Latest News - Page 816

Keeping all of your photos and videos safe in Google Photos just got a lot easier, particularly if you're using an iPhone or the web. That's after Google announced a new update that brings the Locked Folder feature to both platforms for the first time.

Locked Folder has been around on Android for years now, but this is the first time that those who manage their media via the web or their iPhone have been able to take advantage of it. It's also the first time that those who use multiple devices have been able to access their Locked Folder media on those devices - they simply weren't accessible on an iPhone or via a web browser if added to a locked folder via Android.

Google says that Locked Folder will offer a passcode-protected space for saving sensitive photos and videos that then won't show up in the photo grid or in other apps. That can be useful for compromising photos, obviously, but is also of benefit from private information like photos of driver's licenses and other identity cards.

Now that Apple has announced that it will stream an event on September 12 we can be pretty sure that it will announce the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max at that time. And according to one analyst, it's the last of those four that Apple expects to be the most popular of all.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max will of course be the most expensive of all of the new iPhones, but it's that model that Apple is leaning into and placing massive orders for, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says. In a post on Medium, the well-connected supply chain watcher says that the iPhone 15 Pro Max accounts for 35-40% of iPhone 15 series shipments, the highest share of all.

With that in mind, it's Kuo's belief that Apple expects the iPhone 15 Pro Max to be particularly popular, likely thanks to its exclusive periscope camera design. That periscope camera will be exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max this year and is expected to allow people to take new zoom photos. An optical zoom of around 6x is what the rumors say, twice that of the 3x zoom capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro as well as the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Windows 11 and 10 users who run with the combo of the Chrome browser and Google search have likely been irritated by a Bing popup in recent times - we know we have.

Windows Latest reports that this appears to be a fresh campaign to get those who are using Chrome, with Google set as their default search engine, to switch the latter preference to Bing.

As noted at the outset, we fall into this category, and we have seen this popup invade our PC twice last week.

After all of the rumors, it's now been confirmed - Apple will hold an event on September 12. And while the company stopped short of saying what it would entail, we can be pretty certain that we will see the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro series of devices finally unveiled after months of rumors.

Apple confirmed the event in invitations sent to members of the press that asked them to join a special Apple Event that will be broadcast from Apple Park on September 12, starting from 10:00am PT. Apple's artwork for the invitation shows an Apple logo making like Spider-Man - dissolving away as if it's been Thanos-snapped.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman shared a copy of the invitation on X, although Apple is yet to do so. In fact, the Apple X account is currently dormant so it's unclear whether we should expect any kind of promotion for the event going forward.

Netflix has released a new trailer on its YouTube channel, revealing the first trailer for an upcoming David Fincher-directed crime thriller called "THE KILLER".

David Fincher has been planning on adapting The Killer into a feature-length film since 2007, which is based on the graphic novel of the same name written by Alexis Nolent. The movie premiered at the Venice International Film Festival over the weekend and showcased Michael Fassbender as the assassin who is battling his employers and himself on an international manhunt following an attempted assassination.

The trailer is very fast-paced, exponentially growing in speed and intensity, with Michael Fassbender's character repeating his "rules" to himself, especially "stick to the plan". Other lines from the trailer that give some clues to Fassbender's character are "forbid empathy", "ask yourself what is in it for me", "trust no one", and "this is what it takes to succeed". From this small amount of information, it seems that Fassbender's character is well trained, organized and will be attempting to devolve himself of any humanity in order for his plan to be fulfilled.

When Apple finally announces the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro lineups next month it'll bring an end to an almost never-ending cycle of rumors. Now, the latest of those rumors appears to center around the iPhone's new box and what it will look like come launch day.

The box in question is for the iPhone 15 Pro, but we can imagine that the iPhone 15 Pro Max box will be identical. As for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, it's likely that will be slightly different. There aren't all that many differences from what we can see, but it does look like the new iPhone will come with a rather Samsung-like wallpaper.

As you can see in the image above, the new Pro iPhones look set to come with a new wallpaper that has what looks like an S in the center. The render you can see here is based on a post by X leaker ShrimpApplePro that claimed the iPhone 15 Pro will come in a white box with this particular S shape on the front.

A future update to the Google Maps app could finally bring support for iOS 16 Live Activities to the iPhone. The feature was first added to iPhones when iOS 16.1 shipped almost a year ago but a new report claims that Google is finally getting ready to add support in a future Maps update.

Live Activities remove the need for repeat notifications for things like next turns and whatnot, placing a persistent tile on the iPhone's Lock Screen. With iPhones that have Dynamic Islands, like the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, Live Activities can also be displayed when the iPhone is in use. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are expected to be the first non-Pro iPhones to have a Dynamic Island which might explain Google's decision to add support soon.

