Author: zppiot
Today, Apple announced some new accessibility features including one for Siri called Vocal Shortcuts. With this feature, iPhone and iPad users will be able to assign a custom phrase that can be used to trigger the digital assistant into launching a shortcut and handle complex tasks. For example, you can set up Siri to turn on low power mode by saying “I’m running out of juice.”Another new accessibility feature called “Listen for Atypical Speech” uses on-device machine learning to recognize the speech patterns of iPhone users. Those with cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or stroke who cannot talk clearly will…
Are you having trouble choosing between the deeply discounted iPad Air (2022) with Apple M1 power and one of the two hot new M2-based “mid-range” tablets? How about you snub all three of those devices and wait for the next iPad Air edition instead?That’s… probably not a good idea, as this product family doesn’t appear to be on the same 12-month upgrade cycle as Apple’s iPhones. Instead, the iPad Air (2024) duo arrived more than two years after its solo 10.9-inch predecessor, which was in turn released around a year and a half on the back of a 10.9-inch iPad…
T-Mobile’s purchase of Sprint has led to higher prices for US consumers, according to Rewheel.The research firm has found that monthly prices are about two to three times higher and gigabyte rates are five to six times higher in markets with only three mobile network operators.In contrast, a market with four mobile networks fosters healthier competition, resulting in lower prices for customers.In markets with only three major network operators, consumers pay three times more for mobile plans with 100GB of data and also pay 60 percent more every month for fixed broadband services. That’s perhaps the reason why the T-Mobile…
Like this year, Samsung’s next S-series flagships are also expected to follow a dual-chip strategy, whereby the base and Plus model will be powered by either a Qualcomm chipset or a home-brewed processor, depending on the market, and the Ultra model will have a Qualcomm chip in all regions. In a strange turn of events, it looks like Samsung’s chipset might be a better option.After a barrage of complaints about overheating issues with its in-house Exynos chips, Samsung only used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips for last year’s Galaxy S23 series. This year, we saw a greatly improved Exynos 2400 which delivered…
Google announced today several new features to Android 15 including one that keeps prying eyes away from your phone screen. Called Private Space, it’s like having a digital safe on your phone where you can hide apps you have installed on your device that you don’t want anyone to see. Think about how nice it would be to hide away your banking or securities apps allowing them to be seen by your eyes only. Private Space is coming to Android 15 later this year. To enter the Private Space, a user will use his fingerprint to verify his ID. A…
If there’s one thing that can sour people on a perfectly good phone, it’s a device’s unwieldiness. After four years, Apple is reportedly ready to increase the display size on the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max and we aren’t sure how we feel about that.After all, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are already quite large at 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, respectively, and the rumored increase to 6.3 inches and 6.9 inches may make this year’s Pro models a little too big for most people’s liking. But, of course, things may not turn out to be…
In the early years of the tablet market, it quickly became apparent that tablet owners weren’t upgrading their tablets every other year which was the custom for many phone owners at the time. Tablets don’t get as many new features as phones do every year or two and while they showed their versatility as a WFH device during the COVID years, they are just not as mobile as smartphones are, especially the Wi-Fi-only variants. While the percentage of iPad owners waiting three or more years to upgrade has increased over the last three years, the percentage of those upgrading in…
Ziemelis also emphasized that “retractions are not always bad.” While some retractions occur because of research misconduct, “some retractions are of a much more innocent variety—the authors having made or being informed of an honest mistake, and upon reflection, feel they can no longer stand behind the claims of the paper,” he said while speaking on a panel. Indeed, physicist James Hamlin of the University of Florida, one of the presenters and an independent reviewer of Dias’s work, discussed how he had willingly retracted a 2009 experiment published in Physical Review Letters in 2021 after another researcher’s skepticism prompted him…
Google has released Android 15 Beta 2 this morning and models eligible to install it include the Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6a, Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7a, Pixel Tablet, Pixel Fold, Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Android 15 is designed to improve the user’s productivity, minimize the impact to the health of the phone’s battery, and maximize smooth app performance all in the name of giving users a premium device experience while protecting their privacy and safety.Besides being available for Pixel devices, the Android 15 beta can now be installed on phones (including some foldables)…
On Tuesday, Google announced its own new tools, including a conversational assistant called Gemini Live, which can do many of the same things. It also revealed that it’s building a sort of “do-everything” AI agent, which is currently in development but will not be released until later this year. Soon you’ll be able to explore for yourself to gauge whether you’ll turn to these tools in your daily routine as much as their makers hope, or whether they’re more like a sci-fi party trick that eventually loses its charm. Here’s what you should know about how to access these new…
I just got my hands on Google’s Pixel 8a, and I’m happy to report that Google’s new $500 mid-ranger takes the value proposition to a higher level compared to its predecessor!To be clear, I don’t think $500 is a negligible amount of money, so this is in no way a “cheap” phone you can buy with pocket change. However, in the current economic climate, which includes phones like the $1,200 iPhone 15 Pro Max and $1,300 Galaxy S24 Ultra, $500 seems like a bargain – especially for a phone that gives you everything you need. And I mean everything!So… Should…
The recent iOS 17.5 update added some useful features such as the one that will alert iPhone users when a rogue item tracker belonging to a third party is tracking them regardless of which platform it is connected to. There were also a large number of security patches including one to patch a flaw that could allow an app to access user-sensitive data. According to some iPhone users, iOS 17.5 also has an unintended “feature” that is actually a bug. It brings back photos that were previously deleted.On Reddit (via 9to5Mac), a user who goes by the name “Specialist-Fix8528” had…
Who said that you have to spend a small fortune on a new pair of high-end Bluetooth wireless headphones? Not Skullcandy, that’s for sure, and certainly not Woot, which currently charges a measly $129.99 for the brand’s premium over-ear Crusher ANC 2 cans in new, unused, unopened, and undamaged condition.Now, these bad boys may not be quite as powerful or as technically advanced as Apple’s AirPods Max, Sony’s WH-1000XM5, or the state-of-the-art Bose 700. But they’re available at a fraction of the price of all those products right now after an unprecedented $100 markdown from a “pointless price” of $229.99,…
When a commercial ship travels from the port of Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia to Tokyo Bay, it’s not only carrying cargo; it’s also transporting millions of data points across a wide array of partners and complex technology systems. Consider, for example, Maersk. The global shipping container and logistics company has more than 100,000 employees, offices in 120 countries, and operates about 800 container ships that can each hold 18,000 tractor-trailer containers. From manufacture to delivery, the items within these containers carry hundreds or thousands of data points, highlighting the amount of supply chain data organizations manage on a daily…
The Bill that would Kill (sorry, Quentin Tarantino) TikTok is signed by the POTUS (President of the United States), so ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has only several months before it decides whether to sell or face a ban in the US.So far, the smoke signals coming from ByteDance’s yard rule out a possible divestiture. They don’t want anybody else to get a hold of their magical algorithm that gets hundreds of millions of users hooked.Reuters reports that a lawsuit filed by a group of TikTok creators has ignited a contentious legal battle against the bill. The law, aimed at addressing…
“Consider the mental equipment of the average modern man,” he wrote. “Most of the raw material of his thought enters his mind by way of a machine of some kind … the Twentieth Century journalist can collect, print, and distribute his news with a speed and completeness wholly due to a score or more of intricate machines … For the first time, thanks to machinery, such a thing as a world-wide public opinion is becoming possible.” Bakeless didn’t see this as an especially positive development. “Machines are so expensive that the machine-made press is necessarily controlled by a few very…