Author: Max Milella

As much as iRobot’s dainty little robo-housekeeping Roombas are fantastic at keeping your floors clear of most dust and debris, there’s one thing they don’t handle particularly well, pet mess. Specifically the solid kind. Now, this may seem like a bit of an oxymoron considering the fact that these bots are built to clean, but when it comes to pet poop they, unfortunately, end up making more of a mess.  See, Roombas don’t do particularly well with solid mess to begin with. Errant underwear and particularly chunky food scraps tend to just clog their brushes. With pet mess, at best…

As much as WhatsApp (and its parent company Facebook) received endless criticism of late over its more obviously skeevy privacy practices, we’ve always given it credit for its more laudable efforts, namely its end-to-end encryption on sent and received messages. We recently praised it for updating this function to have it include cloud-stored chat backups. But now even that speck of positivity has been sullied. It has recently been discovered that the messaging app’s encryption service isn’t so private after all, with millions of user messages being reviewed by WhatsApp moderators. WhatsApp giveth and WhatsApp taketh away On Wednesday, ProPublica…

No one is going to stand up and say that we haven’t made substantial progress at reducing our carbon footprint in the automobile industry. Because we have. But cars aren’t the only form of transport in need of a good, electrifying shakeup. The aerospace industry puts out a lot of CO2 too. Fortunately, aerospace startup Wright (great name) is on it, and has begun testing its 2-megawatt engines designed to get passenger flights airborne with the power of electricity. Electric planes are the Wright idea Now, it’s not like no progress has been made towards electric aircraft at all, but…

Twitter is giving its users more control over their follower lists, through a new feature that will be familiar to Instagram users: a “remove follower” function. And it’s as simple as it sounds. Say you’re going through your followers and come across some old names from high school you’d rather not be associated with anymore. A handful of folks you gave your @ to out of courtesy after meeting them once at a party. Maybe a relative whose posts are getting a little… ahem… radical for your feed. Well, now you can simply tap the three-dot icon next to their…

Singapore has always jumped at the chance to integrate city-wide technical innovation, whether it be through its uber-efficient public transport system or by supporting its pretty stringent laws with a mass of surveillance cameras. Now it’s taking its security even further into the future, and is reportedly testing a new patrol robot named Xavier.  Officer Xavier, here to protect and serve  The human-sized Xavier robots, like their namesake running the X-Men’s School For Gifted Youngsters, roll around areas with high foot traffic on a set of four wheels, and sport the most important tool in a surveillance droid’s arsenal: a…

Google and Qualcomm might not be making phones together anymore with the search giant opting to build its chips in-house instead, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still pals. They’re now working collaboratively on the on-board CPU for Renault’s next electric vehicle: the Mégane E-Tech Electric. Qualcomm, Google and Renault make a techie trio Qualcomm announced in a press release that it would be partnering with Google and Renault Group, “to design a rich and immersive in-vehicle experience” for the automakers “next-generation electric vehicle, the new Mégane E-TECH Electric.” Renault will make use of Qualcomm’s 3rd Generation Automotive Cockpit Platforms…

Last month Apple revealed that, in a nutshell, it wants to begin scanning users’ iCloud photo libraries to root out child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Noble intentions or not, the internet was none-too-pleased with the idea of Big Tech poking its nose into people’s personal photos, with some referring to the proposed feature as a thinly-veiled surveillance system. In response to the enormous backlash it’s received, Apple has decided to delay the rollout of this contentious feature while it works out how to make it slightly more appealing. Apple pumps the brakes Now, for the sake of clarity, it’s not…

Smartphone makers dropping software support for their phones after a mere handful of years is a universally panned practice at this point, and rightfully so. What good is a high-tech handset if you’re not gonna be able to use it within 3 years after all? The German Federal Government thinks so too, and plans to enforce stricter rules on phone makers requiring them to support devices for 7 years.  7 years software support for your black mirror Now, not all phone-makers are guilty of phasing out phones before you’ve figured out everything they can do. As XDA-Developers points out, Apple’s…

Asus’ Zenbook line might be its no-fuss, professional and stylish answer to Apple’s Macbook but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t tried to throw some twists and turns at what’s otherwise a comfortably consistent formula. Think dual-screens or 360° hinged displays. Now it’s upping the ante once again with the new Zenbook 14X, which features an OLED display. Asus gives the Zenbook a graphics upgrade Now, this isn’t the first Zenbook to get the OLED treatment. The Zenbook 13 was released earlier this year sporting an OLED display, but only in a mildly disappointing 1920 x 1080p. The 14X will come…

As of Thursday the 2nd of September 2021, Facebook-owned messenger app WhatsApp has been handed a record-setting fine by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), to the jaw-dropping sum of €225 million (R3.8 billion). The fine comes following the DPCs three-year-long investigation into the messaging platform’s controversial privacy practices.  WhatsApp’s chickens come home to roost The Guardian reports that this is the largest fine the DPC has ever handed out, and is also the second-largest fine ever thrown at a Big Tech company under EU laws. The DPC reportedly alleges that WhatsApp has “severe[ly]” violated several areas of the general data…