Volkswagen has unveiled a new feature for its Car-Net connected vehicle service that lets you get 4G data from two major US telecoms. Called "Carrier of Choice," it offers the option of Verizon or T-Mobile, making it relatively easy to add your vehicle to an existing mobile plan.

Starting in September, VW owners in the US will be able to access the subscription plan options on VW's dedicated website or via its mobile app. From there, you can add an account to your existing mobile wireless provider (assuming it's Verizon or T-Mobile) and pair it with your existing Volkswagen Car-Net subscription. It will then appear as a new line-item on your existing bill. If you're not already with those carriers, you can get unlimited 4G data for $20 per month.  

Car-Net offers connected car features like remote start, locking and unlocking the vehicle, maintenance, status, teen driver alerts (curfew, boundary, speed) and more. Those features can be accessed remotely from both iPhone and Android smartphones using VW's updated mobile app. It also offers a WiFi hotspot with "unlimited" 4G connectivity for up to four devices. 

On top of those features, VW lets you access iHeart Radio and TIDAL media streaming apps with a paid subscription. It also offers the "Plus Nav" subscription with real-time traffice and route updates for $49 per year, a radio subscription with 30,000 global stations for $8 per year and a natural language speech option for $9 per year. Of course, VW models from 2019 and up come with CarPlay and Android Auto support, giving you many of those options for free. Car-Net comes standard on most 2020 model year and newer Volkswagen vehicles. .

Google's Pixel 5a famously has a headphone jack, but you'd better hope that the USB-C port never breaks. The fact that it's soldered directly to the motherboard rather than being a separate component is one contributing factor in its middling 5/10 repairability score, according to a new teardown from YouTube channel PBKreviews.

The Pixel 5a is Google's midrange 5G smartphone and a direct successor to the popular 5G Pixel 4a. Though a bit larger than the latter and now water-resistant, it's equipped with nearly the same internal components, including a Snapdragon 765G, 6GB of RAM and a 60Hz panel. It's a solid mid-range phone for $449, though essentially a stopgap device until Google unveils the Pixel 6 family that will use its all-new Tensor mobile chip. 

The good news is that the 6.34-inch OLED display is relatively easy to replace, as you can pull it off simply by heating it up and using a pry tool to pop it off. It's also fairly straightforward to get access to the battery and motherboard, once you remove the numerous screws and pry off the large metal cover.

From there, however, things get trickier. The battery is glued solidly to the case and the pry tab meant to help remove it is "pretty useless," according to PBKreviews. Instead, they had to use isopropyl alcohol to loosen the glue before they could pry the battery out. The other issue is that the USB-C port is attached directly to the motherboard, so making repairs to it would be "difficult," according to the video. 

All told, however, the Pixel 5a appears to be slightly easier to repair than its predecessor. While you might not try to fix it yourself, that means it could be a bit easier to find local service if you'd rather not send it away to Google. The teardown also shows a solid-looking device with water resistance as a big new benefit — so hopefully, all that will add up to a reliable device that won't need repairs in the first place. 

Clubhouse revolves around drop-in audio chatrooms, so wouldn't it make sense if they sounded more like rooms? They will now, if you have the right hardware. The company is rolling outspatial audio support to the Clubhouse app for iOS, giving you and participants a more "lifelike" conversation. You might remember who's speaking based on where their voice is coming from, not just what they sound like.

The feature will "slowly" reach all new iOS users starting today, and will be the default experience (you can turn it off if you prefer). Android is "coming soon," Clubhouse said. We've asked the company if you need earbuds or headphones that explicitly support spatial audio, like the AirPods Pro or AirPods Max.

This addition probably won't make you choose Clubhouse over Facebook's Live Audio Rooms or Twitter Spaces. It may give you a reason to stick to Clubhouse, though, and it could be particularly helpful if 'flat' chatrooms feel too detached from reality.

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."

Don't despair if you're having problems making calls on your iPhone 12 — there might be a free fix for it. 9to5Macreports Apple has introduced a repair program for a "very small" number of iPhone 12 and 12 Pro units with faulty earpieces that don't emit sound during calls. If your phone has this problem and was made between October 2020 and April 2021, Apple and authorized repair shops will fix the issue at no cost for up to two years after the "first retail sale."

