Are you the sort of gamer who only has gamer friends on Facebook? Do you regularly post images and achievements from your PlayStation? Does it confuse the few tech-impaired relatives who can’t understand why you keep posting gorgeous photos of some chap named Nathan Drake? Yeah, that’s coming to an end. Sony’s officially ending Facebook integration for the PlayStation 4.
Huawei’s about more than just phones, as this next lot of news may remind you. The company also makes some mighty slick wearables and there’s a new one headed to market. The Huawei Watch GT 2, announced last month, has just gone up for pre-order in South Africa. The asking price? A cool R5k.
Watching series’ made up the bulk of our time with the Oculus Quest, for example, but that wasn’t the most fun we had with it. Oh no, that was reserved for Beat Saber.
This week in Light Start, we’ve got yet more Star Wars branded kit, a series from Tinder, Bose Sleepbuds go bye-bye and Red Dead Redemption hits PCs soon.
This comes up every time Amazon’s Kindle turns up with anything new: Most of Stuff would get rid of… pretty much all the other tech before giving up our Kindles. And now there’s something for the little ones to enjoy — there’s a new Kindle Kid’s Edition on the way.
Google recently agreed to pay a US$170 million fine for illegally gathering children’s personal data on YouTube without parental consent, which is a violation under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The United States Federal Trade Commission and the New York State Attorney General — who together brought the case against Google — now require YouTube to obtain consent from parents before collecting or sharing personal information. In addition, creators of child-directed content must self-identify to restrict the delivery of targeted ads. The $170 million fine is a pittance given Alphabet Inc.’s (Google’s holding company) valuation of more than US$700 billion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V_FYXfnSLE…
So you’d like to see America’s trade war in action, would you? Here’s an example: Apple’s been denied a tariff exemption for some five components used in its new Mac Pro. First reported by Bloomberg, Apple may wind up paying up to 25% more for the Mac Pro’s power adaptor, charge cable, cooling system, and an IO circuit board. Also on the list are the Mac Pro’s optional wheels. So, we guess, don’t order those? Computer says no Apple’s already had its request for exemption granted by the States’ Trade Representative’s office for ten other components, so this denial is both…
That’s right, rAge 2019 is here and it’s looking… well, you can see how it’s looking in the image gallery below. It’s looking expensive.
We’re expecting Samsung’s Galaxy Fold smartphone/tablet to land any day now, and Samsung obviously feels the same way. It isn’t releasing videos on how to look after your brand-new piece of folding tech for the fun of it, after all.
Research and development and, crucially, rumours about R&D don’t take breaks. That’s why we’re talking about Samsung’s Galaxy S11 already. This is a phone we’re only likely to see in 2020, at (or just before) Mobile World Congress 2020.
