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13 of the best Record Store Day releases for 2021

(Image credit: Rough Trade)

The first drop of Record Store Day 2021 records arrives on Saturday 12th June. It’s that time of year when record shops stock all manner of rarities, reissues, special editions and exclusives produced especially for the big day itself. For us vinyl anoraks, it’s like Christmas, but without the family commitments. So better than Christmas, then.

This year, Record Store Day 2021 takes place over two days – the next is Saturday 17th July. Both days will offer another bumper crop of vinyl, with the first drop alone comprising no fewer than 347 releases. If you want to see what’s worth checking out without trawling the full list yourself, see our picks below. And if you do want to do the trawling for yourself? We’ve got you covered there too, with our full list of Record Store Day drop one releases. Enjoy!

The Doors – Morrison Hotel Sessions

The Door’s Morrison Hotel studio album turned 50 recently, and here for the first time on vinyl is a collection of rare session tapes from the original recording sessions. It promises to give a unique insight into the creative process that birthed Roadhouse Blues, Peace Frog/Blue Sunday and Queen Of The Highway, among others. The limited edition package was mixed and assembled by The Doors’ original engineer Bruce Botnick, who also put together the new liner notes. It’s limited and numbered to 16,000 copies, so better get in early Doors (sorry).

The Academic – Tales From The Backseat

Mick Jagger likes this Irish four-piece (he handpicked them as a support act for the Stones), and so should you. Their guitar-driven sound is uplifting and melodic, and tight as a drum – hardly surprising considering they’ve been playing together since school. This is their debut album, originally released in 2018, and now getting a special limited edition re-release on yellow vinyl. Very summery.

Warpaint – The Fool. Andrew Weatherall Sessions

(Image credit: Rough Trade)

Andrew Weatherall, the legendary musician and producer, who sadly died last year, was given access to the master tapes of 2010’s The Fool, with two of his efforts making the finished product: Baby and Undertow. For the first time, this Record Store Day edition brings together all the mixes Weatherall created while working on the project, including a never released before, finished version of Jubilee. A must for fans.

Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With The Arab Strap

(Image credit: Jeepster)

This is a reissue of the band’s critically acclaimed album, on green vinyl. Don’t know what an Arab Strap is? (Neither did the band, reportedly.) Trust us, don’t Google it. But do enjoy this excellent slice of indie rock.

Bernard Butler – People Move On

The ex-Suede guitarist’s first solo album gets a reissue for the first time since 1998, and it’s no standard repressing – this one comes on two 180g clear vinyl discs, marking it out as a Record Store Day special edition. Get it while it lasts.

The Chemical Brothers – The Darkness That You Fear

(Image credit: EMI)

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simon’s first new music since 2019’s No Geography is a proper summer anthem – an uplifting jam that provides a much-needed glimpse of hope. The single came out in April, but is getting another bite of the cherry for Record Store Day, alongside a B-side which is as yet unreleased. Exciting.

The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (Companion Disc)

This was originally only available as a promo CD, handmade by the band’s management and dished out to lucky media outlets around the release of The Soft Bulletin (one of The Flaming Lips’ best-selling albums). It has since been widely circulated among the fan community, and now is available as an official Record Store Day 2021 release. It features outtakes, alternate mixes, and radio sessions from the era. Essential.

Genesis – Live at Knebworth

(Image credit: Rough Trade)

This legendary concert was only ever released on DVD and as a two-CD set, but now for the first time it gets the full vinyl treatment. Each one is numbered, so you can be sure you’re getting a piece of musical history, and each sale helps raise money for Nordoff Robbins, a charity that uses music to enhance the quality of life for those with life-limiting illness, disabilities or feelings of isolation.

The Jaded Hearts Club – Live At The 100 Club

This supergroup is made up of Miles Kane (The Last Shadow Puppets), Nic Cester (Jet), Matt Bellamy (Muse), Graham Coxon (Blur), Sean Payne (The Zutons) and Jamie Davis. Their ambition? To mine the history of rock and soul music to create original interpretations of lost classics. And with a lineup like that, they’re better equipped than most to do so. This is a live recording of their first ever gig, at London’s legendary venue, and includes the hits Gloria, Have Love Will Travel, My Generation and Sunshine Of Your Love. It’s like the best wedding set ever.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Russian Mind

(Image credit: Software)

Daniel Lopatin’s experimental electronica has gained popularity since his award-winning soundtrack for Good Time and, more recently, Uncut Gems. He’s also grown in stature since gaining production credits for major pop acts like The Weeknd. For RSD 2021, five of his out-of-print works are being released on coloured vinyl.

Primal Scream – Dixie Narco EP

This rarity hasn’t been reissued since its original release in 1992, so it’s something of a treat. Recorded at Ardent Studios, Memphis, it picks up a lot of the themes explored in the preceding – and critically acclaimed – Screamadelica album; namely it’s a similar blend of acid house and country blues influences, with the same thrilling end result. There’s even a rare Dennis Wilson cover. If you missed it first time around, this is the perfect opportunity to right that wrong.

Thelonius Monk – The Custodian’s Mix

Step back in time to 1968 Palo Alto, before that town became a tech hub that’s home to Apple, Google, Tesla and Facebook. Then, legendary jazz pianist Thelonius Monk took to Palo Alto High School’s auditorium with his quartet to deliver an electrifying performance. This limited edition LP was recorded by an unknown high school custodian, so you’ll hear the concert as if you were right there in the audience.

Mogwai – ZeroZeroZero

(Image credit: Rock Action)

Mogwai created the soundtrack to the eight-part crime drama TV series ZeroZeroZero, and now it’s available exclusively on double white vinyl for RSD 2021. It’s only been available digitally before, and comes with a free MP3 download, should you want to listen to it on the move as well. But it’s of course all about the vinyl really…

View all the vinyl: Record Store Day 2021 release list
Best turntables
How to set up your turntable
13 of the best vinyl test tracks

Darnella Frazier, who documented George Floyd’s murder, receives Pulitzer Prize citation

Darnella Frazier — the teen who used her smartphone to film the video of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 that sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protests worldwide, which culminated in the murder conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin — will receive a special citation from the Pulitzer Board.

Frazier was given the citation for “courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists’ quest for truth and justice,” the Pulitzer Board said (PDF).

Frazier’s video, which was viewed by millions, ignited one of the biggest protest movements in American history and demonstrated how a smartphone with a camera can be a powerful tool to document police brutality and racial injustices.

Frazier was 17 when she filmed the video and uploaded it to Facebook. She also testified at Chauvin’s trial, a trial that eventually resulted in a historic conviction: “the first time in Minnesota history that a white police officer was convicted of killing a Black civilian on the job,” according to the Star Tribune. (The Star Tribune was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Friday for its coverage of Floyd’s death and what followed.)

“Even though this was a traumatic life-changing experience for me, I’m proud of myself,” Frazier said in a statement on the anniversary of Floyd’s death. “If it weren’t for my video, the world wouldn’t have known the truth. I own that. My video didn’t save George Floyd, but it put his murderer away and off the streets.”

House lawmakers introduce five bipartisan bills to unwind tech monopolies

On Friday, House Democrats introduced five new bills meant to chip away at the power of big tech companies, targeting a variety of practices that antitrust advocates say are stifling competition.

These measures are the House Judiciary Committee’s historic, 16-month long investigation into the business tactics of companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. With this new slate of bills, Congress is getting ready to legislate based on the concerns raised by that investigation — and the move could reshape the tech industry as we know it.

“Right now, unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over our economy. They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks out of work,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) said in a statement Friday. “Our agenda will level the playing field and ensure the wealthiest, most powerful tech monopolies play by the same rules as the rest of us.”