Apple blamed the issue on a failure-prone component in the receiver. This program doesn't cover the iPhone 12 mini or 12 Pro Max, suggesting they use different receiver hardware.

This is the first repair program for the iPhone 12. We wouldn't expect more given Apple's generally solid track record with recent iPhones (a minority of iPhone 11 units had unresponsive screens). If nothing else, though, this serves as a reminder to check for programs like this before you assume a repair will prove costly.

If you’ve been following the rise of foldable smartphones, the Galaxy Fold probably holds a special place in your heart. It was the first of its kind to make it to market, and despite a troubled debut and wobbly sophomore launch, the series is now on its third generation. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 is all grown up and stronger than ever. It’s had time to learn from the mistakes of its youth, and Samsung has devoted a ton of research into fortifying the foldable’s screen, hinge and overall build. This year, it’s added support for the S Pen, as well as water resistance and more optimized software. The phone is also $200 cheaper, now starting at $1,800. But despite all its growth, the Fold 3 is still undergoing an identity crisis.

Design

Just by looking at it, you wouldn’t be able to see a difference between the Fold 3 and its predecessor. The two have basically the same dimensions, with this year’s model coming in a little thicker. But despite gaining 0.4mm when unfolded, the Fold 3 is actually 0.8mm thinner than the Fold 2 when closed. It appears Samsung might have been able to reduce the gap between the two halves of the screen when it refined its hinge mechanism.

That said, without a side-by-side comparison, you probably won’t notice this. You also might not realize that the Fold 3 is 10 grams (or 0.35 ounces) lighter than its older sibling, either. But it’s certainly heavier than most other smartphones. It’s about 45 grams (or 1.58 ounces) heavier than the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the S21 Ultra, and after prolonged use my arm started to feel the strain. Still, it’s basically two phones in one, which means the only device that might be fair to compare it to is the Surface Duo. Microsoft’s dual-screen phone is noticeably thinner and lighter than the Fold 3.

David Imel For Engadget

Because it didn’t have a flexible display, though, the Surface Duo presented less of an engineering challenge. Durability is a greater concern with foldables like the Fold and Flip 3. Samsung said it used stronger aluminum in the Fold’s frame, streamlined its hinge and redesigned the screen’s layers to make the device sturdier. It also applied a new stretchable PET protector on the panel. Altogether the company said the Fold 3’s screen is 80 percent more durable than its predecessor.

That’s not something I can gauge without intentionally trying to damage the Fold 3. But its screen does feel more glass-like than the original, and the protector completely covers the display so you won’t see its edges that tempt you to peel it off. Some reviewers noted bubbles appearing on their Fold 2 after a few months, and since it hasn’t been that long, I can’t say for sure if the new model will do the same.

For now, though, the Fold 3 has withstood being tossed around in a purse full of sharp and heavy objects and still looks pristine. It also survived some droplets of water after I set it down near the sink when I was washing my hands, thanks to its new IPX8 water-resistance.

David Imel for Engadget

When open, the Fold 3 is easy enough to hold with one hand, though I generally held it with both for easier typing. While I appreciate that the hinge is sturdy enough that you can leave the phone open at any angle, it makes unfolding the device kind of hard. The magnets that keep the device shut are very strong, so you’ll have to first pry them apart and then push deliberately to extend it all the way. In fact, I had a few close calls where I almost dropped the Fold 3 when struggling to open it.

Thankfully, I didn’t, because any scratches would be quite obvious on my all-black review unit. The Fold 3 also comes in silver, green and a Thom Browne version with red, white and blue stripes. You’ll have to spend $3,450 to get the latter in a limited-edition bundle, though.

A tale of two displays

Outside, the Fold 3 has a 6.2-inch 2,268 x 832 display, which now refreshes at 120Hz. It also uses a Dynamic AMOLED panel, which supports HDR10+ as opposed to last generation’s Super AMOLED. The faster screen makes scrolling my neverending inbox super smooth, and pictures on my Instagram feed look vibrant. Aside from these upgrades, the Fold 3’s external display is basically the same as its predecessor’s, which means it has a similarly narrow aspect ratio.

David Imel for Engadget

While that makes the closed device easier to navigate with one hand, it also means most content feels cramped. Buttons on the keyboard, for example, are smaller and harder to aim for, while lengthy messages and tweets take up more lines so you’ll see fewer on the page at once.

