Gadgets & Tech – Spoken Edition

iPadOS 14 Could Solve A Bunch of Little Problems We Have with iPad Jul 03, 2020

It seemed like Apple completely reinvented the way we used iPads with the recent iPadOS 13 update that added support for trackpads and mice. But now iPadOS 14 is here. It’s not quite the overhaul that iPadOS 13 was, but the update adds a few useful features that could make it easier to get work done on your iPad. To start, an interface redesign puts puts navigation and organizational tools front and center in the apps you use most.

Goodbye Useless Amazon Dash Wand, May You Rest Peacefully in Eternal Obscurity Jul 03, 2020

In an email, Amazon notified Dash Wand owners that it’s ending support for the device as of July 21. What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of the Dash Wand? Well, that’s hardly surprising. The first iteration of the gadget was introduced back in ye olde days of 2014. It was a lil wand thing with a barcode scanner and microphone, meaning you could scan your groceries or tell the stick to restock up what you were running low on. It got a quiet refresh in 2016.

Japan's New Fugaku Supercomputer Is Number One, Ranking in at 415 Petaflops Jul 02, 2020

Japan’s Riken institute has ripped through prior records on computing speed, with its brand-new Fugaku supercomputer performing 2.8 times more calculations per second in a biannual speed ranking than the previous record holder, the IBM system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Summit, the Oak Ridge computer, is now second place.

Once Again, Mr. President, You Have Broken the Rules of the General Discussions Board Jul 01, 2020

Our big boy president has once again angered the mods, with Twitter flagging another one of his tweets for violating its rules. Last week, Donald Trump tweeted, “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!” (The autonomous zone is a reference to a group of protesters against police brutality in Seattle who have occupied parts of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and declared it a cop-free area; local officials have described it as resembling a block party, while the right-wing media and Trump have played it up as an apocalyptic threat to national security organized by terrorists.)

Apple Now Supports In-Store Mac Trade-Ins Jul 01, 2020

Apple users will now be able to trade-in their old Macs in physical Apple Stores rather than having to use the company’s online system for these devices. An Apple representative confirmed the change to Gizmodo, and an updated FAQ on Apple’s trade-in hub now omits language that previously stated that the only exception to in-store trade-ins was Apple’s line of computers.

Was That So Hard, Zoom? Jun 30, 2020

Video chat service Zoom will finally add end-to-end encryption to calls placed by users on the free version of its service, weeks after announcing it would only be available to premium users who shelled out for the privilege. In April, Zoom faced a shareholder lawsuit alleging that the service boasted it used true end-to-end encryption, which prevents malicious parties from intercepting the contents of a conversation unless they have access to one of the devices involved.

Olympus Is Getting Out of the Camera Game Jun 30, 2020

It’s been a rough few years for Olympus, and with smartphones cannibalizing the sales of pocket cams and Sony dominating the sales of high-end mirrorless cams, Olympus has decided to sell off its camera division and exit the camera game entirely. In a press release issued last week, Olympus says that following due diligence it will sell its imaging business to Japan Industrial Partners by September 30, 2020.

All the Stuff Coming to Apple Home in the Fall Jun 29, 2020

Apple’s super-stuffed developer’s presentation last week brought new announcements for wearables, an overhauled iOS interface, and a new macOS with the debut of Big Sur. But Apple dropped a bunch of updates coming to the Apple tech we use in our homes—a place we’re now spending more time than ever. The big push here was the ease with which you can use multiple products with the least amount of trouble, as you might with features like Airplay to push a video from your phone to your Apple TV or using the Home app to control the various smart devices around your space. Apple says it has open-sourced HomeKit to prioritize privacy and ease of use, so that when you add a smart device and set it up through the iOS 14 Home app, it’ll automatically suggest various automation options. Apple has long supported smart bulbs that can change to nifty colors. But with iOS 14, it’s adding something called Adaptive Lighting, which can be used to change the colors you see in specific rooms automatically based on your preference. The company is also rolling out a beefed-up system for home security cameras that will let users specifically designate the zones they want to monitor while excluding activity outside of those zones. So, for example, you can opt to only be alerted about activity within that designated area. Another security measure being added is facial recognition for close contacts you’ve tagged in your photos. This feature will extend to Apple’s own products as well. HomePod will alert you about who is at the door, while Apple TV will display a video overlay from your security camera in the corner of your streaming screen. The company said that all cameras connected with the Home app will be linked to tvOS 14 as well as supported through the control center. Apple TV got a few exciting updates of its own in tvOS 14. Multi-user support is coming to Apple Arcade from the control center to pick up where you left off. The company has also announced coming support for Xbox Elite 2 and Xbox adaptive controllers for Apple Arcade. With picture-in-picture support on the way, Apple will also introduce AirPlay sessions. As for news on the Apple TV+ front, well, the news was pretty slim (though it will be available on Sony and Vizio smart TVs later this year). But! We did get a trailer for the forthcoming Isaac Asimov sci-fi joint Foundation, which will arrive sometime in 2021.

