Apple has released an official extension for the Windows and Mac versions of Chrome that lets you use passwords stored in your iCloud Keychain. For anyone who uses Chrome as their browser and iCloud Keychain in lieu of a dedicated password manager, this could make bouncing between Windows and Mac computers much easier.
The release of the extension means that if you’ve used Safari to automatically generate strong passwords on other platforms, those can now be available to you in Chrome when you’re prompted for a login. Passwords created in Chrome for Windows will also sync back to iCloud so they’ll be available on Apple devices as well.
The extension is called iCloud Passwords and is available now in the Chrome Web Store. Details of the functionality were prematurely revealed last week in an update for the iCloud Windows 10 app, which listed “Support for iCloud Passwords Chrome Extension” as a new feature, despite the extension not having been released or otherwise announced.
The Galaxy Z Fold3 might look like this. (Source: Twitter)
The next generation of Samsung's flexible premium phablet is likely to be called the Galaxy Z Fold3. The leaker Ben Geskin has produced new images to show how this device might look according to the latest leaks and rumors. They point to it having rear cameras like those of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, although the rest is much unchanged compared to 2020.
Samsung is currently rumored to expand its foldable offerings in 2021, as it would reportedly like to stay ahead in this field rather than be overtaken by rumored new entries from other companies that might range from Xiaomi to Apple. They may take on new versions of the Galaxy Z Fold series, which, according to Ben Geskin, will take on their maker's latest premium design language.
This involves an enlarged, frame-hugging camera hump quite like that found on the new S21 Ultra candy-bar flagship. It suggests Geskin thinks (or may have heard) the Galaxy Z Fold3 will get the same elaborate imaging system, 108MP main shooter, laser autofocus and all.
The new image mirrors earlier indications that Samsung's other type of foldable, the Galaxy Z Flip, will upgrade to vanilla S21 cameras in its own new iteration. Otherwise, the "new Z Fold" may look more or less like its predecessor, with a secondary screen that dominates one whole "leaf" of the rear panel and a main folding display of at least 7.6 inches in diagonal length.
One or both of these panels are rumored to have Samsung's first under-display selfie cameras (or UDCs) instead of central punch-holes, which may be why Geskin's new render includes no hint of front-facing shooters. Finally, the leaker refers to this concept as the "Galaxy Z Fold 3 Ultra", which hints at a new (and probably especially expensive) tier for this line of foldables in 2021.
There is little other evidence that Samsung really plans to augment the Z Fold line in this way in 2021. On the other hand, it might also release up to 4 new foldables this year, some of which are said to be "more affordable". However, they might now wind up being cheaper only when compared to this putative Z Fold3 Ultra.
The new hypothetical top-end phone could also be the only one with S Pen support, as Geskin has popped one into his latest image. Then again, he also predicts there will be no Galaxy Note-esque silo in the foldable, and that the stylus might just clip onto it as it does in the Galaxy Tab S7/S7+. Then again, there is no sign of any kind of corresponding magnetic attachment strip in the image.
People tend to vegetables growing in a field as emission rises from cooling towers at a coal-fired power station in Tongling, Anhui province, China, on Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019.
Bloomberg
Elon Musk is going to pay $100 million towards a prize to come up with the best carbon capture technology. (Or so he tweets. Details are scarce so far.)
The maverick tech CEO's promise is not particularly notable for its generosity. With a net worth over $200 billion, $100 million is 0.05% of Musk's wealth.
But still, the richest person in the world's tweet brings attention to an often overlooked technology which has been around since the 1970s, but has mostly been relegated to niche corners of the energy community.
"Mr. Musk's announcement reflects a maturation in the private sector around climate change and investment," Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, tells CNBC via email. "As in the past, Mr. Musk's announcement has shaken up the gumball machine."
Why not just plant more trees?
One popular reaction to Musk's tweet was that he would be better to spend his money planting trees. Trees, like other plants, consume carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen. There is an international initiative, 1t.org, which aims to restore and grow one trillion trees by 2030 to mitigate climate change. The trillion trees campaign is run by the World Economic Forum and funded by the Marc R. Benioff Foundation, an eponymous philanthropic effort funded by the billionaire Salesforce CEO.
