Buds have good sound, battery life, compact shape without stalks and work with Android or iPhones
The latest Apple Bluetooth earbuds from its Beats brand offer active noise-cancelling and cross-compatibility that goes beyond its competitors – even for Android users.
The Studio Buds cost £129.99 ($149.99 or A$199.95) and are Beats’ smallest earbuds to date, following on from the sport-oriented PowerBeats Pro and budget Beats Flex.
Continue reading...The creators of the Aibo robot dog say it has ‘real emotions and instinct’. This may seem over the top, but is it? In today’s AI universe, all the eternal questions have become engineering problems
The package arrived on a Thursday. I came home from a walk and found it sitting near the mailboxes in the front hall of my building, a box so large and imposing I was embarrassed to discover my name on the label. It took all my strength to drag it up the stairs.
I paused once on the landing, considered abandoning it there, then continued hauling it up to my apartment on the third floor, where I used my keys to cut it open. Inside the box, beneath lavish folds of bubble wrap, was a sleek plastic pod. I opened the clasp: inside, lying prone, was a small white dog.
Continue reading...The messaging app does not comply with laws protecting children, say prosecutors, in fresh crackdown on tech firms
Prosecutors in Beijing have initiated a civil lawsuit against a subsidiary of Tencent, saying the “youth mode” on the company’s popular social messaging app WeChat does not comply with laws protecting minors.
Related: No cults, no politics, no ghouls: how China censors the video game world
Continue reading...Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizens
Apple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time.
Continue reading...Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, whose detention has thrown US-China feud into focus, urge judge to throw out extradition request
Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou say American prosecutors acted in “bad faith” and abused the Canadian justice system when they pursued the Huawei chief financial officer, in final arguments of the telecoms executive’s closely watched extradition proceedings.
In a Vancouver courtroom on Wednesday, Meng’s legal team argued that American prosecutors misled the Canadian justice system in their legal summary of the allegations against Meng. Her team says this abuse of process obliges the judge overseeing the case to toss out the extradition request against Meng and set her free.
Continue reading...Social media brought me better jobs, close friends and love. But I was ignoring the ways in which the constant criticism and approval were shaping my life
In March 2009, I type in “twitter.com” and sign up for the next 12 years of my life. I am 20, in my first year of uni. I have three friends and hate it here. But, on Twitter, I can talk to real music journalists, my longed-for future people. Two years later, I move to London to work at NME. My social awkwardness makes life in a new city feel like dredging the Thames with baggy tights. On Twitter, however, I have blossomed into a magnificent little chaos magnet. Even on sad, drunk Friday nights in, my phone-sized kingdom glitters.
Real life improved, often thanks to Twitter. It led me to John, still my boyfriend 10 years on, and many of my closest friends. Thanks to being a woman in a male-dominated field, the odd viral review and little talent for discretion, I ended up with 60,000 followers. I didn’t take it that seriously, but acing my first popularity contest felt like winning Miss World, if she had bad posture and trigger-happy thumbs. Visibility brought better jobs and gave me a platform to retaliate against music’s many dirtbags. The mute button silenced reply guys and trolls, and I hadn’t searched my name in years, ever since John likened that always-upsetting habit to self-harm – an overstatement that nevertheless rang true.
Continue reading...After Havana shut down online access for 72 hours, the battle is on to keep the country connected
Cubans used to joke about Napoleon Bonaparte chatting to Mikhail Gorbachev, George W Bush and Fidel Castro in the afterlife. “If I’d have had your prudence, I’d never have fought Waterloo,” the French emperor tells the last Soviet leader. “If I’d have had your military might, I’d have won Waterloo,” he tells the Texan. Turning last to Castro, the emperor says: “If I’d have had Granma [the Cuban Communist party daily], I’d have lost Waterloo but nobody would have known.”