China Finally Completes Its Rival GPS Network Jun 29, 2020

On Tuesday, China launched the final satellite in its BeiDou Navigation Satellite (BDS) System, marking the completion of its homegrown GPS-esque navigation system. The project has been decades in the making. It began in the 1990s, and the first satellite launch was in October 2000, according to Space.com. BDS is currently one of four global navigations systems. The others are the U.S. government-run GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, and the European Union’s Galileo.

Philips Hue Goes Extra Bright with its New 1600 Lumen Smart Light Jun 26, 2020

After releasing a line of new outdoor lights earlier this year, Philips Hue has returned with some new lights better suited for indoor use including an updated Lightstrip Plus and Hue Bloom lamp, along with a new 1600 lumen bulb which is now the brightest smart light out of Hue’s entire portfolio.

This MacBook Charger Hub Fixes One of Apple's Biggest Laptop Sins: Removing the Memory Card Slot Jun 26, 2020

Apple’s butterfly keyboard will go down as one of the biggest tech blunders of recent years, but there’s another egregious sin the company has committed against its MacBooks that hasn’t been properly addressed yet: the elimination of the built-in SD card slot. There are lots of workarounds for the loss, but ElevationLab’s new ElevationHub appears to be the least intrusive. When Apple switched to using USB-C ports on its laptops, the company also decided it was time to eliminate the incredibly useful memory card slots it had been including on many of its notebooks for years. One less component meant there was more room inside for other tech, and milling out that tiny slot on the side of MacBook housings undoubtedly shaved a few precious seconds off the manufacturing process. It wasn’t as beneficial to consumers, though, as it once again meant that external hubs and card readers were accessories you had to keep close at hand for their inevitable use. The move gave birth to another accessory market for the MacBook: USB-C dongles and docks that not only allowed memory cards, HDMI cables, and even multiple USB devices to connect to a MacBook at the same time, but also the return of the dreaded dongle. They’re ugly, they’re cumbersome, and they’re easy to lose. And that’s exactly why the ElevationHubE might be the way to go. Instead of attaching to the MacBook itself, it’s designed to snap onto the side of the official Apple MacBook charger, adding an extra USB-A port and an SD-sized memory card reader, plus some much-needed cable management. Starting at $40 the Elevation Hub isn’t the cheapest way to expand the usefulness of a single USB-C port; there are other solutions that offer HDMI and even connectivity for network cables, but it stays out of the way, and it’s impossible to forget when traveling because it’s always mounted to your MacBook’s wall wart. Functionally, there are also some challenges. If you plug in your laptop under a desk it will probably be a bit of a pain to crawl under there every time you want to grab photos of a memory card. There are also better and smaller charging alternatives to the wall wart that Apple includes with the MacBook which the ElevationHub won’t fit, unfortunately. The perfect solution is Apple including memory card slots again on its machines, but until that happens (which could be never) this seems like one of the better solutions.

Microsoft Broke One of Its Most Useful Windows 10 Features With Its Latest Update Jun 25, 2020

Microsoft has had one heck of a time fixing bugs in its last couple of Windows 10 versions. Many users, myself included, stuck with version 1809 longer than we anticipated because of all the bugs in version 1903 when it rolled out last year. One bug prevented users from upgrading to version 1903 if they had a USB device or SD card connected to their PC. Other bugs affected the Microsoft Game bar.

