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How to download your Google Photos

As of June 1st, 2021, all of the new images and videos that you save to Google Photos will count toward your free 15GB of storage. If you don’t take a lot of photos, that may not be much of a problem. And if you own a Pixel phone, your photos still won’t count against… Read more

Spotify and YouTube Music will bring much needed offline tunes to Google’s Wear watches

Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables teased an exciting new feature coming to Wear devices during Google’s Developer Keynote on Tuesday: the ability for the streaming services’ 356 million users to download music directly to their watch, and listen to it at times when they don’t want to carry their phone (via XDA Developers)…. Read more

Amazon extends ban on police use of its facial recognition software ‘until further notice’

Amazon has extended its moratorium on law enforcement use of its facial recognition software “until further notice,” according to Reuters. The ban was set to expire in June. As early as 2018, Amazon employees had pushed Amazon to scale back the project, arguing that documented racial bias in facial recognition could exacerbate police violence against… Read more

Google I/O 2021: the biggest announcements

Google just finished its live Google I/O 2021 keynote, where the company unveiled a huge number of announcements, including a new look coming to Android, a bunch of features coming to its Google Workspace productivity suite, and even a new AI that talked as if it were Pluto. Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn followed the… Read more

Android 12 preview: first look at Google’s radical new design

There are new features, but it’s the biggest design update in years Google is announcing the latest beta for Android 12 today at Google I/O. It has an entirely new design based on a system called “Material You,” featuring big, bubbly buttons, shifting colors, and smoother animations. It is “the biggest design change in Android’s… Read more

Deepfake dubs could help translate film and TV without losing an actor’s original performance

What exactly is lost in translation when TV shows and films are subbed or dubbed into a new language? It’s a hard question to answer, but for the team at AI startup Flawless, it may be one we don’t have to think about in the future. The company claims it has the solution to this… Read more

Who needs Super Nintendo World when an English town looks like this?

In March this year, Nintendo opened its Super Nintendo World theme park in Osaka, Japan. Now, just a few short months later, the Birmingham Mail reports that over a dozen giant green plant pots have been installed in Walsall, UK’s town center, prompting immediate comparisons to the Super Mario franchise. I’m not saying the two… Read more

London’s electric scooter trials will kick off on June 7th

London’s long-awaited electric scooter trials will begin next month on June 7th, the city’s transport authority and local councils announced today. Three scooter companies have been selected to offer rentals for up to 12 months as part of the pilot program: Dott, Lime, and Tier. Privately owned electric scooters will continue to be illegal to… Read more

COVID Resurgence in Taiwan Raises Concerns Over TSMC’s Production

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) A new coronavirus outbreak in Taiwan has raised concerns over TSMC’s ability to maintain production levels, DigiTimes reported today, especially as the chances of city-wide lockdowns being imposed rise alongside the number of new cases. Taiwan handled COVID-19 better than most—The Guardian said it reported 1,000 cases and 12 deaths… Read more

How to make an AirTag holder for your pet’s collar

One seemingly obvious use for Apple’s new $29 AirTag tracker is for pets. As a new dog owner, I wanted to add an AirTag to my dog’s existing leather collar, but the options currently available are lousy. AirTags are small, but they’re not that small. Most AirTag holders currently available from Apple and its partners… Read more

Twitch is lowering subscription prices — but says streamers will earn more money

Twitch is announcing a big change to subscription prices — but not for users in the US. Most countries outside of the US will be getting lower prices that will be localized to their specific country, starting with Turkey and Mexico on May 20th. Those lower prices will mean less money for streamers, but Twitch… Read more

U.S. Senators Close to Inking $52 Billion Semiconductor Funding Plan

Home News (Image credit: Intel) According to a Reuters report, a group of four U.S. senators might unveil their $52-billion microelectronics industry backing proposal on Friday or early next week. The chip industry support plan is set to include funding of R&D and production and the establishment of national programs. The $52 billion five-year plan… Read more

Blackouts in Taiwan: Foundries & DRAM Makers Unaffected, Chip Packagers Halt Ops

Home News (Image credit: Future) Taiwan started a rotational electricity blackout across the country on Thursday following a major incident at a coal-fired power plant in southern Taiwan that caused its shutdown. The outages have not affected TSMC, the world’s largest contract maker of chips, other foundries, and DRAM makers. However, chip packaging houses had… Read more

Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid the hackers nearly $5 million, despite suggestions to contrary

After a devastating and deeply embarrassing cyberattack on one of the United States’ largest oil pipelines, one that forced many gas stations to shut down and reportedly saw average national gas prices rise above $3 for the first time since 2014, the oil is flowing again — but Bloomberg is reporting that Colonial Pipeline had… Read more

Biden signs executive order aiming to prevent future cybersecurity disasters

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday implementing new policies aimed to improve national cybersecurity. The executive order comes in the wake of a number of recent cybersecurity catastrophes, such as last week’s ransomware attack that took down the Colonial Pipeline, the Microsoft Exchange server vulnerabilities that may have affected north of 60,000… Read more