Logitech and iFixit announced a new partnership today to let customers repair their devices. iFixit will supply spare parts and out-of-warranty support for “select products” while developing guides for DIY repairs on Logitech gear. The program will kick off this summer in the US with support for two popular accessories: the Logitech MX Master and MX Anywhere mouse models.

The self-repair program, found on a new Repair Hub website, will use genuine Logitech replacement parts and batteries. iFixit says you can order parts a la carte or in kits with everything you need for a specific repair, including the requisite part(s), tools and a precision screwdriver bit set. The companies haven’t yet announced pricing for the bundles or replacement parts.

The initiative is part of a broader trend in recent years. Apple launched an iPhone repair program last year; it’s since added support for Macs and the Apple Studio Display. Google and Samsung have added similar programs for some of their flagship devices. Cutting down on e-waste by extending product lives is the most obvious advantage, as well as potentially saving repair-minded customers a few bucks. However, the companies may be motivated even more by Right to Repair legislation passed in New York and Massachusetts — while perhaps trying to head off potential federal legislation requiring them to offer self-repairs for a broader array of products.

“Consumers often struggle to find avenues to repair and extend the life of their product,” said Prakash Arunkundrum, chief operating officer at Logitech. “More can be done by brands and by broader value chains who wish to play an active role in the shift to a more circular economy. I am excited that we are able to collaborate with iFixit to develop better designs and make it easier for consumers to have a self-repair option to extend the life of our products.”

Amazon updated the standard and Kids variants of the Echo Show 5 in its string of Alexa hardware announcements today. The new model is faster and sounds better, but it otherwise could be mistaken for the previous version.

The Echo Show 5 has a nearly (or exactly) identical design to the last generation model, including a 5.5-inch screen for watching the news, video-chatting or seeing who's at your door. Amazon says the new third-generation Echo Show 5 is 20 percent faster than the second-gen model. In addition, it has an upgraded speaker system that “doubles the bass” from its predecessor. It also adds a redesigned microphone array to pick up voices more easily.

Amazon

Meanwhile, the Echo Show 5 Kids takes the new hardware and adds a space-themed design and a series of child-focused features. In addition to the expected parental controls and the generative AI feature Create with Alexa, it adds kid-friendly responses, jokes, homework help and explicit-lyric filtering. It also comes with one year of Amazon Kids+, the company’s subscription service that adds “ad-free and age-appropriate” audiobooks, games, videos and Alexa skills.

The Echo Show 5 is available today for $90 in charcoal, white and blue options. The Kids variant costs $100 and is available in the pictured galaxy design.

Amazon updated its Echo speaker lineup today, including a new $40 model with a semi-spherical design, the Echo Pop. Additionally, Echo Auto is coming to more countries.

The Echo Pop is Amazon’s newest entry-level Alexa-powered device. Its half-globe design uses a front-facing speaker with “full sound,” although it sounds like it will be a better fit for small spaces like dorm rooms where you only need to hear it from one direction. It also carries over two features from the latest Echo Dot. First, it has Amazon’s AZ2 Neural Edge processor for on-device machine learning tasks. In addition, it can pair with Eero mesh routers to extend your home network’s range by “up to 1,000 square feet.”

The $40 Echo Pop is a somewhat confusing fit in Amazon’s smart speaker lineup. It’s $10 less than the Echo Dot — while having many of the same features — leaving its unique design to differentiate it. The Pop is available in four color options: In addition to the oft-used charcoal and white, new “Lavender Bloom” and “Midnight Teal” options debut in Amazon’s Echo line.

Amazon

The Echo Auto, which Amazon updated last fall, is arriving in more regions. Today, customers in Australia, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan can buy the latest model for Alexa on the go. As you may recall, the $55 second-gen model is smaller than the original model, and it adds better voice recognition and sound quality.

Depending on who you ask, AI can be mesmerizing, terrifying or some combination of both. But Adobe’s accessibility-focused artificial intelligence is a use case that (I hope) any reasonable person can get behind. The company’s new Auto-Tag API can remove the tedium from making accessibility-friendly PDFs for people with disabilities.

PDFs have built-in metadata providing structural information — headings, paragraphs, lists and tables — in documents for assistive tech like screen readers. But tagging digital documents for compatibility can be time-consuming, especially for those with complex layouts or companies with backlogs of old files lacking the proper metadata. Adobe estimates that over 90 percent of PDFs are at least partially inaccessible for people with disabilities, sometimes “appearing blank, blurry or as lines of distorted text.”

Adobe’s PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API automates the tagging process. The company says its Sensei-powered software will indicate the correct reading order for assistive technology, saving companies time and — more to the point — making PDFs more readable for people with disabilities. Adobe says the AI can quickly go through stockpiles of old documents lacking the proper structure.

