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Google Maps Will Provide 'Eco-Friendly' Routes to Drivers

Charlotte Henry ·

Google Maps is to provide an ‘eco-friendly’ route to drivers by default, Reuters reported. Further upgrades to make comparing transit options are also on the way.

Unless users opt out, the default route will be the “eco-friendly” one if comparable options take about the same time, Google said. When alternatives are significantly faster, Google will offer choices and let users compare estimated emissions. “What we are seeing is for around half of routes, we are able to find an option more eco-friendly with minimal or no time-cost tradeoff,” Russell Dicker, a director of product at Google, told reporters on Monday. Google said it derives emissions relative estimates by testing across different types of vehicles and road types, drawing on insights from the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Road grade data comes from its Street View cars as well as aerial and satellite imagery. The potential effect on emissions from the feature is unclear.

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PayPal Will Let Customers Pay With Bitcoin at Online Merchants

Andrew Orr ·

PayPal users with Bitcoin can now pay with the cryptocurrency at supported online merchants globally. It will be rolled out later in 2021.

The ability to pay with bitcoin at checkouts with PayPal’s estimated 29 million merchants means that cryptocurrency use is now easier than ever before. Despite all of this, there is still some concern about the volatility of bitcoin and other cryptos, though PayPal hopes to address this with the conversion to fiat currency.

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Adobe Announces a Mobile Bundle for iPad Apps

Andrew Orr ·

Adobe announced on Tuesday its Adobe Design Mobile Bundle as a subscription plan. It will cost US$14.99/month or US$149.99/year.

The Design Mobile Bundle includes Photoshop on the iPad, Illustrator on the iPad, and Fresco on the iPad and the iPhone, as well as Adobe Spark, the Creative Cloud Mobile app, and the benefits of Creative Cloud services, including 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Fonts, Adobe Portfolio and Behance.

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Most Browser Tracking Protection Isn’t Very Effective by Default

Andrew Orr ·

DuckDuckGo wrote on Tuesday that most browser tracking protection doesn’t stop tracking by default. There are multiple ways to track people besides third-party cookies, for example.

The issue is that once such trackers are loaded in your browser, they have a ton of ways to track you beyond just third-party cookies (e.g., by another form of cookies called first-party cookies, by your IP address, and much, much more).

Therefore, to really stop a cross-site tracker, the kind that tries to track your activity from site to site, you have to prevent it from actually loading in your browser in the first place.

Of course, the post is a plug for the DuckDuckGo browser extension, but the details behind tracking are good to know.

Cool Stuff Found

TMO's Charlotte Henry on MacVoices #21060 With Chuck Joiner

Charlotte Henry ·

Part two of the episode of MacVoices with Chuck Joiner featuring The MacObserver‘s UK Associate Editor and host of the Media+ podcast Charlotte Henry is now available to view. The discussion looks at how tech and politics affect each other. There is also a look at what Amazon securing Thursday Night Football means for sports and streaming. (Spoiler alert, Apple TV+ should still look at getting into sports.) Part one of the conversation, which focussed on the Media+ podcast, is also available to view.

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Visa Will Accept USD Coin Cryptocurrency to Settle Transactions

Andrew Orr ·

USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin tied to the U.S. dollar, meaning that one USDC is equal to one dollar. Visa announced that it will accept these coins to settle transactions on its network in partnership with Crypto.com.

Traditionally, if a customer chooses to use a Crypto.com Visa card to pay for a coffee, the digital currency needs to be converted into traditional money. The wallet will deposit fiat currency in a bank account, to be wired to Visa at the end of the day to settle any transactions, adding cost and complexity for businesses. Visa’s latest step strips out the need to convert digital coin into traditional money in order for the transaction to be settled.

Emulating Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac 128K on iOS
Cool Stuff Found

Emulating Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac 128K on iOS

Andrew Orr ·

Ex-Apple Technology Evangelist Matt Sephton tweeted a photo of painting on an iPad Pro in the style of Mac OS 7, otherwise known as System 7. He shared a way to do this via software emulation. A tool on GitHub called Mini vMac lets you emulate Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac 128K on your iDevice. It requires iOS 9 or later, a ROM image from one of the three systems, and disk images with Mac software.

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iPhone 13 : Orange is Not The New Black

Charlotte Henry ·

Whether it’s clothing or iPhones, I generally stick to variations of black, grey, and white. (I got a Blue iPhone XR – a major step forward for me – before retreating back into my comfort zone with the darker )!) Forbes contributor David Phelan appears to be a big fan of brightly-colored devices though. He was disappointed that Max Weinbach and Filip Koroy from Everything Apple Pro have said an orange iPhone 13 is unlikely.

However, it almost always saves its brighter colors for the regular rather than the Pro. And Apple has come very close to an orange iPhone already in the shape of the iPhone XR in coral, which had a lobster-orange look to it. Anyway, if the thought of a matte-finish orange iPhone appeals to you as much as it does me—and, to be clear, it appeals to me a lot—then before we go any further I should tell you: it’s not coming. According to Weinbach, although it reached a certain stage in the production process, it’s unlikely to make it to launch. Well, I’m taking heart that that’s not a definite no, but it seems my hopes for an orange iPhone are currently doomed.