SpaceX has scrubbed today's scheduled launch of its latest rocket, which was meant to deploy a new batch of Starlink satellites for its upcoming internet service. The launch had been meant to take place on Thursday afternoon, September 17, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The clock is ticking for TikTok, or has already run out if you got just as confused as the US President himself. Either way, it seems that the social media sensation is close to finding a way out of its predicament, that is if its strategy with Oracle actually works. That deal hasn't even been approved yet and there is already a growing pushback against a structure that practically changes nothing in terms of who has control over TikTok.
Living in a digital age makes it almost too easy to accumulate clutter in the form of files, especially given how small these files can be. That's true for files you keep locally on your laptop or phone but cloud storage still comes at a cost, even if it's offered for free. To ensure you don't run out of space just because of the trash you've gathered over the months, Google Drive will soon implement a policy that will automatically delete files in its Trash forever after 30 days.
TikTok was practically an overnight sensation just like FaceApp and, like the face-morphing app, it got dragged into a privacy and security scandal. Unlike FaceApp, however, TikTok's problems grew to a national level in the US and its demise in the country was all but ensured. While its fate still likes in the hands of Oracle and the US government, YouTube seems to be taking no chances and is launching a beta test for its new Shorts format, directly taking on TikTok while it's down.
While many people are still living with Internet speeds below 100Mbps, Google Fiber is gearing up to roll out an even faster option to its existing 1 Gigabit plan. In an announcement on Monday, Google said that it plans to start testing a new 2 Gigabit Internet plan with select customers this fall, paving the way for a faster speed option that won't cost much more than what Internet customers are already paying.
The FCC makes the rules for the government's Lifeline program, a program in which millions of Americans receive subsidized phone and internet service. Each person receiving a subsidy for phone/internet service must subscribe to a specific minimum plan with a local phone/data carrier. Over the past couple of years, the amount of cash in this subsidy has decreased, while the minimum data plan has increased - toward the inevitable breaking point we're approaching now.
Smart assistants today let us do many things with our voice or sometimes a tap or two but the things they allow are often dictated by product manufactures and service providers only. Long before these home automation platforms came to be, IFTTT, short for "If This Then That", democratized connecting web services or even smart appliances together. It always has had one hard limit but now you can go beyond IFTTT's simple operation. That is if you're willing to pay the literal price.
Much to the consternation of Play Music users, Google is clearly pinning its music business on YouTube Music. Naturally, it is trying to convince the users that the latter offers an even better experience than the former. While some are still looking for feature parity, YouTube Music is busy rolling out new features that would put it on the same footing as its bigger and stronger rivals like Spotify and Apple Music, features like making playlists more dynamic and even more collaborative.
There's a version of Firefox out there that'll close your old tabs automatically. Years after the tab nightmare began, we're finally at a place in this world where we're given the option to see old tabs close without our assistance. This option appears on Firefox 81 for Android, and it'll be on your Android smartphone in the very near future.
It isn't unusual that we lose our cellular signals in certain places, be it indoors because of structural impediments or outdoors for one reason or another. There's a reason why some establishments offer free public Wi-Fi to keep visitors happy, but the hassle of figuring out which ones are safe to connect to makes them sad anyway. That's why Google's Area 120 skunkworks arm is launching Orion WiFi that can automatically and seamlessly connect you to such WiFi access points, but with a slight commercial twist that could interest network carriers.
Google's Magenta research project has produced Lo-Fi Player, a fun and interactive tool that enables anyone to create their own looping lo-fi music mix. The player was no doubt inspired by the huge number of lo-fi channels that have popped up on YouTube -- the genre is one that has taken off in the age of the Internet, offering a blend of jazz, hip-hop, sound bites, audio glitches, looping beats, and more.
In the Fall of the year 2020, students will learn how to troubleshoot on a computer. This is a skill that they'll use for the rest of their lives. Because of the way one must learn how to work with a computer, and fix issues with a computer, they'll become familiar with the way our modern, connected, technology-infused world must be handled if they want to be successful. Students are going to need to learn how to turn it off and turn it back on again.