest addition to Google Search is the better integration of one of today's biggest trends: podcasts. Google has added a dedicated podcast player to it's search engine.

You can, for example, search for 'grilling podcasts' and choose an episode to play straight from the search results. No launching apps needed.

What's more impressive is that Google doesn't only search for podcasts for suitable titles or descriptions, but it also uses speech recognition to determine whether the searched subject is found in the content. The feature requires that one of the search terms is 'podcast'.

The feature has only been rolled out in limited manner but will soon be available to all users and all platforms. Later this year Google brings the feature to Google Assistant and Google Podcasts for web.

Wireless headphones have gotten really good, and really popular in the last, say, five years. It's hard to say to what degree this is due to Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone, but most certainly it hasn't hurt.

Initially many disliked, even hated, the move by Apple, and obviously competitors capitalized on it. Samsung released funny commercials mocking Apple's dongles and lack of headphone jack.

Now that the new Galaxy Note10 is out, and the company has decided to rid the headphone jack themselves, it's perhaps time to look back in time, and make them feel at least as silly as Apple was made to feel about the their removal.

Samsung knows that the backlash was coming as soon as it announced a powerhouse of a smartphone, designed for the most tech hungry power user out there, and they've omitted the headphone jack.

While the actual financial consequences are probably fairly minimal at this point, since many of us have already moved on from wired headphones – and yes, dongle still works – and don't really care if there's a headphone jack or not, there's still a fairly hefty sense of irony floating around.

Fortunately, even though Samsung deleted their videos from YouTube, you can't take things off the internet, as you known.

Samsung was one of the first smartphone companies to join the VR revolution with their own headset. Gear VR has been an integral part of the company's VR strategy since its inception in 2015.

Every single major flagship smartphone release since then have been supported by Gear VR headsets, be it already sold or new one introduced with the smartphone. Now it seems like the new Galaxy Note10, and Note10+, are the first to deviate from the pattern.

The newest version of the Gear VR, SM-R325, supports Galaxy S6, S7, S8, S9, and this years S10 series. There's also support for Galaxy Note5, Note8, and Note9 – Note6 didn't exist, and Note7 exploded – but there won't be support for Galaxy Note10.

Samsung has confirmed that this is indeed the case, that Galaxy Note10 isn't supported by current Gear VR headsets. However, it is still possible that the company releases an adapter or completely new headset for the device, although the company hasn't revealed anything about such plans.

It's still unclear whether Samsung still believes in smartphone VR headsets, or whether it has decided to give in to standalone devices like the Oculus Go and VIVE Focus Plus.

You've probably already at least heard of the new Galaxy Note10, right? Hopefully you've even read about the specs we revealed as soon as the device was official.

However, to get a proper look at the device, you'll need some video footage that really shows what the phone is made of, both on the outside as well as what it offers on the inside.

Samsung has released a few videos in which is shows off the good looks, and there are some good looks there, as well as some of the more important features of the new Galaxy Note10 devices.

Below you have first Samsung's introduction video for Galaxy Note10, showing the most important details and features of the phone. Second video is the official TV commercial that has little more emphasis on the looks of the phone. Lastly the third video that aims to just make the phone look oh so good.

Without further ado...

The new Galaxy Note10 was just announced alongside its bigger sibling Galaxy Note10+ by Samsung.

While they are definitely full-blown flagship phones, as expected, there's not much new compared to company's previous and competitors' offerings.

However, Samsung did announce something that might be of interest to the gamers out there. See, both Galaxy Note10 models are able to play PC games, thanks to a service not totally unlike Valve's Steam Link.

The service is called PlayGalaxy Link – I known, they could've come up with something more original – and it makes a remote connection between your Galaxy Note10 and your PC.

Using LTE connection or WiFi, which is faster than even on the new Galaxy, you'll be able to play your PC games from anywhere.

