Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives. Enlarge Image Can Apple’s HomePod capture emotions? James Martin/CNET If you’re only moved by the displays at CES, Google and Amazon have this smart speaker thing sewn up. They’re infiltrating every product they can, while Apple can’t even get its …
Read More »Tag Archives: privacy
NSA surveillance programs Prism and Upstream renewed with ease
For all the controversial issues US lawmakers have debated lately, there was one bill that made it through both houses of Congress and on to President Donald Trump with little fanfare. There was so little fuss around its passing, you might be surprised to hear the law renews two government surveillance programs that less than five years ago caused public …
Read More »11 Chrome features you’ll wish you’d known all along
Do you consider yourself a Chrome ninja? If not, these tips can help you navigate the web with deadly efficiency. Pin tabs I spend much of my day using Gmail and Google Drive, and with Chrome’s tab-pinning feature, I can keep those tabs parked to the left of all of my many open tabs. It’s a great way to keep …
Read More »Senate renews NSA surveillance programs first revealed by Snowden
With little debate, the US Senate voted 65 to 34 Thursday to renew the law authorizing key surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency. The programs, known as Prism and Upstream, allow the NSA to collect online communications of foreigners outside the US. Prism collects these communications from internet services, and Upstream taps in to the internet’s infrastructure to …
Read More »Here’s why your next wireless speaker will listen to your every word
There will come a day, and probably pretty soon, where pretty much every standalone speaker will have a voice-operated assistant inside of it. In the same way way that most TVs today have integrated “smarts” in the form of streaming apps for video, “smart speakers” will simply be the default, offering streaming audio apps and music at your voice’s beck …
Read More »Brave browser gives away million dollars in BAT crypto tokens
Browser maker Brave is handing out about $1 million worth of cryptocurrency-backed tokens it hopes will help build a better online advertising system. Brave developed a technology called the Basic Attention Token (BAT) designed to pay publishers, YouTube contributors and others who today rely on advertising revenue or subscription payments. For now, you can set up Brave to send BATs …
Read More »10 tips for your new Fitbit
Welcome to the wonderful and compulsive world of counting steps. If you are starting the New Year off with a new Fitbit, then here’s your guide for getting up and moving with your fitness tracker. 1. Set up Fitbit with Fitbit app Before you can start counting steps, you first need to connect your Fitbit to the Fitbit app for …
Read More »Apple’s High Sierra flaw lets any password open App Store preferences
Your Mac has another bug that lets people log in without your password. But unlike the last time this happened, it only leaves your computer exposed to a bit of mischief. That proviso won’t stop the bug from raising concerns about the overall quality of Apple’s software. But it means the flaw doesn’t hand anyone the keys to the kingdom. …
Read More »3 browser annoyances and how to fix them
In their unyielding efforts to catch eyeballs, websites often resort to aggressive tactics to engage you, the fickle, easily-distracted web reader. Many sites insist on starting a video without asking in the hopes you’ll become transfixed by the moving images and sounds and stay on the page longer. Others ask pretty please can we send you notifications? And others display …
Read More »Huawei CEO says lack of AT&T, Verizon support for Mate10 Pro a loss
Chinese telecom giant Huawei took more than an hour before addressing the elephant in the room. The CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, Richard Yu, spent a bulk of his CES keynote on Tuesday talking up the features and the US availability of its Mate10 Pro smartphone. The company was widely expected to announce that AT&T would partner to sell the …
Read More »