You don't have wait for Apple to see what a foldable iPhone would look like in practice. China-based The Aesthetics of Science and Technology (AST) claims to have built a folding iPhone through heavy modifications. The engineers say they created the one-off with spare Motorola RAZR parts, their own 3D-printed elements and an iPhone X screen made more flexible by replacing the not-at-all-foldable glass and touch layers. An iOS jailbreak lets Apple's software run on the handset and introduces suitable features like a split-screen mode.
The result is largely what you'd expect — it looks like the love child of an iPhone and a Galaxy Z Flip, with all the compromises that come with an unofficial design. While the folding iPhone appears to work as advertised, there's a cavernous gap when it's folded. There's a smaller battery, no wireless charging and just one speaker. As you'd guess, the design also loses water resistance and any kind of real-world durability. The modded iOS also clearly isn't as optimized for flexible displays as Samsung's software for the Galaxy Z series.
This effort might also warrant some skepticism. Gizmodo notes that the team glosses over some important steps, including the need to rearrange key internals. While there aren't obvious signs that something's amiss, the initiative isn't definitive proof that a do-it-yourself folding iPhone is possible. It's certainly a greater challenge than adding a USB-C port.
Rumors have suggested that Apple may introduce an honest-to-goodness folding iPhone as soon as 2023, making this hacked-together handset more of a (very rough) preview than a desirable item in itself. Just wait long enough and you may get a far better product. The mod illustrates Apple's challenges, at least. A proper foldable iPhone would require major engineering changes and software tweaks to meet users' expectations. There are also problems that even brands like Motorola and Samsung have yet to overcome, such as displays that crease and (in some cases) crack.
You no longer need to pull out your phone to use Google One's virtual private network. Google has released One VPN apps for Mac and Windows systems. As on mobile, the VPN encrypts and otherwise masks your internet traffic. You can't use it to access content from other regions like you can with some VPNs, but it should help if you're worried about exposing your IP address (potentially useful for tracking) or using a public hotspot.
The VPN requires at least the $10 per month 2TB Google One plan, although you can share access with up to five other people. Desktop support is available in all 22 countries where the service is available, including the US, Canada, Mexico, UK and much of Europe. You'll need at least macOS Big Sur or Windows 10. There is a caveat — while the Mac app works for both x86 and ARM users, the Windows app doesn't support 32-bit or ARM-based systems. You'll have to look elsewhere if you're hoping to secure your ARM-powered Surface Pro.
As before, Google has independent bodies audit its VPN. It also shares the source code for its app libraries to ensure transparency. The audit for the desktop apps will be made public in the "coming weeks."
The desktop apps are arguably overdue when many VPN providers have long supported multiple platforms. This isn't necessarily the best option, depending on your needs. Mozilla's VPN includes regional server choices for $60 per year, and you can even get a free Opera VPN if you're only worried about protecting your browser activity. Google's advantage remains the bundle — you're really buying cloud storage that happens to include a VPN among its benefits.
Serif is determined to make its Affinity suite a more practical alternative for creatives who'd rather not pay for an Adobe subscription — or use a conventional PC, for that matter. The developer has released Affinity Version 2 apps that not only include major new features (more on those shortly), but the first edition of Publisher for the iPad. You now have all of the Affinity bundle on your tablet, and won't have to split your attention between your computer and iPad when it's time to design a page layout.
Regardless of platform, you should see some meaningful upgrades. Affinity Photo 2 now includes non-destructive RAW development, saved layer states, compound masks (that is, joining multiple masks together), live warping and live masks for elements like hue and luminosity ranges. Affinity Designer 2, meanwhile, adds non-destructive vector warping, a "knife" cutting tool, a shape builder and even tools for measuring lengths and areas. Affinity Publisher 2 now helps you add academia-friendly footnotes, endnotes and sidenotes. You can also create automatically repeating layouts and use a style picker. There's even a way to stitch multiple documents into a single book, although that's only available in desktop versions for now.
Some improvements are iPad-specific. A new radial menu provides access to common keyboard modifiers like Command and Option, while a quick menu offers clipboard options and nine customizable shortcuts. And if you're feeling the limits of your tablet screen, a compact mode keeps the brush and layer panels open while making more room for the image you're editing.
