In the past year, Google Maps has received tons of new features to help you get around, pay for parking and keep abreast of new services in your vicinity. With its latest iOS update, Google is breaking out more of its most-used functions to help you access them faster. It's also adding a dark mode to lower the strain on your eyes and a new live location option for iMessage that can help you track friends and loved ones. 

The latter lets you share your real-time location while texting by tapping the Google Maps button. Though the feature is active for one hour by default, you can choose to extend it to up to three days or disable it by pressing the stop button. Live location recalls the safety features built into ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.

If you frequently use Google Maps to check traffic conditions, you can now put that info directly on your home screen with a new widget. The same goes for the search bar, which lets you look up places to visit or find frequent destinations with a tap. Of course, the quick access features are made possible thanks to Apple's introduction of iPhone widgets with iOS 14 last fall.

Dark mode is self-explanatory and you can turn it on via settings. It's just odd that it took so long for the otherwise ubiquitous feature to reach Maps on iOS.

Amazon is offering $10 in promotional credit to get people to sign up to its palm print payments system. Our sister site TechCrunch spotted the promotional offer and shared a screenshot of it, which you can peep below. The retailer launched Amazon One last fall as a contactless way of authenticating purchases and allowing entry into stores using a biometric device. In this case, a palm scanner. With surface hygiene a major concern during the pandemic, the move made sense. 

Since then, Amazon has expanded the system to 53 of its physical retail spots in places including New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Texas. You can find the tech at Amazon Go convenience stores, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go Grocery, Amazon Books, Amazon 4-star stores and Amazon Pop Ups. 

Shoppers can enroll on Amazon One at those sites by pairing their credit card and mobile number with one or both of their palm signatures. The sign-up process is the only part that requires you to touch the device. After that, you just hover your palm over the scanner to enter a store and complete purchases. The promotion also requires you to link your Amazon account with your One ID.

The limited number of Amazon One locations means that the promo will be restricted to a small circle of users. But, if Amazon gets its way, the system be hard to avoid in a contactless, check-out free future. It's already begun discussions to offer the tech to third-party retailers.

Amazon / TechCrunch

Of course, the idea of handing over more data (especially biometric information) to Amazon may not sit right with some people. Chances are, a $10 voucher won't sway the naysayers put off by the horror stories around Amazon's facial recognitiontech and Alexa voice recordings. 

But, Amazon is aware of the privacy concerns the device raises. To assuage those fears, the company has promised to secure palm data using encryption, data isolation and dedicated secure zones with restricted access controls. For those worried their data could be monetized, it also committed to keeping palm data separate from other Amazon customer data. 

The company says that a subset of "anonymous" palm data is used to improve its system and this data is "protected using multiple layers of security controls." Amazon has also pledged to delete the data if you cancel your Amazon One ID and if you haven't interacted with one of its palm scanners for two years. 

Streaming services are embracing cheaper subscription plans in a bid to turn free users into paying customers. Following news of a YouTube Premium Lite offering yesterday, Spotify is the latest streamer to confirm a cheaper tier. The world's biggest music streaming service is testing a $0.99 monthly plan that retains the ads but gives you infinite skips per hour and lets you select specific songs on an album or playlist for playback. Spotify, which confirmed the test to The Verge, is hoping it can convince you to put up with ads in return for more control over the listening experience. In other words, it wants to have its cake and eat it, too.

Currently, free users can only skip six tracks per hour and have to listen to shuffled songs on albums and playlists. That's a bummer if you're sick of hearing Justin Bieber or just want to put that one new Billie Eillish track on repeat. Despite those incentives, getting people to pay for an ad-supported service, even if it is just $0.99 per month, is still a big ask. Especially when they're accustomed to getting it for free. Then again, video streamers like Hulu and HBO Max have either successfully done it or are trying to do it.

The risk is that it could eat into Spotify's existing premium user base, which make up 165 million of its 365 million subscribers. Turning those remaining 200 million users into paying members is clearly the goal here. It could be that the low $0.99 price helps to ease that transition. We'll know if the gamble has paid off if Spotify expands the plan to more users. In the past, the company has done just that with new plans, including its $12.99/month Duo tier aimed at discouraging password sharing and its upcoming Lossless "HiFi" offering.

