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AmazonBasics battery packs recalled due to fire risk

Amazon is recalling about 260,000 AmazonBasics portable power banks due to a danger of fire and chemical burns, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commision. Amazon had received “53 reports of the power banks overheating in the U.S., including one report of chemical burns due to contact with battery acid and four reports of property damage, including fire and smoke …

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LG G7 may launch in May with an $800

LG’s flagship G7, which was MIA at MWC, might not launch until May, according to a report by Korea’s ETNews. That launch date would be 15 months after the company unveiled its G6 in February 2017, but would remain consistent with previous statements by the company that it wouldn’t stick to a strict yearly release cycle.  LG has steadily lost ground to stalwart Android rival Samsung, …

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Galaxy S9 AR Emoji: What you need to know

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 ($198 at eBay) and S9 Plus have a new feature called AR Emoji. The animated characters are similar to Apple’s animojis on the iPhone X ($285 at Amazon), only instead of using fancy face-scanning hardware, AR Emoji relies on the S9’s camera and augmented reality software developed by the startup Loom.ai. Samsung and Loom.ai have worked on bringing AR …

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The Galaxy S9’s aperture blades go slice slice slice

It’s mesmerizing, no? What you’re seeing here is how the twin aperture blades work in the Samsung Galaxy S9‘s brand-new dual-aperture camera.  They can open to let more light in, or close to let less light through. That way, they can create brighter pictures or ones with more of the scene in focus. (For more on how variable aperture cameras …

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Is Facebook starting a News video section to stave off fake news?

Facebook could be readying a News section on its Facebook Watch video service, in an apparent attempt to curb the spread of “fake news.”  That’s the word from Axios, which reports that Facebook is in talks with 10 publishers to launch the dedicated news section. The section will reportedly run for 12 months, with Facebook requiring publishers to submit videos of …

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YouTube will add Wikipedia snippets to conspiracy videos

YouTube videos focusing on conspiracy theories will now link to a snippet of information on the topic from Wikipedia. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki described the new feature during a session Tuesday at South by Southwest with Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of Wired. “This has been a year of fake news and misinformation,” she said.  YouTube will determine what exactly qualifies as …

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FCC accuses startup of launching tiny rogue satellites

US regulators have accused a small Silicon Valley startup of launching satellites without permission. In December, the Federal Communications Commission denied Swarm Technologies, a stealthy startup headed by a former Google employee, permission to launch four of its tiny satellites. But the company apparently launched them anyway, according to a report from tech news site IEEE Spectrum. If confirmed, it …

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