The one-time price may be more of a draw than before. You'd normally pay $170 for the entire Affinity suite across all platforms, but a launch sale drops that price to $100. That makes it relatively affordable compared to Adobe's Creative Cloud, which will keep you paying indefinitely. You can buy the individual Affinity Version 2 apps for $70 on the desktop ($41 on sale) and $20 (currently $12) on the iPad.
This outlay might not thrill you if you recently bought Affinity V1. You may likewise need to consider rivals like Adobe if you need further apps for animation, web design and other aspects of the creative pipeline. If these tools fit your workflow, though, the price is low enough that they should be reasonably easy to justify.
IBM's latest quantum computing processor marks a notable step forward for its ambitions in the field. At the IBM Quantum Summit 2022, the company announced Osprey, which has the largest qubit count of any of its processors at 433 quantum bits. That's more than triple the number of cubits that the Eagle chip, which IBM revealed last November, has. IBM said it built on top of the 127-cubit Eagle's architecture by keeping qubits on a single plane with the help of multi-level wiring.
"Unlike classical bits which have to be in a state of either one or zero, qubits can exist in a complex mix of both, tapping into the fundamental quantum nature of matter at subatomic levels," IBM said in a press release. "As a result, quantum computers offer the possibility of vastly increased computing power that can be used to tackle calculations of much greater complexity in fields such as artificial intelligence, and the design of new materials for drug discovery and energy research."
Connie Zhou/IBM
The company is scaling up its quantum computing efforts with the aim of building a system with 4000-plus qubits by 2025. It's currently on target with its roadmap. Next up is a 1,121-cubit chip called Condor that IBM hopes to debut next year.
IBM debuted an elegantly designed functional quantum computer at CES 2019. Last year, it offered a sneak preview of the design for the next-gen IBM Quantum System Two (the machine that will use its quantum processors). Now, the company has revealed more details. It designed the system to be flexible and modular with the ability to house multiple architectures and processors, and claims it will include Osprey starting next year. The company claimed the System Two design "allows for an exponential step up in quantum computing scale and enabling the vision of quantum-centric supercomputing."
Having immense computational power at one's fingertips doesn't mean much if you don't have the right software to get the most out of it. Early last year, IBM said that its Qiskit program execution environment was able to blend quantum and conventional computers to carry out complex computations in hours, when they previously would have taken months. The company said it will offer new features to mitigate and suppress errors, and provide "a fast, efficient and easy-to-use programming model for quantum computers." What's more, these features blend into IBM's goal of integrating quantum computers with classical computers, including supercomputers.
Apple's latest 11-inch iPad Pro has received its first discount, with both Amazon and B&H dropping the 128GB version of the new tablet down to $749. That's a modest $50 off and still rather expensive, but Apple only launched this refresh a couple of weeks ago. If you were already planning on picking up the device ahead of the holidays, this deal lets you save a few bucks over buying from Apple directly. Just know that the deal only applies to the Space Gray model.
The new iPad Pro is a minor refresh compared to the previous model that launched in 2021. The main upgrades are a processor bump — the M1 SoC powering last year's model has been replaced by the M2 SoC first seen in this year's MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro — and a new feature for the second-gen Apple Pencil that lets you preview inputs and effects with the stylus just by hovering it over the display. There's support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 networking, too, instead of WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
That's about it, though. The M2 chip is a nice raw performance bump for media editing and general futureproofing, but the M1 is still more than powerful enough for most things people would do with an iPad, and the tablet's design and accessory support is otherwise unchanged. The last-gen 11-inch iPad Pro is on sale for $700 as of this writing, so if you're willing to buy an older model to save a bit more cash, that remains a worthwhile option.
That said, if you want the latest and greatest, the 2022 model is still a superb piece of hardware. We gave it a review score of 87 last week. While the more affordable iPad Air offers enough of the same features to be a better value for most — especially with it now discounted to $520 — the 11-inch iPad Pro continues to be a superior piece of hardware, with support for a smoother 120 Hz refresh rate, higher maximum brightness, much improved speakers and Face ID support. It also starts with 128GB of storage; the Air starts with half of that, and you need to jump all the way to a 256GB model if you want to upgrade. Doing that would currently cost you $679 (or $749 at MSRP), which makes the 11-inch Pro's price a bit more competitive, if still pricey.
