Author Archives: Ewdison Then

AOL and Yahoo can perhaps be considered relics of the Internet's past. One of the first communication platforms and search engines, respectively, the two have long been displaced from their markets and have never fully recovered. There has been no shortage of attempts to revive their brands or embark on new ventures but those might have finally come to an end now that Verizon has sold the two off, along with the rest of Verizon Media, to an equity firm better known for owning one of Las Vegas's most popular resort hotels.

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DJI already launched no less than two new drones this year, that despite the legal debacle it has in the US over its involvement with the Chinese government's activities. Fortunately, it hasn't forgotten about its relatively young products, namely the DJI Mini 2. Owners of that drone have been reporting minor but still unfavorable issues about its LiPo battery. The good news is that it will need only a software fix. The bad news is that its arrival is still unknown at this point.

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It seems that Clubhouse's time in the limelight is coming to a close. Although its name still has some weight in the social media space, its user base may have started to plateau. After raking in millions of downloads earlier this year, the Clubhouse app has reportedly been downloaded less than a million times last month, hinting that its growth spurt might finally be over, giving the social networking giants the chance to take over.

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Apple has never been one to immediately jump on fads and trends. Just look at that notch that has remained unchanged since it debuted on the iPhone X in 2017. It may finally be changing, even if just a bit, in the iPhone 13, which has been the subject of most of the leaks about Apple's next smartphone so far. That, however, won't be the only thing that's changing on that side of the iPhone and the latest insider tip suggests it will finally have a feature that has long been exclusive to the iPad Pro.

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Smartwatches today have gained a lot of functionality that could monitor more than just your activity or movement. They can gauge the quality of your sleep, measure your heart rate, and, at least in some cases, even take note of blood oxygen levels. There are, however, still some things they can't do, like standalone blood pressure measurement or non-invasive blood sugar monitoring. The latter, however, might be getting closer to reality with an Apple Watch with such a feature in tow coming as soon as 2022.

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It seems that ultra-wideband or UWB is the new fad in mobile and IoT markets these days. The wireless communication technology is being used in smart home devices and smart trackers because of their ability to know a device's location and even orientation. Apple and Samsung are among the first to put this technology to use in their latest phones but it seems that Google might be following suit as early as the Pixel 6 later this year.

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Although there were many developers, publishers, and advertisers that raised disgruntled voices when Apple announced its new App Tracking Transparency policy for iOS, Facebook was the one that shouted the loudest. It used rhetoric and other strategies to besmirch Apple's privacy efforts, even going as far as ironically saying it will actually benefit the social networking giant in the long run. Now it's taking those efforts to a new level by warning users that Facebook and Instagram might become paid services if iOS users don't enable app tracking.

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Windows is arguably the most-used operating system in the world and yet there are things where it's still playing catch up with others, especially mobile platforms like Android and iOS. One area it has long been criticized for is the handling of Bluetooth audio, both the media itself as well as related accessories. It seems, however, that Microsoft is finally catching up in some regard with the next version of Windows 10 that will finally bring support for one popular audio codec as well as make Bluetooth audio accessories less of a pain to manage.

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The European Union's GDPR was a double-edged sword that protected privacy not just for the region but for the rest of the world but at the expense of some inconveniences. Website administrators had a hell of a time implementing compliance and users now get welcomed by messages asking their permission to enable cookies. These can get pretty annoying or even downright confusing which is why Vivaldi is bringing its Cookie Crumbler feature to Android to pretty much block most of those cookies and their dialogs altogether.

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When Samsung unveiled its most powerful Galaxy devices this week, it clearly didn't consider the Galaxy Book Go to be worthy of being included in that category. After all, there hasn't been a Windows 10 Arm device that could be considered on par with their Intel equivalents, unlike the M1 Macs. That may be the reason why the Galaxy Book Go was a no show at this week's event but that only means that there's plenty of room for someone to leak the affordable device in its entirety.

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Spotify is giving its app a refresh, with a new "Your Library" section that promises quicker access with a revamped layout and dynamic filters. The new interface brings together music and podcasts in a single UI, following Spotify's announcement earlier this week that it would be adding podcast subscriptions as an option for users.

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Operating systems, including Linux, usually have a handful of processes or programs running in the background even when you don't even have a single window visible. Managing these processes is an advanced activity that only seasoned computer users are familiar with but there will always come a time when people, especially those on Windows, will need to take a peek at those. That's what Windows 10's Task Manager is for and it's getting some powerful features in a future Windows release.

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