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To many, Jony Ive’s announced departure from Apple last week felt very sudden. But a narrative is forming to suggest that he’s been slowly exiting for years as the company shifted priorities from product design to operations. The Wall Street Journal’s Tripp Mickle just published a new list of brutalities that paints a picture of discontent inside Apple, that’s responsible for “eroding the product magic” created by the union of Apple’s genius CEO and genius designer . The WSJ report follows a similar piece published by Bloomberg last week. Both reports describe an Apple design team, led by Jony Ive, increasingly frustrated by his absence after the launch of the Apple Watch in 2015. They tell the story of a company that once put design at... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2XgL95Q

Apple will be adopting a quality-over-quantity model for AppleTV+, the company’s upcoming streaming service. Senior Vice President of services and programming, Eddy Cue said in an interview with The Sunday Times that Apple won’t be flooding people’s screens with too many choices like Netflix does. Instead, it will focus on ‘creating the best’. However, when asked what he thought of Netflix’s model, he said there’s nothing wrong their model, but it’s not something Apple will follow. The response was a jab at Netflix’s streaming model. The US-based streaming giant releases as much original content as it can to attract viewers, which sometimes can be overwhelming for the subscribers. Apple will instead release one new show every month, starting with the new Workplace drama called The Morning Show starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. While Netflix, Hulu and Amazon have been present in the industry for much longer, Apple is very much a latecomer to the show. Add to that the up

Asus recently launched its Asus 6Z smartphone in India and the handset’s 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage and 8GB RAM + 256 GB storage go up for sale today. The new handset by Asus takes on the OnePlus 7 series of phones as it comes equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. The smartphone also features a near bezel-less 6.4-inch display, thanks to a rotating camera on the back, which acts as the rear and front camera. In addition, it comes equipped with a large 5000mAh battery as well.  Asus 6Z specifications The Asus 6Z comes equipped with a 6.4-inch IPS LCD display and is said to deliver a screen-to-body ratio of 92 percent. The handset features flagship-grade specs like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, which is coupled with upto 8GB RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.1 storage. The internal storage can also be expanded using a microSD card. The Asus 6Z is also backed by a large 5000mAh battery, which supports Quick Charge 4.0 with a bundled 18W charger.  In comparison, the OnePlus 7 Pro features

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Apple has discovered that a “very small number” of MacBook Air laptops sold last year feature a faulty logic board and that they would need replacing. According to 9to5Mac, which received access to some internal documents, confirmed in its recent report that Apple Stores and authorised Apple service centres have been instructed to replace the faulty logic boards at no extra cost to customers. According to 9to5Mac’s report, Apple sent out a memo to its staff about the “issue” it found in the main logic board of the 2018 MacBook Air. It claims that the issue is found in only certain serial numbers. Users with an affected unit should receive an email from Apple about the issue and the company's offer to have the issue rectified for free. Apple has yet to list the free repair service on its Exchange and Repair Extension Programs website. Apple reportedly lists the symptoms discovered in the logic board as something to do with “power” but does not go into the details of the problem. S

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Another Neil Gaiman property is being adapted for the small screen. The Hollywood Reporter says that Netflix is closing in on a deal with Warner Bros. to adapt the author’s acclaimed comic series Sandman into a live-action TV show, in what is being described as “the most expensive TV series that DC entertainment has ever done.” Wonder Woman screenwriter Allan Heinberg will act as writer, producer, and showrunner for the series, with Neil Gaiman and David Goyer acting as executive producers. THR notes that a final deal hasn’t been finalized, and but indicates that the project is headed for a straight-to-series pickup. Sources told the publication that Warner Bros. (which has the rights to the show), opted to sell the series to another... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2XcUATS

After detecting an unusual spike in energy consumption, Iranian authorities seized nearly a thousand computers being used to mine cryptocurrency, according to the country’s state media . Authorities discovered two bitcoin farms operating in abandoned factories in Yazd province, which caused a seven percent spike in the country’s power consumption this month. Iran’s central bank banned cryptocurrencies last year, citing concerns over money laundering. According to RadioFreeEurope , officials have said that the practice is making the local power grid “unstable,” and warned that people engaging in the practice could be cut off. Cryptocurrency is “mined” as high-powered computers solve mathematical problems, a task that requires... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2FJbG5R