Build This Mini Star Trek TNG Computer To Make Yourself Feel Like You're Far Away From Earth Jun 25, 2020

Exploring the stars, thousands of light years away from Earth, sounds pretty great right about now. While Darian Johnson hasn’t invented intergalactic travel, he has created a tiny desktop computer that looks straight out of Jean-Luc Picard’s ready room, letting you at least pretend that you’re safely aboard a distant starship. It’s a testament to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s production designers, including technical consultant Michael Okuda, that the fictional LCARS (short for Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) operating system used on the computers aboard the USS Enterprise-D still look futuristic, despite the show first airing 33 years ago. Gene Roddenberry himself insisted that the computer screens aboard the ship be as minimal and clean as possible to give the impression of the technology being incredibly advanced, and it’s an aesthetic that many fans of the show are still fans of, including Johnson. Johnson’s LCARS computer is based on an existing design for a similar TNG-themed alarm clock, which he upgraded with a larger 3D-printed enclosure, bigger screen, and additional components to add considerably more functionality. Using everything from an Adafruit ESP32 Feather Board to Amazon’s AWS cloud servers, the computer can access and display a host of information, accessible with a series of simple buttons, including the weather, the temperature and humidity of the room, news headlines, calendar data pulled from Microsoft Outlook, fitness info courtesy of Google Fitness, a resistor color code chart and calculator, and even a tool for measuring power and current that Johnson can use as he develops other devices. Geordi La Forge would be proud. All of the files and schematics needed to create and customize your own are available for free on Hackaday for download, and while you don’t need to be a Starfleet caliber engineer to build one, you will need soldering, electronics, and programming skills to make it so.

Adobe Flash Is Actually Going to Die This Time, For Real Jun 24, 2020

Three years ago, long after the rise (and fall) of Flash, Adobe announced that its once-ubiquitous multimedia platform was finally going away. But Adobe never provided a specific date for when Flash would reach its end-of-life. Now we know: Adobe Flash is going to officially die on December 31, 2020. While younger folks should be forgiven for not knowing about Flash, during the late 90s, and into the 2000s, huge swaths of the internet relied on Flash to add interactivity to websites in the form of animations, games, and even videos. In fact, in its early days, YouTube relied almost entirely on Flash to serve up streaming videos to millions of people around the world. However, that changed in the latter half of the 2000s thanks to the rise of more powerful open-source platforms, like HTML 5 and CSS 3, and the need for a more efficient standard designed to run on mobile phones. Adobe Flash (or Macromedia Flash as it was known before Adobe bought it out in 2005) quickly began to lose its appeal. And that’s before you get into the numerous security problems often caused by exploits in Flash. Then in 2010, Steve Jobs signaled the beginning of the end for Flash when he posted an open letter explaining why Apple would not be supporting Flash on the iPad, iPhone, or any future products. Ever since products and sites, like the Flash-reliant Newgrounds, have been working to replace Flash or implement workarounds so as to ween themselves off a once-useful but now outdated platform. That brings us to today, where stumbling upon something that still needs Flash to run feels like calling up a friend using a rotary phone. While Flash won’t just vanish into thin air on December 31, Adobe says that it will stop distributing and updating Flash. Critically, that also means Flash won’t be getting any further security or privacy patches. For a software platform that lasted more than two decades and played a huge part in the Dot-com bubble of the late 90s and early 2000s, Flash lasted a lot longer than most people probably ever expected. So pour one out for the software that brought us wonderful time-wasters like YTMND and Homestar Runner. It’s been real, but it’s time to go.

NASA’s New Horizons Probe Is So Far Away, It Now Sees Stars in Different Positions Than We Do Jun 24, 2020

A NASA parallax experiment involving New Horizons shows the probe now sees some stars in slightly different positions than we do on Earth, revealing just how far the spacecraft is from home. You can actually replicate this effect at home, kids. Fully extend your arm away from your face and raise a finger (anyone, you choose). You’ll notice that, when alternating between your left and right eyes, your finger will change position.

