Starting today, you'll be able to link your Philips Hue smart lights with your Spotify account. You can already make Hue lights dance to the music you're playing through the Hue Sync, which can capture anything you're listening to and translate it into a light script. This new feature, however, promises deeper integration and a "unique immersive" experience. 

Upon linking your accounts, the Philips Hue app will extract the metadata from the song played through Spotify no matter the device. It will then use that information to create an advanced light script, which instructs your lights not just to dance to the beat of the song, but also to react based on its genre and mood. If you want to personalize the experience further, though, you can adjust the lights' brightness, intensity and color palette.

The Spotify integration feature is rolling out globally, but it's still only in its early access phase. You'll need to go to Explore in the Philips Hue app version 4.0 and tap the button in the Philips Hue + Spotify card to enable the new Sync tab. After that, simply follow the instructions on how to link your Spotify account. If you want to give it a try, take note that the feature will only work with color-capable Hue lights connected to a square-shaped, second-gen Hue Bridge.

Signify/Spotify

Amazon has rolled out a new feature for Alexa that can make sure you hear what the voice assistant says even while the TV's on or while people are talking. According to The Verge, the new feature called Adaptive Volume will make Alexa speak louder if it detects a lot of ambient noise. The goal, the company told the publication, is for you to be able to hear the voice assistant's responses over the noise in your home or office. If you're outside the US, though, you won't be able to give it a try just yet — The Verge says it's only available for US customers at the moment.

The publication tested the feature using an Echo Dot that's right next to a desktop PC with a spinning fan and found its performance inconsistent. Alexa responded in a louder than usual voice at times, but other times it replied in its usual volume. It's possible that the company is still fine-tuning the feature before making it available in other regions. The Verge has also noted that Amazon didn't say whether Adaptive Volume can also make the voice assistant respond in a quieter voice if it detects almost no ambient noise. Alexa has long had a "whisper mode," however, which can make it respond in a softer voice when you whisper commands to it.

If you're in the US and want to give Adaptive Volume a try, simply activate it by saying "Alexa, turn on adaptive volume."

The United States created a biometric system to register as many Afghans as possible over 15 years ago, and it's become a cause for concern now that the Taliban has taken over. According to NBC News, privacy advocates are worried [PDF] about the possibility of the Taliban using the database to identify and target individuals who worked with the US-backed Afghan government and organizations that champion women's rights. The system's database, which the US shared with the Afghan government, reportedly contains millions of fingerprints, iris scans and face photos collected throughout the years.

While the exact number of individuals in the database is unclear, an Air Force medic the publication talked to said he was instructed to scan the irises, take the fingerprints and photograph the face of every Afghan who came through the hospital doors while he was in service. Other military officers had to the same thing. The goal was to have an extensive database of fingerprints that authorities can search in the event a bomb is found.

That said, since the US military scanned anyone and everyone, one of the vets who helped collect Afghans' biometrics said it could be difficult to use the database to find specific individuals to target. Someone being in the database doesn't necessarily mean they worked with the US government or women's rights organizations. Department of Defense spokesperson Eric Pahon also denied that Afghans' biometric data is at risk. He told NBC News that "The U.S. has taken prudent actions to ensure that sensitive data does not fall into the Taliban's hands. This data is not at risk of misuse,"

Samsung has launched a walkie talkie app for its smartwatches similar to Apple's, giving you a way to chat with friends without having to make a call. By "smartwatches," though, we really just mean the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic — the app, first spotted by XDA-Developers, only works with the tech giant's latest wearables and isn't compatible with any of their predecessors. 

That would limit the number of friends you can chat with, since they also need to own the latest Galaxy Watch. That said, the app's Google Play description says "two or more users" can have instant conversations, so you may be able to use the app outside of secret one-on-one chats in the middle of the night. Provided you know other people who have a Watch 4, of course, unless Samsung decides to roll the app out for its previous wearable.

To be able to use the feature, you need to log into your Samsung account on a phone connected to your watch. Samsung also recommends using and running the app for the first time while that watch is connected to a smartphone. After that, you'll be able to create channels for your conversation, connect to a nearby friend's watch and talk by pressing a big mic button at the center of the screen. You'll also be able to toggle the feature off any time you're feeling anti-social. 

The rumored satellite features for future iPhones are reserved for emergency uses only, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. A few days ago, a report by well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the next iPhones will come with support for Low Earth Orbit satellite calls and messages. Gurman's sources said, however, that Apple isn't turning its devices into actual satellite phones, at least for now. Instead, the tech giant is reportedly developing at least two emergency-related features relying on satellite networks. 