The 11-inch Pro is still overkill for most people's iPad needs, and even with iPadOS' new Stage Manager multitasking feature, it won't fully replace most people's MacBooks. (The basic 10.2-inch iPad is probably still the best overall bargain for casual iPad users, but that's almost a different class of device at this point.) The 11-inch Pro also lacks the brighter and noticeably more vibrant mini-LED display of the more expensive 12.9-inch Pro. However, this is still a strong choice for power users or serious artist types who are looking to upgrade from an aging iPad Air or iPad Pro. It's possible we'll see a larger discount over Black Friday, but we wouldn't expect it given that the device just released.
In other iPad deals, the cellular version of the 10th-gen iPad is also on sale at $20 off in yellow. We see these kind of minor Apple deals from Amazon fairly often, but again, this is the first discount to date for a brand-new model. Our review found that one trickier to recommend in the context of the wider iPad lineup, but if you need a cellular tablet and can live with a non-laminated display and first-gen Pencil support, it may be of interest.
Amazon is having a sale on its latest Watches, with a particularly good deal on the Series 8 cellular model. You can grab one of those in multiple colors for just $389, for a savings of $110 off the regular $499 price (22 percent off). If its a Watch LE model you're after instead, those are on sale too in both cellular and GPS versions for as little as $290 ($39 off) and $220 ($29 off) respectively.
The Series 8 isn't a huge update over the Series 7, but it does carry some useful new features. The main one is a temperature sensor tied to women's health, giving female users an estimate on when they may be ovulating. It's meant to be used overnight, sampling your wrist temperature every five seconds so you can see shifts from your baseline
The other is Crash Detection. Much as current watches can detect a fall, the Series 8 can detect car crashes via a pair of new accelerometers. It works in concert with other sensors to detect four different types of crashes, including rollovers, front impact, back impact and side impact. And of course, all of these Series 8 models have a cellular function, giving you internet connectivity, calls and texts for running, hiking and other activities that don't require a smartphone. The Series 8 cell models are fairly pricey at $499, but $389 is much more palatable.
Meanwhile, the Watch SE 2nd generation offers a performance boost of up to 20 percent and the same crash detection feature as the series 8. It also has a lower starting price, so taking an additional $39 and $29 off the cellular and GPS models brings the prices down to a very affordable $290 and $220, respectively.
If you’ve been waiting for Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro to go on sale, now is your chance to pick them up. Amazon has discounted the earbuds for a limited time. After a six percent price cut, the 2022 AirPods Pro are $234, down from $249. The $15 discount marks the best reduction we’ve seen on Apple’s latest earbuds since they went on sale back in September.
While they don’t look dramatically different from their predecessor, the second-generation AirPods Pro feature some meaningful upgrades. With the inclusion of its new H2 chip, Apple claims the 2022 model is better at canceling out ambient noise and comes with improved battery life. The company also found a way to add touch controls to the new model. Engadget Senior Editor Billy Steele gave the earbuds a score of 88, praising the 2022 AirPods Pro for their improved audio quality and deep integration with the broader Apple ecosystem. In regards to the new touch controls, he said they take some practice to master. He also found battery life could be better. Despite those issues, the 2022 AirPods Pro are among the best wireless earbuds you can buy right now, especially if you use an iPhone as your daily driver.
It’s only been a matter of days since Elon Musk took over Twitter, but he’s already shaking up the platform in major ways. Few of his ideas have attracted as much attention, or controversy, as his plan to start charging for verification as part of a bigger overhaul to Twitter’s subscription service, Blue.
Calling the current system “bullshit,” he said that his plan is to add verification as a perk to Twitter Blue, which will increase in price from $5 a month to $8 a month. All users who pay will get the checkmark, while those who don’t — even if they were verified under Twitter's previous system — will lose it. Subscriptions will also reduce ads and make accounts more visible in replies and search, a sort of anti-shadowban.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
But while Musk’s plans may win him some fans among those who despise the idea of “blue check Twitter,” it also shows that he fundamentally misunderstands verification. And while he is correct that the current system is broken, charging for verification would make it worse, not better.
