July, 2019

• 1 July

  Enter for your chance to win* an iPhone XS and 2 months of Verizon Visible service

  

  How about a new phone? For once, I’m not steering you to a deal — I’m giving you the chance to win one. One of three, in fact, thanks to the awesome folks at Verizon’s Visible carrier. Verizon who-now? Visible is the carrier’s prepaid service, offering unlimited everything for a flat $40 per month. I’m …

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• 1 July

  Spotify, Apple Music and rivals are secretly fixing your mainstream taste in songs

  

  The world’s most-streamed artists are a parade of major-label household names: Ariana Grande, Post Malone, Billie Eilish. But hidden below the top rankings are the independent artists and labels taking over a greater share of the music in your headphones.  “If there’s one thing that streaming has done for sure, it’s created a new independent music industry,” said Jorge Brea, …

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• 1 July

  Slack explains last week’s hours

  

  Work messaging app platform Slack experienced a lot of issues Friday afternoon, the company confirmed on Twitter. Some messages weren’t sending and some were taking a lot longer than usual to load. So sorry, we are investigating some connectivity issues right now. Thanks for your patience! — Slack (@SlackHQ) June 28, 2019 “Sorry for the trouble! We’re working on an …

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• 1 July

  Change the quality of YouTube videos on your phone, TV and laptop

  

  It’s beyond frustrating when that new Billie Eilish song isn’t loading on YouTube fast enough and the quality on latest alpaca video from The Dodo seems iffy. The curse of YouTube (other than my addiction to it) seems to be that the display quality isn’t always equal among videos. Fortunately, you can change the display settings on YouTube that can …

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• 1 July

  Facebook creates civil rights task force, vows to protect 2020 census

  

  Facebook is making an internal civil rights task force permanent, COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a blog post Sunday, a decision that grew out of an ongoing review of the civil rights impact of the social network’s policies and practices. The task force, which includes key leadership and is to be chaired by Sandberg, will focus on Facebook’s content policies, …

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• 1 July

  TweetDeck is back online after Monday outage

  

  Twitter says its dashboard TweetDeck is back online after a brief outage Monday. “We are aware that some people are having issues with loading TweetDeck. Our team is working to resolve the issue, and we’ll share more updates on this thread!” TweetDeck noted at 11:53 a.m PT.  As of 12:22 p.m. PT, TweetDeck said it was back online. “We apologize …

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• 1 July

  Tim Cook slams report about Jony Ive distancing himself from Apple

  

  Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday said a report alleging design chief Jony Ive has been distancing himself from the company for awhile is “absurd.”  A Sunday report by The Wall Street Journal said Ive has been distancing himself from Apple for years as the company shifted focus under Cook’s leadership. Ive reportedly grew frustrated with Cook, who was more …

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• 1 July

  Snapchat’s new Bitmoji Tennis game lets you play like a pro from the couch

  

  To celebrate Wimbledon 2019, Snapchat made a Bitmoji Tennis game that lets you hit the court with your friends. Snapchat started rolling out its own set of games called Snap Games in April. Similar to Facebook games, you can invite your friends to play with you. You can find Bitmoji Tennis, as well as other Snap Games, by opening a chat and then tapping on the …

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• 1 July

  Elizabeth Warren accuses advisory panel for FCC of corruption

  

  A panel that provides policy advice to the Federal Communications Commission is “stacked with corporate insiders,” Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Monday. She cited a blog post by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), which showed more than half of all Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) members are direct employees of private companies or of industry trade …

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• 1 July

  Trump official: Eased Huawei restrictions only apply to widely available products

  

  President Donald Trump has agreed to ease restrictions on companies selling equipment to Chinese telecom giant Huawei, but a White House official has clarified that it’s not a “general amnesty.” US companies will be able to sell only widely available products to the embattled Chinese phonemaker, National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow said on Fox News Sunday. “All that is going to …

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