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Galaxy Fold is Available For Purchase in U.S.

Charlotte Henry ·

After a five-month delay, and a lot of mockery, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold is finally available to purchase in the U.S. Techcrunch reports there are still some problems with the device.

Five months after originally planned, the Galaxy Fold goes on sale today in the U.S. The handset has had its share of setbacks, of course. The first round ran into problems from several reviewers for a variety of reasons. And as I outlined yesterday, I ran into my own issues with the reinforced version of the handset. Even in its current version, the Galaxy Fold is a fragile thing. That’s something Samsung has been abundantly cautious about disclosing, through a video pleading to “just use a light touch” and a lot of paperwork that ships with the device. I’ll be giving more thoughts on my time with the product in an upcoming write-up. In the meantime, however, anyone thinking of plunking down the $2,000 (and up) needs to factor that into the equation.

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What is Happening with Apple's AR Glasses?

Charlotte Henry ·

There’s a lot of excitement around the iPhone 11, new Apple Watches, iPads and so on. Wired though looked to the future, and how Apple is progressing in developing AR devices.

How Apple gets from phone-tethered smart-glasses to something a fully realized spatial-computing platform—or how long it takes to do so—remains unclear, but elements of the road map are hidden in plain sight. “A lot of the tech they’ve already built and fully deployed is critical to their goal of building a discreet AR HMD platform,” Kuang says. As an example, he points to last week’s announcement that the iPhone 11 models could take photos of pets in Portrait Mode: “That’s a good example of them working in little tweaks that don’t appear to have relevance to AR, but are super-meaningful if you’re a developer. The ability to recognize nonhuman faces significantly expands your ability to build tools and experiences.”

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Hacker Claims New 'checkm8' Exploit Can Lead to Permanent Jailbreak

Andrew Orr ·

Twitter use axi0mX posted about how a new iOS exploit called checkm8 could lead to a “permanent unpatchable bootrom exploit” for iPhone 4s to iPhone X.

What I am releasing today is not a full jailbreak with Cydia, just an exploit. Researchers and developers can use it to dump SecureROM, decrypt keybags with AES engine, and demote the device to enable JTAG. You still need additional hardware and software to use JTAG.

I’m sure governments around the world will be in touch.

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macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Patches a Security Hole

Andrew Orr ·

Along with iOS 12.4.2 Apple is releasing macOS Mojave 10.14.6, a second supplemental update with security fixes.

If you’re running an earlier version of macOS then you will instead find Security Update 2019-005 for macOS High Sierra and Security Update for macOS Sierra available as system software updates.

The security issue as shared here fixes CVE-2019-8641: A remote attacker may be able to cause unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

Cool Stuff Found

Wanderlust Travel Stories is About 'Slow Gaming'

Andrew Orr ·

Wanderlust Travel Stories is a new game that you can pre-order today, and it’s about “slow gaming.” You play at your own pace, exploring the lives of modern travelers each with their own desires, hopes, and fears. Every story is a journey, and on this travel, you are both the tourist and the guide. Take the role of various modern travelers, live their adventures and shape their stories. Choose your own pace, this title is meant to be taken in, experienced and felt. Relish in discovery and awe, longing and hope as you journey from Africa to Antarctica, from Europe to Asia. Wanderlust is a digital travel experience. Perfect when you’re traveling — or wish that you were. You get a 10% discount along with other goodies when you pre-order it today for US$17.99.

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Should Apple Buy Sonos?

Andrew Orr ·

Writing for TechCrunch, Darrell Etherington argues that Apple should acquire Sonos, a company known for its speakers.

From an outsider perspective, it’s hard to find two companies who seem more philosophically aligned than Sonos and Apple when it comes to product design and business model. Both are clearly focused on delivering premium hardware (at a price point that’s generally at the higher end of the mass market) and both use services to augment and complement the appeal of their hardware…

I’m not much of an Apple pundit but I’m not seeing the need for Apple to buy Sonos. I think it would’ve made more sense for this acquisition in the past, but Apple already has the HomePod. Aside from the price and platform-specific complaints, I don’t think I’ve heard anything bad about the sound quality.

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Huawei Making 5G Base Stations With No U.S. Parts

Charlotte Henry ·

Huawei is already producing 5G base stations that do not use parts from the U.S. Reuters reported on comments made Thursday CEO Ren Zhengfei:

Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms gear maker, has been on a U.S. trade blacklist since May over concerns that its equipment could be used by Beijing to spy. Huawei has repeatedly denied such allegations, but has taken steps to minimize the impact. U.S. sanctions cut off Huawei’s access to essential U.S. technologies. The latest version of its Mate 30 flagship phone, unveiled last week in Europe, will not come with Google Mobile Services…. Ren said Huawei would still like to use U.S. components if possible because it has “emotional ties” with long-time U.S. suppliers.

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Be Cautious of AltStore, the New Alternative App Store

Andrew Orr ·

There are reports of an alternative App Store that doesn’t require jailbreaking. It’s called AltStore, and it lets you download these alternative apps via a server you install on your Mac. While the developer says that the code for AltStore is open source, that doesn’t mean the apps within are. I urge caution about installing unknown apps outside of the App Store. If they can’t make it through the app review team, there’s probably a reason for that. For example, this quote from the blog:

From the beginning, AltStore was intended to serve as a way for developers to distribute entirely new apps that push the boundaries of iOS in ways not possible with Apple’s app review system.

Hopefully, “pushing the boundaries” doesn’t include apps full of malware.

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Amazon Unveils Echo Buds Amid Host of New Hardware

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon unveiled a host of new and upgraded hardware at an event on Wednesday. The Verge has a rundown of what waas announced, including the new Echo Buds headphones.

The company announced 15 new products, including the Echo Buds truly wireless headphones, the Dolby Atmos-equipped Echo Studio speaker, and the Echo Frames, which have built-in microphones so you can chat with Alexa. A few of the announcements were minor revisions, like the Echo Dot smart speaker with an integrated clock, and the Alexa Smart Oven that can convection bake and air fry food items (in addition to being a regular microwave). But there were more than a few unexpected surprises, including the Echo Loop smart ring, the new, affordable Eero mesh Wi-Fi router, the Amazon Fetch pet tracker, and more.

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Teardown of the Apple Watch Series 5

Charlotte Henry ·

Thinking of getting an Apple Watch Series 5? Got one on the way?  iFixit have a very interesting teardown of the device.

The Series 5 uses Apple’s new S5 system-on-chip, which packs in twice the storage and the new compass. But it also contains the same CPU and GPU as the S4 chip in the Series 4, and the overall performance specs are the same. Other than that, the Series 5 is very similar to the Series 4 on the inside. But Apple has made enough minor changes that many parts are not interchangeable, thanks to redesigned connectors on the taptic engine, display and battery. Now, about Apple’s claim that the Series 5 Sport cases are made from “100% recycled aluminum.” While using recycled materials is great, the truth is most of the world’s aluminum is already recycled, and recycled aluminum is dramatically cheaper than the freshly-mined variety. The real question is whether Apple uses any recycled aluminum that wouldn’t have been recycled anyway. And after analyzing Apple’s statements on the matter, the answer seems to be no.