Verification is about authenticity
Musk’s plan ignores the reason verification was created to begin with: to convey authenticity. Because Twitter doesn’t have a real-names policy, a verified badge helps distinguish whether an account belongs to the person or entity whose name is at the top. From Twitter’s help center: “The blue Verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic.”
It may seem like a status symbol to some, but the reason it’s handed out to journalists, celebrities, public officials and other notable figures is because there is inherent risk in not verifying those people.
“Verification was never meant to convey status,” says Nu Wexler, a policy consultant and former policy communications rep at Twitter. “It was simply a way for Twitter to address impersonation attempts.”
Screenshot via Twitter
But Musk seems unmoved by concerns about impersonation. In response to a question about whether newly verified users would be able to impersonate Musk himself, he said “that already happens very frequently.”
Musk isn’t wrong on this point. Hacking verified accounts and then changing their profiles to look like Musk is a known scam. But getting rid of these types of scammers was supposedly one his main motivations for buying Twitter for $44 billion in the first place. (Ironically, scammers are already using the prospect of paid verification as a phishing ploy, according to Twitter’s head of safety.)
Impersonation scams can have real consequences, as actor Robert Kazinsky pointed out in a viral Twitter thread. “I don’t tweet much, I am scared of the internet, I struggle with a lot of things in life. But this account exists so that fake accounts can’t,” he wrote, adding that in the past people impersonating him online have used his identity to start conversations with children.
Verification is a public service, it is a good deed performed by companies who contribute very little good to the world in my opinion. We should be making easier clearer paths to verification for everyone, not making it harder. It is their responsibility, not a business model.
Making verification solely dependent on who is willing to pay for it could have even bigger implications for the spread of misinformation. Around the world, public officials, government agencies, journalists, activists and others use Twitter to communicate important information to the public. Making their verification contingent on paying, or making it easier for someone else to impersonate them, would undermine the idea of Twitter as the “town square” Musk wants it to be.
Verification has always been confusing and unfair
Musk is correct that Twitter’s existing verification system could be a whole lot better. Verification on Twitter has always been a mess, but not because it’s sometimes perceived as a status symbol.
The reality is that Twitter has never been able to properly explain how verification works or why some people get it and others don’t. The company introduced it in 2009, but didn’t have a public-facing request tool until 2016. Instead, for nearly a decade, the company would quietly verify celebrities, journalists and other public figures mostly through backchannel connections via agents and public relations staffers. This meant that even some public figures who clearly qualified for it didn’t know how to be verified.
The decision to open up verification requests to the public in 2016 was supposed to resolve this. But a little more than a year after opening public requests, the company paused the effort amid a backlash after verifying a white nationalist.
Verification remained “paused” for the next four years. Except it wasn’t entirely on hold. The company continued to quietly grant verification to thousands of accounts via the same behind-the-scenes process it had used for years.In other words: it remains just as opaque and confusing as it ever was.
Even when Twitter said it would expand verification to more doctors and health experts at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was still widespread confusion about how these verifications would occur. Some researchers who were verified as part of the expansion were unsure how it happened.
Finally, in 2021, Twitter re-opened verification only to pause it — again — after just eight days because the company mistakenly verified a fake Cormac McCarthy account. (Verification requests resumed a month later.)
Twitter Blue and verification serve different purposes
So, yes, verification has always had significant issues. And Musk isn’t even the first to propose verification for everyone as a way to fix it. Former CEO Jack Dorsey said he wanted to open it to everyone back in 2018. ““The intention is to open verification for everyone … And people can verify more facts about themselves and we don’t have to be the judge or imply any bias on our part,” he said in a livestream.
But making verification part of Twitter Blue, which is designed to provide extra perks for those who pay, doesn’t address the underlying issue. While it may theoretically give everyone the opportunity to be verified, it also creates new incentives for people trying to take advantage of the platform, says Wexler.
