Tag Archives: apple

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 could mean longer battery life for VR, AR headsets

“The bad: Two-hour battery life.” That’s from our review of the $199 Oculus Go, one of the first compelling VR headsets cheap enough to throw in a bag and carry around. But short battery life may not plague portable headsets for long: Bloomberg reports that a new, unannounced Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 processor will make it easier …

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Block explicit lyrics in music subscription services

A while back I offered advice on choosing the best music service for your family, with an eye toward convenience, versatility and especially price. One important consideration I completely forgot was explicit lyrics. Given that pretty much every modern song contains bad language (that’s right, I said it — now get off my lawn!), parents might want the option of …

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Pandora widens personalized playlist ‘soundtracks’ to Premium members

Pandora is taking on Spotify‘s popular Discover Weekly personalized playlists with its own individualized mixes it calls Soundtracks, which center on themes like high-energy music or tunes to help you focus. Pandora, a streaming-music provider best known for its free digital radio, is widening these personalized playlists Wednesday to all subscribers of its Premium service, which is a $10-a-month membership that competes with …

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Google Chrome will resume blocking web audio in October

Google backtracked from a Chrome feature that blocked autoplaying audio on some websites, but the feature will be back in October. The autoplay blocking, intended to make the web a more pleasant place and to rein in push websites, also had the unintended side effect of crippling lots of web-based games in Chrome. So Chrome temporarily disabled autoplay audio blocking …

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Apple MacBook keyboard issue prompts second lawsuit

Legal troubles stemming from unhappy MacBook users are piling up for Apple. A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple over its use of “butterfly switch” keyboards on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Defendants say the keyboards, which Apple introduced in 2015, are defective.  This is the second lawsuit over the keyboards this month.  It follows blog posts, tweets, support-forum comments, a Change.org petition, …

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Paid full price for iPhone battery replacement? Apple will refund you

Apple is currently offering $29 iPhone battery replacements, but if you paid full price ($79) for an out-of-warranty replacement before Apple discounted its rate, you may get your $50 back. Apple announced that it’s giving $50 refunds to customers who paid full price for an iPhone battery replacement, for iPhone 6 or later, at an authorized Apple store between Jan. 1, …

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No, Apple supplier Foxconn isn’t scaling back its US factory

Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer that provides parts for Apple, is investing $10 billion in a US factory that could create up to 13,000 jobs, and no, it isn’t going back on this. Despite reports saying that the company is scaling back the US factory, Foxconn says it’ll stay true to its US investment. While the factory’s original plans were to produce …

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Yelp takes aim at Google with EU antitrust complaint

Yelp has filed an antitrust complaint against Google in the EU, crying out that the search giant has abused its dominance to favor its own services over competitors’. The complaint follows a 2017 EU ruling that Google misused its dominance in shopping search results. That ruling resulted in a 2.4 billion euro fine ($2.9 billion, £2 billion or AU$3.7 billion). Google is currently appealing …

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Google Photos now lets you show love with ‘hearts’ and ‘favorites’

Google Photos is adding two simple features that make it more like Facebook or Apple’s Photos. The online photo storage library is introducing a Favorites and Heart feature to help sort the photos you love the most. When browsing through your own pictures you’ll see a star icon that you can use to mark a photo as a favorite. Tapping …

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The Razer Phone adds portrait mode

Buy the Razer Phone for its gaming prowess, stick around for its photography skills? Razer is pushing out a May update for the Razer Phone, and with it comes a brand-new portrait mode camera feature, as reported by XDA Developers. Portrait Mode — the camera effect that blurs the background of photos to draw focus to your subject — has …

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