Thankfully, when you need more room, you can open up the Fold to use the 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel inside. Like the outside display, this has a 120Hz refresh rate, and it runs at 2,208 x 1,768. To give you a more immersive full-screen experience, Samsung used an under-display camera (UDC) here that can camouflage beneath pixels so you won’t have to see the little hole that most modern phones have for their selfie sensors.

I don’t know about you, but I never found those tiny circles to be very obstructive or much of an eyesore. Still, if you really hate seeing it, the good news is the UDC does disappear into the screen with the right background or app. The bad news is that you’ll still see it on darker wallpapers, and even when the screen above the camera is displaying something, it creates a noticeable ring of pixelation.

David Imel for Engadget

This didn’t bother me much, and after some time I even forgot the camera was there. Most people likely won’t mind the little distortion the UDC causes. Regardless, the rest of the screen is bright, colorful and crisp, making it a pleasant canvas for my videos and casual games.

S Pen and multitasking software

The Fold 3’s internal display isn’t just great for Netflixing. With S Pen support this year, the foldable screen is more useful for those who want to write notes or sketch diagrams on that expansive surface. You’ll have to pay an extra $50 for the S Pen Fold edition or $100 for the Pro model, which comes with a case. The Fold version doesn’t require charging and is pretty basic, while the Pro needs power for features like switching between other Samsung phones and Bluetooth controls. Either way, there isn’t a slot on the phone for the stylus, so you’ll have to put up with carrying around a loose accessory.

If you’re willing to splurge, the S Pen is a generally helpful tool on the Fold 3. I mostly used it as a cursor to make navigating the larger screen easier, but it’s also fluid and responsive when doodling on Samsung Notes. The company also offers an “S Pen to text” setting that lets you more easily edit text by marking dittos, arrows or strokes directly on words. Drawing a line through letters, for example, will erase them.

David Imel for Engadget

I’m not a fan of having to bring around any extra items to use a phone, but the S Pen did make it easier for me to write this review on the Fold 3 from the back of a cab. Trying to type on its larger screen with my fingers is a huge pain, and the stylus came in handy, making swipe typing more accurate. I also loved scribbling into search bars and messaging apps — Samsung’s system is surprisingly adept at recognizing my awful handwriting.

While I’m not sure it’s worth the extra $50, I can appreciate the work Samsung had to do to make S Pen support a reality. As I dragged the nib around the screen during a bumpy ride, I managed not to damage the flexible display with any accidental pokes and stabs.

Even without the S Pen, the larger internal panel still offers a variety of useful multitasking features. Like its predecessors, the Fold 3 lets you place two apps side by side so you can keep an eye on Slack while writing a review or monitor Twitter for PlayStation 5 release news as you read articles on Chrome.

David Imel for Engadget

This year, Samsung made it so you can pin the Edge panel to the screen so it acts like a desktop-style taskbar for easy access to your open and favorite apps. It’s a simple but tremendously useful update. Now, instead of having to swipe in to pull up the Edge panel and then drag an app out to open it in split-screen, the icons are already there. It does take up a column of space, though, which makes running two apps at once feel cramped. Thankfully, it's easy enough to hide with a tap.

It feels as if the floating panel has finally found its home on the Fold 3 since Samsung first launched it on the Galaxy Note Edge in 2014. What used to be a somewhat awkward, only slightly convenient feature is now an actually useful tool that makes the Fold 3 feel like a more capable multitasking device.

Another thing Samsung did to improve the Fold’s big-screen experience is add the option to make all apps expand to fullscreen. Through its experimental Labs settings, the company lets you choose whether individual apps launch in 16:9, 4:3 or fullscreen. In the past, for example, Instagram would refuse to expand completely, resulting in an unsightly setup with the phone-sized app in the middle and blank space on either side. Now, you get to decide how much of the display they should take up.

David Imel for Engadget

This only works partially, though. Yes, my feed does take up the whole screen, but watching and posting Stories still reverts to the phone-sized orientation. Also, a lot of pictures on Instagram look splotchy when the app is blown up. Samsung still has a ways to go, but I applaud the effort.

