Новости за 19.08.2021

Policy groups have asked Apple to abandon plans to scan iPhones for images of abuse | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An international coalition of policy and civil rights groups published an open letter Thursday asking Apple to “abandon its recently announced plans to build surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads and other Apple products.” The groups include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now, Privacy International, and the Tor Project. Читать дальше...

Just try not reading it as “SuperDrive.” | Image: Supdrive on Twitter

Dom Hofmann, one of Vine’s founders and the creator of Byte and Peach, has a new project called Supdrive. In his tweet announcing Supdrive, he calls it an “on-chain fantasy game console,” which doesn’t necessarily make it any more obvious as to what this project will look like. He’s since explained in an announcement post, which you can read below, that it’ll be a video game console that plays classic-style games (in the vein of Pacman or Asteroid)... Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple products are often leaked because they’re immensely popular, the company is protective of its plans, and people are willing to pay for just about any information on a new product. A new must-read report from Motherboard shows that not everyone selling Apple leaks is on the up-and-up, and not because of the information they’re peddling. Some leakers are working for Apple.

Motorola has a new version of its $700 Edge smartphone, bringing better cameras, a more modern processor, and an updated design.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is announcing its first price increase for its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services in a decade. The price increases will affect commercial and business users of Microsoft’s software as a service (SaaS) offerings next year, with no changes to pricing for education or consumers.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Newly unredacted sections of Epic’s antitrust complaint against Google reveal new details on the lengths to which Google went to undermine third-party app stores on the Android platform. According to the new text, starting in 2019, Google ran a “Premier Device Program” that gave Android phone makers a greater share of search revenue than they would normally receive. In exchange, the OEMs agreed to ship their devices without any third-party app stores preinstalled. Читать дальше...

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Google quietly paid game developers hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to keep their games on the Play Store, a newly unredacted complaint from Epic Games in its antitrust suit against Google alleges. The program was known as “Project Hug,” or later as the “Apps and Games Velocity Program.”

A screenshot from Grand Theft Auto V. | Image: Rockstar Games

In May 2020, Epic Games offered Grand Theft Auto V for free on the Epic Games Store, a deal that proved to be so popular it took down the store for more than eight hours. And thanks to documents discovered as part of the Epic v. Apple trial, we now have an idea of just how popular the deal was: according to an internal Epic slide, it brought more than 7 million new users to Epic’s online marketplace.

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

Video sharing site OnlyFans, best known for its creators’ adult videos and photos, will prohibit sexually explicit content starting October 1st. First reported by Bloomberg, the company says it is making the changes because of pressure from its banking and payment provider partners.

The OnePlus N200, a sub-$300 phone, is the kind of budget device the company is offering in the US. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

OnePlus may be getting ready to launch another variant of its 9-series phones, the 9 RT, according to an Android Central source. Based on the report, it looks to be a slightly upgraded version of the OnePlus 9R, which was launched earlier this year with more modest specs than the flagship 9 and 9 Pro. That model never made it to North America, and it seems this will also be the case for the 9 RT. Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A natural experiment in Vermont helped show the impacts

A worker installs solar panel at the Connexus Energy Athens Township solar-plus-storage project site in Athens Township, Minnesota, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. | Ari Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images

2020 was a big year for big batteries in the US, which is crucial for getting grids to run on more renewable energy. Power capacity — a measure of how much power a battery can instantly discharge — for large-scale batteries grew at an unprecedented pace in the US last year, according... Читать дальше...

Shared electric scooter company Bird is branching out into new two-wheeled vehicles, namely electric bikes. A few months after it introduced its first shared e-bike, the company announced that it would also offer its own e-bike for sale.

Title screen of The Vale: Shadow of the Crown. | Image: Falling Squirrel

The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, an audio-based adventure game by indie studio Falling Squirrel, is available on Xbox and PC today for $19.99. The game was developed in collaboration with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and made for and tested by blind and low-vision players.