The streaming technology allows you to continue from the same spot you left the game off on your PC, and vice versa. Samsung says that the service also supports Game Booster technology the help to optimize the resources while playing games.

Obviously this will save you some storage space on your mobile device too, since the games are installed only on your PC.

Even though there's a ceasefire between United States and Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the company is determined to seek alternatives to Google-controlled Android. Today, those plans came to life today as Huawei released its own operating system, called Harmony OS.

Announcement was made during Huawei's own annual developer conference in China. According to Huawei, the new operating system is suitable for all kinds of devices, ranging from small IoT devices to full-blown smartphones and tablets.

Samsung has today announced its newest flagship smartphones at the Barclays Center in New York City. As expected, this time around Samsung had two separate Galaxy Note models to offer.

The regular Galaxy Note10 is the smaller of the two, although sporting a fairly sizeable 6.3 inch screen. The larger Galaxy Note10+ features the largest ever screen on a Note smartphone at an impressive 6.8 inches.

The two displays are not only separated by size but also offer different resolutions. The smaller one has FHD+ resolution at 2280x1080 (like Galaxy S10e) and larger QHD+ at 3040x1440 (like Galaxy S10 or S10+). Both of them utilize Samsung's praised AMOLED technology.

While the international version of the Note10 will have an improved Exynos chip (over the S10), the US version has the same Snapdragon 855 as this years previous flagships. In Galaxy Note10 you'll get 8 GB of RAM, while the plus version offers 12 gigabytes.

There's also only one 256 GB storage option for the former, and the latter can be bought in both 256 GB and 512 GB variants.

In the camera department both have trio of cameras featuring a wide angle (77°) 12 MP f/1.5-2.4 default shooter, ultrawide (123°) 16 MP f/2.2 camera, and one with a telephoto lens (45°) with 12 megapixels and f/2.1. In addition, the Note 10+ has a ToF (Time of Flight) camera that can help with measuring real life objects.

Many of us thought that Apple would be slowly ending the reign of touch sensors in iPhones after they revealed iPhone X and definitely after the introduction of iPhone XS.

Even last year's cheaper iPhone XR had Face ID instead of a touch sensor for authentication. Seems like they were betting on facial recognition all the way instead of fingerprint.

Apparently this might not be the case entirely. A well-known and regarded Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo is suggesting that Apple is bringing Touch ID back.

According to his analysis, Apple is going to feature a under-screen version of its Touch ID sensors in one of its upcoming iPhones. It won't be this year, though, so expect to see another Face ID iPhone.

Kuo suggests that in-display Touch ID could be revealed in 2021, but that there would still be Face ID in iPhones as well. Seems rather odd that they would put both sensors in a single iPhone, so perhaps they are in different models.

The in-screen Touch ID would allow Apple to have a all screen front, if it removed all the camera and other sensors from the top of the phone, like many Android manufacturers have done. However, Apple probably isn't going to settle to current generation solutions for installing front-facing cameras.

As soon as the Trump ban was announced, making Android possibly unattainable for Huawei no longer, all kinds of rumors about Huawei's own mobile platform started surfacing.

This wasn't all projection, though. In fact, the company has been working on different types of operating systems for a long time, one of which was a 2015 launched IoT platform called LiteOS.

However, the new had much bigger ambitions as it had to replace Android.

The ban was later cancelled by Trump, and Huawei is back in business largely unharmed, but the close call might have made it more determined to get their OS ready.

Now report from Global Times, which might have stronger ties to the Chinese government than Huawei, says that the Hongmeng OS might see the light of day as soon as later this week.

This could happen at a Huawei developer conference held in Dongguan on August 9.

Huawei has said that the operating system is designed for IoT devices, like the earlier mentioned LiteOS, and wouldn't thus be used in smartphones. However, according to Global Times, Huawei is planning to introduce a Hongmend-powered Mate 30 series smartphone later this year.

Apple has decided to suspend its Siri recording for quality control worldwide after The Guardian last week brought up some of the problems with it.