Amazon is making it easier for users to find live television on its Fire TV units. The company says that it will soon roll out a “Live” tab that collects all of the various live programming across apps that users might have installed. Amazon describes the tab as a “single destination” that “brings together your live sports, news, and channels from select OTT services, streaming apps (e.g. PlayStation Vue), paid subscriptions, and over-the-air antennas into one consolidated view.” The tab is located on the TV’s main navigation menus, and the section will group the channels that you’ve recently viewed. It’ll also show off lists of other channels “which share similar programming,” like sports or breaking news. The tab isn’t quite live... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ROxTEv

Apple’s head of services and programming says that the company has adopted a quality-over-quantity mindset when it comes to its forthcoming Apple TV Plus service. This weekend, The Sunday Times released an interview with Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, in which he talks about what to expect from the service forthcoming service, which is expected to launch later this fall. The revelation is a rebuke to Netflix programming model: releasing as much original content as it can to attract viewers. In the interview, Cue says that Apple won’t be “creating the most” original content for users, but will be “creating the best.” When asked about Netflix’s model, he notes that there’s “nothing wrong with... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2FFvMOj

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of blood-testing startup Theranos, will officially go to trial in San Jose next year, according to the US District Judge Edward J. Davila of the Northern District of California. Federal prosecutors indicted Holmes and the company’s former president and COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani last summer, charging the pair with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud. The pair face 20 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. According to TechCrunch , the trial will begin in August 2020, with jury selection beginning on July 28th, 2020. The Wall Street Journal also reports that prosecutors have collected millions of pages of documents, and that the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ZRUqTM

The US Army will soon be equipping some units in the field with tiny personal drones, reports Stars & Stripes . The 1st Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment will begin using the devices next month in Afghanistan as the military works to figure out the best way to use them. FLIR Systems has been testing the Black Hornet Personal Reconnaissance System with a variety of units — the US Army began testing the drone back in 2016 and 2017, and the company picked up a trio of big contracts with the American , British , and French militaries this year. At the end of April, the 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Combat Brigade began training with the drones, playing out a variety of scenarios in which the devices could be... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xjkqet

It can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend. Gato Roboto opens with what has to be the worst possible outcome of a cat stepping on a keyboard: the misstep causes a spaceship to crash into a mysterious abandoned planet. For players, though, it’s a great outcome, because you get to play a streamlined Metroid game as a cat in a mech suit. After crashing, Kiki the cat’s owner and partner Gary is pinned down on their ship. Unable to do anything except communicate with Kiki, he sends her off to find a way for them to get off the planet. What Kiki finds is a dilapidated,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2RI6xjt

Synthesizers are mysterious and intimidating boxes to me, but electronic music company Ableton is setting out to explain and demystify the instrument. The company has created an interactive browser game called Learning Synths that teaches users the basics of synthesizers. The friendly tool is thoughtfully designed with fun illustrations and widgets that make it perfect for beginners to tinker around with. Learning Synths starts out with a lesson on amplitude and pitch, but if you want to skip ahead to synth concepts, you can click on the hamburger menu on the top left corner to learn about envelopes, LFOs, and oscillators. The lessons culminate in the Playground, seen above, where users can play with presets and sequences. The site works... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2RMiEvD

The creators of the app “DeepNude” have shut it down citing the high probability of its misuse. The application allowed users to virtually “undress” women using Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms. It received a lot of flak on social media over its potential for abuse. The creators of the app said that the software was launched several months ago for “entertainment” purposes and that they “greatly underestimated” its demand. "We never thought it would be viral and (that) we would not be able to control the traffic. Despite the safety measures adopted (watermarks), if 500,000 people use it, the probability that people will misuse it is too high. We don't want to make money this way,” the DeepNude creators, who listed their location as Estonia, said on Twitter. The app used Deepfake technology, which combines and superimposes existing images and videos onto source images or videos using a machine learning technique. pic.twitter.com/8uJKBQTZ0o — deepnudeapp (@deepn