The package unveiled Friday includes five measures targeting the different ways in which tech companies maintain market dominance. One bill would empower the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission to break up tech firms by forcing them to sell off parts of their business that could create a conflict of interest — potentially forcing Amazon to carve off house brands like Amazon Basics.

Another bill would bar companies from giving their own services preference over their rivals, like Google boosting its own products in search results over competitors. Yet another bill would block companies like Facebook from buying up nascent competitors like in the 2012 acquisition of Instagram.

The last two bills are less controversial. Last week, the Senate already passed a measure put out by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) that would boost merger filing fees for large companies, giving antitrust enforcers more money to take on cases. A bill mirroring that legislation was introduced Wednesday. The last bill would force platforms to make the data they collect interoperable in order to make it easier for users to jump from one service to another. Both Republicans and Democrats seem eager to move forward on data portability legislation.

The House’s tech investigation was a bipartisan endeavor, and while both parties agree on many of the probe’s findings, they disagree on some of the solutions. The probe culminated into an over 400-page report from Democratic staff detailing its findings. Rep. Ken Buck (CO), the committee’s top Republican, issued his own report focusing on the ways large platforms allegedly censor conservative speech and encouraging other Republicans to support competition reform as a means of addressing the issue.

It’s unclear how lawmakers plan to move forward on the legislation, but the multi-pronged approach could make it easier to enact some changes over the coming Term. More measured approaches like Klobuchar’s to boost regulatory funding could find broad support in the House.

At least one Republican and one Democrat signed on to each of Friday’s measures. Still it’s unclear if all members support each bill. On Thursday, Axios reported that lobbyists for Rupert Murdoch’s media companies, like Fox Corp. and News Corp., were urging House Republicans to support the measures.

“These companies have maintained monopoly power in the online marketplace by using a variety of anticompetitive behaviors to stifle competition,” Buck said in a statement Friday. “Doing nothing is not an option, we must act now.”

Apple is trying to dominate watch parties, but it needs more help

Apple is bringing one of streaming’s trendiest features to iPhone users with the debut of SharePlay in iOS 15 later this year, allowing FaceTime users to stream music, online videos, and movies together with friends. The move positions FaceTime to compete more directly with platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Houseparty, which all offer ways to video chat while watching things as a group. It offers Apple a chance to hook a new generation of users on FaceTime — but the service is still missing some key integrations to make that happen, particularly for the teens most likely to use it.

SharePlay, announced earlier this week and likely arriving in the fall, will allow FaceTime users to share and stream media in real time from an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. It’s a neat tool for the pandemic era, and it takes inspiration from the watch party modes that many major streaming platforms — including Disney Plus, Hulu, and Prime Video, among others — added themselves in the last year. For services where it’s not supported, like Netflix, there are popular extensions that enable simultaneous streaming and chatting as well.

The goal isn’t to compete with those native platforms, though. After all, you’re still watching Hulu, just in a different space. Instead, the update puts FaceTime square against services like Facebook Messenger that dominate messaging and have already been trying to build out co-watching experiences, but without as robust of a service list as Apple has the ability to line up.

SharePlay particularly makes sense for the next generation of iPhone users, as teens are more inclined to watch videos on their phones. Video-based social media apps like Instagram and TikTok are immensely popular among teens, and an overwhelming majority of teens have access to these apps on their own personal smartphones. Video chatting is hugely popular, too, with a 2015 survey from Pew Research finding that 59 percent of US teens video chatted with their friends.

The introduction of SharePlay also jibes with Apple’s reported plans to make iMessage compete more directly with Facebook-owned WhatsApp by becoming more of a social network. It makes a lot of sense that the company would similarly invest in developments for its video-calling product as well, which is just a couple of taps away.

But if Apple wants SharePlay to be a success among the demographic of consumers most likely to use it, it’ll need to expand the number of apps that support it.

Apple said that at launch, Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, Paramount Plus, Pluto TV, TikTok, and Twitch will be supported on SharePlay, which is a somewhat limited grab bag of streaming options. Granted, there’s plenty of time for that list to get longer before iOS 15 officially rolls out to users in the fall. And Apple told The Verge that SharePlay will be available to any streaming app that wants to support it, so we’re likely to see wider adoption down the road.

Some of the best applications of this feature failed to make their way into Apple’s initial slide of supported services, though. Netflix is perhaps the most obvious of these simply on the basis that virtually everyone has a Netflix login, whether they’re actually paying for it or not (at least until the inevitable password crackdown). But YouTube was not mentioned either, and neither company had comment to share about potential support down the line when contacted by The Verge this week. A spokesperson for Peacock, however, told The Verge that SharePlay support was on its “roadmap.”

YouTube, in particular, seems like a huge miss for Apple, especially where teens are concerned. YouTube hosts just about every digital media format imaginable — music, movies, news, personalities, tutorials, live feeds, etc. — but most importantly, it’s free. As video callers tend to skew younger already, apps with highly shareable content like livestreams seem like the best use case for SharePlay outside of live sporting events. That’s particularly true given that for paid services, each participant in a SharePlay streaming session will need a login for the app. After all, if the tool didn’t require credentials and allowed just anyone to drop in a FaceTime stream of content from a paid service, SharePlay would be a piracy nightmare.

But that’s part of what makes the practical application of SharePlay a bit of a puzzler. Streaming the game or a movie premiere could get expensive fast. If your friends are watching NFL coverage on Sling TV, you’ll need a $35 subscription to join in (assuming the content is included in one of the service’s base plans). If you wanted to watch a Premier Access release like Cruella on Disney Plus, you’d need to pay the $8 monthly subscription cost on top of an additional $30 early access ticket fee. (A spokesperson for Disney Plus confirmed to The Verge that SharePlay users still need to pay for access to watch.)

It’s hard to imagine that most users would pay for a service just to be able to FaceTime while they’re watching a title. Then again, based on recent media consumption trends among teens, maybe SharePlay is part of the future of how entertainment is consumed, at least for the younger subset of Apple users.

It makes sense that a company investing heavily in its services offerings would jump on the watch party trend, if not a little late, and it does feel like a natural way for Apple to not only stay relevant but also sell subscriptions and hardware — even if right now, SharePlay alone seems unlikely to balloon numbers for streaming services. Free, social-leaning services and streaming titans are most likely to see success with this feature, and livestreaming apps seem likely to perform best. But they’ll actually have to be on SharePlay for that to work. As it currently stands, many are not.

iOS 15 gives you better tools to fight the firehose of notifications — with a catch

Apple’s iOS 15 preview earlier this week gave us a look at an important new feature coming to your iPhone’s notifications: help. A few new tools may act as a life preserver for those of us up to our eyeballs in a sea of notifications every day, regulating which apps and people are allowed to bug us, and when. But on the flip side, app developers get some additional tools for getting your attention, too, and could very well start sending you even more notifications — albeit in a less disruptive way.

First, the good news: the new notification features in iOS 15 look genuinely good and useful. There’s a new feature called Focus that allows you to choose which people and apps you’d like to see notifications from at a given time. It’s like Do Not Disturb but with much more customization than simply turning off every possible disruption. You can set up modes for work, sleep, personal time, and other scenarios like workouts.

People who message you in third-party apps can be associated with their profile in your contacts list.

Image: Apple

When setting up a new Focus mode, Siri can scan your outgoing messages and calls and automatically suggest allowing notifications from the people you talk to most. There’s a neat trick here too: communications from the people you approve can come from other apps, like Facebook Messenger, not just from iMessage or texts. When you get that Facebook Messenger message in iOS 15, you may see prompts to associate that person in that app with a matching person in your contacts list, too. Once you’ve done this, communications from that person in a third-party app will be allowed to interrupt your Focus mode, provided that you approved them to do so.