"Addressing climate change will require investment in technologies that help to limit future emissions, such as electric vehicles, and also the drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere. Nature based solutions can help with both of these, but we will need thousands of solutions in combination," says Tom Crowther, a tenure-track professor of Global Ecosystem Ecology at ETH Zürich and the chief scientific advisor to the United Nation's Trillion Tree Campaign. "There is huge potential for direct carbon capture technology as part of a diverse climate plan," Crowther tells CNBC from Switzerland via email.
So does Musk. In response to one tweet recommending tree-planting, Musk said trees "are part of the solution, but require lots of fresh water & land. We may need something that's ultra-large-scale industrial in 10 to 20 years."
Carbon capture from factory emissions: Where it stands
There are currently 21 large-scale CCUS commercial projects around the globe where carbon dioxide is taken out of factory emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental energy organization. The first one was set up in 1972.
It wasn't until the 1980s that carbon capture technology was studied for climate mitigation efforts, but even then, it was "mainly lone wolves," Herzog says. By the 1990s "activity really ramped up," he says.
One part of the carbon capture project at Archer Daniels Midland Company in Decatur, Illinois.
Photo courtesy Archer Daniels Midland Company
For factory carbon-capture, emissions are routed through a vessel with a liquid solvent which essentially absorbs the carbon dioxide. From there, the solvent has to be heated up in a second tower — called a "stripper" or "regenerator" — to remove the CO2, where it's then routed for underground storage. The solvent can then be re-used in the first vessel or tower, Herzog says.
If the storing is done carefully, "you should be okay," Herzog says. "We don't have experience on the scale we want to go to," Herzog says, "but we've demonstrated you could do it correctly."
The U.S. Department of Energy is on the case, "developing models that simulate the flow of stored carbon dioxide, to help understand and predict chemical changes and effects of increased pressure that may occur."
Carbon capture from the air: Where it stands
In terms of reversing global climate change, there's already been too much carbon released into the atmosphere for us not to try and capture carbon and store it, says Klaus Lackner, the director of Center for Negative Carbon Emissions and professor at Arizona State University.
"The question of whether you want to store or not to store [carbon] was a very good question in 1980," Lackner tells CNBC. "But you needed to have this discussion 30, 40 years ago because back then you still had a chance to stop the train before we collide with something."
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is tracked as in parts per million, or PPM. As of December, atmospheric carbon dioxide stands at 414.02 ppm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"We started the industrial revolution with 280 parts per million in the atmosphere," Lackner tells CNBC. "By now we have 415 [ppm], and we are going up 2.5 ppm a year at this moment." The consequences of that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already dire and will get worse. "The oceans have started to rise, hurricanes have gotten way worse, climate has become more extreme, and this will only get worse over the next decade," Lackner says.
The only choice, Lackner says, is to "draw down" the atmospheric carbon dioxide — or to suffer unknown, devastating consequences.
Capturing carbon from the air, not from a factory smokestack, is called "direct air capture," and there are currently 15 direct air capture plants in Europe, the United States and Canada, according to the IEA. "Carbon removal is expected to play a key role in the transition to a net-zero energy system," the IEA says, but currently it is a very expensive technology.
Direct air capture is "very expensive because the CO2 in the atmosphere is only .04%," Herzog tells CNBC, and the technical process of removing carbon dioxide from a gas gets more expensive the lower the concentration of the carbon dioxide gets. "But it is very seductive. A lot of people jumped on this," he says.
Lackner sees it as a necessity. "In the end I see CO2 as a waste management problem. We have for two centuries simply dumped the waste from energy production — which is carbon dioxide — in the atmosphere and not thought about it any further, and we are gradually waking up to the fact that that's not acceptable," Lackner says.
The future of carbon capture technology
The technology exists to capture carbon and there is a grave need for climate change to be mitigated. So why isn't it being used everywhere already?
The problem is economics, says Herzog. "It's cheaper to put [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere. It is cheaper to let it go up the smokestack then put this chemical plant on the back of the smokestack to remove it," Herzog says. "Who is going to pay for that?"
To change that reality, there must be economic costs to releasing carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere.
"The best capture technology will reduce these costs, but it will never be zero. Hence, even the best carbon capture technology will be useless if the world is not willing to put a price on carbon," Berend Smit, a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, at the University of California, Berkeley, tells CNBC by email. His research focuses on finding the optimal material for carbon capture.