Tata sky has reduced the prices of its set-top boxes again. As per the second revision in the prices of the boxes, the Tata Sky HD set-top box will now be available at Rs 1,499, and the SD set-top box will cost Rs 1,399. The DTH provider’s move is seen as its aim to further expand its presence in the country. The latest price cuts also likely to encourage the sale of the HD variant owing to just Rs 100 difference between the prices of the two boxes. It should be noteworthy that this reduction in prices is up to Rs 300 from the previous price cut. After the previous price cut which was announced last month, Tata Sky HD set-top box was available for Rs 1,800, while the SD variant was priced at Rs 1,600. In comparison, Dish TVs HD set-top box is priced at Rs 1,590 and the SD variant is available at Rs 1,490. The move comes two weeks after the company discontinued multi-TV connection plans from June 15, which means that users with a multi-TV connection would have to pay for each and ever

Offering an olive branch to Huawei Technologies, US President Donald Trump has said that the administration will now allow the Silicon Valley companies to resume business with the companies. This likely means that the Chinese telecom equipment maker and 70 of its affiliates will be removed from an “entity list” which forbids US companies from doing business with it. The move comes as the Washington agreed to restart trade talks in order to reduce tensions with Beijing. “We’re right back on track,” Trump said at an 80-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 (G20) summit of major economies in Osaka, Japan. “US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it,” he added. “These are American companies producing the products. This is complex ... highly scientific. We are the only one with the technology. I have agreed to allow them to continue selling the products … I like our c

Online communications apps and the amount of time people spend using them has been a topic of debate for a long time now. At a time when social media apps are introducing digital well-being tools to their platforms, a new study published in the Journal of Human-Computer Studies has found that using apps like WhatsApp has a positive impact on mental health.  The study was conducted on 200 WhatsApp users who completed an online questionnaire measuring their usage of WhatsApp and motivations, online bonding, quality of relationships, group identity, and psychosocial outcomes. The study found that online bonding through WhatsApp, which also facilitates group chats and calling, makes people feel less lonely and has a positive impact on their self esteem.  The study titled 'Psychosocial Outcomes Associated with Engagement with Online Chat Systems' has 158 female and 42 male participants. It found that "minutes per day using WhatsApp was positively related to quality of relatio

A 15-year-old boy from Thane, Mumbai allegedly killed his elder brother who was scolding him for playing PUBG Mobile, the police have said. 19-year-old victim Mohammad Shaikh has asked his younger brother to stop playing PUBG Mobile on his phone and this allegedly resulted in the boy flying into a fit of rage. PTI reports, quoting senior police inspector Mamata D’Souza, that the minor allegedly banged Shaikh’s head against the wall and then repeatedly stabbed him with a pair of scissors after being repremanded for playing PUBG Mobile. Shaikh was taken to a government hospital after the incident occurred but he had succumbed to his injuries and was declared dead on arrival.  A case has been registered by the police under section 302 (Murder) of the Indian Penal Code. PUBG Mobile has been associated with several violent incidents in the past, resulting in murders and even suicides. The battle royale game is hugely popular in India and has been considered to have a negative impact on

Google has been accused of imposing “unfair conditions” on device manufacturers and abusing the popularity of its Android platform by the competition watchdog in India. It was earlier reported that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered an investigation into Google’s anti-competitive practices in India, but the details of that directive were not disclosed at the time. Now, a Reuters exclusive bares those details after conducting a review of CCI’s 14-page order. The said order reveals that the CCI found Google imposing “unfair conditions” on device manufacturers. It says that by making pre-installation of Google apps conditional, the company has, “reduced the ability and incentive of device manufacturers to develop and sell devices operated on alternate versions of Android,” thereby flouting India’s competition laws. “It amounts to prima facie leveraging of Google’s dominance,” CCI said in the order. Last week, it was reported that CCI is scanning Google’s agreements wi