The joke no longer does the rounds. With millions of Cubans now online, the state’s monopoly on mass communication has been deeply eroded. But after social media helped catalyse historic protests on the island last month, the government temporarily shut the internet down.
Continue reading...Secretive gangs are hacking the computers of governments, firms, even hospitals, and demanding huge sums. But if we pay these ransoms, are we creating a ticking time bomb?
They have the sort of names that only teenage boys or aspiring Bond villains would dream up (REvil, Grief, Wizard Spider, Ragnar), they base themselves in countries that do not cooperate with international law enforcement and they don’t care whether they attack a hospital or a multinational corporation. Ransomware gangs are suddenly everywhere, seemingly unstoppable – and very successful.
In June, meat producer JBS, which supplies over a fifth of all the beef in the US, paid a £7.8m ransom to regain access to its computer systems. The same month, the US’s largest national fuel pipeline, Colonial Pipeline, paid £3.1m to ransomware hackers after they locked the company’s systems, causing days of fuel shortages and paralysing the east coast. “It was the hardest decision I’ve made in my 39 years in the energy industry,” said a deflated-looking Colonial CEO Joseph Blount in an evidence session before Congress. In July, hackers attacked software firm Kaseya, demanding £50m. As a result, hundreds of supermarkets had to close in Sweden, because their cash registers didn’t work.
Continue reading...As big spenders such as Amazon and Spotify fill our ears with more commercial, celebrity-driven fare, can grassroots, diverse shows survive?
The British Podcast Awards were different this year. Held in a south London park, they had a boutique festival feel, with wristbands and tokens for drinks, an open-sided tent for the actual awards, and people lounging on blankets in front of the stage. There were also sponsor areas – those small, picket-fenced areas where invitees could drink and mix with brand bigwigs. Awards are expensive to stage, and to give any sort of a professional sheen, money is needed. In 2017, the BPA sponsors included Radioplayer and Whistledown, an independent audio creator. In 2021, the BPA was “powered by Amazon Music”. Spotify, Stitcher, Audible, Acast, Global, BBC Sounds, Podfollow and Sony Music also dipped into their sponsorship pockets. Clearly, podcasting has gone up in the world.
Over the past 18 months, podcasting has hit the corporate big time. Apple, long the most recognisable name in podcasting, its iTunes chart being the public measure of any show’s success, is attempting, clumsily, to move from being a neutral platform that hosts shows into one that makes money from podcasting (by, for example, charging creators for highlighted spots).
Continue reading...As leaders around the world grapple with cryptocurrencies, what happened when the African country tried to ban them?
When the Nigerian government suddenly banned access to foreign exchange for textile import companies in March 2019, Moses Awa* felt stuck. His business – importing woven shoes from Guangzhou, China, to sell in the northern city of Kano and his home state of Abia, further south – had been suffering along with the country’s economy. The ban threatened to tip it over the edge. “It was a serious crisis: I had to act fast,” Awa says.
He turned to his younger brother, Osy, who had begun trading bitcoins. “He was just accumulating, accumulating crypto, saying that at some point years down the line it could be a great investment. When the forex ban happened, he showed me how much I needed it, too. I could pay my suppliers in bitcoins if they accepted – and they did.”
Continue reading...Wade can tell you the best pram for a tall parent; Matthew knows which cleaner has superior suction power. But how do you become a respected reviewer on the wild west of the internet?
Once a month, every month, more than 8,000 strangers pay James Hoffmann a total of £16,263 so he can go out and buy coffee machines. Hoffmann, 41, from London, is an author, business owner, coffee connoisseur and, above all, a YouTuber: more than 900,000 people subscribe to his channel, on which he discusses everything to do with beans and brewing. Around a third of Hoffmann’s videos are product reviews: grinders, espresso machines, storage canisters and filters have all been scrutinised by him.
Hoffmann’s monthly £16,000 comes from Patreon, a membership platform that allows fans to pay creators a regular fee. The money is intended to keep him impartial: it enables him to buy machines to review directly – just like you or me – instead of getting them on loan from brands.