The first feature is called Emergency Message via Satellite and will be added as a third protocol, alongside iMessage and SMS, to the Messages app. It's apparently codenamed Stewie inside the company and will allow users to text emergency services even when there's no signal, which sounds especially useful during emergencies in remote locations, such as mountains and forests.

The tool will also give users a way to text their emergency contacts simply by typing Emergency SOS in the recipient line. Messages will be restricted to a shorter length, but the senders' contacts will get a notification for them even if their phone is set to Do Not Disturb. Satellite messages will appear as gray bubbles instead of blue or green so they can be easily identified. Eventually, the feature could handle phone calls, as well.

Apple is also reportedly working on a second satellite feature that will allow users to report crisis situations like plane crashes and fires. This system will give users a way to report the incident at length and will ask them specifics, such as if anybody needs search-and-rescue services or if anybody in the vicinity is armed. It can also automatically send authorities the reporter's location and their details from the Health app, such as their medical history, age, medications and information like height and weight. The feature can also a notify the reporter's emergency contacts for them.

While both features sound useful, their availability is restricted by satellite location and reach. They might not work for some regions, and in some cases, users may have to walk outdoors in a certain direction where their iPhone can connect to a satellite. Also, Gurman's sources said it's unlikely that the features will be ready before the year ends, which means the next iPhones expected be announced sometime in September won't be able to send messages via satellite yet. 

A group of current and former Apple workers recently banded together and called for colleagues to share stories of discrimination, harassment and retaliation they'd experienced within the company. As of August 27th, the group called #AppleToo said it has collected 500 such stories — now, it has started publishing them on its official Medium page. Cher Scarlett, an Apple security engineer and the face of the movement, wrote on Medium that she will share five stories at a time "as the emotional toll in reading these is heavy."

Two of the first five are about sexual harassment, one of which involved a male boss using his position of power over a female employee. Later, that employee was kicked out of an interview after the hiring team realized who she was. Another story was from a Black retail worker in the UK who tried to get their bosses to do something about racism and micro aggressions in the workplace to no avail. A female employee talked about how she was targeted by a person in her team and how management didn't do anything about it. And the last one is about an employee who was assaulted in her store by a customer and didn't get support from management. 

If Scarlett publishes all the submissions she got, these are just five of the many we'll get to read. The #AppleToo movement said on Twitter, however, that 75 percent share a common theme: They involve some form of discrimination. Nearly half of them involve sexism, retaliation and HR reports that were ultimately dismissed. A fourth of them involved racism and ableism, and most of the harassment and assault stories were sexual in nature. 

In an interview with Protocol, Scarlett said she feels "like the company needs to be held accountable because they're not holding themselves accountable. People want to feel heard. And they don't feel heard by Apple." She added that some employees who've been with the tech giant for decades felt like leadership used to listened to them, but that's no longer the case. 

When the news about the #AppleToo movement first broke, Apple said in a statement: "We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters."

Sony recently introduced an oddly lighter revision of the PlayStation 5, and it's now clear just why the console is that much easier to carry. YouTube creator Austin Evans has posted a teardown that shows the revised PS5 Digital Edition (that is, the no-disc model) is using a smaller, likely lower-cost heatsink. While this shaves a whopping 0.66lbs off the weight, it also raises the overall temperature by a few degrees — not necessarily a major issue, but worth noting if you either upgrade your SSD or stuff your system into a crowded media cabinet.

There are subtler changes as well, including an easier-to-use stand screw and tweaked connections to the WiFi chip, although it's not clear if or how the wireless changes make a practical difference. It's also uncertain how many of these changes translate to the disc drive version of the PS5.

The company hasn't officially explained its design choices for the updated PS5. As Evans speculates, however, the refreshed PS5 may be a cost-cutting measure that reflects lessons learned in the several months since the machine's debut. Now that Sony knows how well the cooling and other components perform, it knows where it can afford to use cheaper, simpler parts.

The timing is apt. In its first-quarter earnings briefing, Sony told investors it was no longer selling the disc-based PS5 at a loss — this latest design could make the Digital Edition profitable that much sooner. While the choice won't thrill gamers with bitter memories of overheating Xbox 360s (however unlikely a repeat might be), it might play an important role in Sony's long-term health.

A group of activist-hackers in Belarus has infiltrated almost every part of the the country's authoritarian government in a bid to overthrow the Lukashenko regime, according to MIT's Technology Review and Bloomberg. The hackers, known as Belarus Cyber Partisans, have been leaking information they found on sensitive police and government networks. They first started defacing government websites as an act of protest in September 2020 following the country's disputed election, in which Alexander Lukashenko's win was widely considered as fraudulent. But they also publish the information they get on Telegram, where they have 77,000 subscribers.

The group told the publications that it's made up of 15 IT and cybersecurity experts working in the country's tech sector. None of them are "professional hackers," a spokesperson told Tech Review, with only four out of 15 doing the actual "ethical hacking." 