Three former Netflix engineers charged with insider trading | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged three former Netflix engineers with being part of a “long-running” insider trading scheme, the agency announced. The engineers and two close associates allegedly traded on confidential information about Netflix’s subscriber growth, generating more than $3 million in total profit.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

One year after getting diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that causes an irregular heartbeat, a 70-year-old woman was back for another diagnosis: new-onset health anxiety triggered by her smartwatch. Despite not having concerning symptoms, the patient became more and more preoccupied with and worried about notifications from her watch. Over the one-year period, she took 916 ECG recordings through her device.

#4721

In May, the world watched as Epic Games dragged Apple to court, challenging the most profitable company in the world in the name of app fairness (and securing more Fortnite profits for itself). We’re still waiting for a verdict in Epic v. Apple, but we haven’t just been sitting around. We’ve also been digging through these companies’ dirty laundry, reading scores of internal emails and confidential presentations unearthed during the legal discovery process. It’s fascinating stuff.

An iPhone 12 mini. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In 2011, rumors swirled that Apple was working on a so-called “iPhone nano,” a new iPhone that would be smaller and cheaper than the top-of-the-line model at the time, the iPhone 4. While Apple never did release that rumored super-small phone, a Steve Jobs email we spotted while collecting the very best emails from the Epic v. Apple lawsuit confirms the company was indeed working on an iPhone nano at one point in time.

Photo: Mission Workshop

It’s surprisingly how attached you can get to a bag — especially the bag that you use to carry your laptop, your sweater, your lunch, your notebook, your exercise shoes, and all the other stuff you need. Whether you’re heading to the office, visiting a friend, hanging in a coffee shop, going on a hike, or just sitting outdoors to read or work, having a bag that can accommodate everything on your “gotta have this” list can help you avoid a lot of aggravation.

Microsoft has unveiled a refreshed Xbox stereo headset, a $59.99 wired model that’s more affordable than its stellar $100 wireless headset that launched earlier in 2021. It’s launching on September 21st, and as is to be expected, it’s missing a few features. But much of its design is intact. You can twist the dial on the outside of the right ear cup to adjust the volume, and there’s a mute button on the back side of the flexible microphone — mirroring what you get with the wireless version. The... Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A year after The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon had an interest in using empty mall spaces as fulfillment centers, the business paper is back with a rumor that Amazon is planning to open department store-style locations of its own. The reported plan is for stores that are smaller than your average 100,000-square-foot Macy’s or JC Penney location, with a footprint that’s only about 30,000 square feet, which is closer to the size of Kohl’s stores that already handle Amazon returns. Читать дальше...

The iPad mini is Apple’s smallest tablet | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The latest iPad Mini is back at Cyber Monday-level pricing, offering the best deal possible for Apple’s most compact tablet. Walmart has it on sale today for $100 off, clocking in at $299 and matching the lowest price we’ve seen for one of the most powerful small-format tablets on the market. The 64GB Wi-Fi model is perfect for casual reading, consuming content, controlling smart home functions, or just... Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A group of disgruntled investors is pursuing a formal claim against the cryptocurrency platform Binance for allegedly causing millions in damages through an unanticipated outage earlier this year. Filed in an international business arbitration court, the case represents the largest investor action ever brought against a cryptocurrency platform, and a major test of the rights of investors speculating in digital currency markets.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted for the first time that the company’s planned acquisition of British chip designer Arm may take longer than the initially-scheduled 18 months. The acquisition, which would bring together two of the most powerful chip companies in the world, is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US, UK, and China.

The Jabra Enhance Plus. | Image: Jabra

Jabra’s Enhance Plus are a new pair of true wireless earbuds aimed at helping people who experience “mild-to-moderate” hearing loss. They’re meant as a half-step towards a more traditional hearing aid solution, for people who might not be ready to wear a device all day. The Enhance Plus will be released first in the US at the end of the year, and will be sold through licensed hearing care professionals at a price that’s yet to be announced.