It's Hard to Imagine Ever Finding a Smaller Travel Mouse Than This Jun 23, 2020

As handy as a built-in trackpad is, there are many laptop users who absolutely despise the option. To them, a mouse is still the only way to push a cursor around, and for those times when they have to travel, the surprisingly tiny CheerPod packs an impressive amount of functionality into a pocket-friendly device that’s about the size of a lighter. Using the CheerPod looks like a bit of a balancing act between a traditional mouse and a touchpad. It can be slid around a table to control the Windows or macOS’ cursor over Bluetooth, with a pair of left and right clickable buttons used to make selections. But the surface of the CheerPod also has multi-touch functionality, so depending on how many fingers you rest on top, moving the tiny mouse around can alternately scroll documents, switch between windows and apps, or activate various other gesture-controlled shortcuts each operating system supports. For those times when you just don’t have room to plop a mouse down next to your laptop, like when working on the tiny flip-down snack tray on a plane, the CheerPod also features a built-in gyroscope so you can use it as an air mouse and control your computer’s cursor by simply holding the mouse in your hand and moving it around. It can even be used as a remote for controlling slideshows, and its creators have even included a laser pointer because why not? There’s presumably a bit of a learning curve when it comes to mastering the CheerPod, like remembering not to accidentally place too many fingers on it while dragging it around. Its tiny size also means it doesn’t look like it’s the most ergonomically-friendly device. If you’re used to a mouse that feels like it’s been custom molded to the palm of your hand, you might have a hard time getting used to how to hold the CheerPod. But it seems like a minor trade-off given the tiny mouse requires little space in your laptop bag, and can even be easily carried in a shirt pocket. If there was a good reason to be hesitant about dropping $49 (a limited time discount for early pre-orders) on the CheerPod it’s that its creators are using an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to bring it to market. It’s long since blown past its original funding goal which helps, but it’s rare to see a crowdfunded gadget not run into unforeseen delays or problems as it moves from the functional prototype stage to a product ready for mass production, which is further complicated now with the pandemic still gripping the world. If you do pre-order one, it’s not a bad idea to take the promised September 2020 delivery date with a grain of salt.

Amazon Introduces Social Distance Software at Warehouses, but That Won't Fix Its Coronavirus Problem Jun 23, 2020

Amazon is debuting a new software that will send its warehouse employees real-time visual cues about their physical proximity to other workers, one of the company’s latest initiatives in response to covid-19—a problem the company has been struggling to address in its facilities.

Super-Sized Lego Go-Kart Is Big Enough for Even Grown-up Kids to Drive Jun 22, 2020

Matt Denton was one of the clever engineers responsible for designing and building the functional BB-8 robots and puppets used to film the most recent Star Wars trilogy. But online Denton is probably better known for his clever use of 3D printing to supersize Lego Technic sets, which now includes a functional go-kart he can actually drive On his YouTube channel, Denton has been sharing a series of videos detailing the planning, engineering, and construction of his latest XXL Lego build.

Amazon's Reportedly Fielding Probes From California, Washington State Over Trade Practices Jun 22, 2020

Officials in California and Washington State are investigating Amazon’s business practices with a focus on whether the tech giant abuses its power over third-party sellers on its online marketplace, according to reports from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Amazon’s been facing increasing antitrust scrutiny from both the U.S. and abroad over how the company aggregates data from these sellers and purportedly gives its own products an unfair advantage.