In the meantime, scientists and researchers are working to make current carbon capture technologies better.
"Over the past 10 years, there are a number of innovations and improvements to enable us to save more energy and cost up to 70% less for new carbon capture processes," Paitoon (P.T.) Tontiwachwuthikul, a professor of industrial and process systems engineering at the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a co-founder of the Clean Energy Technologies Research Institute University of Regina, tells CNBC by email. "These include novel solvents (and their mixtures) as well as new process hardware items (e.g. new columns, catalysts, etc.)."
Smit is also working on how to use a kind of sponge "with a strong affinity for carbon dioxide," he says. "Hence if we flow air through the sponge, the CO2 gets removed. One the material is saturated with CO2, we need to heat it, pure CO2 comes out, which we can then store. The sponge is empty and we can start over again."
An artist's impression of a mechanical tree farm.
Image courtesy Silicon Kingdom Holdings Ltd.
Lackner has developed a free-standing device to take carbon dioxide out of the air. "Everybody's machine out there right now, they are sucking carbon dioxide or pushing carbon dioxide with fans and blowers ... we think that the wind alone is good enough to move the air around and our design aims to just be passively standing in the wind, just like a tree." While the technology has been demonstrated on campus, it's still in its infancy.
Fundamentally, it all comes down to money. "You need regulatory frameworks where basically, if you want to dig up carbon, you better show that you put an equal amount away," Lackner says. "If you have a cheaper way by all means do it first. if you don't have a cheaper way, you have no excuse because this one will work."
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In many areas of the United States, installing a wind or solar farm is now cheaper than simply buying fuel for an existing fossil fuel-based generator. And that's dramatically changing the electricity market in the US and requiring a lot of people to update prior predictions. That's motivated a group of researchers to take a new look at the costs and challenges of getting the entire US to carbon neutrality.
By building a model of the energy market for the entire US, the researchers explored what it will take to get the country to the point where its energy use had no net emissions in 2050—and they even looked at a scenario where emissions are negative. They found that, as you'd expect, the costs drop dramatically—to less than 1 percent of the GDP, even before counting the costs avoided by preventing the worst impacts of climate change. And, as an added bonus, we would pay less for our power.
But the modeling also suggests that this end result will have some rather unusual features; we'll need carbon capture, but it won't be attached to power plants, for one example.
Model all the things
Decent models of the future energy economy are complex. They typically involve breaking the grid down by region and simulating typical demand by using historic data, often scaled to represent increased demand. They'll then try to meet that demand using different energy sources, subject to a set of applied constraints. So, in this case, one of the constraints would obviously be limiting carbon emissions. The model then iterates over possible ways of meeting both the demand and constraints in the most economical way possible, identifying an optimal solution.
In this case, the researchers set up a series of eight scenarios which applied different constraints. These include things like continuing current trends into the future, a scenario where fossil fuel prices are low, and one that simply identifies the cheapest carbon-neutral pathway. Other variations include an all-renewable grid and high levels of efficiency technology, another where the land given over to energy production is constrained, and one where the United States manages to reach negative net emissions.
The US uses fossil fuels for a lot of things beyond electrical generation, and shifting these to emissions-free options are also part of the model. These include things like switching vehicles and heating to electrical options and altering industrial processes where possible. Carbon capture is deployed as needed to reach emissions goals.
One of the things that's immediately apparent from running the business-as-usual model is how much already changes thanks to the price drops in wind and solar. In this scenario, carbon emissions will drop by 22 percent, largely due to the displacement of coal use. It's worthwhile knowing, as any proposals for a target in that area can be dismissed as irrelevant. Another thing that is clear is that decarbonizing the energy system doesn't mean the US will eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The noncarbon greenhouse gasses will still provide the equivalent of 500 metric megatons of carbon dioxide.
Efficiency and beyond
One of the things the research has made clear is that efficiency will be absolutely necessary for reaching emissions targets. By 2050, rising population and GDP should boost energy demand in the absence of efficiency. But, to get to carbon neutrality, we'll have to keep energy use roughly equal to our present levels. Some efficiency will occur simply because electrical vehicles and heating systems are inherently more efficient. But it's clear that we'll need quite a bit beyond that, since the research team estimates that per-capita energy use has to decline by about 40 percent in the next 30 years to reach carbon neutrality.
