Small businesses might soon be able to accept payments using their iPhones without the need for extra hardware. According to Bloomberg, Apple could start rolling out the feature through a software update in the next few months, perhaps with the final version of iOS 15.4 that's coming out this spring. Apple has reportedly been working on the service since 2020, when it purchased a Canadian startup called Mobeewave known for developing a technology that turns a phone into a payment portal.

Mobeewave's technology only needs an app and the phone's NFC to work, unlike services like Square that require the use of an external hardware. The user simply has to type in the amount they want to charge, and their customer only needs to tap their credit card onto the back of the device. Apple declined Bloomberg's invitation to comment, so it's unclear if that's how its built-in iPhone feature will work, as well. 

In addition, Bloomberg's sources couldn't say whether the feature will be rolled out as part of Apple Pay. The team developing the feature, however, has reportedly been working with the tech giant's payments division since Apple purchased Mobeewave. Whether Apple is launching the service with an existing payment network is also unknown at this point. 

Before its acquisition, Mobeewave teamed up with Samsung to turn its phones into contactless payment terminals. They piloted the feature in Canada and even gave the company's point-of-sale service, dubbed Samsung POS, a wide release in the country. 

Samsung's consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 reached 76.57 trillion Korean won (US$63.7 billion), the tech giant has revealed in its latest earnings report. That's a quarterly record high for the company, which says that its revenue growth for the period was driven mainly by the expanded sales of its smartphones, TVs and home appliances. 

Its operating profit of KRW 13.87 trillion (US$11.5 billion) in the quarter ending December 31st, 2021 was lower than the previous quarter's, however, due to the bonuses that it doled out to employees for the season. The company has also reported a new historic revenue high of KRW 279.6 trillion (U$232.5 billion) for all of 2021, along with KRW 51.63 trillion (US$42.9 billion) in operating profits. 

Samsung's memory business, which is typically its biggest moneymaker, has experienced a decline in revenue from the previous quarter due to the global supply chain crisis and a slight drop in prices. Further, while demand for memory products remained strong, the company says it didn't push for sales as aggressively as it usually does after considering its inventory levels and the market outlook. The memory division posted a consolidated revenue of KRW 26.01 trillion (US$21.6 billion) and an operating profit of KRW 8.84 trillion (US$7.35 billion) for the fourth quarter of 2021. In the third quarter, it posted KRW 26.41 trillion (US$21.96 billion) in consolidated revenue and KRW 10.06 trillion (US$8.36 billion) in operating profit. 

Samsung's combined mobile and consumer electronics business, now called Mobile eXperience or MX, has posted KRW 28.95 trillion (US$24 billion) in consolidated revenue and KRW 2.66 trillion (US$2.2 billion) in operating profit. The slight increase in revenue was mainly due to the strong sales of its premium smartphones, namely its foldables and its Galaxy S series devices, as well as its PCs, tablets and wearables during the holiday season. Like in the previous quarter, though, the division's profitability was impacted by Samsung's marketing efforts for its foldables and for the launch of its upcoming models this year. 

Meanwhile, the company's mobile panel business saw an increase in earnings due to solid demand for new smartphones. Losses became larger for Samsung's large panel business, though, due to a decline in pricing for LCDs and the initial costs related to its Quantum Dot displays. Samsung also saw strong sales for its premium and lifestyle TVs, but its visual display business recorded a lower operating profit quarter-on-quarter because of rising material and logistics costs.

For 2022, Samsung expects growth in its memory business from higher server demand and in its display panel business from new smartphone releases. However, the company made it clear in its report that it also expects COVID-related supply issues and other problems to persist and affect its operations. Despite those constraints, it believes its MX business will still deliver revenue and profit growth led by its new flagships and by higher sales of its mass market 5G smartphones. Samsung has an Unpacked event scheduled on February 9th, where it will unveil the next S-series flagship to succeed the Galaxy S21 lineup.

Intel has emerged triumphant (for now) in a long-running antitrust case that once saw the chipmaker slapped with a record-breaking fine by the European Commission. The General Court, Europe's second highest court, has overturned the €1.06 billion fine levied against the company way back in 2009. Back then, the Commission determined that Intel abused its dominant position in the market and harmed its rivals by offering manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Lenovo incentives for using its microprocessors instead of those from rival AMD's. 

The company, of course, appealed the decision, but the General Court upheld the fine in 2014. Intel had a game plan to shut out AMD from the market and "attempted to conceal the anti-competitive nature of (those) practices," the court said. In 2017, however, the highest court in the European Union ordered the fine to be re-examined. It sent the case back down to the General Court on the grounds that the Commission didn't consider conducting an economic assessment on how Intel's activity impacted its rival's ability to compete against it.

Now, the General Court has issued its decision, in which it confirmed that the Commission carried out an incomplete analysis of the company's rebate scheme all those years ago. As such, it's not possible to establish whether the rebates Intel offered the manufacturers were "capable of having, or were likely to have, anticompetitive effects." The General Court has also decided that it's not in a position to identify how much fine Intel has to pay, so it has scrapped both the decision and the fine levied against the chipmaker.