Brave Blows Up Its Whole Reason for Existing Jun 19, 2020

As a software company in the browser space, Brave’s made a name for itself by putting user privacy first and monetization second. But now, some of its users are pointing out that the pledge might be a bit duplicitous. As first pointed out by the folks over at Decrypt, Brave has been quietly redirecting its users from particular cryptocurrency sites, over to affiliate URLs that Brave, in turn, can use to track users and skim off revenue. The news came to light this past weekend when one Twitter user pointed out that, upon typing the URL for the cryptocurrency exchange Binance into his Brave search bar, the browser automatically reformatted the original URL—”binance.us”—into the affiliate-friendly “binance.us/en?ref=35089877:” a link that directs the end-user to the exact same destination, but the latter ensures that Brave gets a commission for referring that user to that particular site. According to Binance’s blog post explaining its affiliate program, the commissioner’s cut can be “up to 50%” of each trade a user might make. There’s actually a name for these sorts of URL-tracking tags: link decoration. It’s a slightly-shady practice that the likes of Facebook and Google, along with countless other companies have dipped into while looking for ways to track users in a cookie-free way. But as Decrypt points out in its piece, Brave never tipped off the roughly 15 million people using its browsers each month that these tags were being added to some of their search terms—let alone that these tags could ostensibly be used to track them across the web. Not long after news of the Binance tracker came to light—along with similar trackers being added to the URL’s of several other crypto-centric services—Brave CEO Brendan Eich announced on Twitter that adding affiliate links within a user’s search bar was a “mistake” that the company is now “correcting.” But from his explanation, it seemed like it wasn’t much of a mistake at all. Brave, as Eich explained it, is “trying to build a viable business,” both by getting a cut from the ads that its users opt-into as part of the service, and through affiliate revenue via search—no different than “all major browsers” on the market, he explained. “When we do this well, it’s a win for all parties,” he added. “Our users want Brave to live.” As far as gaffes in the digital privacy sphere are concerned, this one is actually fairly minor—Eich pointed out that the affiliate links auto-added onto a user’s search terms were meant to identify the Brave browser itself, rather than the individual user. But it’s a gaffe just the same, and a gaffe from a company that has, until now, prided itself on being just a bit different from the power- and data-hungry browsers currently on the market. And if we can learn anything from these other companies, it’s that Brave will need to find some way to recoup this now-lost revenue—with or without our consent.

The U.S. Space Force Is Losing a Trademark Battle With Netflix's Space Force Jun 19, 2020

The real Space Force may be going down in flames against the fictional Space Force: According to the Hollywood Reporter, the newly founded military branch appears to be losing a trademark battle with the Netflix comedy show of the same name. Netflix “has outmaneuvered the U.S. government to secure trademark rights to ‘Space Force’ in Europe, Australia, Mexico and elsewhere,” according to the Reporter, while the Air Force—under which the Space Force is organized—simply has a pending application stateside. This mostly has ramifications for merch. Consumers won’t have trouble discerning between the military branch and Space Force when it comes to which one stars Steve Carrell, but they might not be able who is selling a line of Space Force shirts. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office relies on a “first-to-use” system when assigning rights, and Netflix has been submitting trademark applications for the Space Force across the globe since the start of 2019. On the other hand, the Air Force filed a trademark application on the basis of intent to use in March 2019, per Law & Crime, and the Space Force didn’t become an actual organization until December 2019. If it comes down to a legal battle, that means Netflix may be able to easily demonstrate it was actually using the Space Force branding first. (Even if Netflix lost the case, it would have a First Amendment right to continue selling Space Force merch on the grounds of satire and parody.) According to Law & Crime, this wouldn’t be an unprecedented legal fight. Since 2007, when a Defense Department directive forming a new copyright and trademark went into effect, the U.S. Marine Corps used its trademark to order sites like Zazzle, CafePress, and Etsy to either stop selling merchandise with USMC branding or only under certain rules. Foreign Policy wrote in 2013 that the increased focus on branding had allowed service branches to start rolling in royalties or even launch clothing lines in partnership with retailers. “At this time, we are not aware of any trademark conflicts with the fictional program Space Force produced by Netflix,” an Air Force spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter. “We wish Netflix and the show’s producers the best in their creative depiction of our nation’s newest branch of the military.” The dispute may ultimately come to nothing, as Space Force has not exactly been a winner for Netflix so far. According to Rotten Tomatoes, just 40 percent of 82 critics gave its first season positive reviews (and even many of those positive reviews were not great). Blurbs include “shockingly unfunny,” “so strange and ill-conceived and ill-timed that not even Carell’s avuncular bonhomie can save it,” “decidedly dull, to the point that humor has been transported elsewhere,” and “pathetically offering up zingers on office rivalries, nepotism, and weird co-workers.”

Researchers Have Created Transparent, Breathable Face Masks Jun 18, 2020

As mask-wearing becomes the new norm around the world, researchers from the EPFL and Empa in Switzerland have come up with a way to improve at least one of the many challenges of wearing face protection with a new transparent design that no longer completely hides and obscures the wearer’s mouth.