Siri conversations were used to improve upon the quality of the service by recording and grading how the conversations went. This meant that Apple employees were listening to actual Siri conversations randomly in order to determine whether Siri was successful in aiding the user.

While Apple says that information that could be considered personal was removed prior to anyone listening to the recording, the employees were still listening to very personal conversations, even though they couldn't make the connection to the actual person, or have any information about them.

Regardless, the company has still decided to halt the process worldwide for now and do internal investigation in its quality control practices. They are planning on resuming the grading procedure on a later date after the investigation has concluded and measures needed been taken.

Next time around, however, Apple will ask for permission to use Siri conversations for quality control, rather assume consent.

Facebook hasn't got exactly the best connotation anymore. Especially ever after the Cambridge Analytica mess, the company's image has undoubtedly been tainted, although over billion people still use the service.

The company still seems to be confident that the brand can do good for its other apps. Rather than separating apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook is planning the opposite, The Information reports.

According to the report, Facebook is planning on adding Facebook's own name to both Instagram and WhatsApp. Seems rather odd, but in the future the services are supposedly called Instagram from Facebook and WhatsApp from Facebook.

This appears in App Store and Google Play but won't affect the name in your home screen, as it would be too long.

Perhaps there could be an argument made, that linking the services, viewed very positively one would imagine, it could show customers that Facebook is more than just a personal data selling behemoth.

In fact, Facebook says that it is doing this "to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook."

Facebook has been working on integrating the background technologies of its various platforms, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, for months.

One of the worst nightmares of a Windows users is having the system bricked. You'll have to either reinstall Windows or, if you are lucky enough, restore it via backup.

However, often times with a local backup, which is what most manufacturers use, the separate restore partition might be months or even years old.

Even if it is fairly up-to-date, the restoring process itself is not the most pleasant one.

Fortunately, Microsoft has finally decided that they need to fix this issue with a cloud solution. The company is adding new versions of Windows 10 an option to make a restoration from a cloud backup.

However, in addition to having the new version of Windows 10, the manufacturer has to support this option too with drivers. As it seems like a no-brainer for all manufacturers, we expect it to be widely available as soon as Microsoft releases it.

This is one the features that Apple's macOS already has, and Windows dearly needs.

Google made it official earlier this week that one of the new features we'll be seeing in the next-generation Pixel phones is Face Unlock.

It's the same old front camera system that we've already seen on iPhones. Hopefully Google can make it little swifter.

Now rumors have it that Google is not only adding the feature to its smartphones but bringing it to other devices as well. One might think that there's a Face Unlock enabled Pixel tablet in the works.

No, according to Chrome Unboxed, Google is about to release a new Chromebook alongside Pixel 4, codenamed Atlas, that is featuring Face Unlock.

According to some source code, Chromium project is readying support for what is called Face Detection. This could be the new Face Unlock feature on the future Atlas device, perhaps named Pixelbook 2.

This would likely also bring the new Motion Sense feature to Chromebooks as well. Motion Sense allows users to control their devices without touching it. Motion gestures can launch apps and for example take a picture depending on how you wave your hands.

Netflix is considered one of the pioneers in AB testing in the streaming service space, and the company has improved upon its layout, recommendations, and even rating system via customer data.

However, usually collecting data from customers isn't very controversial, unlike this time around. Twitter user by the name of Beto on Security has questioned Netflix's newest policy where they request physical activity data of the user.

The Netflix app has asked people to give permission to the smartphones physical activity data, which seems very odd to most. Why in the world would you need to give physical activity data to a streaming service?

Well, fortunately Netflix has revealed some of the thinking behind this request. According to Netflix, the company wants to improve upon the viewing experience by optimizing streaming performance of those on the move.

However, they've also realized this might not be the right way to go about it and have ended the testing, The Verge reports.

Would you be willing to reveal your activity data for improving the streaming capabilities?