Continue reading...Tabletop gaming, based on a mix of science fiction and fantasy worlds, has seen sales surge during lockdown
It started in a small flat in west London, with three friends selling board games and a fanzine via mail order; now Games Workshop is worth more than Marks & Spencer and Asos and is more profitable than Google.
This week the Nottingham-based company, which produces the Warhammer fantasy role-playing brand, announced all of its workers would get a £5,000 bonus after sales and profits surged during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Transmission beams can be reconfigured from the ground, whereas most commercial satellites are hard-wired before launch
The world’s first commercial fully reprogrammable satellite has been launched, ushering in a new era of more flexible communications.
Unlike conventional models that are designed and “hard-wired” on Earth and cannot be repurposed once in orbit, the UK-engineered Eutelsat Quantum allows users to tailor it almost in real-time.
Continue reading...Facebook saw its fastest growth this quarter since 2016, the company revealed in its earnings report on Wednesday, despite regulatory concerns and criticisms surrounding misinformation on the platform.
Related: Remington offers $33m to settle lawsuit by families of Sandy Hook massacre
Continue reading...New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030, and sales of electric vehicles are rising fast. But with drivers reliant on charging points how practical is the greener option? One writer finds out
Range anxiety hits hard on the A9 in the Highlands of Scotland. For the uninitiated, this is the fear that an electric vehicle (EV) won’t reach its destination before running out of power. I’m driving through some of Britain’s loveliest landscape – mountains, rivers, lochs and firths – but I hardly notice. I’m focused hard – on the road in front, but mainly on two numbers on the dashboard. One is how far it is in miles to where I’m going; the other is the range in miles remaining in the battery. Sometimes, especially on downhill stretches when what is known as “regenerative braking” means the battery is getting charged, I tell myself it’s going to be OK, I’ll make it. But going uphill the range plummets. Squeaky bum time.
Plus, I’ve read Michel Faber’s Under the Skin. I know what happens to men stranded on the A9. To range anxiety add the fear of being processed and eaten by aliens.
Continue reading...Pio Tikoduadua, president of the opposition National Federation Party, has won praise and followers with his faltering attempts to understand social media
A leading opposition MP from Fiji is delighting new social media followers with his wide-eyed discovery of Twitter, even as the country is experiencing heightened political tensions.
Pio Tikoduadua, who is the president of the National Federation Party, announced on Monday that while his Twitter account had been created a while ago, it had been run by his staff until now.
Continue reading...Fresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.
Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk, a $2.9bn contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024, rejecting bids from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Blue Origin had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in the bid.
Continue reading...A global shortfall of semiconductors has affected the Tesla supply chain as well as car manufacturers across the world
Tesla made a profit of more than $1bn in the last three months even as it struggled to keep up with demand for electric cars in the face of a global chip shortage.
The company announced Monday that it has made a profit of $1.14bn in its second quarter, 10 times what it made a year ago and its eighth quarter of back-to-back profits.
Continue reading...Staying in touch with friends and family via technology made many older people feel more lonely, research finds
Virtual contact during the pandemic made many over-60s feel lonelier and more depressed than no contact at all, new research has found.
Many older people stayed in touch with family and friends during lockdown using the phone, video calls, and other forms of virtual contact. Zoom choirs, online book clubs and virtual bedtime stories with grandchildren helped many stave off isolation.
Continue reading...Viewers complain after rights-holder Discovery puts majority of events behind paywall
The BBC has faced a series of complaints about the lack of live Tokyo Olympics coverage on its channels, after viewers failed to realise the International Olympic Committee has sold the majority of UK television rights to pay-TV company Discovery.
During the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics the BBC was able to offer dozens of free livestreams of different sports, revolutionising how British viewers watched the games and providing much-needed publicity to niche events that would not normally have enjoyed their moment in the public eye.
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