While Google is yet to announce anything official, MacRumors reports that developer Steve Moser has spotted hidden code-level references to Live Activities in the latest Google Maps update. Those references don't do anything yet, but it's likely that they will be activated to enable Live Activities support as part of a future app update.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 has only been around for a little while and now attention has already started to turn to what comes next. And what comes next, is the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

That much isn't news of course, and we can all do the math to work out what will come after that. But right now the leaks for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 6 are already starting, despite the fact that we don't expect the flagship foldable to be announced for another year or so. Regardless, that hasn't stopped images and video of the phone from appearing on social media.

That video and accompanying photos were posted to X by leaker Ice Universe and they leave little to the imagination. It's thought that these were taken by someone in Samsung's supply chain and as the leaker notes, they do appear to be similar to previous Galaxy S24 Ultra leaks including a flatter outer display and an overall more boxy design.

Windows 11 (and Windows 10) users who've been hit by a recent bug that told them they had an 'unsupported processor' - with the system then crashing - following an update for the OS should take note that Microsoft has now concluded its investigation into the problem.

And we're told that this isn't an issue with Microsoft's OS, even though the bug is clearly triggered by the most recent (optional) update (namely KB5029351).

Bleeping Computer noticed that Microsoft updated its release health dashboard entry on the error to say:

NASA and the European Space Agency's (ESA) James Webb Space Telescope have released a new gorgeous image of a distant galaxy.

The Webb telescope has pointed its powerful instruments at the grand spiral galaxy called M51, or officially called NGC 5194, which is located 27 million light years away from Earth within the constellation Canes Venatici. M51 is known for its disrupted spiral arms, which can be partly attributed to its relationship with its close neighbour, a dwarf galaxy known as NGC 5195.

The gravity of this dwarf planet is believed to have influenced the size and prominence of M51's spiral arms. So, what does the image actually show? Red regions in the image represent reprocessed light from complex molecules that are forming on dust grains. Orange and yellow regions represent ionised gas that was recently formed by star clusters. For more information on this image, check out this link here.

It's been confirmed that after far too long Mac users are finally getting a new and native WhatsApp app to call their own. The new, improved version of Whatsapp is launching on macOS today and will roll out to the App Store for download soon.

That's according to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of WhatsApp parent company Meta. He posted the news in a Facebook message, saying that WhatsApp for Mac will allow video group calls for up to eight people and 32 people when using audio alone. The new app will also be a native one, making it a more familiar experience for Mac owners who have long had to make do with a version of the app that was borrowed from the iPad.

The new app is already available for download via the WhatsApp website but it will ake a little while for it to become widely available via the Mac App Store. No matter how you download it this new app will be free, as you might expect. It'll also support all of the features that you'd expect from a modern native Mac app including the ability to drag a file and then drop it into a chat. There's also more support for seeing more of a user's chat history than was previously possible, too.

New research from scientists from NASA and Japan's Osaka University has explored the idea that there are rogue planets wandering interstellar space waiting to be discovered by lucky astronomers.

The study, which NASA writes is expected to appear in a future issue of The Astronomical Journal, used data from a near-year survey conducted at the Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand. According to a NASA press release, the team estimates that there are 20 times more rogue planets than stars within the Milky Way galaxy. Rogue planets are worlds that aren't gravitationally tethered to a local star, and are just wandering through interstellar space completely alone.

Using microlensing techniques, which is the process of observing stars for any change in brightness levels. If an object passes directly between the star and the observer's line of sit, the gravity of that object warps space-time and creates a natural lens. This lens briefly amplifies the brightness of the star, giving a clue to astronomers about the nature of the intersecting object.

A Chinese graphics card manufacturer has gone all-out with the fans on a new RTX 4090 model.

MaxSun has just revealed the RTX 4090 MegaGamer, as VideoCardz noticed, with the design calling for five - yes, five - fans.

That doesn't mean there's a row of five fans along the top of the card, as you'd no doubt guess.

AMD has called it quits with the production of its Radeon RX 6650 XT graphics card, if a new rumor is correct.

The last-gen GPU has been canned according to a source at the Board Channels forum over in China, as IT Home (via VideoCardz) spotted.

Now, that's a source which needs more seasoning than usual, and the other caveat is that this applies to production of the RX 6650 XT in China - though it's not a stretch to imagine that if AMD is doing so in that huge sales territory, that this move will follow globally.