It's a major victory for the company that's currently trying to catch up to AMD while also dealing with the global supply chain shortage. According to The Wall Street Journal, though, the decision could still be appealed, and it would return to the Court of Justice if that happens.

You can now get Google Assistant to stop talking with just one word: "Stop." That's it — you don't even have to say "Hey, Google" before that. The official Google Twitter account has announced the small but necessary quality-of-life improvement for the company's speakers and smart displays. It sometimes takes a while (and several repeated attempts) to get Assistant's attention with a "Hey, Google" if it suddenly goes off without you wanting it to or if you absolutely have to cut it off mid-spiel. This new feature solves that problem.

Google has been testing the capability to issue voice commands without wake words on Android since at least last year. The feature, codenamed "Guacamole," includes the ability to cancel alarms simply by saying "Stop." A year before the discovery of that experimental feature, another one codenamed "Blue Steel" was leaked to the public. Blue Steel gives you a way to activate Assistant by proximity alone, with the voice AI's interface automatically popping up when you move close to a smart display without having to say anything. Google didn't say whether this new capability is a result of either experiment, though we're sure all that matters if that you need to stop Assistant from talking is that the feature exists. 

Twitter has received the highest number of content removal demands from governments around the world from January to June 2021, the website has revealed in its latest transparency report. To be precise, it received 43,387 legal demands that involve 196,878 accounts. Twitter says those numbers represent the largest increase in content removal requests and accounts reported within a six-month reporting period from the time it started publishing transparency reports in 2012.

One factor that contributed to the spike in accounts reported is the legal demands submitted by Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. The agency flagged 102,363 accounts for posting sexual services and illegal adult content, and Twitter took action on 18,570 of them. Twitter also saw an increase in accounts withheld from the public due to content that allegedly violated Russia's laws against inciting suicide. 

Last year, Russian News Agency Tass reported that the country's internet authorities threatened to block Twitter if it doesn't remove "suicide incitement aimed at minors, child pornography, as well as information about the use of drugs" on its website. The authorities also slowed down Twitter's loading speeds for desktop and mobile.

A total of 95 percent of the total global volume of legal demands came from five countries in particular, with Japan remaining as the top requester. Japan is responsible for 43 percent of the legal demands Twitter received, with most of them being about narcotics and drug-related posts, obscenity and financial-related crimes. The other four countries are Russia, Turkey, India and South Korea, in that order.

Based on Twitter's report, there's an upward trend in the number of legal demands Twitter gets, with a huge spike happening in the first half of 2020. It remains to be seen whether those numbers will keep on rising, but Twitter's VP of global public policy Sinead McSweeney expressed her concerns in a statement: "We're facing unprecedented challenges as governments around the world increasingly attempt to intervene and remove content. This threat to privacy and freedom of expression is a deeply worrying trend that requires our full attention."

Amazon won't be paying most warehouse workers in the US to quit their jobs this year. According to The Information, the e-commerce giant has paused its "pay-to-quit" program for majority of its workers for 2022, and it's unclear if it will be reinstated. The publication has obtained a copy of Amazon's message to its employees, which was then verified by a spokesperson from the company. Typically, Amazon pays its warehouse workers up to $5,000 to quit their jobs after peak seasons like the holidays as a way to pare down its workforce in the slowdown that follows. 

Jeff Bezos also once told shareholders in a newsletter that it's a way to give employees an out if they're no longer happy working for Amazon. The company would usually make "The Offer," as it's also called, towards the end of the first quarter of the year. For 2022, however, it told employees that only workers who graduated from Amazon's Career Choice training program will be eligible for the payout. They're also only eligible within 90 days after graduating. Amazon pays tuition reimbursements for workers part of the Career Choice program, which expands this January to include GEDs, English as a Second Language (ESL) certificates and bachelor's degrees. It only used to cover certificates for technical skills and associate degrees.

Karen Riley Sawyer, the company's representative, has confirmed the changes to the pay-to-quit program, telling The Information that it's currently only available "to graduates of Career Choice to support their transition to a new career should they choose to leverage their new certifications." While Sawyer didn't say why the program's scope has been narrowed down, it could be because vaccine mandates and the rising infection rates caused by the spread of the Omicron variant are making it hard for Amazon to find adequate staffing. Earlier this month, Motherboard reported that over 1,800 workers at a single Amazon facility in New York were out on leave due to COVID. A source also told The Information that the warehouse had been facing severe staffing shortages over the past months. 

The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is getting a sequel, its developer Skydance Interactive has confirmed. It doesn't come as a surprise — the title quickly became one of the most popular games for the PlayStation VR since it launched in 2020, and it swiftly made its way to other platforms, including the Oculus Quest 2, Viveport and PC. Skydance has also revealed, along with its announcement that a sequel is in development, that the VR survival-horror title has welcomed 2.5 million players and has "far surpassed $60 million in revenue" since it became available on January 23rd, 2020.

