Aussies Ban 5G Tech From ZTE & Huawei; Androids Phone Home WAY More; Solid Guess- iPhone Rollout Day

Posted: August 23, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The faster 5G networks will be showing up next year, but there won’t be any equipment from Huawei or ZTE used in Australia’s 5G networks. Techcrunch.com reports that the Australian government has banned use of equipment from those companies due to risks to national security. The US banned most Huawei and ZTE tech use by government agencies and contractors earlier this year.

ET may have phoned home, and all smartphones also do…but Android handsets do it a lot more. According to mashable.com, a Vanderbilt University professor named Douglas Schmidt did a study, and Android units ping Google nearly 10 times more than Apple’s iOS touches base. Most of Google’s data collection happens when the user isn’t directly engaged with any of it’s products, and according to Schmidt’s study, Google is able to de-anonymize such data. Hey, gotta target those ads somehow!

When will the new iPhones be shown, and when can you order one? Bgr.com is betting the rollout will be on September 12th, and the preorders will start on the 14th. This is also the date reliable Apple tout Ming-Chi Kuo sees, but now BGR says they have further indications. Apparently a number of Apple partners and 3rd party accessory makers have sent them pitches with embargoes of September 12th.

Pixel Watch; Sony Hits 3 Million VR Headsets; Credit Card Skim Detector

Posted: August 16, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google may roll out a Pixel Watch with the Pixel 3 phones this fall, in addition to a new Pixelbook. Bgr.com reports that a big tip-off is that Google is developing an app called Google Coach that is supposed to deliver fitness and health notifications on a daily basis to users. No size or shape has been leaked about the watches, but they will run on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform.

Sony has sold 3 million VR headsets for Playstation VR now. According to engadget.com, by then end of 2017, they were at 2 million after the 2016 launch, so their numbers have accelerated nicely in the past 8 months. They have also sold some 21.9 million PSVR games. Two new games have been announced, too: Creed: Rise to Glory pre-orders today, and ships September 25th, and Evasion also pre-orders today, and will drop October 9th.

There’s been a lot of news about a flood of ATM skimmers lately. Now, here’s a little good news. A couple of University of Florida researchers have developed a device they call the ’SkimReaper.’ Arstechnica.com says the gadget can detect virtually all overlays and ‘deep inserts’ in ATM machines. It detects when there are two or more sets of read heads. There are other ways of stealing from ATMs, but these two are by far the most widely used. In a test of skimmers the NYPD had, the SkimReaper found 100% of them. So far, 7 police agencies have signed on to get the detectors, so it may soon make it a bit harder to hackers to do their shady work.

NOkay Google; New iPhones Get Apple Pencil Support & Lower Price; Banks Monitoring Phone & Computer Use; No Wake Word for Cars

Posted: August 14, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the ‘just another thing to creep you out’ department, Google can apparently track your location even if you have Location Services switched off. Businessinsider.com reports that on Android devices and iOS devices running Google’s apps, if you use Google Maps, the app stores your minute to minute location. Even with Location History paused, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you open Maps. Also, daily weather updates on Androids pinpoint your rough location. Google searches…even if location neutral? Yep, they store your location. Google says this is ‘made clear’ in their agreement…like anything is clear and easy to find in those!

Apple may have a couple things up their sleeve with the new iPhones that will rattle SamsungWorld. According to zdnet.com, Cupertino will not only add Apple Pencil support to the new iPhones (in direct threat to the brand new Samsung Galaxy Note 9), but also may have squeezed suppliers on costs to offer lower across the board prices. The price range will apparently be from $699 for the mid-sized LED screen, single cam ‘budget’ model people are calling iPhone 9 to $999 for the supersized OLED screen XI Plus (or whatever they are calling it.) All three new iPhones will have Face ID.

In an effort to fight fraudsters, banks are secretly Hoovering up as many as 2,000 data points on how you use your phone and computer. 9to5mac.com says they run from the angle at which you hold your phone to whether you use the numeric keypad or the numbers at the top of the keyboard, and even if you use the mouse scroll wheel or not. Royal Bank of Scotland said they already caught one fraudster with the data…the hacker used the scroll wheel and typed numbers with the keys at the top…something the customer had never done before. Then, the crook tried to transfer a 7 figure blast of cash out of the account…and was blocked. Yeah, it seems creepy as hell, but OTOH, who wants a million or so sucked out of your account? For the record, I’m ok with any of you transferring a million or more IN to my account as often as you want to!

Wake words…they work for voice assistants, but sure sound stupid. “Hey, Siri,” “OK, Google,” “Alexa”, and all may not be necessary in cars much longer. Engadget.com reports that Nuance is putting an updated system into next year’s BMWs that will understand when the driver is talking to passengers, on the phone, or to the car. Nuance calls it ‘Just Talk’ mode. According to Nuance, the system listens for expressions, grammar, phrases, words and even sentence structure that it can determine with a high probability that the driver is directing toward the car. A plus for you, not to use a wake word or push a button or touch a screen…but also, a plus for the car makers. They feel it will help keep drivers in their system instead of using Apple Car Play or Android Auto.