You’ll also have the option to set a kind of away message when you’re using a Focus mode that will let others know you’re temporarily unavailable when they send you an iMessage. When your friend doesn’t hear back from you for hours, they won’t have to guess whether you hate them or you’re just really busy with work, and that’s nice for everyone. iOS 15 also adds notification summaries, which will batch lower priority notifications into digests you’ll receive at certain times of day.

Notification summaries.

Image: Apple

All of this gives you more control over interruptions, which is great! But what about app developers who want you to ~engage~ with their platform? They have new options too. They can now use one of four notification interruption types, two of which are new in iOS 15. First are passive interruptions, a new, less obtrusive kind of notification available to developers that doesn’t wake your screen or cause your phone to vibrate — they go straight to your notification center. Previous versions of iOS allowed the user to designate notifications from certain apps to be delivered silently, but this new framework lets the app developer choose to deliver them this way.

Notifications classified as “passive” appear in your notification center silently, without buzzing your phone or breaking through a Focus mode.

Image: Apple

These are the types of notifications likely to end up in summaries if you’ve enabled that feature. They don’t just appear in chronological order in the summary digest either — machine learning helps sort them by priority. They’ll likely include images and other visuals too, since Apple encourages developers to include media as part of the notification to increase its chances of showing up at the top of the summary list. And since the risk of annoying you is lower, developers have some incentive to send more frequent, more engaging notifications. They’ll be less disruptive, but these are the kinds of notifications we’re likely to see more of in iOS 15.

The other new interruption type is “time sensitive,” which is kind of a Notification Plus. It behaves like a standard notification, lighting up your screen and playing a sound or vibrating, but with an important difference: it’s allowed to break through your focus mode settings and notify you even if they aren’t from an “approved” app. The option to see time sensitive notifications can be turned on and off by the user, so if you really don’t want to see them, you don’t have to. In theory though, they should be for truly time sensitive events, like a package being delivered or your credit card company making sure it was you who bought two round-trip tickets to Maui.

In theory. Apple lets developers decide which notifications deserve time sensitive designation, so it’s more or less on the honor system. The company urges them to maintain trust and keep in mind that users can turn off notifications for their app if they feel they’re being bothered unnecessarily. And lest we forget, Apple itself has bent the rules before on what’s considered too intrusive for a notification. Could developers end up overusing time sensitive notifications? Possibly, but they likely won’t gain much from doing so, since users can opt out of them and may decide to silence the app entirely.

There are a few other things worth noting about notifications in iOS 15:

With compatible audio devices like AirPods, Siri will be able to read any incoming notification to you. Previously, this function was limited to things like incoming messages. By default, Siri will read the contents of messages and time sensitive notifications.
Notifications with a “critical” interruption type basically remain unchanged: these are things like Amber Alerts, which bypass your ringer settings to play a sound and get your attention. App developers still need special permission for these notifications, so we shouldn’t suddenly start seeing more of them in iOS 15.
Notifications will look a little different, with bigger app icons and images of contacts included in messages. The actions you can take on a notification (liking an image, etc.) will get graphical icons, too.

Xbox Is Making Streaming Hardware, Already Working on Next Consoles

(Image credit: Xbox)

Ahead of E3 Microsoft and Xbox are putting a heavy emphasis on cloud gaming and its Game Pass subscription program alongside its existing console ecosystem. This includes new, dedicated streaming hardware for any TV or

monitor

. It is also updating its cloud datacenters to use the

Xbox Series X

, so that gamers who stream are getting the company’s most powerful hardware.

Xbox’s announcement

comes ahead of Xbox’s joint E3 games showcase this Sunday with its recent acquisition, Bethesda, and also comes with a slew of new attempts to push Xbox onto just about any device you might already have. The Xbox division is moving to get its software embedded into internet-connected TVs, which would require no additional hardware other than a controller to play cloud games.

Additionally, the company is looking into new subscription offerings for Game Pass. (though it didn’t get into specifics), and is looking into new purchase options for Xbox All Access, which lets people buy the console and Game Pass for a monthly fee, rather than paying up front. (This is similar to how many pay for smartphones in the U.S.).

Building its own streaming devices, however, is a bigger push to make Xbox an ecosystem outside of consoles and even moves Xbox into competition, to a degree, with Chromecast, Roku and Apple TV for the living room. (Chromecast is scheduled to get

Google Stadia

support later this month).

Still, the company sees its consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, as its top-notch offering, even while it expands in mobile, on PC and in streaming. In fact, that’s the other major piece of hardware Xbox is working on: the next console.

(Image credit: Xbox)

“Cloud is key to our hardware and Game Pass roadmaps, but no one should think we’re slowing down on our core console engineering. In fact, we’re accelerating it,” said Liz Hamren, corporate vice president of gaming experiences and platforms.

“We’re already hard at work on new hardware and platforms, some of which won’t come to light for years. But even as we build for the future, we’re focused on extending the Xbox experience to more devices today so we can reach more people.”

This isn’t exactly surprising. Consoles start getting designed years in advance, and these days, the mid-life cycle refresh cycle is common. Microsoft has also positioned the latest consoles as a “series” of devices, so it’s possible there will be new entries in the line that remain compatible with the current options.

Cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is set to launch in Brazil, Japan and Australia later this year. Meanwhile, cloud gaming in a web browser, including support for Chrome, Edge and Safari, will go live to Game Pass Ultimate subscribers “in the next few weeks.” The Xbox app on PC will also get cloud gaming integrated this year.

Hamren said that Game Pass has more than 18 million subscribers, though that wasn’t broken down between the console, PC and ultimate plans, (which include game streaming).

The Series X and S haven’t seen a ton of new titles from Microsoft Studios yet, but it sounds like that will change.

“In terms of the overall lineup, we want to get to a point of releasing a new game every quarter…” said Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios. “We know that a thriving entertainment service needs a consistent and exciting flow of new content. So our portfolio will continue to grow as our service grows.”

Xbox has more than 23 studios and also recently acquired ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Game Studios, as well as id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios.

Game Pass games are released simultaneously on PC and Xbox, which Xbox Head Phil Spencer used to poke at its competitors, namely Sony and its

PlayStation 5

“So right now, we’re the only platform shipping games on console, PC and cloud simultaneously,” Spencer said. “Others bring console games to PC years later, not only making people buy their hardware up front, but then charging them a second time to play on PC. And, of course, all of our games are in our subscription service day one, full cross-platform included.” (PlayStation brought Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to PC but long after their PlayStation 4 releases.)

Tim Stuart, the chief financial officer for Xbox, said “we’ll do a lot more in PC for sure.” There have been rumors of big changes to the Microsoft Store on Windows, including making it easier for developers to sell games. That’s another avenue we may see explored soon, as Microsoft explores

what’s next for Windows

later this month, after E3.

The Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase will take place on Sunday, June 13 at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET and will stream on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter.

How to watch the Summer Game Fest’s ‘Kickoff Live’ event

Summer Game Fest 2021, hosted by Geoff Keighley, is getting started with new game announcements two days ahead of E3 2021 with its “Kickoff Live” event. In addition to news, it’s perhaps the only event to feature both an appearance from Jeff Goldblum and a musical performance by Weezer. The list of partners for the preview event includes 2K, Activision, Blizzard, Capcom, InnerSloth, Epic Games, Sony PlayStation, Riot Games, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Microsoft Xbox, and more. Here’s how to watch.

When does Summer Game Fest start?

The kickoff show is happening this Thursday, June 10th at 2PM ET / 11AM PT / 6PM GMT. And like last year’s happenings, it’s all online, so you can just hang out at home and watch all of the announcements from your PC, phone, or TV.

Like last year, there will likely be more Summer Game Fest events throughout the season.

Where can I stream Summer Game Fest?

This game event is being hosted on several platforms, giving you plenty of options. It’s being livestreamed on YouTube (we’ve embedded the video above that’ll go live later), as well as Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook.