The Justice Department announced this week that former Equifax CIO Jun Ying has been sentenced to four months in prison for insider trading. He pled guilty earlier this year for for selling his stock in the company prior to the announcement that it had been hit with a massive data breach in 2017 . The Security and Exchanges Commission charged Ying with insider trading last year . The Department of Justice says that in August 2017, after learning about the breach, he began researching the impact that a similar breach had on another company’s stock price. Later that morning, he promptly exercised and sold all of his stock options, earning nearly a million dollars from the sale. In doing so, he avoided a loss of $117,000 that he otherwise... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2X6KpjK

It’s a good time to be an indie developer making games for the Nintendo Switch, and the most recent title to prove that point is My Friend Pedro . From developer DeadToast Entertainment, the formal entity by sole designer Victor Agren, and renowned indie publisher Devolver Digital, My Friend Pedro is an evolution of Agren’s Flash experience fans of Adult Swim web games might have played a half decade ago. Now as a full-fledged console title, it’s easily one of the most stylish and aesthetically distinctive games I’ve played in quite a while. Even as a $20 indie game meant to be played over just a few sittings, what makes the game truly shine is both its replay value and how it pushes you to engage with its perfection-demanding higher... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2xuLVlz

I love industrial design and have for as long as I can remember. As a child, I broke my dad’s Braun electric razor playing with the dial that raised and lowered the blades because the action was so cool and “clicky.” At school, I dreamed of being either a product designer or an architect. Those dreams were dashed when I flunked technical drawing (I was off by over 4cm and the tolerance of the test was less than 0.5cm) and failed my physics and maths exams, both of which are somewhat vital to designing beautiful buildings that don’t fall down. So for the past 30 years my inner industrial designer has lived vicariously through the career of my contemporary (he’s only a few years younger than me) and fellow Brit, Sir Jony Ive. Ive made... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2J1kmqB

I watched (most of) the new Bob Dylan documentary that Martin Scorsese made for Netflix the other week. It has some really relaxed and quirky behind-the-scenes footage of Dylan and the (often famous) people around him, along with some great performances. But there’s one thing about the documentary that is completely bizarre: portions of it are fake . Scorsese introduces viewers to a handful of talking heads who say they played a key role in documenting or creating the tour Dylan is embarking on, but in reality, they’re just actors. It’s not really clear why Scorsese did this (maybe it would be clearer if I had finished the film, but reviewers seem to say otherwise). It’s sort of just a prank, one you could seemingly go without finding out... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2Xi885y

BMW unveiled some of its plans for electric vehicles earlier this week, saying that it would debut 25 electric vehicles by 2023 , as some nifty concepts, like its Motorrad Vision DC Roadster motorcycle and the sleek BMW Vision M NEXT concept sports car. The company decided to launch a website (via TechCrunch ) to have some fun with its futuristic-looking EV, which included getting Blade Runner 2049 composer Hans Zimmer to develop a science fiction-like sound for it. The car does look like something out of a cyberpunk movie or video game, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it pops up as part of a product placement deal with some Hollywood studio in the next couple of years. EVs don’t produce any engine noise, so companies have been... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2NgsG9J

Prices tend to drop around each major US holiday, and with July 4th around the corner, we’re seeing that start to happen. And then there’s Amazon Prime Day 2019 , a shopping holiday that will begin on July 15th, though we expect to see a few early bird sales before then. We’ll be keeping you in the know about any good deals coming up, but these are the best deals that we’ve seen this week. Phones Sony’s Xperia 1 is now available for preorder. The price is $949.99, which is admittedly not cheap for a phone, but if you order before July 12th, you’ll receive a free set of Sony’s 1000X M3 wireless noise-canceling headphones with your purchase. Those usually cost around $300 or more, which is a great incentive if you were tossing around the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/31Xuubj

The G20 Summit wrapped up today in Japan, during which US President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Following their meeting, Trump announced that the two countries would resume trade talks and that the US would hold off on implementing new tariffs indefinitely. He also indicated that US companies would be permitted to resume sales to Huawei, although it’s unclear when or how that will happen. In May, Trump signed an executive order that allowed the US government to block sales by US companies to foreign firms deemed a security risk. It’s not immediately clear what — or if any — steps have been taken to lift the restriction on sales to the beleaguered Chinese technology company. According to The Washington Post ,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2Ymxyv4