While energy use may stay level, the increased electrification of homes and vehicles will mean that we'll need significant increases in generating capacity. The typical scenario would involve about 3.2 terawatts of new capacity, almost all of it in the form of wind and solar power.
The good news is that doing this is relatively cheap. The researchers estimate that the net cost of the transformation will be a total of $145 billion by 2050, which works out to be less than a half-percent of the GDP that year. That figure does include the increased savings from electrical heating and vehicles, which offset some of their costs. But it doesn't include the reduced costs from climate change or lower health care spending due to reduced fossil fuel use. These savings will be substantial, and they will almost certainly go well beyond offsetting the cost.
Due to the reduced cost of renewable generation, the authors project that we'll spend less for electricity overall, as well.
The most expensive scenarios raise the cost to about 1 percent of the 2050 GDP. Notably, going to net negative emissions is not the most expensive; instead, limiting land use cuts down on the amount of renewable energy that could be deployed, raising costs.
Part of the reason it is so cheap is because reaching the goal doesn't require replacing viable hardware. Everything that needs to be taken out of service, from coal-fired generators to gas hot-water heaters, have finite lifetimes. The researchers calculate that simply replacing everything with renewables or high-efficiency electric versions will manage the transition in sufficient time.
Not what you might expect
Many takes on a carbon-neutral grid assume periods of low solar and wind production will be smoothed over with gas generators using carbon capture and storage. But this analysis suggests that any remaining gas plants simply won't run often enough to provide an economic justification for the carbon-capture hardware. Similar things are true with batteries; the periods when demand outstrips capacity are expected to be so rare that it doesn't make economic sense to build that many batteries to cover them.
Instead, gas plants will simply dump their carbon emissions into the sky. This ends up being carbon neutral because we'll still need some liquid fuels for things like air travel, and we'll make these with carbon pulled back out of the atmosphere, combined with hydrogen produced from water during periods of excess renewable supply. The researchers estimate that we'd require 3,500 terawatts just to make enough hydrogen—roughly the same amount of electricity we make currently.
“Until recently, it was unclear whether variable renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized electricity system... The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation.”
The scenarios with additional constraints produce some odd results as well. The only scenario in which nuclear power makes economic sense is the one in which land use is limited. This also drives more wind offshore and relies on fossil fuel plants with carbon capture. Not surprisingly, this turns out to be the most expensive situation the researchers looked at. Carbon capture, along with enhanced biomass use for power, also featurs prominently in a scenario where the shift to electric vehicles and appliances is delayed.
Going entirely renewable actually forces much higher levels of carbon capture to ensure that fuel needs could be met without any fossil fuels. And going net negative involves a variety of carbon capture and biofuels, with substantial land use as a result of the latter.
Everything has changed
To an extent, the researchers themselves seem somewhat surprised by how much has changed in the last few years. "The net cost of deep decarbonization, even to meet a 1°C/350 ppm trajectory," they write, "is substantially lower than estimates for less ambitious 80 percent by 2050 scenarios a few years ago." It also provides clarity to what has been an uncertain future. "Until recently, it was unclear whether variable renewable energy, nuclear, or fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage would become the main form of generation in a decarbonized electricity system," they note. "The cost decline of variable renewable energy over the last few years, however, has definitively changed the situation."
Now, even if we go for deep decarbonization, we'll be investing in the future. It will cost money to get there, but we'll have lower future energy costs if we pay the price upfront—as well as improved health and a more stable climate.
There are, however, significant hurdles to getting there beyond simple economics. The emission-free future will involve us installing roughly 160GW of wind and solar per year in less than two decades; 2021 will see us installing only 15GW. And the switch to electric vehicles and appliances has to start now—anything that breaks should be replaced with an electric version, which does not seem to be happening.
But if this analysis holds up, there are good reasons to think it's worth getting started.
I’ve been writing for Android Authority since 2017. When I first started as a freelancer, my daily driver was the OnePlus 5. Later on, after I became a full staff member, I got a OnePlus 6T. Today, I’m using the OnePlus 7 Pro. Due to my devotion to OnePlus (and the 7 Pro, in particular), I’m known as the “OnePlus guy” on our team. However, the Samsung Galaxy S21 has put that nickname in jeopardy.