Tesla Getting Saudi Cash; Samsung Suspends in China; Apple ‘Inexpensive’ Notebook; Android 9 Pie Charging Issue for Pixel XL

Posted: August 13, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A little more has slipped out about Tesla going private, and one particular item may appear to be a head scratcher….Tesla could be getting funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. According to engadget.com, they already have a 5% stake in Tesla, and would like more. Some are saying the Saudis look at it as a hedge against the oil business, but it could also be that they might someday look to Tesla’s battery and solar panel expertise to power the kingdom and even export electricity. Besides oil and sand, they do have an abundance of sunlight and open space!

On the heels of a pretty positive rollout for the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung is thinking of suspending operations at one of its plants in China due to sagging sales and increasing labor costs. Reuters.com reports that Samsung may shutter its plant in Tianjin. The smartphone market overall has been experiencing slow growth as it matures and becomes relatively saturated. Local Chinese competition has also whacked Samsung’s China penetration. 5 years ago, they had 20% of that market, now it’s less than 1%…with Huawei and Xiaomi undercutting them on prices.

Macrumors.com says Quanta will be building Apple’s upcoming ‘inexpensive notebooks’ in the 4th quarter of 2018. Of course, ‘inexpensive’ is relative when it’s Apple! The cheaper notebooks should drop in September or October, but it’s not clear if they will be branded MacBook, MacBook Air, or some entirely new name. While inexpensive notebook might mean a few hundred bucks for the likes of a Chromebook, Don’t look for Apple to put out one for much less than $999!

An issue has come up with the latest release of Android, version 9…dubbed ‘Pie.’ 9to5google.com reports that fast charging over USB-C seems to have been killed in the original Pixel XL phones. Reports vary…some have said the original charger that came in the box still works, but 3rd party ones don’t. Others have said replacements from the Google Store also don’t work. In a few reports, even the charger that came in the box won’t fast charge. So far, no comment from Google on the issue, including whether a fix is comi

Galaxy Note 9 ‘Unpacked’; NYC Whacks Uber and Lyft; Facebook May Drop From #2 Website; Apple Considers Subwoofer for iMacs

Posted: August 9, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy Note 9 at their Unpacked event. 9to5google.com notes that it bows with up to 512 gigs of storage, a Bluetooth S-Pen, and has a base price of $999. It’s not a revolutionary update, but has some nice adds…the Bluetooth connected S-Pen, for one. The connection lets you use the pen as a remote shutter for the camera, and a remote for presentations. The Note 9 still rolls with dual cams and the dual aperture primary sensor like the S9 family. It does have a built in AI camera mode that adjusts settings to get the best possible shot. Besides the Bluetooth pen, another notable advance is the 4000 mAh battery, which is up 20% from the Note 8. It should give virtually everyone an all day battery, and has USB-C fast charging as well as wireless charging (with charging pad.) You’ll drop the $999 for the 128 gig model, and a wallet crushing $1249 for the 512 gig memory rig.

New York City’s Council voted to cap the number of for-hire delivery and transportation vehicles yesterday, in a kneecap to Uber and Lyft. According to theverge.com, the city will halt new for-hire licenses for 12 months while it studies the industry. The council made an exception to vehicles that are wheelchair accessible…those can still be licensed. Exceptions can also be had for particular neighborhoods that are low on ride-hail vehicles. The council also passed a bill that establishes a $15 living wage for drivers. Both bills head for Mayor de Blasio’s desk, and he’s likely to sign them. Uber already has 80,000 vehicles in NYC.

Facebook has taken some real hits lately, but may be about to get another body blow. Businessinsider.com reports that SimilarWeb has released a study showing that Facebook is about to be passed up as the number two website in America by YouTube. YouTube is projected to blow past Facebook in traffic in the next 3 months, making it #2 to parent Google. Facebook’s monthly visits have dropped from 8.5 billion two years ago to 4.7 billion this past July. YouTube is up to 4.5 billion in July, and on an upswing.

Apple may be getting ready to improve the tinny sound of the built in speakers in their iMac. They have patented a way of putting in a subwoofer that would double as a cooling device. Without getting into the weeds technically, Apple would use sub-audible air flow to reduce the amount of noise the computer makes in addition to providing cooling and sub-woofer thump for music. Geek.com points out it may be another great idea that never sees the light of day, but a very interesting combination that would go well into Apple’s impossibly skinny computers.

