Новости за 14.01.2021

What Samsung used to advertise, but not anymore. | Photo: Samsung (via 9to5Google)

There was a time I would have railed against a gadget maker for daring to ship a phone without a charger.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A coalition of health and tech companies, which includes Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle, is working on an initiative that aims to make it easier for people to access their COVID-19 vaccination records digitally. As people are beginning to get vaccinated against COVID-19, they may need to prove that they’re vaccinated so that they can return to work, school, or to travel, and having an easily accessible digital vaccination record could help with that. Читать дальше...

Image: Samsung

Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra no longer support the convenient Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) feature of Samsung Pay. And based on what the company told Android Police, the same will be true for all phones that Samsung releases from here on out.

Image: Razer

One of the biggest announcements at CES 2021 seemed to come and go without much fanfare. Overshadowed by Nvidia’s debut of its RTX 3000-series graphics chips for laptops, you might have missed hearing that a growing number of manufacturers are finally building fast-refreshing QHD screens into their portable gaming machines.

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Instacart will give its shoppers — the workers who pick and fill grocery store orders for customers — a $25 stipend for the time they take off to get a coronavirus vaccine, the company announced Thursday.

Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland. Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland with glaciers and the Greenland ice cap retreating. | Photo by Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto via Getty Images

2020 ranks among the hottest years on record, several science agencies said today. NASA said that 2020 shares the top spot with 2016, following a similar determination by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service last week. The World Meteorological Association (WMO), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)... Читать дальше...

Fitbit’s recent Sense smartwatch. | Photo by Brent Rose for The Verge

Google has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, the company announced today. The news follows the EU’s announcement late last year that it had approved the deal, after Google made a series of commitments about its planned operation of Fitbit and use of the its health data.

Photo: Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Samsung will be presenting its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S21, today at the streaming event titled Galaxy Unpacked 2021. The company is so confident that people will want the new device that it is inviting people to get in line to preorder before the phone is actually introduced.

The new Philips Hue Wall Switch Module make the switch smart, not the bulb. | Image: Philips Hue

Signify is introducing three new Philips Hue products today: an in-wall Hue module for existing light switches, a new outdoor light bar, and a refined dimmer.

Windows 10X running on a single-screen device.

After years of waiting, it looks like Microsoft now has a true answer to Chrome OS. A new and near-final version of Windows 10X has leaked, and it offers a first look at the changes Microsoft has made to the upcoming operating system to get it ready for laptops. Windows 10X first started off life as a variant of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen devices. It was supposed to launch alongside Microsoft’s Surface Neo, a tablet-like device with... Читать дальше...

BMW’s all-electric iX will be first to support the Digital Key Plus feature. | Image: BMW

BMW has announced an upgraded version of its mobile car key technology dubbed Digital Key Plus. It promises to allow iPhone owners to unlock select BMW cars without having to take out their phones. The feature relies on ultra wideband (UWB) which has been included in Apple’s flagship iPhones since the iPhone 11 thanks to the U1 chip. Digital Key Plus will debut on the all-electric BMW iX which launches... Читать дальше...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Today, Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and Galaxy S21 Ultra (I’ll take the Zune-inspired brown one thanks). It’s happening a couple months earlier than usual for the S line of phones, but otherwise the script will remain the same.

The technology makes for smaller bezels, without having to relocate the laptop’s webcam. | Image: Samsung Display

Samsung Display has released a teaser for its under-screen camera technology meant for laptops, dubbed “Samsung Blade Bezel,” on its Weibo page. It promises that its “UPC” (Under Panel Camera) tech can make a laptop’s bezels smaller without having to relocate its webcam, while also making the OLED display itself be both thinner and lighter. There’s no mention of the impact of the technology on the webcam’s image quality... Читать дальше...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Oculus Quest headsets will soon support multiple users, Facebook has announced. The functionality will allow Quest owners to set secondary accounts on their headsets, which will allow other people to log in and access content shared by the primary user while maintaining separate save data and achievements.

Universal Studios Japan has announced that Super Nintendo World will not be opening next month as planned. The Nintendo-themed zone of the Osaka park was supposed to open on February 4th after its launch was delayed from last year, but with Osaka being placed under a state of emergency declaration yesterday until at least February 7th, that’s no longer going to happen. USJ says it will announce a new opening date once the state of emergency has been lifted.

The Pixel 4a 5G’s 6.2-inch touchscreen has been acting up for some users. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google says it’s aware of a problem with Pixel 4A 5G touchscreens and is working on a fix. Some devices are failing to respond consistently to taps on the lower part of the screen, which is particularly impacting folks who have opted for three-button navigation rather than swipes. Android Police spotted complaints from 4A 5G owners experiencing the issue, which seems... Читать дальше...

Image: SQFMI

If you’ve ever wanted to be like Steve Wozniak and have your own custom-made, geeky watch, Squarofumi (stylized SQFMI) may have the product for you: an open-source, Arduino-powered smartwatch with a 1.54-inch e-paper screen (via Gizmodo). It’s called the Watchy, and both the hardware and software are completely customizable. You can, however, use it right out of the box, as the PCB acts as the body and has points to attach a watch strap. And to top it all off, it’s only $50, on sale for $45 at time of writing. Читать дальше...

On January 8th, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump, and proceeded to play whack-a-mole as he attempted to dodge that ban by using different Twitter accounts, each of which Twitter suspended in turn.

Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images

Snapchat will permanently terminate President Trump’s account, Snap announced on Wednesday. Snap had indefinitely suspended Trump’s account last week after he incited a pro-Trump mob to attack the US Capitol, and it has now made the decision to make that suspension permanent. The news was first reported by Axios.

Image: @We_The_Techies

You’ve seen the leaks, renders, and leaked renders. Now, only a day before the launch, you can see what the entire Galaxy S21 lineup looks like in a real person’s hand, thanks to Twitter user Mr.Techie (via Android Authority).

Photo by Lee Quinones

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked Tesla to recall some 158,000 Model S and Model X vehicles that could suffer from failing display consoles, according to a letter published by the agency on Wednesday. The failures of the so-called “media control units” in these vehicles can sever the owner’s access to their vehicle’s backup camera, climate controls, and Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system, increasing the risk of a crash, the safety agency says. Читать дальше...

Image: Asus

Asus has announced a new fanless addition to its family of Chromeboxes: the Asus Fanless Chromebox. Like Asus’ previous models, the Fanless Chromebox’s compact size is designed to be mounted to the back of a display or desk to save space in size-conscious work environments. Perhaps unintentionally, it also looks almost exactly like a wireless router.

Asus announced its new ZenBeam Latte at CES 2021 today, and it’s kind of cute. It’s a mobile movie projector that looks like a one-eyed, fabric-covered mini-robot of sorts. Importantly, it fires out its 720p image using up to 300 lumens of LED light, making it brighter than capsule projectors we’ve seen from the likes of Anker, and it has an integrated 10W Harman Kardon-tuned speaker system to boot.

Samsung

All of the things we’re expecting to unpack on January 14th

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Qualcomm has just made a splashy acquisition in the chip market that’s sure to shake up the semiconductor industry in substantial fashion. The company Qualcomm is purchasing, Nuvia, was formed in 2019 by three former engineers and chip specialists, all of whom worked at Apple on the A-series chip line that powers the iPhone and iPad. And now, Qualcomm is paying an eye-popping $1.4 billion for the firm, placing a huge bet on the team’s talent and... Читать дальше...