Welcome to the 397th edition of Android Apps Weekly! Here are the big headlines from the last week: WhatsApp spent its entire week doing stuff for its privacy. To start with, it changed its privacy settings around, a needed change because those settings haven’t had a change in years. It also announced encrypted backups for
Read MoreThere are plenty of internet-based live TV streaming services on the market in 2021. Unfortunately, most of these services are rather pricey. One of the few exceptions to this rule is Philo, which costs a fraction of some of its competitors while still offering tons of live channels, cloud DVR, and more. Here’s all you
Read MoreBack in August we covered a unique modification for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP which replaced the handheld’s rear panel with an expanded version that had enough internal volume for an upgraded battery, a Bluetooth audio transmitter, and support for both Qi wireless and USB-C charging. The downside was that getting the 10 mm
Read MoreBloomberg: Sources: US officials are considering a Financial Stability Oversight Council review into whether Tether and other stablecoins threaten financial stability — – Treasury, other agencies consider launching FSOC examination — Tokens’ fast growth has triggered anxieties among regulators
Read MoreIllustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google provided some user data to the government of Hong Kong last year, despite promising it would not process such data requests from authorities, according to the Hong Kong Free Press. The company told the news outlet it “produced some data” in response to three of the 43 requests
Read MoreSimon Parkin / The Guardian: How FBI and Australian police built and marketed the An0m chat service for criminals, which cost $1,700 for a handset and $1,250 for an annual subscription — Billed as the most secure phone on the planet, An0m became a viral sensation in the underworld. There was just one problem …
Read MoreFinancial Times: Number of UK unicorns grew 10x in the last decade, with invested capital growing from €1B/year to €13B/year, but some worry Brexit will counteract the change — A decade ago, Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Kaarmann stood before prospective investors at Seedcamp, a start-up event in London, and set fire to a £50 note.
Read MoreM.G. Siegler / 500ish: Apple won the Epic battle but is too arrogant to see that it still has to make some major App Store changes to both appease the courts and please developers — Apple v. Epic indeed… It depends on what your definition of a link is. Or really, in some ways, what
Read MoreTCL won’t release a foldable phone in 2021 | Photo by Li Zhihao/VCG via Getty Images Electronics company TCL is pausing its plans release a lower-cost foldable phone this year, the company confirmed in an email to The Verge. Its clamshell-style foldable phone, codenamed Project Chicago, was in mid-development when the company made the decision
Read MoreYou know how it goes, you’re just hanging out in the yard, there aren’t enough hours in the day, and weeding the lawn is just such a drag. Then an idea just pops into your head. How about we attach a gas powered flamethrower to a robot arm, drive it around on a tank-tracked robotic
Read MoreNew York Times: Small developers say the Epic ruling could lead to a windfall but some researchers say it is unclear if consumers will actually use alternative payment methods — After a judge opened up a way to avoid Apple’s commission on their sales, companies big and small are seeing dollar signs.
Read MoreNintendo’s history is synonymous with gaming, to the point that many people around the world used “Nintendo” as a generic name for a gaming console in the 80s and 90s. Formed in 1889, the colossus dabbled in a variety of other businesses (including playing cards, a taxi service, and hotels) before striking gold with gaming.
Read MoreJohn Ackerly Contributor Share on Twitter John Ackerly is co-founder and CEO of Virtru Corporation. Previously, he was an investor at Lindsay Goldberg LLC, served as a technology policy adviser at the White House and was the Policy and Strategic Planning director at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Almost every American adult remembers, in vivid
Read MoreOnce in a while we get to glimpse how people build on each other’s work in unexpected and interesting ways. So it is with the GateBoy project, a gate-level emulator built from die shots of the original Game Boy processor. The thing is, [Austin Appleby] didn’t have to start by decapping and taking photos of
Read MoreAlexander I. Platt Contributor Alexander I. Platt is an associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. Once upon a time, a successful startup that reached a certain maturity would “go public” — selling securities to ordinary investors, perhaps listing on a national stock exchange and taking on the privileges and obligations of
Read MoreThe venture world is growing faster than ever, with more funding rounds, bigger funding rounds, and higher valuations than pretty much any point in history. That’s led to an exponential growth in the number of unicorns walking around, and has also forced regulators and venture law researchers to confront a slew of challenging problems. The
Read MoreKevin Collier / NBC News: Investigation finds ransomware hackers are publishing sensitive information of schoolchildren on the dark web; over 1,200 US K-12 schools had data leaks in 2021 — Most don’t have bank passwords. Few have credit scores yet. And still, parts of the internet are awash in the personal information of millions of
Read MoreEric Slivka / MacRumors: Apple warns that long-term exposure to vibrations, like those from high-power motorcycle engines, can degrade iPhone cameras by damaging their gyroscopes — Apple today published a new support document warning iPhone users that the cameras on their devices can be damaged by exposure …
Read MorePhoto by Kirstin Sinclair/Getty Images The entertainment industry spends millions researching what we watch and why every year. As climate destruction and a global pandemic make it more difficult to turn away from our social media feeds, CBS has found a new way to exploit these horrors with its show “The Activist.” Doomscrollers are their
Read MoreSelina Cheng / Hong Kong Free Press: Google says it handed user data in response to three requests from Hong Kong during H2 2020, despite earlier saying that requests have to be made through US DOJ — The US tech giant told HKFP it complied with a data request over a “credible threat to life”
Read MoreIllustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook apologized to misinformation researchers for providing them with flawed, incomplete data for their work examining how users interact with posts and links on its platform, the New York Times reported. Contrary to what the company told the researchers, the data Facebook provided apparently only included information for
Read MoreThe NFT tickets, seen above, change after they’re scanned. | Image: Dreamverse We can all agree NFTs are kind of weird, so here’s another twist to puzzle over: in November, you’ll be able to see the “inaugural display” of The First 5000 Days, the collage/NFT that Beeple sold for $69 million earlier this year. You
Read MoreIs it time for the Nintendo Switch to drop in price? Hello everyone and welcome to the weekly Nintendo recap. We got some exciting news this week regarding a possible Nintendo Switch price cut that could make the original Switch only sell for $250. Additionally, a self-proclaimed leaker tweeted about what they expect to see
Read MoreiPhone 13? AirPods 3? Apple Watch? Or something else…? Apple’s first fall event is just days away. The company is expected to release its new iPhone 13, replacing the iPhone 12 as the best iPhone on the market, along with Apple Watch Series 7 and AirPods 3. But which product are people most excited for?
Read MoreApple says its iPhone cameras may be damaged by motorcycle vibrations | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A new post on Apple’s Support forum says exposing iPhones to high-amplitude vibrations, “specifically those generated by high-power motorcycle engines” could degrade the devices’ camera system. The company recommends against mounting an iPhone on a
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