The company offers more features in Labs to improve the full-screen experience, including enabling Multi Window and Flex Mode panels for all apps. Like the aspect ratio tweak, these can be hit or miss. Flex Mode panel adds a mini dashboard to the bottom part of the screen when you half-open and set the Fold 3 up like a laptop. Some apps are optimized for this to offer useful, well-spaced controls in this space. But for the ones that aren’t, like Chrome, Samsung’s software slaps a tiny, inch-tall row of four buttons at the bottom for keyboard, screenshot, brightness and volume.

I could go on about the rest of Samsung’s software, like how the App Continuity feature doesn’t always keep content in the same place when you open the Fold up to see something on the bigger screen. But that would take forever. In general, it feels like Samsung is putting more and more effort into band-aid solutions when Google should really be working on optimizing Android for tablets.

A plethora of cameras (including one under a display)

Like a person trying to be too many things, the Fold 3 is an overachiever. And the fact that it has five cameras onboard almost feels excessive. There’s a 10-megapixel selfie camera, the UDC, which is just 4-megapixels sharp and a trio of 12-megapixel sensors on the rear, including regular, ultra wide and telephoto lenses.

Most of these cameras perform just as well as iPhone and Pixel flagships, delivering bright, colorful pictures in most situations. It did justice to rows of mouthwatering sushi, clearly rendering scallions and individual grains of rice.

My nighttime shots of the USS Intrepid on the Hudson River also came out sharp and bright, though Google still has the edge in low light. Pictures of trees and buildings taken with the Pixel 5’s Night Sight mode were clear enough that leaves were distinct, while the Fold 3’s photo of the same was muddy.

That’s a small gripe, though. The Fold 3’s rear cameras are otherwise comparable to their conventionally shaped counterparts. The selfie sensor also delivered pleasantly crisp, vibrant photos.

My main complaint about photo or video quality would be with the UDC — and it’s a small one. You can clearly tell when using this to take selfies or chat with friends that it’s a lower-quality option. Details are less sharp and colors aren’t as saturated. Still, I don’t expect much from a 4-megapixel camera, especially not one that’s under a screen. This feels more like a last resort if you really must take a call with the Fold open and is just serviceable.

Performance and battery life

Whether I was using the outside screen or the internal panel, the Fold 3 was mostly snappy. Its Snapdragon 888 processor with 12GB of RAM delivered smooth performance as I marked dozens of emails as read, wrote a review while watching a video and Slacking my colleagues. I occasionally had to wait for an app to re-open when I switched between the two displays, but for the most part everything flew.

I also never found myself worrying about the Fold 3 running out of juice. It generally stuck around for at least a day and a half, sometimes only conking out after two days. I ran our video rundown test on the Fold 3’s larger screen and it clocked 14 hours and 3 minutes. The Surface Duo only lasted 10 hours and 32 minutes in a similar setup.

David Imel for Engadget

Wrap-up

With the Fold 3, it feels like Samsung has tried extremely hard to make a foldable smartphone-tablet hybrid work. But while I found myself eagerly reaching for the Flip 3 when I was reviewing it, I struggled to find reasons to use the Fold 3. When it’s closed, it’s heavier and narrower than a regular phone. I only want to open it up for gaming and getting work done on my commute. For the times when I’m leaning back on my couch and want to idle away on Reddit or Twitter, the Fold 3 doesn’t satisfy. Maybe that’s a good thing, but I’m not here to debate the philosophical benefits of foldables.

I had a similar issue with the Surface Duo, which tried to be a tablet and a phone and failed at both. Though the Fold 3 is in most ways superior, it still won’t replace a regular smartphone. It’s a well-made, impressive piece of tech that has benefited from years of R&D, but it suffers from an identity crisis by attempting to be two things at once. Does that mean the world should give up on foldable phones altogether? Absolutely not. As components get smaller, the Fold could one day be thin and light enough with much improved software that might make it useful in all its modes. But for now, despite all the progress Samsung has made, the Fold 3 is still not ready for the mainstream.

Photos by David Imel (@DurvidImel)

T-Mobile says it’s “truly sorry” about the data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 54 million customers. “The last two weeks have been humbling for all of us at T-Mobile as we have worked tirelessly to navigate a malicious cyberattack on our systems,” the carrier said in an update on the situation attributed to CEO Mike Sievert.

“To say we are disappointed and frustrated that this happened is an understatement,” Sievert wrote in the post. “Keeping our customers’ data safe is a responsibility we take incredibly seriously and preventing this type of event from happening has always been a top priority of ours. Unfortunately, this time we were not successful.”

