Any other year, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus would feel, well, magical. Apple's two new smartphones address some long-standing complaints from iPhone owners, like including wireless charging support; they look sleek, have improved cameras, and borrow clever screen technology from the iPad Pro. Of course, this year there's a shadow looming over both new handsets.
Tesla may have a track record of looking to the future of transportation, but it's considering a thoroughly well-established idea for upgrading its Superchargers. Rather than getting more energy into your electric car, the automaker is apparently considering ways drivers and their passengers might want to top up their own energy levels. If that sounds like a convenience store at a traditional gas station, you're not wrong.
You might not be impressed with the Apple TV 4K, but a big change to how iTunes movie rental periods are handled is likely to be much more warmly received. Apple has quietly switched up its policy on how long rented content can be watched after you've started playback, much to the benefit of iTunes users. Now, you'll have 48 hours to finish watching your rental.
Looks like Hue, LIFX, and others will soon have some new smart lighting competition, with a former Nest exec preparing to launch a rival system of his own. Locoroll is the brainchild of Erik Charlton, formerly a member of the founding team at Nest and the company's head of business. It's been working for more than a year and a half on what appears to be smart dimmer switches for the connected home.
An innovative 3D-printed sensor could dramatically reduce the cost of giving autonomous cars a 360-degree view of the world, potentially replacing radar as a key component of driverless technology. The tech, handiwork of researchers at the University of Arizona, is currently being developed for commercialization by startup Lunewave. That's making some big claims about just how much of an improvement over the traditional sensing suite its spherical sensors might be.
Microsoft and Facebook may not be as cool as SpongeBob, but they do now have a mighty cable under the sea which is almost as impressive as a pineapple. The two companies has completed its Marea subsea cable, a groundbreaking - or should that be seabreaking? - infrastructure project that will funnel vast quantities of high-speed data more than 17,000 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.
T-Mobile and Sprint's on-again, off-again merger is near to terms being agreed, sources claim, though there's still some way to go before the four major carriers become three. The two networks have been potential suitors for several years now, though so far have failed to reach a conclusive deal that would see them merge. However, reports earlier this month claimed that it was once again a possibility.
You can credit the iPhone 8 and iPhone X for the recent resurgence in interest in wireless charging, and IKEA isn't letting that opportunity pass it by. The company has offered select versions of its furniture with wireless charging functionality since 2015, but until now iPhone owners have required an adapter in order to take advantage. With the arrival of native support in the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, as well as the upcoming iPhone X, IKEA is relaunching its range.
In an unexpected blow to Uber, the city of London has refused to reissue its license to operate, over concerns that its ride-sharing service "is not fit and proper." The decision will mean that, after Uber's current license expires on September 30, 2017, Uber will not be able to run its business in the UK's capital city. At its heart, the decision comes down to ongoing controversies about driver background disclosures and how Uber has used tools to make regulatory monitoring more difficult.
I'm an HTC fan, but I can't say I'm impressed by the company's billion dollar deal with Google. The phone-maker has been instrumental in many of the most pivotal moments in modern smartphone history, producing some of my favorite devices in the process. I've also found myself at times being one of the company's more vocal critics, though, and for all HTC's attempts to spin this deal with Google as a win-win for all, I'm not convinced.
Uber's oft-criticized location tracking has been reined in with the arrival iOS 11, with Apple forcing app-makers to give more granular controls over privacy to users. The ride-sharing app always made use of location services on the iPhone to allow drivers to navigate to their pickup, of course, but that proved insufficient for Uber's appetites. In an update in 2016, Uber decided to restrict an existing location privacy option that iPhone users had previously been enjoying.
Tesla is further widening the gap between the Model S and the new Model 3, discontinuing the entry-level version of its premium sedan. The automaker has long been fighting assumptions by would-be owners that the Model 3, simply by virtue of being newer, is actually "better" than the Model S. Now, since CEO Elon Musk's repeated insistence of that fact still isn't hitting home, Tesla is making the differences even more obvious.
