August, 2016

• 1 August

  iPhone 6 explosion leaves man with third

  

  Gareth Clear, a 36-year-old management consultant from Sydney, Australia, was severely burned by his iPhone 6 after he fell off his bicycle on Sunday. The phone, which was in Clear’s back pocket, caught fire when Clear fell on it. “I just saw smoke coming out of my back pocket and I was completely bewildered about …

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• 1 August

  Tablet shipments continued their global decline in Q2

  

  The public’s love affair with tablets appears to be over. The market for slates slid more than 12 percent in the second quarter, according to data released Monday by market researcher IDC, the seventh consecutive decline in quarterly shipments. The sector saw 38.7 millions shipped during the quarter compared with 44.1 million units in the year-ago period. Following several years …

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• 1 August

  You can now customize your avatar in Pokemon Go, here’s how

  

  Thanks to a recent update you can now change your avatar on Pokemon Go whenever you feel like you need a new look. Before, you could only choose customizations for your character at the start of the game. To access the customization menu, tap on the face of your avatar at the bottom of the map screen. Then, tap on …

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• 1 August

  Tech news veteran Josh Topolsky wants to show you his Outline

  

  After being the editor-in-chief of Engadget, co-founding The Verge, and serving as the editor of Bloomberg Digital, Josh Topolsky is prepping a new media brand. The new website is called The Outline. It has raised $5 million in funding with a plan to launch in the fall of 2016, according to The Wall Street Journal. Topolsky told the Journal that …

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• 1 August

  Apple makes iOS 10 emoji more diverse

  

  Want an emoji that portrays a black Santa or a female muscle builder? You can have those and more with Apple’s iOS 10 due out this fall. In an announcement Monday about its new emoji, Apple emphasized the additional gender diversity options coming in iOS 10. The update includes more than 100 new and redesigned emoji, including new female athletes …

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• 1 August

  Windows 10 snags 21% of the desktop market

  

  A year after its official release, Windows 10 is on just one in five desktop computers, according to Web traffic stats from researcher NetMarketShare. Windows 10 captured 21.1 percent of the desktop OS market for July, NetMarketShare reported, up from 19.1 percent in June and 17.4 percent in May. The growth remained slow and steady even with a looming July …

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• 1 August

  No more selfie distortion? Tool helps you put your real face forward

  

  Those of us who don’t have pro photographers following us around snapping portraits from the most flattering angles often rely on shots taken via awkwardly placed selfie arm. But camera proximity can make your nose look bigger, your ears look smaller and your forehead look more slope-ey. Didn’t realize selfies could do all that? Happy Monday! Enlarge Image Princeton School …

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• 1 August

  Google updates Android with onscreen security notifications

  

  Google on Monday announced a new Android feature that alerts users of new devices and security events on their account via onscreen notifications. When a new device is added to a user’s account, native Android notifications — those that appear on the mobile device’ screen — will tell the user about the newly added device. The notifications will also alert …

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• 1 August

  ‘The Simpsons’ pokes fun at Trump’s canine hair, tiny hands

  

  “The Simpsons” has never been shy about making fun of American politics. Several presidents have been Simpsons-fied on the long-running animated comedy series. Bill Clinton, famously, was always hitting on Marge. George H.W. Bush was a neighbor for a while. As the 2016 race for the US presidency increasingly resembles a “Simpsons” episode, it was perhaps inevitable that the animated …

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• 1 August

  Get two free months of Pandora One

  

  CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. And find more great buys on the CNET Deals page. Happy Monday, cheeps! I know many of you were unable to grab that sweet $9.99 Bluetooth speaker deal from last week, but rest …

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