I won’t mince words, here. OnePlus had a very bad 2020. Things started out okay with the OnePlus 8 series, especially the OnePlus 8 Pro. Unfortunately, more problems than successes followed. The disappointing OnePlus Nord N10 and N100, Carl Pei’s departure, the Facebook controversy, and the steady Oppo-ification of the brand all made it very difficult to be proud about being the “OnePlus guy.”
Now, with my beloved OnePlus 7 Pro getting old and the company dragging its feet when it comes to an Android 11 rollout, I am tempted to switch teams. With the launch of the Galaxy S21 series, the temptation has grown substantially. In fact, I will admit that I pre-ordered both a vanilla Samsung Galaxy S21 and a Galaxy S21 Plus. My intention is to try them both out and see if ditching OnePlus really is what I want to do.
Samsung Galaxy S21: Why I would switch
Credit: David Imel / Android Authority
Samsung really upped its game this year with the Galaxy S21 series. The designs look great, the lowered pricing is an important and smart move, and the Ultra model finally lives up to its name. The COVID-19 pandemic might prevent sales from going through the roof, but I think the company has set itself up for real success this year.
I wrote the Android Authority review for the vanilla Galaxy S21. In brief, I loved my time with the phone. The camera is terrific (especially for the $800 asking price), its palm-friendly size is a breath of fresh air in the “bigger is always better” world of Android, and the Snapdragon 888 processor is a total monster. Even the controversial changes this year didn’t matter much to me. Yeah, the lack of a microSD card slot is annoying, but the move to a plastic back is actually good, in my eyes. I’ll let you read the review for all my thoughts on those things.
In the past, the biggest reason I avoided buying Samsung phones was the software. Simply put, One UI is not my favorite Android skin. I’ll take the minimalist simplicity of Oxygen OS or Pixel UI any day over the bloated and sometimes incoherent mess of One UI. When you factored in Samsung’s dismal reputation for delivering Android updates, it was enough to make me swear off the brand.
Things have changed, however. One UI is now better than ever. Yes, it’s still bloated with apps I don’t want and features I’ll never use, but Samsung has done a great job making all that less in-your-face. Moreover, the company has pulled a one-eighty when it comes to after-market support. Security patches are flying in at a furious pace. Android 11 landed on all its major flagships in record time.
In brief, the Samsung Galaxy S21 series has great hardware and great software. This isn’t something I’ve ever been able to say with conviction about Samsung phones.
OnePlus 7 Pro: What makes me want to stay
As great as the Galaxy S21 phones are, the OnePlus 7 Pro is still my favorite Android phone of all time. In so many ways it seems like OnePlus made the phone specifically for me. It ticks off so many of my essential smartphone feature boxes.
I’ve already written a whole article about why I love the OnePlus 7 Pro, so I won’t rehash it all here. I do want to focus on the two things the phone offers that the Galaxy S21 series doesn’t: an uninterrupted display and the alert slider.
I am of the opinion that the pop-up selfie camera is currently the best way to get rid of notches and display cutouts in smartphones. The pop-up camera on the OnePlus 7 Pro is one of its best features, even now after the display cutout has become the industry standard. Yes, eventually we’ll have under-display selfie cameras that will solve both problems. At the moment, however, the technology just isn’t far enough along for wide consumer adoption.
Moving from that gorgeous 1440p display with no cutout to a 1080p display with a big selfie camera hole at the top would be difficult. Nevertheless, after a week of using the Samsung Galaxy S21, the cutout became less of an annoyance. But any time I started playing a game or watching a YouTube video it would be there, reminding me that this display just isn’t as good as that of the 7 Pro.
The alert slider would also be hard to abandon. For the life of me, I have no idea why all Android OEMs haven’t stolen this feature. It’s so nice to simply flip up the slider when I don’t want to be interrupted. Thankfully, the premium version of the third-party Side Actions app gives me a workaround on Galaxy devices. Still, that alert slider would be greatly missed.
What else is in the pipeline?
Credit: David Imel / Android Authority
We’re not even out of the first month of 2021 yet. Although I am greatly impressed by the Samsung Galaxy S21 series, would waiting a bit longer to make a commitment be a good idea?