Whole Foods Rolls Out Curbside Delivery; SnapChatting a Bit Less; Magic Leap One; Pixel 3 Leak Shows Apple-esque ‘Notch’

Posted: August 8, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is launching curbside pickup at Whole Foods. Reuters.com reports the service is available starting today in Sacramento, CA and Virginia Beach, VA…other cities should follow later this year. Since pickup is cheaper than delivery, it has been pushed by bigger grocers like Kroger and Walmart. Amazon is gigantic, but Whole Foods actually only has about 1% of the vary fractured grocery market. Pickup in an hour is free for orders of at least $35, while pickup in 30 minutes costs $4.99.

Snapchat has decidedly mixed results the last quarter. They lost 3 million users, a drop of 2%, but is still up 8% year over year. They also lost $353 million, but that’s still 20% less than the previous year’s loss. Their monthly audience is up 3 million for 11 of its Shows, users spend over 30 minutes a day with the platform.

The Magic Leap One Creator Edition AR headset is available….some places…for developers now. It’s a breathtaking $2295. While cnet.com notes that the price is less than the Microsoft HoloLens at 3 grand, you may need to drop another $495 for the ‘professional development edition’, which comes with an extra hub cable and a service called RapidReplace…which gets you a replacement within 24 hours. Another catch: it’s only available in Chicago, LA, Miami, New York, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle. For the princely price, they deliver it and set it up for you in-home, to ensure a perfect fit. You can’t wear the headset with glasses, but can get prescription pop-in lenses at extra cost…or just get contacts. It does sport a bigger field of view than HoloLens, but not as wide as a regular VR headset. It’s brawn is PC-like, with a powerful system on a chip, 128 gigs of storage, 8 gigs ram.

Pictures of what’s said to be a pre-release final production Google Pixel 3 XL shows a notch at the top like the iPhone X has, and a number of other phones have emulated. Macrumors.com says the pics were put out by a Russian blogger and picked up by Android Police. The display on the 3 XL is not as wide as the iPhone X, but it is noticeably taller. It is supposed to be a 6.2 inch screen. The smaller Pixel 3 apparently does not have the notch…which reportedly holds improved cameras with two lenses.

Google Pixel 3 Launch Date; Tesla Drops Nvidia Chips for Roll Your Own; Wells Fargo-Homes Lost Over Computer ‘Error’; TSMC Hit By Virus; Apple Deletes Most Alex Jones Podcasts

Posted: August 6, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It now appears that Google will launch the Pixel 3 phones on October 4th…making it the 3rd year in a row they have rolled out handsets on that date. 9to5google.com says there are some rumors that Google could begin actually selling the phones on that date, but they suggest taking that with a grain of salt…or maybe a whole salt shaker!

Tesla is rolling their own, and will drop Nvidia chips. Elon Musk says the auto maker is building its own chips that are optimized for machine learning. Arstechnica.com reports that they have been working on the chips for 3 years, and it will be out next year. The chips are designed to be backward compatible, so older hardware can be swapped out, giving Tesla owners a big performance boost. Musk claims that most CPU and GPU chips do neural network in ‘some kind of emulation mode,’ but the Tesla ones will ‘run the neural net at a bare metal level.’

An SEC filing has shown that around 625 customers of Wells Fargo were either denied loan charges or didn’t receive loan modification offers they were entitled to…with about 400 losing homes at lest partly as a result. According to engadget.com, the bank revealed a ‘calculation error’ in a loan modification tool as the culprit. The error was in place between April 2010 and October 2015. Wells now says it is ‘providing remediation’, including an $8 million fund set aside for those affected.

TSMC, which makes some of the chips for Apple’s iPhones, was hit with a ‘debilitating’ computer virus that attacked many of its fabrication tools Friday night. Macrumors.com reports that they are 80% back to normal, but issued a warning that customers…including Apple…may have shipments of chips delayed. TSMC has been making A12 processor chips for the 2018 iPhones. The company says no confidential info was taken, and that the virus came from a ‘misoperation’ during the installation of software for a new process.

Apple has followed actions by Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify, and deleted most Alex Jones and Infowars podcasts, citing hate speech that violates its guidelines. Reuters.com says Apple purged the entire library for 5 of Jones’ 6 Infowars podcasts. The only survivor was ‘RealNews with David Night’ as of last night.

Alphabet Crushes Estimates; Foxconn Staffs Up For New iPhone; Microsoft Building 2 New Xbox Consoles; YouTube Tests Explore Feature

Posted: July 24, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google parent Alphabet reported financials yesterday, with a nice beat of Wall Street expectations. According to reuters.com, expenses from Google search didn’t grow as much as expected, which pushed profits up. Their operating margin ticked up from 22 to 24%, excluding the $5 antitrust fine from the EU…which appears like a rounding error. Alphabet hauled in $32.66 billion second quarter, 86% of which came from Google advertising, and beating the estimate of $32.17 billion. Alphabet still trails, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter in valuation, but is in the hunt. Apple still leads in the quest to be the first billion dollar company.