The sequel is entitled Chapter 2: Retribution, and Skydance says it will pick up from where the first game left off. It'll continue its predecessor's storyline, which means players will play the Tourist that'll have to survive the zombie-infested remains of New Orleans. That said, it'll be developed as a standalone game for those who don't want to bother playing the first and will feature new characters and new threats.

Chris Busse, head of Skydance Interactive, said in a statement:

"The past two years have been absolutely incredible for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, and we’re grateful forthe continued support from the player community who have helped make the game the success it is today. We're excited to announce Chapter 2, and we can't wait to let players explorethe new adventures that await them in the French Quarter and beyond."

Unfortunately, that's the only information Skydance has shared for now, though the company promises to release more details about the sequel later this year. 

If you're looking to buy new microSD cards, external hard drives or flash drives, you may want to take a look at Amazon's deal of the day sale. You'll be able to get SanDisk and WD storage products for up to 40 percent off their usual prices, including the SanDisk 256GB Extreme microSDXC card for its all-time low price of $32. That's $6 off its original retail price of $38 and is the lowest we've seen it sell for on the website. The microSDXC card has read speeds of up to 160MB/s for fast file transfers of large images and videos, and it also has 90MB/s write speeds for fast shooting. It's a UHS speed class 3 card with a video speed class of 30 (V30), making it capable of handling 4K UHD and Full HD files. 

SanDisk's 512GB Ultra microSDXC is also currently on sale for its lowest price yet — you can get it for $50.49, which is almost 50 percent off its original retail price of $100. Advised for use with smartphones, tablets and mirrorless cameras, this microSDXC card has read and transfer speeds of up to 120MB/s. 

But if what you really need is an SD card for your camera, you can get the SanDisk 256GB Extreme PRO SDXC card instead. It's currently on sale for $46, which is 54 percent off its original price of $100 and is the lowest we've seen it sell for on Amazon. That's $2 less than the previous all-time low for the card with shoot speeds of up to 90MB/s and transfer speeds of up to 170MB/s. It's V30 card with a UHS speed class of 3, and SanDisk says it's perfect for shooting 4K UHD video and sequential burst mode photography.

In case you need an external drive to store all those videos, images and other files, you can also get the SanDisk 1TB Extreme PRO Portable SSD for 45 percent off. It's back to its all-time low price of $170 that we last saw in November. That's a whopping $140 off its full price of $310. The portable SSD can reach read and write speeds of up to 2000MB/s and is enclosed in a forged aluminum chassis that acts as a heatsink to be able to sustain those speeds. It's also water-and-dust resistant and can withstand drops of up to 6.5 feet. There are a lot more drives and other products included in the sale if none of the above catches your eye — you just have to grab them before the sale ends within the day before they go back to the full price.

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Twitter is still working on a feature that will give you a way to blast tweets that can only be seen by the friends you choose. In July last year, the social network revealed that it's considering letting you designate "trusted friends" so some tweets would only be visible to them. Now, developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi has unearthed evidence that the feature is currently in development and that Twitter now calls it "Flock." 

It might be called differently if it gets a wider release, though — the company told The Verge that "Flock" is just a placeholder name. Based on the explanation that Paluzzi found, its current iteration will let you add up to 150 users to your list, and they'll be the only ones who can see and respond to tweets you send to the group. Any tweet you send to your Flock will be come with a notice telling your audience that they can see it because you've added them to the group. You can edit the group anytime, though, and Twitter says it won't notify anyone you remove. 

When the company first revealed that it's considering adding a trusted friends feature, it also presented another concept that would allow you to take on different personas within the same account. It's unclear if that version of the feature is no longer in development. Twitter is also testing a feature called Communities that gives you a dedicated space for groups of people with the same interests. Flock, however, was designed with your real friends in mind, similar to Instagram's Close Friends for Stories. In its statement sent to The Verge, Twitter said it's "always working on new ways to help people engage in healthy conversations, and [it's] currently exploring ways to let people share more privately."

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the rights to an animated movie entitled A Winter’s Journey, which will be made in part using the PlayStation game-creation tool Dreams. According to Deadline, the film will blend live actors with CG and hand-painted animation and is an adaptation of Franz Schubert's set of 24 songs for voice and piano called Winterreise. It tells the story of a lovelorn poet who embarks on a dangerous journey that takes him across mountains and snow in 1812 Bavaria. 

Dreams was originally created by Media Molecule, the studio behind LittleBigPlanet, for the PS4. The studio pitched it as a way to create "art, movies and video games" from the start, and we once described it as "an engine, learning suite and distribution platform rolled into one." Since then, people have been using it to create their own games, realistic renders of nature, immersive experiences of their favorite movies, among other things. A Winter’s Journey, however, will reportedly be the first time Dreams will be used on a feature film.

The movie has yet to get a release date, but shooting is expected to start in June in Wrocław, Poland, with actors that include John Malkovich and Jason Isaacs. It'll likely take some time before it's ready to premiere. As for Dreams itself, it's currently on sale in the US PlayStation Store for $10, and it includes a rotating list of the most creative games made using the tool.