For just over a month, Twitch has been trying to track down a group of anonymous trolls who spammed the platform with violent footage of the Christchurch shooting in the wake of the attack. That hunt kicked off in earnest when Twitch filed suit against the trolls earlier in June, but new filings show the company has more clues to the perpetrators’ identity than anyone suspected, including specific email addresses for at least three people and Discord logs where the attack was organized. The evidence was submitted in an ex parte filing on Thursday, which included a deposition from an incident response engineer at Twitch . According to the filings, Twitch has identified a specific user it believes to be responsible for coordinating the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2Xya5dt

Despite some new improvements to user privacy , Google’s popular Chrome browser has recently been lambasted in some quarters as problematical when it comes to privacy issues . These same articles suggest that if you’re concerned about the security of your data, you should try an alternative browser, such as Firefox, Safari, or Brave. Of course, anyone who has used a browser for any length of time will have built up a considerable library of bookmarks, preferences, and saved passwords. If you do move to a new browser, you won’t have to sacrifice your bookmarks; you can easily import them from Chrome into your new browser. Here’s how to do it. If you’re moving to Firefox : After you’ve installed Firefox, click on the “Library” icon to the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2YnWti6

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Soon after rolling out a new software update to improve the camera quality for its flagship OnePlus 7 Pro, the company is pushing out a new software update for its OnePlus 7 handset. The new OxygenOS 9.5.6 update for the phone aims to do some improvements to the phone in its camera and system section. In addition, it brings up the device’s Android security patch update to June, 2019. The company is optimising sensitivity of the automatic brightness feature, along with the audio quality of the handset. The photo quality has also been optimised but there are no details on what exact changes are being made.  The update also brings some general bug fixes and improvements. As always, the new patch will be rolled out in a phased manner. So, users can expect to receive it in a few days, if it has not hit their device already. One can also check if it is available to download and install for their OnePlus 7 by heading over to Settings and tapping on the Software Update option.  OnePlus 7 spe

It looks like Xiaomi will soon launch the Redmi 7A smartphone in India. The company’s Managing Director in India. Manu Kumar Jain, teased the launch of the phone on Twitter. Jain also noted that Xiaomi has sold a total of 23.6 million units of the Redmi 4A, 5A and 6A in India as of April, 2019. Jain did not reveal the launch date of the device, but it is possible that the phone will be launched alongside the Redmi K20 series of devices on July 15. The Redmi 7A packs a 5.45-inch HD+ display and features a 4000mAh battery. It is powered by a Snapdragon 439 SoC and is available in 2GB/16GB and 3GB/32GB variants. The phone features a single 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front camera. It shoudl be  The Redmi K20 Pro will be the brand’s new flagship device in India. The phone sports a Snapdragon 855, and is available in China with up to 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. It packs a 6.39-inch HDR AMOLED display and a 48MP dual camera stack. The regular Redmi K20 shares most of the features of the fla

Things have been slightly uncertain for the Chinese smartphone and telecom equipment maker Huawei ever since it was put on the US Entity List. The company can no longer use Android on its yet to be registered phones and is currently serving a 90 day grace period to deliver updates and patches to its existing handsets. However, it seems to be positive about the current situation getting better as it has confirmed the timeline for the launch of its upcoming handsets. In a 5G conference in Russia, Huawei confirmed that it will launch the 5G variant of its upcoming Huawei Mate 30 handset in December.  It’s now confirmed and hardly surprising that there’s a 5G version of the Huawei Mate 30. However, the timeline company has shared is most likely to apply for the Russia launch of the handset. If Huawei sticks to its usual timeline, we can expect the standard Huawei Mate 30 to launch sometime in November. In addition to the possible launch month of the Huawei Mate 30, the smartphone manufact

