With the name Smarter, you might expect a network-connected kitchen appliance maker to be, well, smarter than companies selling conventional appliances. But in the case of the Smarter’s Internet-of-things coffee maker, you’d be wrong. As a thought experiment, Martin Hron, a researcher at security company Avast, reverse engineered one of the $ 250 devices to […]
Enlarge / No operating system is an island, but macOS Catalina is named after one. Apple Earlier this week, Apple released updates for iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS—but nothing for macOS. Usually, Cupertino updates all its operating systems at once, but we’re in an odd place right now with new annual releases of the former three […]
Enlarge Facebook Facebook has temporarily shamed Apple out of taking a 30 percent cut of paid online events organized by small businesses and hosted on Facebook—things like cooking classes, workout sessions, and happy hours. Demand for these kinds of online events has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Apple says that it has a longstanding policy that […]
Enlarge / One of many devices introduced today, the 4th-generation Echo devices is a cloth-covered sphere with a halo at the base, contrasting with the squat plastic cylinders of earlier generation Echoes. Amazon Today at Amazon’s hardware launch event, the company announced new Ring, Echo, Eero, and Fire devices. Amazon also announced a new gaming […]
Enlarge / Major developers are sick and tired of Apple’s rules and they’ve made a website about it. Coalition for App Fairness Exactly how much power app store owners should have over developers has been a contentious issue lately, and now several high-profile app developers are banding together to form the “Coalition for App Fairness.” […]
Enlarge / No, that’s not a pink panther—that catlike critter is a fossa, and it’s both mascot and default wallpaper of Ubuntu 20.04, preloaded on this ThinkStation P920. Lenovo Beginning today, Lenovo is offering a greatly expanded selection of OEM Linux PCs to the general public. Earlier this year, Lenovo began offering Fedora Linux pre-installed […]
The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE comes in a range of colors. Samsung A collection of S20 FEs ready to be used as dominos. Samsung The front. It’s a normal, all-screen design. Samsung The display is flat. Samsung The back is plastic. Samsung The cameras. Samsung Today, Samsung held its third product event in a month […]
Google’s big yearly hardware event is scheduled for September 30, and as usual, we’re expecting a big pile of products to be announced. Google has a hard time keeping anything under wraps before the event, so we’re doing a roundup of all the leaks so far. We’re expecting four products: the Pixel 5 (and Pixel […]
Opening up the Apple Watch Series 6 reveals a slightly larger battery. iFixit Here’s the Taptic Engine, which is also a little bigger. iFixit And the sensor that powers blood-oxygen monitoring. iFixit Here’s the full breakdown. iFixit The Apple Watch Series 6 isn’t a radical leap forward from its predecessor. It adds a few new […]
Enlarge Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images The US Department of Homeland Security is giving federal agencies until midnight on Tuesday to patch a critical Windows vulnerability that can make it easy for attackers to become all-powerful administrators with free rein to create accounts, infect an entire network with malware, and carry out similarly disastrous […]
Enlarge Google Android 11 has finally arrived after a lengthy beta process that started approximately three years ago in February 2020. This is the 30th release of Android, if we’re counting by API levels, and in a year when it seems nearly everything has been delayed or canceled, Google has managed to turn in one […]
Aurich Lawson / Getty Images We’ve established a bit of a tradition here at Ars. Every year at Google I/O, we have a sit-down talk to learn more about Android directly from the people that make it. Of course, this year, just about every major event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, nothing is […]
Enlarge Thomas Barwick / Getty Images Spare bedrooms and living rooms could soon become part of vibrant trading floors as one of the world’s biggest investment banks considers providing staff with augmented reality headsets. UBS has experimented with issuing its London-based traders with Microsoft HoloLenses, which would allow staff to recreate the experience of working […]
Enlarge / The iPhone 6S (left) and first-generation iPhone SE (right) running iOS 14. Andrew Cunningham It’s September, and you know what that means: shorter days, the first tentative tinge of chill in the night air, Halloween candy at the grocery store, and—most relevantly for us—a new version of iOS. Apple supports its own phones […]
The new Apple Watch in Blue and Red Aluminum. Apple The new Apple Watch models will also arrive with a slew of new Apple Watch face options. A closeup of the new stripe watchface. As part of its Apple Watch announcement, Apple also touted newly greener manufacturing processes behind the product. Spoiler: the new Apple […]