Facebook plans first smartwatch for next summer with two cameras, heart rate monitor

Facebook is taking a novel approach to its first smartwatch, which the company hasn’t confirmed publicly but currently plans to debut next summer. The device will feature a display with two cameras that can be detached from the wrist for taking pictures and videos that can be shared across Facebook’s suite of apps, including Instagram, The Verge has learned.

A camera on the front of the watch display exists primarily for video calling, while a 1080p, auto-focus camera on the back can be used for capturing footage when detached from the stainless steel frame on the wrist. Facebook is tapping other companies to create accessories for attaching the camera hub to things like backpacks, according to two people familiar with the project, both of whom requested anonymity to speak without Facebook’s permission.

The idea is to encourage owners of the watch to use it in ways that smartphones are used now. It’s part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to build more consumer devices that circumvent Apple and Google, the two dominant mobile phone platform creators that largely control Facebook’s ability to reach people.

The planned device is Facebook’s first stab at releasing hardware specifically for the wrist, opening up another area of competition with Apple at a time when the two tech giants are already at odds on other fronts. Apple has aggressively positioned itself as a protector of privacy by limiting the kinds of data that apps like Facebook can collect, while Facebook has for years been besieged by scandals regarding its handling of user data. That dynamic could create an uphill battle for Facebook to convince people to buy its forthcoming Apple Watch competitor, especially since it plans to also position the watch as a fitness device with a heart rate monitor.

Facebook is working with the top wireless carriers in the US to support LTE connectivity in the watch, meaning it won’t need to be paired with a phone to work, and sell it in their stores, the people familiar with the matter said. The watch will come in white, black, and gold, and Facebook hopes to initially sell volume in the low six figures. That’s a tiny sliver of the overall smartwatch market — Apple sold 34 million watches last year by comparison, according to Counterpoint Research.

In future versions of the watch, Facebook is planning for it to serve as a key input device for its planned augmented reality glasses, which Zuckerberg thinks will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. The company plans to use technology it acquired from CTRL-labs, a startup that has demonstrated armbands capable of controlling a computer through wrist movements.

Facebook aims to release the first version of the watch in the summer of 2022 and is already working on second and third generations for subsequent years. Employees have recently discussed pricing the device at roughly $400, but the price point could change. While it’s unlikely, Facebook could also scrap the watch altogether, as the device has yet to enter mass production or even be given an official name.

Facebook’s track record for making hardware is spotty. Its 2013 phone with HTC was a spectacular flop, and it has yet to disclose sales for its Oculus VR headsets or Portal video chat device for the home. In recent interviews, executives have said that sales for the Oculus Quest 2 headset have surpassed all previous Oculus headsets combined.

Facebook’s interest in building a smartwatch dates back at least a few years. It looked at acquiring Fitbit in 2019 before Google bought the fitness wearable maker. Since then, the social network has spent roughly $1 billion to develop the first version of its watch and has hundreds of people working on the effort, according to one of the people with knowledge of the matter.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment for this story. The Information earlier reported that Facebook was building a smartwatch with health and messaging features, but details about its cameras and other specifics in this story are new.

Using a custom version of Google’s Android operating system, Facebook plans to lean on its suite of apps and external partnerships to create compelling experiences for the watch, which will include a companion app for phones. Even still, Facebook’s wrist wearable resonating with people is far from guaranteed. Smartwatches with cameras on them have so far failed to catch on, and Apple has cornered the high end of the market already.

Adata Attacked by Ragnar Locker Ransomware Group, Data Reportedly Stolen

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Ragnar Locker has claimed another victim. BleepingComputer reported yesterday that the ransomware group forced Adata to take its systems offline in May. Even though Adata says it has since resumed normal operations, the group claims that it was able to steal 1.5TB of data before the company detected its attack.

It’s not clear how the ransomware attack affected Adata’s ability to manufacture its storage, memory, and power solutions. The company told BleepingComputer that “things are being moved toward the normal track, and business operations are not disrupted for corresponding contingency practices are effective.”

Ragnar Locker has reportedly claimed that it was able to “collect and exfiltrate proprietary business information, confidential files, schematics, financial data, Gitlab and SVN source code, legal documents, employee info, NDAs, and work folders” as part of this attack. But those files have not yet been shared with the public.

The ransomware group has been operating since at least November 2019. Sophos offered some insight into how the ransomware itself operated in May 2020, and the FBI said in November 2020 that it has targeted “cloud service providers, communication, construction, travel, and enterprise software companies.”

It seems Ragnar Locker isn’t bashful, either, with Threatpost reporting in November 2020 that it took out Facebook ads threatening to leak the 2TB of data it stole from Campari Group unless it was paid $15 million in Bitcoin. Other high-profile attacks have targeted Energias de Portugal (a Portuguese electric company) and Capcom.

Ransomware doesn’t necessarily get as much attention as it used to, but attacks are still common, and they’re still able to affect large companies like Adata or Quanta Computer. The attacks often follow the pattern set by Ragnar Locker by attempting to block access to data while simultaneously threatening to leak it to the public.

Attacks continue to target consumers, too, with a recent example being Android ransomware that masqueraded as a mobile version of Cyberpunk 2077 to find its victims. Companies have even started to sell their “self-defending” SSDs to consumers to ease concerns about being targeted by these kinds of attacks.

Adata told BleepingComputer that it is “determined to devote ourselves making the system protected than ever, and yes, this will be our endless practice while the company is moving forward to its future growth and achievements.” Somebody’s gotta make sure those efforts to capitalize on Chia aren’t disrupted again.

Is there any way out of Clearview’s facial recognition database?

In March 2020, two months after The New York Times exposed that Clearview AI had scraped billions of images from the internet to create a facial recognition database, Thomas Smith received a dossier encompassing most of his digital life.

Using the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act, Smith asked Clearview for what they had on him. The company sent him pictures that spanned moments throughout his adult life: a photo from when he got married and started a blog with his wife, another when he was profiled by his college’s alumni magazine, even a profile photo from a Python coding meetup he had attended a few years ago.

“That’s what really threw me: All the things that I had posted to Facebook and figured, ‘Nobody’s going to ever look for that,’ and here it is all laid out in a database,” Smith told The Verge.

Clearview’s massive surveillance apparatus claims to hold 3 billion photos, accessible to any law enforcement agency with a subscription, and it’s likely you or people you know have been scooped up in the company’s dragnet. It’s known to have scraped sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram, and is able to use profile names and associated images to build a trove of identified and scannable facial images.

Little is known about the accuracy of Clearview’s software, but it appears to be powered by a massive trove of scraped and identified images, drawn from social media profiles and other personal photos on the public internet. That scraping is only possible because social media platforms like Facebook have consolidated immense amounts of personal data on their platforms, and then largely ignored the risks of large-scale data analysis projects like Clearview. It took Facebook until 2018 and the Cambridge Analytica scandal to lock down developer tools that could be used to exploit its users’ data. Even after the extent of Clearview’s scraping came to light, Facebook and other tech platforms’ reactions came largely in the form of strongly worded letters asking Clearview to stop scraping their sites.

But with large platforms unable or unwilling to go further, the average person on the internet is left with a difficult choice. Any new pictures that feature you, whether a simple Instagram shot or a photo tagged on a friend’s Facebook page, are potentially grist for the mill of a globe-spanning facial recognition system. But for many people, hiding our faces from the internet doesn’t feel like an option. These platforms are too deeply embedded in public life, and our faces are too central to who we are. The challenge is finding a way to share photos without submitting to the broader scanning systems — and it’s a challenge with no clear answers.

In some ways, this problem is much older than Clearview AI. The internet was built to facilitate the posting of public information, and social media platforms entrenched this idea; Facebook recruited a billion users between 2009 and 2014, when posting publicly on the internet was its default setting. Others like YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn encourage public posting as a way for users to gain influence, contribute to global conversations, and find work.