U.S. Falls Out of Top 10 Average Internet Speeds Globally in 2020, but That’s Just Because Other Countries Are Faster Jun 18, 2020

The covid-19 pandemic has many of us working and learning from home, which means access to fast internet is more important than ever. Unfortunately, despite being the richest country in the world, the U.S. has fallen out of the top 10 list for the countries with the fastest broadband speeds. Based on recent data from Speedtest.net’s Global Index, first highlighted by DecisionData.org, for the past few years the U.S. has typically hovered between No. 7 and No. 10 among countries with the fastest broadband speeds. But in the last year, average broadband speeds in the U.S. haven’t improved as quickly as other developed nations. In April 2019, average broadband download speeds in the U.S. were about 118.6 Mbps, placing America at No. 7 on the list of countries with the fastest internet speeds. A year later, average download speeds had only risen to 132.6 Mbps, placing the U.S. 11th—behind Macau, Denmark, and Sweden. Meanwhile, despite the lack of any huge gains in broadband speeds, with average download speeds of 198.4 Mbps, Singapore comfortably retained its No. 1 spot ahead of Hong Kong (176.7 Mbps) and Thailand (159.9 Mbps), which rank second and third, respectively. While it might be easy to attribute the U.S.’s relatively lackluster gains in broadband speeds on covid-19, recent data published by Speedtest.net (and updated yesterday) that tracked changes in speeds between Jan. 6 and March 2 shows that’s really not the case. Both the U.S. and the global average increased by an average of 1 percent. That said, 130 Mbps or so would be more than enough for most people—if they could actually get those speeds. Unfortunately, for people living in more rural areas who don’t have access to one of the big ISPs, even getting 50 Mbps can often be a challenge. What’s most worrisome about Speedtest’s latest global index is that while the U.S. still ranks in the top 15 for broadband speeds, it ranks just 33rd at 43.7 Mbps when it comes to mobile data. That’s a pretty weak showing compared to similarly sized countries like China (84.9 Mbps), Canada (73.52 Mbps), and Australia (62.15 Mbps) which all rank in the top 10 for mobile data, with South Korea taking the top spot at 88 Mbps. A country’s size may partially account for the fact that smaller nations have faster fixed broadband speeds than the U.S., but it’s clearly not the only reason—as evidenced by the U.S.’s mediocre mobile data speeds. And with covid-19 forcing many schools and businesses to rethink the need for having large offices and campuses, the U.S. really needs to step up its efforts to make fast internet access available to more people.

Lutron's Smart Blinds Automatically Open and Close All Day Long To Stop Direct Sunlight From Baking Your Home Jun 17, 2020

The sun is a great source of free lighting if you’re in a home with lots of windows. But in the summer months, natural lighting can also quickly turn your home into an oven. Instead of spending all your waking hours opening and closing blinds to block direct blasts of the sun’s rays, Lutron’s new automated smart blinds can make all of those adjustments for you. With companies like Ikea finally making the technology more affordable, smart blinds are joining smart lighting as an accessible home upgrade. But being able to simply remotely open or close your blinds from a mobile, app, or asking your smart assistant to do it for you, isn’t as smart as it could be. Lutron’s new window blinds feature “Natural Light Optimization” functionality which takes into account the location and orientation of your house (using GPS and a smart device’s built-in compass, presumably) as well as the location of all the blinds in your home to automatically open and close them individually throughout the day to let in natural light—but only on the sides of your house not directly exposed to the sun. The functionality helps maximize the amount of light in your home while at the same time minimizing unwanted excess heat, but there are other advantages too such as a “Fade Fighter” mode which can be activated to limit the amount of sunlight hitting furniture or other items in a home that can fade in color over time. If you’re an art collector with some expensive pieces on your walls, that feature alone could justify the upgrade which starts at $600 for a set of blinds that cover a 3 x 5-foot window, but the price goes up from there depending on size and style. As with other smart blind systems, Lutron’s new blinds can be manually scheduled through an accompanying mobile app, remotely operated through popular voice assistants, and the blinds will automatically all close at sunset to maximize privacy in your home. Installation is promised to take as little as 20 minutes because the motors are all contained in a small battery-powered box mounted at the top of a window so no wiring is required. The downside, of course, is yet another thing in your house with a hunger for fresh batteries especially since these blinds are operating and adjusting all day long.