Pokémon Unite is getting an update just over a month after it landed on the Switch. The free-to-play battle arena game pits two teams of five players against each other in ten-minute brawls. Ahead of its arrival on mobiles in September, the Unite update is aimed at adjusting the balance of battles. 

As a result, over a dozen Pokémon are getting tweaks to their stats that reduce things like attack damage and HP restoration and fix bugs. They include Charizard, Talonflame, Venusaur, Absol, Wigglytuff, Eldegoss, Cinderace, Gengar, Zeraora, Cramorant, Machamp, Lucario, Greninja and Alolan Ninetails.

The update lands August 4th at 3AM ET. You can also expect a special spectate feature test release as well as text fixes. Check out the full patch notes via the link above. Of course, players also have the mobile release to look forward to next month, with plans for cross-platform play between the Switch and smartphones. Those who log in to a Nintendo Account or Pokémon Trainer Club account will also be able to cross save their game data and progress on any device.

If you've been eyeing Apple's latest Mac Mini as your next desktop, now is the time to act. You can currently get the 512GB model for $799 at Amazon, or $100 off the normal $899 price. The deal brings the desktop down to just below the record low we saw in March and April. It also means you're only paying $100 more for double the storage of the $699 base model.

Buy Mac Mini M1 (512GB) at Amazon - $799

That should come in handy if you plan to take full advantage of the Mac Mini's M1 chip. As we've previouslynoted, Apple's in-house silicon is a powerhouse that makes quick work of most tasks, be it browsing bloated websites or opening creative editing software. Inside the desktop, you'll find an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores and a 16-core Neural Engine. Unlike with the iMac, you'll also need your own display and peripherals like a keyboard and mouse. 

There are a few caveats, however. The Mac Mini's RAM and storage aren't upgradeable and the two rear Thunderbolt ports won't please those who need extra monitors and faster connectivity. Apple also offers 16GB unified memory, up to 2TB SSD storage and 10 Gigabit Ethernet support at a cost. In fact, the true top-of-the line Mac Mini will set you back $1,799. Saying that, the specs available on this deal model should please most casual users.

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In a bid to boost YouTube Premium sign-ups, Google has offered everything from free hardware to access to unique features. Now, it's going back to basics. The company is testing a lower-priced subscription plan in parts of Europe that gives you ad-free viewing without offline downloads, YouTube Music and background playback. A Resetera user first spotted the new YouTube Premium Lite tier in Netherlands, Finland and Sweden while trying to cancel the paid-for service. 

The plan costs €6.99 ($8.32) per month, the same as the student tier, whereas the normal price is €11.99 ($14.26). YouTube confirmed to The Verge that it's also testing the offering in Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Norway with local equivalent pricing. Comparatively, Netflix Basic costs €7.99 ($9.50) in several of those regions.

The YouTube Premium Lite page states that you get ad-free YouTube and YouTube Kids across multiple devices including mobile, desktop and TVs. In the past, YouTube has announced incentives for paying users including free products such as Google Stadia and neat features like automatic downloads.

But, since its launch, and subsequent rebranding, the service has always been more like a bundle with the inclusion of YouTube Music, which may not entice those already paying for Spotify or Apple Music. Trimming the fat to offer the core ad-free experience for less will certainly appeal to more viewers, and could help to drive subscriptions as a result.

If you missed the all-time low deal for Sony's excellent WH-1000XM4, you're in luck. The wireless headphones are back down to the $278 we saw in Spring, a solid $72 saving on their typical price of $350.

Buy Sony WH-1000XM4 at Amazon - $278

While that may still be a bit steep for some, we reckon they're worth it. The XM4 have been sitting pretty at the top of our list of best wireless headphones since they landed last fall. Not only are they more comfy than their predecessors, Sony's cans also boast improved software to back up the dedicated QN1 noise-canceling and Bluetooth Audio chips inside. 

You'll notice the results in the punchy bass, added detail and boomy low-end tones when listening to music. At the same time, the headphones do a great job of blocking out background commotion. Sony also updated its audio-upscaling tech, known as the Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE), by adding Edge-AI that analyzes music in real time. 

Elsewhere, it bolstered the companion app — which already offered plenty of audio customization — with the addition of multi-device connectivity. The handy feature basically lets you switch between different devices seamlessly. There's also automatic pause that stops what you're listening to when you start talking.