The Partisans' most recent attacks gave them access to drone footage from the government's crackdowns on protests last year and the Ministry of Interior Affairs' mobile phone surveillance database. They also apparently got access to emergency services' audio recordings, as well as video feeds from road speed and isolation cell surveillance cameras. The data the group released over the past weeks include lists of alleged police informants, personal information about top government officials and spies, police drone and detention center footage and secret recordings captured by the government's wiretapping system.

If the Cyber Partisans have been effective in their efforts to infiltrate the government's networks, it's thanks to the help they get from another group called BYPOL. They reportedly reached out to BYPOL in December 2020 for guidance — after all, the group is made up of former Lukashenko officials who defected from the government and current ones working to topple the regime from the inside. 

BYPOL provides them information on how to infiltrate government organizations and on the structure of the administration's databases. In return, the Cyber Partisans provide the group with information it can use to investigate the regime's crimes. BYPOL publishes information on its own Telegram channel and creates documentaries, one of which was cited at a congressional hearing that led to the US imposing sanctions against the Lukashenko regime.

The Cyber Partisan spokesperson told Tech Review that they're using cyberattacks to "paralyze as much as possible of the regime's security forces, to sabotage the regime's weak points in the infrastructure and to provide protection for protesters." Their ultimate goal is "to stop the violence and repression from the terroristic regime in Belarus and to bring the country back to democratic principles and rule of law."

Most of us will never be able to visit space, much less experience what it's like to do a spacewalk. Even billionaires who can afford to pay for a trip beyond the atmosphere of our planet — or at least somewhere in that vicinity — can only look out from their spaceships. Episodes 3 and 4 of the immersive series Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, however, will give you a way to see what it's like to float around in space. To make that happen, Felix & Paul Studios, one of the series' creators, customized a virtual reality camera and attached it to the Canadarm2 robot to capture 3D, 360-degree scenes from outside the space station. 

Felix & Paul's "Outer Space Camera" is a customized version of the commercially available Z-Cam V1 Pro. It has nine 4K sensors that can take 3D, 360-degree images at 8K resolution. The camera has also been modified to withstand harsh conditions, including UV radiation, temperature extremes and micrometeoroid impacts. The team attached it to the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which moves around the station's external structure. 

Jonathan Woods, the series' executive producer for Time Studios (one of the entities behind the project, along with NASA), said:

"Capturing the Earth in stereoscopic 3D, 360-degree format from space, outside the space station, has never been attempted until now. It's beyond exciting and surreal to see this happening, knowing that the dream for this ambitious project started over five years ago in 2015."

Episodes 3 and 4 will be available this fall and winter, respectively, in 360-degree mobile format on 5G-enabled devices through leading carriers around the world, including LGU+ in South Korea, KDDI in Japan, Orange in France and Deutsche Telekom in Germany. They will also be available as fully immersive VR experiences on the Oculus Store for the Rift, the Quest and Quest 2 headsets.

The Islamic State's propaganda arm used Amazon Web Services to host content promoting extremism, according to The Washington Post. Nida-e-Haqq, the group's media arm, posted messages on the website in the Urdu language, including ones celebrating the recent suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 170 people. Since Amazon's policy bars clients from using its services to incite violence and terror, the company pulled the website after The Post alerted it to its existence. 

The website Amazon disabled provided content for the Nida-e-Haqq app, which recently showed an image of the Kabul bomber wrapped in a suicide vest. It's currently password-protected and not viewable, but it's been active since at least April, based on the online domain records The Post saw. Amazon spokesperson Casey McGee told the publication in a statement: "(F)ollowing an investigation, we have disabled a website that was linked to this app as it was in violation of the AWS Acceptable Use Policy." 

Taliban and extremist-related content is the latest issue social networks, and clearly, hosting services like Amazon's, have to grapple with. The organization has been using services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp to spread its message, and the websites now have to decide if they need to update their policy on how to deal with Taliban content and to make sure their existing rules on violence and terror are properly enforced.

Amazon didn't say how Nida-e-Haqq managed to evade detection for at least four months when it wasn't even trying to hide what kind of content it posted, but it's very much possible that the company simply didn't know the website existed. As The Post said, Amazon may not be proactively policing its clients' content, relying instead on the complaints it gets. 

Back in January, it suspended Parler's AWS hosting services after it found multiple posts on the social network "that clearly encourage and incite violence." Parler sued Amazon, claiming antitrust violations, but the company said it sent the website several warnings about violent posts on its platform before the takedown. Ultimately, a judge shot down Parler's attempt to get AWS to restore its service, citing the dangers posed by "inflammatory rhetoric" found on the social network.