Obviously, the OnePlus 9 series is right around the corner. However, there doesn’t appear to be much even the OnePlus 9 Pro will offer over the vanilla Galaxy S21. The Galaxy S21 will likely have a better rear camera system, while the rest of the specs should be much the same across the two phones. With the 9 Pro having a display cutout too, the only real advantage would be that I’d get to keep the alert slider and stick with Oxygen OS.
The Asus ROG Phone 4 (or 5) is also coming up soon. The Asus ROG Phone 3 was my favorite smartphone of 2020, so its follow-up is certainly on my radar. The big problem I have with the ROG Phone series, however, is how massive the phones are. I love using them for specific tasks — which includes gaming, obviously — but I don’t like lugging them around with me wherever I go. Nevertheless, it is likely this phone will have an uninterrupted display, which does make it enticing.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we also expect a Google Pixel 5a to land at some point in the first half of the year. If it’s anything like the Pixel 4a, it’s bound to be a stellar device with a great camera, terrific software, and a low price. Yet, My big gripe with Pixel phones is the fingerprint reader being on the back. My phone lives on my desk for 10 hours every day so I need my sensor on the front.
It appears no matter what I do, I’m going to need to give something up to get something new.
Decision time: What’s it gonna be?
Honestly, I hoped that writing this all out would make this decision easier for me. I’m not sure it worked, though.
Loading poll
On one hand, I have the Samsung Galaxy S21. It will have a better camera than the OnePlus 7 Pro, a faster processor, 5G support, and a smaller form-factor. However, it will have a display cutout and lack an alert slider.
On the other hand, I have the OnePlus 7 Pro. It has a higher-resolution uninterrupted display. Its Snapdragon 855 processor is still fully capable, its camera is good enough to get the job done, and its software is much more in line with my taste.
Inevitably, I’m going to need to upgrade. I can’t use the 7 Pro forever. The question, I guess, then becomes whether or not now is the right time. The notable aspect of this whole conundrum is that I am thinking about switching to Samsung in the first place. I don’t know if that says more about Samsung upping its game or OnePlus’ recent fumbles. 2021 is already a year full of surprises.
Maybe you can help? Answer the poll above, and then let me know in the comments what you think I should do!
With the supply of the Sony PlayStation 5 still quite scarce all over the world, gamers in Tokyo jumped at a recent chance to get their hands on the next-gen console.
Earlier this week, Akihabara’s Yodobashi Camera, received a major shipment of PS5s that caused chaos to break out when released. Standing as one of the largest electronics stores in Japan, the sale saw an estimated 300 first come, first served ticket entries for a chance to purchase a PS5. With many people also joining the madness as the Akihabara location of Yodobashi Camera does not require customers to hold its black credit card to purchase the console, a requirement created to prohibit resellers.
The crowd that packed into the location began to push and shove forcing checkout counters and staff to be forced back. Ultimately, the local police were called and canceled the sale due to the aggressive nature that broke out amidst the state of emergency over the Coronavirus issued by the Japanese government.
Catch all the chaos over the Sony PlayStation 5 below.
They cancelled the sale due to people being insane!! Pushed so hard even the cash registers and staff went backwards. I’ve never seen that kind of insanity in japan before…
Apple has paid over $25 million for the rights to upcoming movie "CODA," setting a new Sundance Film Festival acquisition record, reports Deadline.
Directed and written by Siân Heder, "CODA" stars actress Emilia Jones as Ruby, the only hearing individual in her deaf family. As her high school years come to an end, Ruby is torn between staying at home to help family or heading off to college to pursue her dreams.
Deadline reports that a "pitched battle" between Apple and Amazon took place for the film's worldwide rights. The $25+ million deal set a new record for a film acquisition at this year's virtual Sundance Film Festival, beating last year's $22.5 million acquisition from Hulu/Neon for the film "Palm Springs."
Apple TV+ has been available for free since November 2019 for those who purchased an eligible Apple device in September 2019 or later. Apple recently announced plans to extend all Apple TV+ free trials until July 2021, giving the company more time to present original content to viewers.
Apple TV+ is priced at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year in the United States, but Apple is currently crediting paid subscribers as well.