Historically, one person’s contribution to this unfathomable amount of graduation pics, vacation group shots, and selfies would have meant safety in numbers. You might see a security camera in a convenience store, but it’s unlikely anyone is actually watching the footage. But this kind of thinking is what Clearview thrives on, as automated facial recognition can now pick through this digital glut on the scale of the entire public internet.

“Even when the world involved a lot of surveillance cameras, there wasn’t a great way to analyze the data,” said Catherine Crump, professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Law. “Facial recognition technology and analytics generally have been so revolutionary because they’ve put an end to privacy by obscurity, or it seems they may soon do that.”

This means that you can’t rely on blending in with the crowd. The only way to stop Clearview from gathering your data is by not allowing it on the public internet in the first place. Facebook makes certain information public, without the option to make it private, like your profile picture and cover photo. Private accounts on Instagram also cannot hide profile pictures. If you’re worried about information being scraped from your Facebook or Instagram account, these are the first images to change. LinkedIn, on the other hand, allows you to limit the visibility of your profile picture to only people you’ve connected with.

Outside of Clearview, facial recognition search engines like PimEyes have become popular tools accessible to anyone on the internet, and other enterprise facial recognition apps like FindFace work with oppressive governments across the world.

Another key component to ensuring the privacy of those around you is to make sure you’re not posting pictures of others without consent. Smith, who requested his data from Clearview, was surprised at how many others had been scooped up in the database by just appearing in photos with him, like his friends and his college adviser.

But since some images on the internet, like those on Facebook and Instagram, simply cannot be hidden, some AI researchers are exploring ways to “cloak” images to evade Clearview’s technology, as well as any other facial recognition technology trawling the open web.

In August 2020, a project called Fawkes released by the University of Chicago’s SAND Lab pitched itself as a potential antidote to Clearview’s pervasive scraping. The software works by subtly altering the parts of an image that facial recognition uses to discern one person from another, while trying to preserve how the image looks to humans. This exploit on an AI system is called an “adversarial attack.”

Fawkes highlights the difficulty of designing technology that tries to hide images or limit the accuracy of facial recognition. Clearview draws on hundreds of millions of identities, so while individual users might be able to get some benefit from using the Windows and Mac app developed by the Fawkes team, the database won’t meaningfully suffer from a few hundred thousand fewer profiles.

Ben Zhao, the University of Chicago professor who oversees the Fawkes project, says that Fawkes works only if people are diligent about cloaking all of their images. It’s a big ask, since users would have to juggle multiple versions of every photo they share.

On the other hand, a social media platform like Facebook could tackle the scale of Clearview by integrating a feature like Fawkes into its photo uploading process, though that would simply shift which company has access to your unadulterated images. Users would then have to trust Facebook to not use that access to now-proprietary data for their own ad targeting or other tracking.

Zhao and other privacy experts agree that adversarial tricks like Fawkes aren’t a silver bullet that will be used to defeat coordinated scraping campaigns, even those for facial recognition databases. Evading Clearview will take more than just one technical fix or privacy checkup nudge on Facebook. Instead, platforms will need to rethink how data is uploaded and maintained online, and which data can be publicly accessed at all. This would mean fewer public photos and fewer opportunities for Clearview to add new identities to its database.

Jennifer King, privacy and data policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, says one approach is for data to be automatically deleted after a certain amount of time. Part of what makes services like Snapchat more private (when set up properly) than Facebook or Instagram is its dedication to short-lived media posted mainly to small, trusted groups of people.

Laws in some states and countries are also starting to catch up with privacy threats online. These laws circumvent platforms like Facebook and instead demand accountability from the companies actually scraping the data. The California Consumer Privacy Act allows residents to ask for a copy of the data that companies like Clearview have on them, and similar provisions exist in the European Union. Some laws mandate that the data must be deleted at the user’s request.

But King notes that just because the data is deleted once doesn’t mean the company can’t simply grab it again.

“It’s not a permanent opt-out,” she said. “I’m concerned that you execute that ‘delete my data’ request on May 31st, and on June 1st, they can go back to collecting your data.”

So if you’re going to lock down your online presence, make sure to change your privacy settings and remove as many images as possible before asking companies to delete your data.

But ultimately, to prevent bad actors like Clearview from obtaining data in the first place, users are at the mercy of social media platforms’ policies. After all, it’s the current state of privacy settings that has allowed a company like Clearview to exist at all.

“There’s a lot you can do to safeguard your data or claw it back, but ultimately, for there to be change here, it needs to happen collectively, through legislation, through litigation, and through people coming together and deciding what privacy should look like,” Smith said. “Even people coming together and saying to Facebook, ‘I need you to protect my data more.’”

How to use a two-factor security key

Two-factor authentication is a good way to add an extra layer of security to online accounts. It requires the use of your smartphone, however, which is not only inconvenient, but can be a problem if your phone is lost or breached. Hardware security keys can offer an additional layer of security to password-protected online accounts and, in turn, your identity. They’re also not hard to install. Here’s how to set them up for your Google account, Facebook, and Twitter.

Security keys can connect to your system using USB-A, USB-C, Lightning, or NFC, and they’re small enough to be carried on a keychain (with the exception of Yubico’s 5C Nano key, which is so small that it’s safest when kept in your computer’s USB port). They use a variety of authentication standards: FIDO2, U2F, smart card, OTP, and OpenPGP 3.

When you insert a security key into your computer or connect one wirelessly, your browser issues a challenge to the key, which includes the domain name of the specific site you are trying to access. The key then cryptographically signs and allows the challenge, logging you in to the service.

Many sites support U2F security keys, including Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram, GitHub, Dropbox, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft account services, Nintendo, Okta, and Reddit. The best thing to do is to check the website of your security key of choice and see which services are supported — for example, here’s a link to the apps supported by YubiKeys.

A setup process is necessary before you can use a security key. After that, securely accessing your online profile on a site is a simple matter of entering your password, inserting the key, and tapping the button.

Keep in mind that you can’t copy, migrate, or save security-key data between keys (even if the keys are the same model). That is by design, so keys can’t be easily duplicated and used elsewhere. If you lose your security key, you can use two-factor authentication on your cellphone or an authenticator app. Then, if you want to use a new key, you will have to go through the process of reauthorizing your accounts all over again.

Which security key should I use?

Several brand choices are available. Yubico, one of the developers of the FIDO U2F authentication standard, sells several different versions. Google sells its own U2F key, called the Titan, which comes in three versions: USB-C, USB-A / NFC, or Bluetooth / NFC / USB. Other U2F keys include Kensington’s USB-A fingerprint-supporting key, and the Thetis USB-A key.

For this how-to, we used the YubiKey 5C NFC security key, which fits into a USB-C port but also works with phones via NFC. The process is pretty similar for all hardware security keys, though.

Pairing a key with your Google account

In order to use a security key with your Google account (or any account), you need to have already set up two-factor authentication.

Log in to your Google account, and select your profile icon in the upper-right corner. Then choose “Manage your Google Account.”
In the left-hand menu, click on “Security.” Scroll down until you see “Signing in to Google.” Click on the “2-step Verification” link. At this point, you may need to sign in to your account again.

Go to “Security” > “Signing in to Google” > “2-step Verification.”

Scroll down until you see the “Add more second steps to verify it’s you” heading. Look for the “Security Key” option and click on “Add Security Key.”
A pop-up box will list your options, which include devices that have built-in security keys and the option to use an external security key. Select “USB or Bluetooth / External security key.”
You’ll see a box telling you to make sure the key is nearby but not plugged in. You’ll also see an option to use only the security key as part of Google’s Advanced Protection Program (which is for users with “high visibility and sensitive information”). Assuming you don’t fall into that category, click “Next.”
The next box lets you register your security key. Insert your key into your computer port. Press the button on the key, then click “Allow” once you see the Chrome pop-up asking to read the make and model of your key.
Give your key a name.
Now you’re set! You can come back to your Google account’s 2FA page to rename or remove your key.