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In a short span of time, astronomers have taken us closer to black holes than ever with unprecedentedimages of the cosmic giants. Now, for the first time, scientists have seen the phenomena that takes place behind them. As part of the breakthrough, researchers witnessed and captured the light from the back of a supermassive black hole 800 million light years away. 

The latest breakthrough is a "key part of the puzzle to understanding" how the universe came to be, according to Stanford astrophysicist Dan Wilkins. What's more, it appears to confirm Einstein's theory of relativity from over a century ago. 

While studying the bright flares of x-rays emanating from the black hole, a feature known as the corona, researchers also witnessed fainter flashes of light. These were the "luminous echoes" of of the flares bouncing off the gas behind the black hole. This phenomena was first predicted by Einstein in his theory of relativity published in 1916.

ESA

“Any light that goes into that black hole doesn’t come out, so we shouldn’t be able to see anything that’s behind the black hole," Wilkins explained. “The reason we can see that is because that black hole is warping space, bending light and twisting magnetic fields around itself.”

The supermassive black hole is 10 million times as massive as our Sun and located in the centre of a nearby spiral galaxy called I Zwicky 1. An international group of scientists witnessed the echoes using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

"The color of these flashes, the color of those echoes as well as the time that they were delayed after the original flare told us that these were the echoes coming from the gas that's hidden from our view behind the black hole," Wilkins noted. "Some of it will shine back down onto the gas that's falling into the black hole, and this gives us really quite a unique view of this material in its final moments before it's lost into the black hole."

There are plenty of reasons to buy an air purifier — like breathing cleaner air or combating allergies — but does it have to be smart? Prices in the category can range from $80 to $800 for extras including app-based controls, compatibility with smart assistants like Alexa, access to more data and customization. As part of its first stab at a smart air purifier, IKEA is looking to break into the market by sticking to its hallmarks: Affordability and minimalism. 

The swedish flatpack giant is releasing two "Starkvind" devices, a floor-standalone air purifier and a side table model, which cost $129 and $189, respectively. Though, you'll need to pay for a separate $35 smart home hub to access the app-based controls. 

IKEA

At that price range, you won't get the bells and whistles available on higher-end smart and regular models from Mila and Dyson. Both IKEA purifiers are identical inside: They contain a three-filter system designed to capture bigger particles like hair and dust; 99.5 percent of smaller airborne particles that measure less than 2.5 micrometers (or one 400th of a millimetre) and dust and pollen; and pollutants like formaldehyde and even bad odors. 

IKEA

The Starkvind also has five different fan speeds that can be used on their own or controlled and scheduled from the IKEA Home app in conjunction with its TRÅDFRI smart home hub. The latter is a puck-shaped device that acts as the bridge between your IKEA smart products (like blinds, light bulbs and speakers) and your phone. While an auto mode relies on a built-in sensor to automatically adjust the fan speed based on the amount of smaller particles in the air. You can check out the readings for yourself in the app. 

The standalone Starkvind will be available in black and white, while the side table comes in a dark or light finish. Both will arrive in IKEA stores and online in October.

Amazon has been handed its largest ever privacy fine in the EU by Luxembourg's data watchdog. The CNPD fined the company €746 million ($888 million) on July 16th for violating the bloc's strict data privacy laws, known as GDPR. Amazon disclosed the ruling in an SEC filing on Friday in which it slammed the decision as baseless, adding that it intended to defend itself "vigorously in this matter." 

“There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party,” Amazon told Bloomberg. “These facts are undisputed. We strongly disagree with the CNPD’s ruling.” It added that it plans to appeal the decision. Amazon has its EU headquarters in Luxembourg, tasking the local data regulator with overseeing its compliance.

The penalty is the result of a 2018 complaint by French privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net, which filed numerous lawsuits against Big Tech companies on the behalf of 12,000 people shortly after the GDPR was established that year. 

Among those was a case involving Google's Android operating system that led to France's CNIL regulator slapping the search giant with a $57 million fine in January, 2019 — the biggest GDPR fine to date. The watchdog ruled that the company had violated the GDPR due to its failure to obtain legal consent for data collection related to its ad targeting practices.

The record penalty comes amid heightened scrutiny of Amazon's business in Europe. Its use of data is also at the heart of the EU's antitrust investigation. Following a year-long probe, officials in November reached a preliminary decision that Amazon had breached competition rules by using third-party seller data to boost its own products. At the same time, they launched a second investigation into its alleged preferential treatment of its own products on its site and those of its partners.