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Apple has been clobbered with another lawsuit that claims the Californian company intentionally slowed down older iPhone models. The lawsuit, which was filed in Italy by consumer advocacy group Euroconsumers, is seeking €60 million from the world’s most valuable company, which is currently valued at around $2.4 trillion. If the lawsuit is successful, owners of affected iPhone models will be awarded around €60 per device, which is roughly £53 converted.
The smartphones impacted by the so-called batterygate scandal are the iPhone 6, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S Plus. So, if you bought one of those devices and the lawsuit is successful, you could be eligible for the compensation awarded to Euroconsumers. Head of policy for the consumer advocacy group Els Bruggeman said: “When consumers buy Apple iPhones, they expect sustainable quality products. Unfortunately, that is not what happened with the iPhone 6 series. Not only were consumers defrauded, and did they have to face frustration and financial harm, from an environmental point of view it is also utterly irresponsible.”
Batterygate refers to the fall-out from iOS 10.2.1, which introduced measures to throttle the performance of iPhone models with ageing batteries. Apple introduced the feature without informing customers that it could be deliberately slowing down the chipset inside their handset. According to Apple, without tempering the performance of its processor, it could draw too much power from older, degrading batteries – causing a shutdown of the phone. Before the feature was implemented, there was an increasing number of reports of users complaining about their iPhone shutting down with some 20-30% battery life purportedly left in the tank.
Apple claims these shutdowns were due to the ageing battery capacity and the power needed by its processors to operate at full-speed, when launching graphics-intensive games or video editing, for example.
Following the controversy, Apple added the option for iPhone owners to disable the limitations on peak performance, although the US firm warns that – as the lithium-ion battery continues to degrade – it could lead to more unexpected shutdowns when using the smartphone. Apple has also subsequently added a Battery Health indicator in iOS that shows an estimation of the maximum capacity of your battery cell. Lithium-ion cells are only capable of a certain number of recharge cycles – that’s complete recharges from flat.
The issue likely captured people’s attention not because their iPhones were no longer getting the maximum output from the chipset in order to prevent frustrating shutdowns, but because it followed years of unsubstantiated rumours that Apple would intentionally slow older iPhones around September to push customers to upgrade to the latest model. Dubbed planned obsolescence, Apple says it has never degraded performance to convince people to buy a new handset.
Apple says that it has never artificially slowed down any of its smartphones – only aggressively managed performance to maximise the lifespan of its batteries, which cannot be replaced without specialised tools usually only found at Apple Stores.
Interestingly, the speed of the processor is only one component of the software fix that Apple introduced. iPhones with degraded batteries will also dim their screens more aggressively to conserve power, lower the maximum volume of the built-in speaker, and even disable the LED flash within the camera app to prevent the system pulling more power than the battery can provide.
Apple has already agreed to pay $500 million to settle a United States lawsuit over the batterygate scandal. It also paid $113 million to settle a separate multi-state investigation into the matter.
Speaking toThe Vergeabout the latest lawsuit filed against, a spokesperson elaborated: “We have never – and would never – do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.”
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The world of G.I. Joe, Hasbro’s kid-friendly military toy line (and the last line of defense against the terrorist organization Cobra), is now in Fortnite.
Epic teased the addition of G.I. Joe characters on Thursday, when chief creative officer Donald Mustard tweeted an image of himself reading a collection of vintage Marvel G.I. Joe comics. In particular, Mustard was reading issue #21 of Marvel’s G.I. Joe, in which Snake Eyes embarks on a rescue mission at a Cobra castle. That issue shows Snake Eyes leaping from a C-130 plane, in Fortnite where-we-droppin’-boys style.
Fortnite’s current season is all about heroes from dimensions far and wide. Chapter 2 Season 5 of Fortnite features a story arc called Zero Point, which focuses on Agent Jones’ mission to summon hunters from realities beyond Epic’s game.
G.I. Joe’s current incarnation, rooted in the 1982 toy property, has been explored in cartoons, comic books, video games, and live-action films over the past four decades. A new game, G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout, was released in October to a tepid response. A new live-action film that focuses on the silent ninja Snake Eyes, starring Henry Golding, is slated for release in 2022.
Galaxy S21 is Samsung’s latest and greatest smartphone, yet this isn’t by any means a guarantee everything is working just as expected.
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And Android Auto users know this very well, as the Galaxy S21 seems to be struggling when plugged into a head unit just like so many other phones out there.