“There's a market for Twitter to charge power uses for certain features like an edit button or priority customer service,” he says. “But selling authenticity is just inviting bad actors to impersonate elected officials and news outlets.”
One solution would be to separate verification and identity authentication. And even Musk seems to recognize the need for additional context for some accounts. He said there “will be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians.”
An early version of this appears to have already surfaced, on Dorsey’s Twitter account, which according to a screenshot of an internal build of the service, had an “official account” label underneath his blue check.
But extra labels don’t address the real danger that would be posed by the impersonators verification was created to fight.
I’ve always wanted an Apple TV, but the high price and locked-down features made me opt for Roku’s ecosystem instead. And while I appreciate the freedom Roku offers, Devindra Hardawar’s review of the new TV 4K almost turned my head.
The 2022 model is cheaper, smaller and runs more efficiently than its predecessor, and it still packs that fancy Siri remote as standard. The box’s speed is its greatest strength, letting you leap between video streaming apps in the time it takes for your cable box to wake up.
Of course, there’s always a fly or two in the ointment, like the $129, 64GB model has a compromise or two. If you, for instance, want a built-in Ethernet port, or Thread IoT integration, you’ll need the $149, 128GB model. Never change, Apple.
It would be great if we could simply 3D-print parts of our bodies that we’ve damaged or worn out through overuse. It’s something NASA will try out with a bioprinter designed to do just that, in the hope of using it for soldiers. During its stay in the heavens, the printer will craft a human meniscus for study, to treat – without the use of inorganic implants – one of the most common knee injuries.
When Square Enix registered Symbiogenesis as a trademark, a small legion of fans got very excited. They, not unreasonably, believed the company was working on a follow-up to Parasite Eve, a beloved horror RPG from 1998. Imagine their dismay when the project turned out to be little more than an NFT grift from a games giant who should know better.
When NVIDIA launched the teeth-meltingly powerful RTX 4090, everyone waited to see what AMD would offer in return. The company has now shown off a pair of Radeon RX cards, the 7900 and 7900 XTX, powered by its new RDNA 3 architecture. AMD says these cards won’t melt your power supply (unlike its rival) and, at $999, won’t hollow-out your wallet (unlike… you get the idea).
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a system to track WiFi-enabled devices through walls. The technique relies on the protocol’s automatic contact response and can pinpoint equipment to within three feet of its location. To demonstrate the need for better WiFi security, the team equipped an off-the-shelf drone with a WiFi scanner that cost just $15 to make. They flew it around the outside of a house, pinpointing the home’s occupants and WiFi-enabled hardware, such as security cameras. There are several worrying uses for such technology, including looking for unguarded areas of a home for burglary or unauthorized surveillance, none of which are particularly good.
PayPal has revealed in its latest earnings report (PDF) that merchant users in the US will be able to accept payments using their iPhones in the near future without the need for dongles and card readers. The payment solution will be integrating Apple's Tay to Pay technology "soon." That means businesses and sellers will easily be able to receive payments made via contactless debit or credit cards, as well as via mobile wallets including Apple Pay, through the PayPal or Venmo app. They simply have to make sure that they're using an iPhone XS or a newer model.
Apple first announced the Tap to Pay feature on iPhone in February this year. A few months later, staff members at the Apple Park visitor center in Cupertino were seen testing the the feature. Since it makes payments as easy as bumping phones together, it seemed like it could be a threat to payment companies like Square. However, Square quickly got on board and launched Tap to Pay integration in September after running an early access program.
In addition to its Tap to Pay news, PayPal has also revealed that it's adding Apple Pay as a payment option to its checkout solution for merchant platforms. And starting next year, customers in the US will be able to add their PayPal and Venmo credit and debit cards to their Apple Wallets. In a statement sent to Bloomberg, PayPal Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said the company is "very pleased to be working with Apple to enhance [its] offerings for... PayPal and Venmo merchants and consumers." It's also worth noting that PayPal briefly touched on making Venmo available as a checkout option for some Amazon users in the US in its earnings report. The company reiterated that the feature will roll out to everyone in the country this coming holiday season.