India made space history on August 23 by becoming the fourth country to successfully land on the surface of the moon and deploy a rover.

Since the landing, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has deployed its rover named Pragyan, and as shown in the above video, we can see Pragyan gliding across the surface of the moon to begin its scientific operations. The rover has already imaged its surroundings, even dodging a nasty hazardous crater that could have been catastrophic for the future of the mission.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has been posting constant updates on the Chandrayaan-3 mission on its X account, with an August 27 post detailing the results of Pragyan checking the surface temperature of the moon in its location near the moon's south pole, or what the ISRO officially now call the Shiv Shakti Point.

A group of unnamed hackers have gained access to spyware firm WebDetetive to delete device information in a move to protect 10s of thousands of people from being surveilled.

Spyware is exactly what it sounds like - a piece of software that grants remote access to an individual's device to spy on them. Through this access, users can listen in on victims' phone calls, read messages, track locations, send/receive data such as photos/videos, view screens in real-time, and much more. Typically, this type of software is used by nefarious people who are interested in tracking individuals, monitoring there whereabouts and to gather intelligence that is typically used to blackmail the victim.

However, spyware is also used by government agencies to catch criminals. WebDetetive was one of these types of spyware until a group of unnamed hackers accessed their system and removed the device information from 76,000 devices, along with more than 1.5 gigabytes of data stored on the spyware service's servers. It should be noted that these are claims from a group of hackers and are yet to be independently verified.

Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a new open-world action-adventure set in the universe created by legendary filmmaker James Cameron, created by the studio behind the hit third-person action series The Division. Pre-release gameplay looks impressive, with a style that feels like Far Cry in how the world will change and the environment will react to your actions.

With a release date of December 7, 2023, on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, we've got some info specific to the game's PC version. Fidelity-wise, you're looking at both ray-traced reflections and shadows alongside being able to fine-tune and tweak several graphics settings beyond what's possible on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Like all major Ubisoft releases, it's set to launch with a benchmark tool that will offer a detailed look at performance while serving as a great way to optimize settings. It gets interesting that as an AMD-sponsored title, you're getting AMD's FSR 2 support for upscaling, FSR 3 Fluid Motion Frames for frame generation, and NVIDIA DLSS on day one.

With Lenovo set to unveil its dedicated portable gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, in the coming days at IFA 2023, we've now got more details on what to expect thanks to new information courtesy of Windows Report covering hardware specifications, pricing, and even availability. It's on track for an October release.

As a dedicated Windows 11 PC gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go is positioned as a direct competitor to the ASUS ROG Ally and Steam Deck, albeit more premium regarding its make-up. Specs-wise, Lenovo looks to be going all out with the Legion Go, especially when put up against the formidable ROG Ally, with the handheld featuring a larger screen with a higher resolution and frame rate (QHD+ 2560 x 1600), the Ryzen Z1 Extreme from AMD, and super-fast 16GB LPDDR5X-7500 memory.

Storage-wise, the Legion Go will use PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2242 with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities. Pricing will start at USD 799, with the handheld also set to debut with three months of Xbox Game Pass.

The Palo Alto Police Department won't be issuing a fine to Elon Musk for his illegal livestream while driving through Palo Alto on a Friday afternoon.

Elon Musk decided to test X's newly improved livestreaming capabilities on Friday afternoon last week, and over the course of the 45-minute livestream, the Tesla CEO revealed he was operating the vehicle while holding his phone. Elon Musk didn't lose control of the vehicle throughout the livestream but was at one stage forced to engage with his Full Self Driving system to stop it from running a red light.

However, these events weren't what caught the attention of many people, it was the fact that Musk was driving while holding his mobile phone, an illegal act under California law. The Verge contacted the Palo Alto Police Department regarding whether Musk will be issued a fine for the offense, and according to their response, Musk won't be fined because a police officer didn't see the act taking place. In the event that Musk was seen by a police officer, he would have been issued an infraction ticket like any other driver.

The US Air Force is pushing for a $6 billion investment in the construction of a fleet of more than 2,000 Valkyrie drones following a first-of-its-kind flight test.

It was only earlier this month that Colonel Tucker Hamilton, the chief of the Department of Air Force's AI Test and Operations accelerator, announced the US Air Force successfully completed a three-hour flight test of its XQ-58A Valkyrie, a 28-foot-long experimental, stealth-focussed unmanned combat aerial vehicle.

Following the test, the US Air Force is asking for $6 billion to build a fleet of up to 2,000 Valkyrie aircrafts, with each aircraft costing an estimated $3 million, which is much cheaper than a human-operated F-35 or F-22 fighter jets.