More specifically, users are complaining that running Android Auto with a Galaxy S21 doesn’t work, simply because the connection isn’t detected and the app doesn’t start. Others claim that once the smartphone is connected to the head unit, it automatically reboots, and the same behavior is encountered every single time.
“Just got the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and I am having the same issues. Android Auto works on my old phone which was the S10 but the new one just keeps coming up reading USB then nothing. I use Android Auto for work and for it to not work is frustrating. Needs sorting as it must be some problem with the software as I have had no problems before,” one user says.
And while Google and Samsung have so far remained tight-lipped on everything related to this problem, one user has found a workaround that somehow brings things back to normal.
It’s the same fix we told you about earlier this week and which corrects a major Android Auto bug: removing the latest Chrome update fixes the Galaxy S21 connection problems for some users as well.
Many believe the culprit is Android 11, which Galaxy S21 ships pre-loaded with, and in this case, Google is the only one that can bring things back to normal. At the time of writing, however, a workaround that just does the trick for absolutely all users out there doesn’t seem to exist, so everyone is now hoping the search giant would step in and help deal with the problem in the next Android Auto update due in a few days.
Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp has started posting Status messages to users about its “commitment to your privacy.” The in-app messages were appearing for members of The Verge staff in the US and UK on Saturday, and some users reported the Status messages — WhatsApp’s version of Snapchat Stories or Twitter Fleets—have been appearing in India for a while now.
“There’s been a lot of misinformation and confusion around our recent update and we want to help everyone understand the facts behind how WhatsApp protects people’s privacy and security,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an email to The Verge. “Going forward, we’re going to provide updates to people in the Status tab so people hear from WhatsApp directly. Our first update reaffirms that WhatsApp cannot see your personal messages, and neither can Facebook, because they are protected by end-to-end encryption.”
The messages read “One thing that isn’t new is our commitment to your privacy,” and a reminder that “WhatsApp can’t read or listen to your personal conversations as they’re end-to-end encrypted.”
The messages are part of a larger effort from WhatsApp to dispel misperceptions about an upcoming update to its privacy policy. The update is meant to explain how businesses that use WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of their chats on Facebook’s servers. WhatsApp previewed the changes to business chats in November. Given Facebook’s history of privacy blunders, however, users misinterpreted the changes to the privacy policy to mean WhatsApp would require sharing sensitive profile information with Facebook.
The company posted an FAQ page about the changes, and has pushed back the date the update will take effect from February to May. It issued a statement earlier this month addressing the confusion to reiterate what the new privacy policy would cover:
The update does not change WhatsApp’s data sharing practices with Facebook and does not impact how people communicate privately with friends or family wherever they are in the world. WhatsApp remains deeply committed to protecting people’s privacy. We are communicating directly with users through WhatsApp about these changes so they have time to review the new policy over the course of the next month
Amid the ensuing confusion, rival messaging apps Signal and Telegram have both recently seen a surge in new users. Telegram said last week it’s added the ability for users to import their chat history from WhatsApp. And Signal has added new mainstream chat features like animated stickers and wallpapers to its app.
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Signal has always had a serious image, being the secure chat app of choice for governments, journalists, and activists – and being recommend by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. But that’s all changing as consumers switch away from WhatsApp, replacing it with either Signal or Telegram …
The Verge notes that the latest versions of the Signal iOS and Android apps introduce features more commonly associated with iMessage and WhatsApp.
The latest version of Signal for both iOS (5.3.1) and Android (5.3.7) brings a number of new additions to the increasingly popular encrypted messaging app. These include mainstream features like chat wallpapers, animated stickers, and an “About” section in your profile. The iOS app now handles data more efficiently, too, bringing it closer to feature parity with the Android app […]
With chat wallpapers, you can pick from a number of presets or select a photo of your own, and you can also set a wallpaper for a specific conversation or all of them […] The iOS app, meanwhile, is also more efficient with data. iPhone users will see a new setting to lower data usage during calls, an option to automatically pause attachment downloads during calls, and improved image compression among other enhancements.
Signal suffered some poor publicity of its own when former and current employees said that the messaging service didn’t seem well-prepared to deal with misuse by right-wing extremists.
Article From & Read More ( Signal loses serious image, adopts stickers and wallpaper for mass market take-up - 9to5Mac )
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