Pairing a key with your Twitter account

Log in to your Twitter account and click on “More” in the left-hand column. Select “Settings and privacy” from the menu.
Under the “Settings” heading, select “Security and account access” > “Security” > “Two-factor authentication.”
You’ll see three choices: “Text message,” “Authentication app,” and “Security key.” Click on “Security key.” You’ll probably be asked for your password at this point.
Select “Start.”

Once your security key is registered, you receive a just-in-case backup code (deleted here).

Insert your security key into your computer’s port, then press the key’s button.
The window should refresh to say, “Security key found.” Type in a name for your key and click “Next.”
The window will now read “You’re all set.” It will also give you a single-use backup code to use if you don’t have access to any of your other log-in methods. Copy that code and put it somewhere safe.
If you’ve changed your mind and want to remove the security key, go back to the “Two-factor authentication” page and select “Manage security keys.”
Click on the name of the key, and then choose “Delete key.” You’ll need to enter your password and verify that you want to delete the key.

Pairing a key with your Facebook account

Log in to your Facebook account. Click on the triangle icon on the upper-right corner and select “Settings & Privacy” > “Settings.”
Now you’re at “General Account Settings.” Select the “Security and Login” link from the left sidebar.
Scroll down until you see the section labeled “Two-Factor Authentication.” Click “Edit” on the “Use two-factor authentication” option. You may be asked for your password.
If you don’t have 2FA set up, you’ll be given three choices: “Authentication App,” “Text Message (SMS),” and “Security Key.” It’s recommended that you use an authenticator app as your primary security, but if you prefer, you can just click on “Security Key.”

You can use a security key as your main authentication method.

If you do have 2FA set up, then you’ll find the “Security Key” option under “Add a Backup Method.”
Either way, you’ll get a pop-up box; click on “Register Security Key.” You’ll be instructed to insert your security key and press its button.
And that’s it. If you don’t use 2FA, you’ll now be asked for the security key if you log in from an unrecognized device or browser. If you do, you can use your key if you don’t have access to your authentication app.
If you no longer want to use the key, go back to “Two-Factor Authentication,” find “Security Key” under “Your Security Method,” and click on “Manage my keys.”

Will Apple end the newsletter boom?

Today, let’s talk about one of Apple’s many announcements this week at its Worldwide Developer Conference, which some see as a possible threat to the rise of journalism distributed by email. If that sounds self-indulgent, given that it’s coming from a journalist who distributes his work via email, I apologize. But it touches on so many of the subjects of interest to us here — a tech giant’s ability to reshape markets to its liking; how journalism will navigate the platform era; what we mean when we talk about privacy — that I hope I can pique your interest at least a little.

I.

Start with the announcement. On Monday at WWDC, Apple announced Mail Privacy Protection, which will limit the amount of data that people who send you emails can collect about you. Here’s how the company describes it:

In the Mail app, Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. The new feature helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email, and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.

When you eventually update your iPhone to iOS 15 this fall, you’ll see a screen at launch that invites you to opt in.

Let’s assume most Apple Mail users opt in. How necessary is this data to building email-based businesses? Over the past day I’ve read and heard lots of disagreement.

Some quick background for the non-email obsessives. Long ago, email marketers began including invisible pixels in the emails they send you; when you open their messages, those pixels load, telling the sender that you read their message, and might also infer your location from your IP address.

Collectively, the percentage of people that actually open emails is known as the open rate, and it’s one of the most important metrics that senders measure to gauge the effectiveness of what they’re doing. It gives you a sense of how engaged your audience is, and how that engagement is changing over time.

At the same time, there is a fairly long tradition of people finding this creepy. The email startup Superhuman had to apologize in 2019 after a viral blog post explained how the company tracked when, where, and how often people opened emails sent through its service. The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that often focuses on issues of data privacy, turned down eight potential email providers before finding one that would agree to turn off tracking capabilities.

Last year, when Basecamp launched the email service Hey, it made the blocking of tracking pixels a marquee feature. In a blog post today, Basecamp cofounder David Heinemeier Hansson — no fan of Apple in general! — declared victory against tracking pixels. He wrote:

Given Apple’s monopoly advantage with their preinstalled Mail app, we don’t need much of an uptake from what they’re calling Mail Privacy Protection to break the dam on spy pixels. You can’t really say anything authoritatively about open rates if 5-10-30-50% of your recipients are protected against snooping, as you won’t know whether that’s why your spy pixel isn’t tripping, or it’s because they’re just not opening your email.

There’s also simply no way users are going to willingly accept the premise of spy pixels if Apple presents the privacy dangers as clearly and as honestly as we’ve done in HEY. Apple already showed that with their drive to block unique ad identifiers for cross-app tracking in iOS 14.5: 96% of users in the US have declined to let apps track them like that! And email spy pixels are far worse and much creepier.

II.

Let’s stipulate a few things up front. One, most people still don’t know that these spy pixels exist. Two, if they did, most people probably wouldn’t allow them if given the choice. Three, the majority of these spy pixels are used for marketing purposes — efforts to target you better for e-commerce. I do not think it is at all irrational to look at the state of affairs the way Apple did, and say to hell with it.

At the same time, email-based publishing has been of the few bright spots for journalism in recent years. (Certainly it has been a bright spot for me!) Media companies from Facebook to Twitter to the New York Times are now investing heavily in newsletter strategies; new email-based publishers are popping up seemingly every week. Much of this has come in the wake of the success of Substack, which I use to publish Platformer (see disclosure).

And so it’s no surprise that some observers look at Mail Privacy Protection and see a threat. “This is another sign that Apple’s war against targeted advertising isn’t just about screwing Facebook,” Joshua Benton wrote in Nieman Lab. “They’re also coming for your Substack.”

Benton brings some powerful numbers to buttress his worries: “The most recent market-share numbers from Litmus, for May 2021, 93.5% of all email opens on phones come in Apple Mail on iPhones or iPads,” he writes. “On desktop, Apple Mail on Mac is responsible for 58.4% of all email opens.”

It seems clear that Apple’s move to cut off granular customer data from email senders will affect the email economy. But after conversations with newsletter writers and media executives today, I’m not sure that people doing email-based journalism have all that much to worry about from the shift.

“The advertising industry has addicted itself to tracking, prioritizing bottom of the funnel metrics at the expense of great content and creative. It’s tragic,” said Alex Kantrowitz, author of the free, ad-supported newsletter Big Technology. (He previously covered the industry for Ad Age.) “And it’s why people hate advertising and ad companies.”

Kantrowitz told me that his ad inventory was sold out for the first half of the year, thanks to a premium audience he identified not by pixel-based tracking but by a good old-fashioned reader survey. (The Markup, too, has used reader surveys to build a picture of its user base.)

“Pixel blocking makes placements like this more valuable and gives quality email newsletters a leg up on the junk clogging most people’s inboxes,” Kantrowitz said.

For ad-based newsletters, then, Mail Privacy Protection is likely to spur publishers to find other ways to understand their audiences. But what about paid newsletters, like the one this column is syndicated from?

Apple’s move may affect reader-supported newsletters even less, publishing industry executives told me today. Writers can triangulate reader engagement by plenty of metrics that are still available to them, including the views their stories get on the web, the overall growth of their mailing list, and — most meaningful of all — the growth of their revenue.

