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Samsung has unveiled the SmartTag 2, an AirTag-like tracking device that's a successor to the original SmartTag released in 2021. Unlike the original, which had both Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (UWB) variants, the new version will combine both features in a single model. The primary drawback is that it still only works with Samsung smartphones.

The new model sports an all-new ring-shaped design, with metal on the inside of the ring for durability, rather than just having a punch-hole as before. That lets it work better with accessories like clips and keyrings, or attach to bags and luggage. It's now IP67 dust and water resistant as well, letting you do things like track pets outside. 

Samsung

The SmartTag 2 has a new longer-lasting battery as well, with a 700 day range when in Power Saving Mode, or 500 days in Normal Mode — a 50 percent improvement over the last model. Another new feature is the Lost Mode, that lets users input contact information via a message, so that anyone who discovers an itemn with a SmartTag 2 can scan the tag and see the owner's message and contact information. 

As before, the idea is to attach them to important belongings like keys, wallets and suitcases, letting you track them from close range via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or across the world via UWB. The company's augmented reality (AR) tech can visually guide you toward the item via the Samsung Galaxy smartphone camera. The SmartTag 2 can also control smart home appliances via the SmartThings app. 

The downside to the SmartTag 2 is that it only works with Samsung devices for now, so you'd be relying not only on a Galaxy phone for tracking, but also for the worldwide tracking network. Google's Find My Device network has yet to go live, in part because Google delayed it with personal security in mind as it waits for Apple's proposed spec. Both companies plan to release a specification for unwanted tracking alerts, both iOS and Android, by the end of 2023. 

It's unclear if Samsung's devices will support that spec as well — so you may want to wait a bit before jumping in. The SmartTag 2 launches globally on October 11 for $30 in black or white options.

Amazon's Kuiper satellites will soon make their debut in orbit. The company is gearing up to deploy its first two satellites, the KuiperSat-1 and the KuiperSat-2, for its Protoflight mission that's scheduled to launch on October 6. Project Kuiper is Amazon's answer to SpaceX's Starlink service. At the moment, its plans entail launching 3,200 satellites over the next six years to form a constellation that can provide internet connectivity even to far-flung places traditional providers can't reach.

The KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 are the first version of Amazon's satellites and will provide the company with an important learning opportunity. They'll allow the company to conduct a series of tests that would add valuable real-world data to information already collected from the lab. Project Kuiper's ground team will also get the chance to observe how the network performs, since Protoflight will be testing the satellites' connection to Kuiper's ground-based network and to customer terminals. In addition, it will serve as a trial for the launch operations of subsequent satellites.

"We’ve done extensive testing here in our lab and have a high degree of confidence in our satellite design, but there’s no substitute for on-orbit testing," said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s vice president of technology, in a statement. "This is Amazon’s first time putting satellites into space, and we’re going to learn an incredible amount regardless of how the mission unfolds."

Amazon previously announced its intention to send the first two Kuiper satellites to space on top of a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket. However, ULA encountered delays with the new rocket's development, and the satellites will be ferried to space on top of an Atlas V instead. ULA will deploy the satellites at an altitude of 311 miles, and then the Kuiper team will start testing the systems onboard and confirm all electronics are working, establish first contact and deploy the satellites' solar arrays. After that, the team will send data back and forth to test the network. Amazon says both satellites will be deorbited by the end of the mission.

The company says it's on track to deploy its first production satellites in the first half of 2024 and to start beta testing with commercial consumers later that year. Presumably, it could incorporate changes to its plans, depending on what it learns from this launch. ULA will be streaming the event live on October 6, with coverage starting at 2PM ET.

Posts on X might look quite different, especially if you mainly follow news and media publications. The website formerly known as Twitter has started removing headlines and snippets from posted links, implementing a change Fortune reported in August. Back then, website owner Elon Musk said that the idea came from him directly and that it will "greatly improve the [platform's] esthetics." We tested it out by posting one of our stories, and only the article's image with an overlay of its URL show up when it's viewed on iOS. On the web, we still see the article snippet and a truncated version of its headline. 

Advertisers reportedly didn't like the new format when they were shown a preview of it, but the change is clearly still pushing through. X's main reason for the format switch is apparently to make posts look more compact by fitting more of them in the portion of the timeline that appears on screen. In addition, Musk reportedly thinks that it could help lessen instances of clickbait, which rely on headlines with shock value, on the website. 

While Musk publicly claims that the primary driving force for the change in format is the website's aesthetic, it's no secret that he's been trying to encourage more people to post long-form pieces directly on X. The website expanded Blue subscribers' post limit to 25,000 characters under his leadership, and he previously tweeted that journalists who want "more freedom to write and a higher income" should "publish directly" on the platform. More recently, he encouraged "more citizen journalism" on X and said that people can do "live video easily" from their phone. 

Amazon is shutting down its short-lived audio app known as Amp, which previously offered a music library for users to create and broadcast custom DJ sets, according to reports by Bloomberg. Amazon’s Amp was available on Android and iOS and has only been live since March of 2022. While a pandemic bubble might have given it some attention, it never really took off. The tool was designed to allow creators to make custom content as modern DJ hosts. On this mobile-forward app, users could overlap conversations and chit-chat with live music, similar to what you would hear on a traditional radio station.

But as we all know, radio is dying as it is. And it's no question that competition in the streaming space is hot. A lot of creators in the niche subset of online DJing might have already been on mainstream platforms like YouTube and TikTok or on more music-focused platforms like Stationhead or Tidal. The app was even initially reported as “something of a Clubhouse competitor.” Yet, Amazon did not explicitly cite why they made the decision to kill Amp altogether, or how far off it was from saving. In a memo to Bloomberg, Steve Boom, who led Amp at Amazon said that the decision was “not made quickly or easily.”

