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
RARLAB has released a new version of the popular WinRAR archiver with a whole list of improvements and bug fixes.
WinRAR is the most popular tool for opening and extracting archives for a wide range of formats, including RAR, ZIP, TAR, 7ZIP and more. Today, RARLAB released WinRAR V5.70 Final with an extensive list of changes, improvements and bug fixes.
Google's one of the more recent tries at communication apps has been released to a new platform. Duo, the video chat platform, is already available for Android, iOS, as well as Chromebooks, now you can use it on the web too.
Originally launched in 2016, Google Duo offers easy high-definition video chats with end-to-end encryption. It works well with even low bandwidth requirements and is based on phone numbers so no other registration needed.
Now Google Duo is also available on the web with browsers like Google's own Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, and Apple's Safari. Currently it doesn't officially support Microsoft Edge, according to The Verge.
To get started, just open your browser and head to duo.google.com. You can either log in with your Duo account or choose to create one by entering your phone number.
Battery tech has been one of the limiting forces of smartphones for ages. Performance could be better and definitely battery life could increase massively, if someone came up with a new battery innovation.
Meanwhile, we're doomed to one, if lucky two, day battery life on our smartphones with 3000 or maybe 4000 milliamp hour batteries. Well, Energizer doesn't believe so, as they've done with the myth that a smartphone needs to be sleek third-inch thick device.
The battery company has showed off a phone that has six times the capacity of a normal smartphone. Power Max P18K Pop, quite the name, has a 18,000 millliamp hour battery.
Once you see the device, you realize that they haven't come up with any new solutions really, they've just put inside a six times bigger battery.
It's not quite six times thicker, but at 18 mm (around 0.7 inches) it's certainly one of thicker phones we've seen since the 90s.
Surely there are people, perhaps people that can't charge their phones for days and need them for work, who need the most impressive battery life, but it's hard to understand why you wouldn't just have an external powerbank with you.
Anyways, Energizer promises a weeks battery life but remember that you can't refill this battery while you are showering, you need a good eight hours to recharge it entirely.
Everyone: We don't care about thinness, just give us a bigger battery!
Android and iOS both have their pros and cons, there's really no objectively better solution for every person. However, there's one single reason above all others that makes it really hard for some people to switch between platforms.
That is of course iMessage, the bane (and boon) of every iPhone user, especially the ones that would like to try out Android. It's so nice inside the cozy iMessage ecosystem with blue bubbles and you'd never want to go out and experience the poisonous green bubbles.
Since there is no iMessage for Android, and rest assured there never will be one, third party developers have been trying to figure out a way to circumvent this for years.
Now there's finally been a public launch of an app, AirMessage, that promises to do just that. But there's a huge caveat that you could fit a Mac computer through.
Yes, you need a Mac. One that is powered up and ready to deliver you messages.
Essentially the Mac just works as a AirMessage server that delivers the iMessages to your Android device's AirMessage app.
If you really, really want iMessage on Android, this seems like a way to get there, albeit being fairly inconvenient. If you are still with us, there's probably no reason not to give it a try, especially since the developer promises that security is a top priority.
Mobile World Congress used to be the biggest stage for mobile phones for years, but nowadays many of the largest manufacturers have their own events which has made MWC more of an industry trade show than a consumer one.
Nevertheless, that has probably given room to adjacent companies that are developing important technology for our mobile devices. It's been a big year for memory cards, microSD in particular.
Yesterday we told you about the new one terabyte microSDXC cards coming from both SanDisk and Micron. Turns out, the capacity isn't the only thing the manufacturers are working on.
Perhaps even more impressively, SD Association has introduced a new memory card format, called the microSD Express, which allows super fast data transfer speeds. According to the announcement the speeds max at a crazy 985 megabytes per second, although that is for read speed, as you might imagine.
That is 10 times the write speeds of yesterday's 1 TB SanDisk card, although it is certainly not the fastest around, and same 10 times faster than UHS-I class card's read speeds.