The media business changes so quickly that I don’t find it at all irrational to read about a move like the one Apple made this week and assume it will be bad for journalism. But in this case, it mostly strikes me as a false alarm. There are any number of changes that major email providers including Apple, Google, and Microsoft could make that would make life more difficult for newsletter-based businesses. In the end, though, I don’t think blocking spy pixels is one of them.

III.

All that said, I can’t end without pointing out the ways in which Apple itself benefits from cracking down on email data collection. The first one is obvious: it further burnishes the company’s privacy credentials, part of an ongoing and incredibly successful public-relations campaign to build user trust during a time of collapsing faith in institutions.

Taken together, the numerous iOS 15 features focused on user privacy combine to place more pressure on the digital ad ecosystem. Perhaps most notably, “Private Relay” — available to paying subscribers of Apple’s iCloud+ service — will encrypt all traffic leaving a user’s device, making them harder for advertisers to track.

One of my more cynical friends views all this as a way to funnel more businesses to building apps, offering in-app purchases, and promoting them with Apple’s advertising products. Marketing emails not working as well as they used to? Sounds like it’s time to buy some keywords in the App Store!

And what of creators who want to move away from the ad model? Apple will be there, ready and waiting to take a 30 percent cut of Twitter Super Follows, paid podcasts, and ticketed Facebook events.

It’s sometimes said that Amazon’s ultimate goal is to take a cut of all economic activity. Looking at Apple’s privacy moves this week, I’m mostly willing to take them at face value — as a necessary counter-balance to the inexorable rise of tracking technologies around the web. But it also seems clear that the value to Apple goes far beyond customer satisfaction — and as its revenues from ads and in-app purchases grow, we’d do well to keep an eye on how its policies are gradually reshaping the economy.

This column was co-published with Platformer, a daily newsletter about Big Tech and democracy.

How to use Screen Time to keep your iPhone use within healthy limits

We all spend a lot of time on our phones, and it’s possible — just possible — that some of us spend too much time. In 2018, we ran an article explaining how to use what was then Apple’s brand-new Screen Time feature, which was built in order to help people keep their on-screen time in some sort of sane proportion.

At the time (which was when iOS 12 came out), you could use Screen Time to check how much time you spent on your phone, use an App Limits feature to limit your (or your kids’) daily time spent on various apps or types of apps, or use its Downtime feature to cut off access to all (except a few) apps.

Since then, and especially since iOS 13 came out, Screen Time has been expanded, making it easier to lock down apps and / or limit your screentime. (There have been no additional features announced so far for the upcoming iOS 15, but we’ll add them here if there are.)

To begin using Screen Time, go to “Settings” > “Screen Time.” Here are some of the things you can do.

Daily Average

At the top of the Screen Time app, you can see an accounting of your activity over the course of the day. Click on “See All Activity” to see a breakdown of which specific apps you used and how long you used them.

Downtime

Downtime lets you set periods when you want to force yourself to give your eyes a rest and avoid staring at the screen. It does this by locking down the apps with which you are most likely to spend time. These lockdowns are not absolute — as you’ll see later, you can cancel Downtime when you need to.

Begin by choosing when you want to start your time away from your phone.

Tap on “Downtime” and toggle it on.
Select the days (it can be every day or just on specific days) and times that you want to avoid getting swallowed by your favorite iPhone apps. During those times, only specified apps that you pre-selected (along with phone calls) will be allowed through. For example, you can disable Facebook and Twitter during working hours, but keep the Messages app going for texts. (We’ll go over how to choose which apps to disable in a moment.)
You’ll get a warning before Downtime kicks in. If you need to keep working on an app, don’t worry — you’ll be given the chance to ask for one more minute, to be reminded in another 15 minutes, or to ignore the limit for today.

Keep in mind that Downtime, and the other Screen Time features, can be applied to all your devices that use iCloud. So if you set it on your iPhone, for example, it can apply to your Mac or iPad as well. To share your settings across your devices, go to the Screen Time main screen and toggle “Share Across Devices” on.

Now that you’ve chosen when you want some downtime, you’ll probably want to select which apps should be allowed to remain active.

Back in the Screen Time main screen, select “Always Allowed.” Here you can choose which apps you will still have access to during downtime.

You’ll see two sets of apps: Allowed Apps and Choose Apps.
To select an app you’ll always want access to, even during downtime, tap on the app’s name in Choose Apps and it will appear in the Allowed Apps list.
If you want to disallow any of the Allowed Apps, tap on the minus sign next to the app, and then on “Remove.”

There are more ways to personalize Downtime. Let’s say you want to get alerted about text messages from specific people — you’re planning to concentrate on a project and don’t want to hear from any of your friends, but you still want to get texts from family members. You can do that.

On the same “Always Allowed” page, tap on “Contacts” at the top of the page.
Under “Allowed Communication,” select “Specific Contacts” and choose which contacts you want to allow through, even during downtime.

Note that the “Allowed Communication” page is also accessible from the main Screen Time page.

App Limits

Another way to keep your app use in check is to limit the amount of time you use an app (rather than setting what time of day you can use it). For example, if Twitter tends to be your personal black hole, you can decide not to spend more than, say, two hours on Twitter each day.

To set your app limits:

In the Screen Time screen, select “App Limits” > “Add Limit.” Toggle “App Limits” on and tap on “Add Limit.”
You’ll see a list of categories, such as “Social,” “Games,” and “Entertainment.” Tap on a specific category, and it will open up to show a list of all your apps that are in that category.

Select the apps that you want to limit — or select an entire category to choose all the apps in that category.
Tap on “Next” in the upper right corner.
Select the maximum amount of time you can use the app(s) on a daily basis. When you reach your limit, you’ll be interrupted by a screen that lets you either apply the limit (just tap on the “OK” button), or shrug and select “Ignore Limit.”
If you choose the latter, you can get one more minute, ask to be reminded in 15 minutes, or decide to ignore the limit for today.

Note: if for any reason you don’t want to use an app at all, except for on rare occasions, you can set the Screen Time to 23 hours and 59 minutes. The app will then be out of reach unless you go back into “Settings” > “Screen Time” > “App Limits” and disable the limit.

Screen Time Passcode

If you want to keep certain apps out of the reach of your kids — or your roommate — then you can create a passcode that will be needed to make any changes to Screen Time. The passcode is also useful if you feel you need an extra barrier before you undo one of your limitations.

Go to Screen Time and tap on “Use Screen Time Passcode.”
Set a four-digit passcode, and then reenter it when asked.
Enter your Apple ID and password so that you can use it if you’ve forgotten your passcode.

And that’s it. If you want to change or delete your passcode, go back to Screen Time and select “Change Screen Time Passcode.”

Content & Privacy Restrictions

The last selection in Screen Time isn’t as much concerned with when you use your iPhone as with what you see or hear on it. Select “Content & Privacy Restrictions” if you want to allow or restrict explicit content, keep TV shows or movies to certain ratings, set an age limit for apps, limit which websites are allowed, and set a number of different limits on games (such as multiplayer games, connecting with friends, or private messaging).

Most of this is geared toward parents who want to oversee what their kids see and hear online, but if you’d rather avoid accidentally crashing into any “adult” websites, it could be useful. There are also a number of privacy features, such as stopping Apple advertising, or not allowing apps to change the settings of your microphone, Bluetooth sharing, and other features.

Amazon’s new Echo Show 8 is a little faster and has a better camera

Amazon’s midsize Echo Show 8 is the best smart display in its lineup. It is larger and more capable than the diminutive Echo Show 5, while costing far less than the larger Echo Show 10. The Echo Show 8 is handy for watching video, listening to music, getting weather reports, controlling smart home devices, making video calls, and more.

So it’s no surprise that the second-generation model, which sells for $129.99 and is shipping this week, doesn’t rock the boat. It’s largely the same smart display as before but with slightly faster performance and an improved video calling camera. It has the same display, same design, same speaker system, and the same set of features as its predecessor.