It may have something to do with the fact that it just never picked up in the mainstream as Amazon would have liked it to. When our very own James Trew put it to the test, he said he had trouble getting listeners. The mobile-first platform had some unusual limitations for how content could be created and listened to — all in all, probably playing to its downfall. For example, you could only play two songs from the same album within a three-hour period, which is a considerable amount of time to block off a DJ from being able to create a truly custom set.

The axing of Amp follows a series of cuts from the big box retailer, namely its Halo division which it dissolved back in April and Amazon Scout, a robot delivery service it killed before it could even start, around this time last year. This could signal some internal restructuring is still well underway at Amazon.

Patreon announced a rebranding of its platform through a series of updates on Wednesday. New features give creators more personalization and control while offering supporters more ways to follow their favorites. In addition, the platform is integrating more free content, allowing every creator to host communities non-paying members can access. Patreon also tweaked its branding with a new logo, color themes, photography and fonts.

Perhaps the most notable update for creators is the ability to bolster their communities for free members. Creators can now let people join for free, offering content and updates for non-paying members while (optionally) hiding things like early access to podcasts or videos behind a paywall. They can also use a new commerce tool to sell individual pieces of content like recordings, videos and downloadable files. It makes the platform more of an all-in-one social hub for fans who aren’t ready to pay but may decide to later.

Patreon frames its changes as moving creators away from being prisoners to algorithms and back to connecting directly with their most eager and loyal fans. The company says those with early access to the program attracted over 160,000 new fans to their communities.

Patreon

Creators now have greater customization over their pages, including their layout, colors and how posts display. “Whether you’re highlighting your most popular posts, organizing your podcast episodes into seasons, or putting together a video series, you have the creative freedom to arrange and present your work in a way that helps your members dive into exactly what they’re looking for and discover new posts to love,” the company wrote in a blog post. Patreon says early testing shows increased discovery and engagement (especially on older posts) when featured in one of the new collections.

Patreon is also adding chats and member profiles. “Chats are led and managed by creators, which means they can shape the culture and set the right tone for their communities,” the company wrote in a post announcing the features. Members can report problematic messages, and creators will have a hub to review them.

Finally, the Patreon app is getting a redesign. The company says the updated app is crafted for the most hardcore fans, prioritizing their experience. Fans’ homepages will now display content as creators arranged it instead of chronologically. “Instead of dropping into a content overload, members log in and instantly see everything they want at a glance,” the company wrote about the new app. “Their homepage is organized by creator, not by post, which means fans can see a creator’s latest work next to their community conversations and anything else going on in their world. It’s creativity in context, the way creators intended.”

Without fanfare, Rockstar updated the PlayStation 4 version of the original Red Dead Redemption on Tuesday to play at 60fps on the PS5. The 2010 open-world Western launched on PS4 and Switch in August but only runs at 30fps on those platforms — a point many fans took issue with. PS5 owners will now see smoother framerates when playing the title in backward compatibility mode.

Rockstar updated the game with patch 1.03, pushed to PlayStation owners on Tuesday. The patch notes state the higher framerates are only available to PS5 owners, not the standard PS4 or even the more powerful PS4 Pro. In other areas, the patch also added an option to enable subtitles when first starting the game and incorporated requisite “bug fixes and improvements.”

Rockstar Games / Take-Two Interactive

There was no shortage of online grumbling about Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive charging $50 for a 13-year-old game without significant upgrades like 4K visuals or a faster framerate. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick defended the pricing in August, saying, “That's just what we believe is the commercially accurate price for it.” He noted the inclusion of the Undead Nightmare DLC to help justify the cost, describing the expansion as “a great standalone game in its own right when it was originally released, so we feel like it's a great bundle for the first time, and certainly a great value for consumers.” The zombie-themed DLC adds roughly six hours of gameplay.

Although the digital version of Red Dead Redemption has been out for PS4 and Switch since August, the physical version doesn’t arrive until October 13. So, at least owners of the boxed version playing on PS5 will enjoy 60fps from the start.

If you're rocking an iPhone 15, it's probably a good idea to update to the latest version of iOS swiftly. Apple has released a fix for the overheating issues that have plagued its latest batch of iPhones. The company says that iOS 17.0.3 "provides important bug fixes, security updates and addresses an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected." An iPadOS 17 update is also available.

Apple partially blamed the overheating issue on an iOS 17 bug. It noted that there were also "some recent updates to third-party apps that are causing them to overload the system." The company has been working with the developers of those apps (which included Uber, Instagram and Asphalt 9) to resolve the problem.

Your iPhone may be configured to update to the latest version of iOS automatically during downtime when it's charging. You can also update your device manually, by going to Settings > General > About > Software Update on your iPhone. If iOS 17.0.3 is available to you (Apple rolls out updates gradually), you'll be able to install it right away and hopefully keep your iPhone from getting too toasty.

Uber is adding another service to its ride-hailing app: package returns. The company announced a new feature — dubbed ‘Return a Package’ — where customers can have a courier pick up their packages and have them dropped off at a local post office, UPS or FedEx. It will only be available for parcels that are sealed and prepaid, however.
Using this tool, you can track your package's movement in real-time in the Uber app and confirm when a drop-off is completed. This feature will have a flat rate fee of $5, or $3 for Uber One members. ‘Return a Package’ will be available starting today in the Uber and Uber Eats apps in nearly 5,000 cities throughout the United States.

This new service is similar to Uber's existing Connect feature, which allows users to ship goods to and from friends and family — the difference here is that the receiver will be another service worker instead. However, Return a Package is by no means breaking new ground. DoorDash has been offering a similar service since January of this year. The new offering comes ahead of the busy holiday season, when lots of online shoppers buy and return items.