New Switch in October; New Galaxy Fold & Watch Next Month; Starlink-Global Coverage by September; Audacity Data Collection

The freshened Nintendo Switch with a larger 7 inch, 720p OLED display will be out on October 8th! According to theverge.com, it will be priced at $350. Besides the upgraded screen, there will be an adjustable stand for tabletop playing, and the storage doubles from 32 gigs to 64. There’s a new dock with a wired ethernet port, and Nintendo claims improved audio. It should have 9 hours of playing time on a full charge, the same as the current Switch. It is slightly longer and a bit heavier than the original model. So far, Nintendo has sold almost 85 million Switches since it came out in 2017.

We have a date for the next gen Samsung Galaxy Fold and the newly Google-blessed smartwatch. Thenextweb.com reports that they should be rolled out at an Unpacked event on August 11th at 10 AM Eastern. In addition to a Galaxy Fold 3 and Flip 3, and two versions of the Watch, there will be a freshened version of Galaxy Buds. The new Watches will be the first to dump Samsung’s less-than-stellar Tizen OS, and will rock Google’s Wear OS instead. Right now, the event is slated to stream on YouTube…no word on a live event at this point. 

Recently, we covered Elon Musk saying that the SpaceX Starlink satellite system had 1500 plus satellites in orbit, and they should be able to cover the world except the poles by the end of the year. Now, bignewsnetwork.com says they have over 1800 satellites up, and according to president Gwynne Shotwell, will be able to provide global internet coverage by September. The sticky part….they have to get approved in every country to provide telecom services. That will take some time. Right now, beta service is being offered in 11 countries. Eventually, Starlink plans 12,000 satellites in orbit. The company already has 500,000 preorders. Hot on their trail with small satellite networks of their own coming: Amazon.com’s Kuiper, Britain’s OneWeb, venture capital-backed Planet and Raytheon’s Blue Canyon Technologies.

Widely used freeware recording software Audacity is getting some blowback over their new data collection policy. According to engadget.com, the company updated it policy as of July 2nd, and now the open source software is collecting user data for ‘app analytics’ and ‘improving our app,’ as well as ‘for legal enforcement.’ Audacity was acquired by Muse Group in April. What has caused the outrage is this: Users’ personal data is stored on servers in the European Economic Area (EEA). However, Muse Group is “occasionally required to share your personal data with our main office in Russia and our external counsel in the USA.” A word to the wise…or at least to those who want to limit their data being mined further…BUY a real recording program, ya cheapskates! On a Mac, you can get one with up to 3 machines for something like $60! You don’t have to blow hundreds on ProTools or the like.

[UPDATE: After the outcry, Muse Group says it will only collect “very limited” data (operating system version, processor type, IP address and opt-in error reports) from Audacity users. Users’ IP addresses are stored in a readable format for 24 hours before they become “pseudonymized and irretrievable.”]