Apple Wins Patent for Socially Distant Group Selfies Jun 17, 2020

It can be difficult to return to business as usual during America’s first phase of reopening with federal social distancing recommendations still in effect. But a new patent from Apple gives us a glimpse into how one bit of normalcy—group selfies—might work even when we’re all at least six feet apart.

Apple Doesn’t Want the Economic Crisis to Keep You From Buying Its Products: Report Jun 16, 2020

The economic crisis stemming from the coronavirus pandemic has hit countries all over the world, costing millions of jobs and putting a freeze on a lot of non-essential spending, like upgrading your old phone or computer. Apple knows this, and that’s presumably why it’s reportedly planning to launch an installment program for its products. Bloomberg reports that Apple is planning to roll out this monthly installment program—which will be tied to its Apple Card credit card, issued by Goldman Sachs—over the next few weeks. The service will let customers buy a product through Apple and split the cost over several months with interest-free payments. The Bloomberg report states that Apple will offer a 12-month, interest-free payment plan for iPads, Macs, Apple Pencils, iPad keyboards, and Mac XDR Display monitors. Meanwhile, AirPods, Apple TVs, and HomePods will be offered at zero interest for six months. The program aims to increase enrollment for the Apple Card and boost sales of Apple products by letting users split the cost over time, according to Bloomberg report. Installment payments will be added to a customer’s monthly Apple Card bill and will be managed through the Wallet app. Of course, Apple isn’t the only company that offers payment installment programs to pay for products. Cell phone carriers also offer this service. However, Apple’s program would allow customers to use an installment plan to pay for a wide variety of its products. Apple, like many companies, has been impacted economically by the coronavirus pandemic. In February, it announced that it did not expect to meet its own revenue guidance for the March quarter because the worldwide iPhone supply had been temporarily constrained by the health crisis. This also affected demand for its products in China, Apple said. “In this difficult environment, our users are depending on Apple products in renewed ways to stay connected, informed, creative, and productive. We feel motivated and inspired to not only keep meeting these needs in innovative ways, but to continue giving back to support the global response,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the announcement of the company’s second quarter results. Apple also hasn’t stopped releasing new products during the health crisis. The company has launched its new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPad Pro, Magic Keyboard, Powerbeats, and the iPhone SE. And we still haven’t seen the new iPhone 12 that’s expected this fall. If any of those gadgets sound appealing to you, rest assured, as it appears Apple is making every effort to make sure you can still buy them one way or another. [Bloomberg]

God Help Us, the Winklevoss Twins Are Co-Producing a Movie About Their Bitcoin Journey Jun 16, 2020

The Winklevoss twins—the brothers Mark Zuckerberg allegedly stole the idea for Facebook from—are making a movie about themselves, Deadline reported this week. If that doesn’t seem masturbatory enough, rejoice: said film is about how they amassed a net wealth of more than $1 billion by getting really into Bitcoin.

This Nintendo Switch Painting App Includes a Pressure-Sensing Stylus Powered by Sound Waves Jun 15, 2020

A popular painting app for the Nintendo DS and 3DS that relied on each handheld’s stylus is finally coming to the Switch. But instead of forcing users to paint with their fingers, Colors Live will include a stylus that cleverly uses the Switch’s headphone jack for pressure sensitivity and a better painting experience.

iPhone 12 Release Could Be Delayed, A Surprising Source Says Jun 15, 2020

Every September, almost like clockwork, Apple releases a new iPhone. Based on recent comments from an unlikely source, the CEO of wireless component supplier Broadcom, the iPhone 12's release might get delayed until much later in the year. According to Bloomberg, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan made the prediction during a recent earnings call, though he didn’t quite spell it out.

Check This Out: Mornings Jun 12, 2020

You step outside, finding the usually bustling streets peaceful and empty. Despite a weather forecast pushing 80 degrees, the air is refreshingly cool. And while your schedule is filled with work, errands, and work that’s basically just one big errand, in this little moment you have no responsibilities at all. What is this strange magic? Well, it’s a lesser-known time of day I’d like to turn you on to.

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