In T-Mobile’s account of what happened, the individual who hacked the company’s IT systems used “specialized” tools and knowledge of its infrastructure to gain access to its testing environments. "In short, this individual’s intent was to break in and steal data, and they succeeded," said Sievert.

The executive says the company is “fully committed” to improving its security practices as it works to regain the trust of its customers, many of whom had personal information like names, birth dates and social security numbers compromised in the incident. As a first step, T-Mobile has contacted “just about every” current customer or primary account holder who had data such as their name, SSN or address accessed. He also reiterated the company will offer two free years of access to McAfee’s ID Theft Protection Service to all of those affected by the incident.

Looking to the future, the carrier has signed multi-year partnerships with KPMG and cybersecurity firm Mandiant. According to Sievert, the two will help T-Mobile audit its current security practices and implement systems and policies that will help it prevent future cybersecurity incidents.

“Mandiant and KPMG will work side-by-side with our teams to map out definitive actions that will be designed to protect our customers and others from malicious activity now and into the future,” Sievert wrote. “I am confident in these partnerships and optimistic about the opportunity they present to help us come out of this terrible event in a much stronger place with improved security measures.”

And T-Mobile may need all the help it can get. John Binns, the hacker who claimed earlier in the week they were responsible for the data breach, said the company’s security was “awful.” 

When Microsoft released the Windows 11 Insider preview earlier this summer, it did so with some confusion around minimum system requirements. It quickly reversed course, saying that more people could install the software update than its requirements originally stated so the company could gather more performance on how the OS performed. After a few months of users testing and providing feedback, Microsoft says that, for the most part, its system requirements from June will stand — but there are a few notable changes.

This means that you'll need a compatible 64-bit processor, 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage, as well as "UEFI secure boot, graphics requirements and TPM 2.0." For the most part, Microsoft is still requiring an 8th-generation or newer Intel processor, but the company is adding a few 7th-generation Intel options to the supported list, including Intel Core X-series, Xeon W-series and the Intel Core 7820HQ. For the latter, Microsoft will only support "select devices that shipped with modern drivers based on Declarative, Componentized, Hardware Support Apps (DCH) design principles, including Surface Studio 2."

After working with AMD, Microsoft has declined to include the first generation of AMD Zen processors in its officially supported list. The full list of supported processors can be found here.

There is some good news for people running older hardware, though. According to The Verge, Microsoft won't prohibit computers running processors on its "supported" list from installing Windows 11 — they just won't be able to do so through the official Windows update software. You'll instead have to download a Windows 11 ISO file and install it yourself. The Verge says this method will primarily be for businesses to try Windows 11 and it won't be publicizing this method to standard users. 

If you're still wondering whether or not your computer will be able to officially run Windows 11, Microsoft has released an update for its PC Health Check, which was originally giving users some rather vague and unhelpful messages regarding compatibility. The new version should make it much clearer whether your computer is supported and, if not, what it needs to meet the Windows 11 system requirements.

Let’s face it, Apple’s AirPods Pro may be small and pocketable, but they’re also easy to lose. If you’re the type of person who’s prone to misplacing their belongings, accessory maker Spigen might have something that could help. As spotted by Gizmodo, the company has released the Tag Armor Duo, a $34.99 case that protects your AirPods Pro case while including a slot for an AirTag.

Spigen isn’t the first accessory maker to make something like this, but the company’s solution has a certain elegance to it. Not only is there a built-in slot for Apple’s lost item tracker, but it also comes with a handy carabiner on the side and a cutout on the bottom to leave the Lightning port unobstructed. You also don’t have to take the case off to charge your AirPods Pro wirelessly.

At $64 for both the case and a single AirTag, Spigen’s Tag Armor Duo isn’t exactly a cheap option. It’s also worth pointing out iOS 15 will include a feature that will allow the AirPods Pro to connect to Apple’s Find My network over Bluetooth. Still, if you want the most peace of mind possible, you could do worse than the Tag Armor Duo. With an AirTag attached to your AirPods Pro case, you can use the U1 chip on a recent iPhone to find the case using an ultra-wideband connection. That allows you to take advantage of Apple’s Precision Finding feature to make locating it easier. The tag also includes a speaker so it can ring to let you know where it is. 

You can buy the Tag Armor Duo from Spigen's website and Amazon.