While Nokia has been pushing the Android 9 Pie update to most of its devices, it looks like there is at least one device that will not be getting the update, and that is the Nokia 2. Launched back in 2017, the company promised at least two years worth of updates. However, it looks like that’s not happening. According to a post by an admin on the Nokia community forums, the device will not be getting the new update, or any other subsequent update for that matter. The thread was started by one user who was chatting to a company support representative, who said that the team was working on bringing the update to users. This understandably got users quite excited.  However, community admin, Laura, had to step in and quash the rumours stating, “From our internal testing, the Nokia 2 is not able to offer complete end user satisfaction with the later OS Upgrades. As a result, we will not be offering Android 9 Pie (or any subsequent Android Upgrades) to Nokia 2.”  The Nokia 2 isn’t a powerho

Back in April, Xiaomi announced that it is dropping software support for its Redmi 6A, Redmi 6 and the Redmi S2 (Redmi Y2) smartphones. The news must’ve let down many customers since the three phones were launched last year in India. However, the company later clarified that the Redmi Y2 will receive the Android Pie update and it seems to have changed its plans again to bring the same update for the Redmi 6A and the Redmi 6 handsets. Xiaomi is inviting MIUI testers for the Android Pie global stable ROM for the two phones. As per a blog on the Mi forums, it will perfect the ROM to release it soon for the public, once it is done with testing.  In addition to the Redmi 6A and the Redmi 6, Xiaomi is also inviting users to test out the Android Q global ROM update for Poco F1. This means that the Android Q update is almost ready for Poco F1 users. In case one is interested to test out the aforementioned global builds on their handsets, they can apply to receive the update here. However, the

For a while now, reports suggested that the larger variant of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 10 smartphone will be called the Galaxy Note 10 Pro. However, recently leaked images suggest that the phone will in fact be called the Galaxy Note 10+. This makes a lot more sense considering the fact that Samsung designates the ‘+’ moniker to its larger devices. The most recent example being the Samsung Galaxy S10+. The images were posted by YouTuber, TechTalkTV posted the images online. The images suggest that Samsung will stick with the ‘Infinity-O’ punch-hole design introduced with the Galaxy S series. However, the front camera has been moved to a more central position, instead of a corner. At the back, the device is shown to sport a triple-rear camera setup, with the three sensors stacked vertically. This is the same design that was suggested by case renders for the device, which popped up online a few weeks back.  Reports suggest that the larger variant of the Galaxy Note 10 will featu

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Microsoft might be working on making Cortana better at holding conversations , but the software maker is also increasingly separating its digital assistant from Windows 10. This first started with the decoupling of Cortana from search in the recent Windows 10 May 2019 Update , and now Microsoft is bringing Cortana to the Microsoft Store as a separate app. A Cortana beta has appeared in the store , and it hints that the digital assistant could eventually not be built into Windows 10. Microsoft is using this beta app to update Cortana separately from Windows 10, so the digital assistant can supposedly get new features quickly. However, Cortana was always built as a web-based service, so that it could be updated without core Windows 10... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2Ys5zKs

Google has now added a dedicated section called ‘Share GIFs’ in Google Images that will help users share GIFs directly from that section into different apps, including Gmail, Hangouts, Android Messages and Whatsapp. Google says that this section is powered by its GIF search section, in which the company has been investing since its acquisition of Tenor, an online GIF search engine and database. The shareable GIFs in the section are made available by content creators, including the company’s “partners from streaming services, movie studios, and the YouTube community.” This selection of GIFs is likely to expand because Google is allowing the content providers to add to the suite of GIF images already available in the section. Any content provider, GIF creator or GIF platform can submit GIFs to the new section on Google Images by either uploading GIFs to Tenor.com, or connecting with Google’s partnership team via this form. “GIFs appear in this section based on how likely they are to b

Betting big on the gaming scene, HP has announced some new gaming laptops in India. It has launched the HP Omen X 2S, HP Omen 15 and the HP Pavilion Gaming 15 laptops in the country. The Omen X 2S is a new gaming laptop which packs a smaller secondary display. HP is also refreshing the Omen 15 and the Pavilion Gaming 15 laptops with newer hardware. In addition, the company has launched some new wireless accessories like the Omen Photon Wireless Mouse, Omen Outpost Mousepad, Pavilion Gaming Headset 400 and the Pavilion Gaming Mouse 300.  HP Omen X 2S and Omen 15 specifications and pricing With multiple upcoming laptop makers integrating dual displays on their offerings, HP too decided to do the same to entice gamers with its HP Omen X 2S laptop. The device features a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS anti-glare micro-edge WLED backlit display that has a 144Hz refresh rate. There’s also a secondary 6-inch 1080p touchscreen display, which sits just below the main display and can be used for numerous

Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival. In keeping with the spirit of the event, Zuckerberg brought some ideas. The big ones: Facebook was right not to remove the doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi . Zuckerberg said it should have been flagged as misleading more quickly, but defended leaving it up. (I basically agree with him on this one.) ”This is a topic that can be very easily politicized,” Zuckerberg said. “People who don’t like the way that something was cut...will kind of argue that...it did not reflect the true intent or was misinformation. But we exist in a society...where we value and cherish free expression.” But Facebook will treat deepfakes differently than other forms of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ZVnhXo

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Square Enix’s multiplayer role-playing game Final Fantasy XIV is being adapted into a live action TV series. Yesterday, Sony announced that it is collaborating with Square Enix and Hivemind, the production company behind Amazon’s The Expanse and Netflix’s upcoming series The Witcher. The live action series will tell an original story set up in Eorzea. It is inspired by the world and characters of the title's fourteenth installment. The series explores the struggle between magic and technology in a quest to bring peace to a conflicted land. “Filled with iconic hallmarks of the title's revered mythology – magitek and beastmen, airships and chocobos – the forthcoming series will feature a mixture of new and familiar faces,” says a press release. The central character of the gaming title Cid will make an appearance in the series.  Chris Parnell, Co-President, Sony Pictures Television said, ”This show is about embracing and embodying all of the elements that have made the mythos s

Firefox has launched Firefox Preview, its new mobile pilot browser app for Android and it is now available for download on the Google Play Store for testing. The company says that the polished version of the flagship application, which focuses on “safety, privacy and independence,” will be available later this fall. It essentially follows the company’s previous privacy-focused product Firefox Focus that was launched about two and a half years ago. Firefox says that the new application is powered by Firefox’s own mobile browser engine GeckoView that fuels its Focus app. “Unlike Big Tech, which only recently started to put more emphasis on privacy, we launched Firefox Focus, a mobile browser for iOS and Android that allows you to discover the web without being followed around by trackers. While continuously improving Firefox Focus over time, we realised that users demanded a full-fledged mobile browsing experience, but more private and secure than any existing app. So we decided to make

Realme X is the smartphone maker’s new mid-range smartphone that it recently announced in China. While the handset is confirmed to launch in India, the company has yet to provide a concrete date of when it will be announced. Now, Realme has announced a new Realme X Spider-Man: Far From Home special edition of the handset in China, which will go on sale from July 9 in the country. The company has partnered with Sony Pictures to launch the new handset, which comes in a custom gift box, features revamped app icons and a special red case. The company’s India CEO, Madhav Sheth has also reiterated the company’s association with the new Spider-Man movie but there’s no confirmation whether the handset will also be made available in India.  The new Realme X Spider-Man: Far From Home special edition smartphone is almost similar to the standard Realme X, except for new color option. The handset also arrives just in time for the "Spider-Man: Far From Home" movie that is soon releasing w

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In what marks the end of an era for Apple, Jony Ive has decided to move on from Apple and start his own design firm. Ive had been the chief architect of Apple’s design language, creating products like the infamous translucent iMac G3, the iPod with its wildly popular click wheel and now, the iPhone, a device whose design is copied voraciously across the smartphone world. After the passing of Steve Jobs, it was largely accepted that Jony Ive was the man keeping Jobs’s obsession with perfection alive through the design of Apple products. In 2015, Ive stepped down from his role intermittently to work on the design of the Apple Campus, but since then, his role in the company has been seen more as one that was more managerial. In a statement published on Apple Newsroom, “Jony is a singular figure in the design world and his role in Apple’s revival cannot be overstated, from 1998’s groundbreaking iMac to the iPhone and the unprecedented ambition of Apple Park, where recently he has been pu