The company is also launching a PDF Accessibility Checker, which will “enable organizations to quickly and easily evaluate the accessibility of existing PDFs at scale.”

In addition to the developer-facing API, Auto-Tag is coming to Acrobat Pro in June, offering automated metadata structuring within the app at no additional cost for all subscribers. The feature will also make its way to Acrobat Reader this fall.

If you have a Google account you haven’t used in a while but want to hang onto, you may want to log back in. The company announced today that it will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for at least two years. Google frames it as a privacy-enhancing move, but it’s easy to also see it as a cost-cutting measure to free up storage on Google’s servers.

Starting later this year, anyone with an account that’s been inactive for two years will receive an email warning them that it will be deactivated if they don’t log in within 60 days. After deactivation, you’ll have another 60 days to sign in before the company permanently deletes it. So, in total, that’s about four months’ worth of notice to recover your account, which sounds reasonable enough. Google says the earliest it will begin deleting accounts is December 2023.

The company will send warning emails to both the account in danger of being deleted and any recovery emails you added. The deactivation and deletion will apply to everything you use that account for, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, YouTube, Google Photos, Meet and Calendar. It only applies to personal accounts, so work or school emails will be spared the culling.

Although the company’s stated privacy motive may be a convenient way to avoid saying, “We want to save money,” there is some substance to that framing. In addition to not having up-to-date passwords, abandoned accounts are ten times less likely to have two-factor authentication set up, making them more vulnerable to hijacking.

Google has a web tool to simplify avoiding account deletion. The company’s Inactive Account Manager can warn you more frequently about dormant accounts while letting you decide what happens to your data. There, you can choose trusted contacts to alert or even download your account data if it’s in danger of deactivation. And in case it ever does get axed, you can plan ahead by using Google’s age-old Takeout feature that lets you view and export all your data.

Microsoft says iPhone support for its Phone Link app is now available for all Windows 11 users. Announced in February, Microsoft’s feature allows syncing calls, contacts and messages — including limited iMessage support — between an iPhone and PC.

Phone Link has been around (under various names) for Android-synced desktop features since 2015, but this is the first time it’s supported iPhones. Microsoft has deployed a phased launch, starting with select Windows Insider preview testers in late February. Then, the company began rolling out general availability last month, promising to support all Windows 11 users by mid-May. So, right on cue, it said today that everyone with a Windows PC and iPhone can now use the new feature.

Phone Link for iPhone has several limitations that Android phones don’t. First, although it supports iMessage syncing, it doesn’t work with group chats or sending images and videos. In addition, voice messages and iMessage apps won’t work. Still, it could serve as a handy built-in service to save you from switching between your computer and phone.

To get started, you’ll want to search for “Phone Link” in the Windows taskbar. After opening the app, you’ll still need to set up a few things on both devices. First, select iPhone as your device type, and use your phone’s camera to scan the QR code in the Phone Link app. The devices will pair over Bluetooth, and you’ll need to confirm several permissions on both iPhone and PC. It supports any iPhone running iOS 14.0 or later.

Hasselblad is reportedly joining Canon and Nikon in phasing out DSLRs. Third-party vendor Capture Integration broke the news, saying on its blog that it received notice that the entire Hasselblad H system lineup is officially discontinued. The move leaves Pentax and Ricoh as the biggest remaining names in the rapidly diminishing DSLR space. Hasselblad hasn’t yet confirmed the news.

“While we have been feeling this sting for over the last 18 months with lack of product, today we received official notice that the full product line of the Hasselblad H system has been officially discontinued,” Capture Innovation wrote. “All [H system] products are now officially out of stock and Hasselblad will no longer take orders for anything in the H line.” The article continued, “The H system is still very strong and working in so many studios today. However, it’s time to look at replacements. We can’t even order new battery grips today.” The vendor notes that future repairs will likely take longer and grow in difficulty.

Many professional photographers have migrated to mirrorless cameras (including Hasselblad’s terrific X2D), leaving DSLR purists without many options. Mirrorless models have grown in popularity since their quality began improving around a decade ago. In addition to being smaller, lighter and quieter than DSLRs, camera manufacturers’ signaled intentions could also influence the field as pro photographers see the writing on the wall and try to stay ahead of the curve. Hasselblad’s last H series launch was the H6D system in 2016.

Canon announced in 2021 that the EOS-1DX Mark III would be its final flagship DSLR, although it would keep producing current models for the time being. A report from last July said Nikon would follow a similar approach. (Nikon denied the report without rebutting that it would indeed launch new DSLR models; one can speculate the company was being strategically cagey to avoid diminishing sales of its remaining models.) Either way, it’s nearly certain we won’t see another new DSLR model from three of the biggest names in high-end photography.

This weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer was hacked ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary. As a result, the newspaper had to cancel its Sunday edition, and it wasn’t clear until late Sunday afternoon that it could proceed with its Monday circulation. It’s the paper’s biggest disruption since 1996, when a blizzard that blanketed much of the eastern US made it impossible for staff to reach their offices. It isn’t yet known who is responsible for the cyberattack or if it was politically motivated. However, The Inquirer says it hired security company Kroll to investigate, in addition to notifying the FBI, which said, “It’s customary that we offer our assistance in these matters.”

Contracted security vendor Cynet first alerted The Inquirer about suspicious activity on Thursday, May 11th. Although that didn’t lead to any stoppages, the paper’s weekend crew noticed Saturday morning that it couldn’t access the publication’s content management system. Publisher Lisa Hughes hasn’t stated which systems the attackers breached, whether any employees were targeted or whether they accessed any confidential information. The newspaper says many of its internal systems don’t require multi-factor authentication.

Staff won’t be allowed into their offices through at least Tuesday as the investigation continues. Hughes said the company is looking into alternative workspaces for election coverage, which she stated would otherwise proceed as usual.

Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor was in 1947, meaning Tuesday’s Democratic primary will essentially decide the city’s next mayor. Polls indicate a tight race, with five of the nine candidates “within striking distance of first place,” reportsFiveThirtyEight.

News organizations can be enticing targets for hackers, whether during election run-ups or not. Potential motives could include exposing sources, accessing reporters’ emails or Slack messages, publishing misinformation or delaying the publication of accurate information that could harm an individual or organization. “Depending on who’s got access, and what kind of access they have and what they do with it, you can go a lot of different ways,” Runa Sandvik, a cybersecurity expert specializing in media outlets, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But bottom line is that this is something that leadership does have to take into account and plan for and invest in. It’s not something that you can just secure overnight, and it’s not something you can just clean up overnight, either.”

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro announced this week that it’s laying off 30 percent of its workforce, or around 340 employees, as reported by TechCrunch. It will now shift its focus away from commercial operations and toward R&D. It’s the company’s second round of layoffs in the last year; it let go of about 300 people in November.

As part of the restructuring, Nuro says it’s delaying the previously planned production of its third-generation Nuro bot (R3) vehicle. In addition, it will reduce the scale of its commercial pilots and “explore more efficient deployment models with partners.” The company says the changes will let it operate twice as long without raising more money.

Nuro was founded in 2016 by former Google Waymo engineers Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson. Since then, the startup has raised over $2 billion while gaining regulatory approval for testing on public roads in Arizona, California and Texas. Last year, it announced the kickoff of an Uber Eats delivery program as part of a 10-year partnership.

“While in the past we developed autonomy systems, designed and built custom vehicles, and deployed commercial pilots with partners in parallel, we will now pursue a more sequential development model,” the company wrote in a blog post. “With our new approach, Nuro will not only get through this economic downturn, but we hope to emerge stronger on the other side.”

In the latest proof that satire is no match for today’s reality, The DOJ announced that a YouTuber pled guilty on Wednesday to obstructing a federal investigation by destroying the wreckage of an airplane he intentionally crashed for views and sponsorship money. Trevor Jacob, a 29-year-old former pro snowboarder turned YouTuber, recorded and uploaded his staged (yet very real) crash landing in Santa Barbara County, CA, in November 2021.

Jacob pled guilty to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, as first reported by Gizmodo. He admitted in his plea agreement that his motive was profiting from a wallet promotion attached to the video.

Before taking flight, Jacob equipped the plane with video cameras while arming himself with a parachute, video camera and selfie stick. He ejected himself from the aircraft about 35 minutes into the flight, recording himself parachuting to the ground as the plane crashed into a dry brush area in Los Padres National Forest. (A dry brush area in wildfire country sounds like a terrific place to send an aircraft to its fiery demise.) He then hiked to the crash scene to recover his cameras and recordings.

YouTube

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of Jacob’s wallet-shilling shenanigans. He then waited two days to report the incident to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB); in the report, he incorrectly described it as an accident. Then, after the NTSB told him he was responsible for preserving the wreckage for examination, he returned to the crash scene by helicopter, which he used to airlift the wreckage to a local vineyard and winery. There, he loaded it onto a trailer attached to his pickup truck and hauled it to Lompoc City Airport, where he cut the plane’s remains into pieces, dumping them into nearby trash bins. Around this time, he lied to investigators, telling them he didn’t know where the wreckage was.

Still wanting to ensure the wallet sponsorship money made its way to his wallet, Jacob uploaded the YouTube video “I Crashed My Airplane” on December 23rd, 2021. The video is still up and has tallied 3.3 million views. During a clip of his long hike back to civilization after the landing, Jacob says, “I’m so past the point of even saying I’m exhausted… but I saw a cow.”