Improving the video calling capabilities makes sense, given how much video calling has been done while everyone was (and for large part, still is) stuck at home during the pandemic. The new Echo Show 8 borrows the 13-megapixel camera from the flagship Echo Show 10, replacing the pathetically low-resolution, mediocre 1-megapixel camera that was in the first gen. As before, there’s a mechanical privacy shutter you can slide in front of the camera to both disable it and block its view.

The improvements in video calls are immediately noticeable. You can use the Echo Show for video calls to the Alexa app on phones or other Echo Show devices, or you can join Skype, Zoom, or Amazon’s Chime calls from it. In my testing with Zoom calls, the image is much sharper and more pleasant to look at, with better color and much more detail.

The Echo Show 8 doesn’t have the motorized base on the bigger Echo Show 10, but it still can automatically frame you and follow you around as you move thanks to its high resolution. The autoframing isn’t as good as the new iPad Pro’s Center Stage feature, and it moves much slower and tends to constantly reframe itself, like you’re the star of a Ken Burns documentary. But the Echo Show is a $130 smart display, not an $800 tablet, so it’s hard to complain, so long as you stay relatively still during video calls. If you don’t want the camera to autoframe, you can say “Alexa follow off” to disable it.

You can use the Echo Show 8 for Zoom calls, but it works best for one-on-one calling, not groups

That said, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. The new camera has a much wider-angle lens, which allows it to do those auto-framing tricks. But it can also cause the image to look distorted at times and isn’t always very flattering.

The Echo Show 8’s eight-inch display works fine for one-on-one video calls, but it’s too small to comfortably use for a group call. If you are on a call where someone is sharing a screen, it’s hard to see what’s happening, and while you can view messages posted to a chat, you can’t type any out yourself on the Echo Show’s display. Joining Zoom calls can be done entirely by voice, but it’s much easier to call up the Zoom app on the Echo Show by saying “Alexa, open Zoom” and then typing in a meeting code or starting one yourself from the touchscreen.

I also observed an echo of my own voice in several Zoom calls, both with individuals and group calls, which made it hard to use the Echo Show for anything work related. Other parties on the line also said there was an annoying echo of my voice whenever I unmuted my mic. Amazon says it is looking into this problem and I will update this review if a solution is found.

The new processor in the second-gen Echo Show 8 does make the smart display respond quicker to taps and swipes than its predecessor. It’s not a huge difference, and Amazon’s software still has a long way to go to make it more useful via touch, but when compared side by side, the new one opens menus and screens quicker.

Elsewhere, the changes are either nonexistent or very minor. The wedge-shaped design is exactly the same; you can still get it in the same white or black color options as before. (Annoyingly, both colors come with a white power cord.)

The display has the same 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, but now it can adjust its color and white balance to the lighting in the room. Like the new processor, the difference isn’t huge, but the new model is slightly warmer and more pleasant to look at when the adaptive color setting is enabled. I’m still more impressed by the ability of Google’s Nest Hub to mimic the look of a printed photo by adapting its color to the lighting in the room.

The dual-driver speaker system is unchanged and it’s as loud and full sounding as the first gen. The Echo Show 8 can fill a small room with sound surprisingly well, and its bass response is better than expected. At times, it might even sound too bassy, but you can adjust the EQ in the Alexa app easily enough to compensate for that. Unfortunately, Amazon dropped the 3.5mm output jack on the back of the new model, so it’s not possible to hook it up to a larger speaker system with a wire.

You can watch Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix on the Echo Show, but Disney Plus, Peacock, HBO Max, and many other streaming services aren’t available. YouTube is available through the Echo Show’s Silk browser, but it’s not as seamless of an experience as available on Google’s Nest Hub, and you can’t easily cast videos from your phone to the Show’s screen.

The Echo Show 8’s software is the same as what debuted on the Echo Show 10 earlier this year. Amazon is starting to make better use of the display, with split screens that show weather data alongside news, but it still feels very much like a voice-first device. Though the new Echo Show 8 is faster, it’s still a chore to tap through all of the screens to get to the smart home controls, and managing what shows up in the rotating information screens on the display requires a lot of menu diving and trial and error to get what you want. (And even then, you’ll still probably get nagged about new Alexa Skills or other Amazon promotions you don’t care about.)

There are of course many, many other things you can do with an Echo Show smart display — far too many to cover in the scope of this review. The things that I find it most useful for are weather reports, managing a grocery shopping list, and viewing the video feed from a doorbell or security camera.

The Echo Show 8’s main competition is the second-gen Nest Hub from Google, which has a slightly smaller seven-inch screen and costs $30 less. The Nest Hub supports more video streaming services, has a more useful touch interface, can track your sleep, and works with the Google Assistant instead of Alexa. But it doesn’t have a camera for video calling, its single speaker is blown away by the Echo Show’s dual speakers, and it’s much slower and laggy to use. Ultimately, the choice comes down to how you want to use the smart display and which smart assistant you prefer.

Facebook’s 10-inch Portal is another option if you plan to use a smart display primarily for video calling, but it loses to the Echo Show 8 in effectively every other aspect.

If you do prefer Alexa, the new Echo Show 8 remains the best smart display to get, as it has a big enough screen to read from across the room, doubles as a great speaker, and comes with a host of camera-related features, including the aforementioned video calling and security camera features. It’s also over $100 less than the motorized Echo Show 10, while still providing many of the same features and capabilities. And given Amazon’s frequent discounts, you’ll likely be able to find the new Echo Show 8 for less than its sticker price quite often.

The new Echo Show 8 doesn’t redefine what a smart display can be, but it’s still a very good virtual assistant with a screen for an attractive price.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Twitter may be close to launching Super Follows, as new research shows what it could look like

Twitter announced earlier this year it was working on a Super Follows feature that would allow some users to charge followers and give them access to extra content. On Sunday, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted screenshots of what she says it will look like.

According to Wong’s research, which is typically very accurate, the Super Follows program will be limited to Twitter users with at least 10,000 followers, who have posted at least 25 tweets within the past 30 days, and are at least 18 years old. As Twitter has referenced, one of the main features of Super Follows will be bonus content, such as exclusive tweets for Super Followers.

Wong also discovered a list of content categories that Super Follows users would choose from to describe their content (such as “sports” or “podcasting”), and notes that “adult content” and “OnlyFans” are listed as “content platforms” along with Facebook, Substack, Patreon, Twitch, and YouTube.

Twitter is working on Super Follows application

Requirements:

– Have at least 10000 followers

– Have posted at least 25 Tweets in past 30 days

– Be at least 18 years old

notably, “Adult content” and “OnlyFans” are mentioned in the category and platform sections https://t.co/qSEjh0ohm8 pic.twitter.com/yvkzx672V2

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 6, 2021

Twitter declined to comment about Wong’s latest research on Sunday. But It’s previously described the Patreon-like Super Follows feature as a kind of subscription, providing an example where a Super Follows user charged $4.99 per month for users to get access to “perks.”

It’s the latest direct payments feature Twitter has introduced in recent weeks; in May it began testing Tip Jar, which lets users make one-time payments to creators directly on Twitter by clicking a dollar bill icon on their Twitter profile. Twitter doesn’t take a cut of Tip Jar donations, which supports several payment options including Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo. It’s not clear how payments would be structured for Super Follows, but it seems likely Twitter would take a percentage.

Twitter’s product team has been busy this year, introducing several new features including its Twitter Blue subscription service which is testing in Canada and Australia. It’s also reopened, then closed, then reopened again its verification program, updated its warnings for potentially offensive tweets, improved its photo cropping algorithm to allow “taller” images to fully display in users’ feeds, added the ability for Android users to search their direct messages, and acquired Scroll, the $5-per-month subscription service that removes ads from participating websites.