Foxconn is getting ready for the next generation iPhone by offering bonuses to workers who renew their contracts. The $295 bonus and hiring campaign will extend through this November. Macrumors.com reports that Foxconn is expected to assemble the majority of all 3 new iPhone models…the 2nd generation iPhone X, 90% of the iPhone Plus (or whatever Apple ends up calling it), and about 75% of the lower priced 6.1 inch iPhone with the LED screen. All 3 phones are expected to bow in September.

Microsoft is already hard at work on the next iteration of the Xbox console. in addition to the traditional version, Redmond is apparently working on a cheaper ‘streaming box’ designed to work with its previously reported streaming service. The streamer is code named ‘Scarlett Cloud’, and would run games both locally and in the cloud…which has been dubbed slice or splice. The idea is to help reduce latency. Geekwire.com reports that Sony, EA, and Nvidia are also working on cloud based game streaming services.

In the ongoing quest to grab and hold more eyeballs, YouTube is testing out a new feature on around 1% of iOS YouTube app users the next several weeks. Thenextweb.com says it’s an explore feature, similar to the Instagram Explore tab…and the idea is to help users discover more videos and content creators that may be lost in the thousands of others. Personalized recommendations will be based on the user’s previous viewing history.

New Google Pixelbook Coming; HomePod Siri Features; Qualcomm Shows 5G Module; Tesla Supplier Cash Ask

Posted: July 23, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Pixel 2 was a big improvement on the original Google Pixel phone, and the 3 is eagerly anticipated this Fall. Now, 9to5google.com says leaker Evan Blass, who has a pretty decent track record, is touting the release of and updated Pixelbook alongside the Pixel 3 and 3XL handsets. Bless claims the updated Chrome OS Pixelbook will be shipping by the holidays. The fall event is expected to also show off A Pixel Watch and new generation of Pixel Buds.

Apple is testing a private beta version of OS12 for HomePod that includes multiple Siri timers and allows people to make and answer phone calls…in an effort to keep up with Alexa and Google Home. 9to5mac.com reports that corporate and some retail employees are test driving the beta. The multiple timers feature is one Alexa has that allows, for example, someone to put a couple timers on different things they are cooking at the same time. Right now, it’s unclear which, if any, of these features will make it to the final release of OS12 for HomePod this fall.

Qualcomm has showed off the first completely integrated 5G module for smartphones…including 5G mmWave antenna, wave radio, power amp, and antenna array. According to macrumors.com, the whole system has been crammed into a package small enough to sit on your fingertip. It is thin enough to fit the bezel of a phone, and Qualcomm sees up to 4 being put into a handset so if one antenna is covered by a hand or otherwise blocked, the unit will still transmit and receive. The tiny 5G modules are being shipped to phone makers this week.

Tesla has reportedly ask for cash back from suppliers, in order to cut their costs and become profitable in Q4. While it’s not unusual for a company to ask for or demand price cuts from suppliers….Walmart is a past master at this…it IS unusual to ask for money back from previously furnished and paid for items. That’s what electrek.co says Tesla has done. Some of the clawbacks would date back to 2016. It remains to be seen if any suppliers will cooperate, now that Tesla is producing the promised 5,000 Model 3s per week.

Google Fined $5 Billion by EU; Prime Day Breaks Record; Instagram Testing Creep Removal Feature

Posted: July 18, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The EU has fined Google a record $5 billion for breaking antitrust laws. The European Commission says Google abused its market dominance with Android in 3 key areas. Theverge.com says Google has bundled it’s search engine and Chrome apps into the OS, allegedly blocked phone makers from running forked versions of Android, and “made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators” to exclusively bundle the Google search app on handsets. The Commission demands that Google cease this conduct within 90 days. Google says it will appeal the decision and fine.

After the crashing problems of the first hour, never mind some striking workers in Germany, Amazon’s Prime Day once again was it’s biggest sales day in history by a wide margin. Yesterday’s Prime day exceeded Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and last year’s Prime Day, techcrunch.com reports. It is worth noting that this year, Prime Day ran 36 hours, and it was only 30 hours last year. Amazon hasn’t released precise numbers, but did say they sold over 100 million products and well exceeded $1 billion in sales.

Instagram is trialing a new feature with some public Android users that lets them manually remove followers without the followers getting notice. According to thenextweb.com, the only way you have been able to remove followers so far has been to block then unblock them, block them completely, or set the account to private. You can check to see if you are one of the users that is getting to test drive the feature by checking your followers list, and look for an icon with 3 vertical dots to the right of a user’s name. If it’s there, tap it, and a prompt pops up to remove them without letting them know.

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