News written by Matti Robinson (October, 2017)

Many modern smartphones aren't easily repairable, and even if you are handy with electronics you might be in for a pickle replacing a broken screen. Getting them repaired professionally, though, might equal highway robbery.

This is especially true if you've just pre-ordered the new iPhone X, as we've found out due to Apple releasing their pricing for iPhone X repairs. As MacRumors first noted the non-warranty service pricing for the iPhone X are definitely up there.

If the problem is not covered by the one-year limited warranty, i.e. a manufacturing defect, a screen repair (read: screen replacement) will cost you a flat fee of $279. Everything else? You'll pay $549, more than 50% of the original price of the phone. So expect to see a lot of broken and probably never to be repaired iPhone X backs.

You can, of course, anticipate these problems and buy the one off $199 AppleCare+ which will cover up to two incidents with a $29 deductible for screen damage and $99 for other damage.

It does sound like AppleCare+ might be worth the investment if you have slippery fingers but adding another $200 to an already crazy starting price of $999 is a tall ask. Have you pre-ordered the iPhone X, and what do you think?

World's most popular instant messaging platform has announced a new feature. WhatsApp, a mobile messaging platform that has attracted over one billion users, has added a deleting feature to its app.

New feature is as simple as it sounds: it allows users to delete sent messages. However, you've been able to remove the messages from your app even before but now the messages can be removed from even the recipients devices.

The new delete function can be found within the post editing tools. Now when you long press the message and select the delete function (the trashcan icon) you'll be hit with a dialog asking whether you want it deleted from all devices or your device only. Previously you didn't have the former option.

There are some limitations, obviously. You can only delete – or perhaps cancelling would be a more apt term – messages from all devices if they've been sent within seven minutes. After that you'll only be able to remove the post from your own apps.

Also to not confuse people, WhatsApp replaces the message with one saying the original message has been deleted.

The feature will hit your iPhone or Android device in the coming weeks so you might not have the update yet on your mobile device.

Streaming TV has come to stay, just accept it Comcast. Obviously online on-demand services like Netflix are hugely popular but YouTube might be an even bigger player if it manages to combine the on-demand side of things with live TV.

According to new figures from the parent company Alphabet, YouTube is watched more than 100 million hours every day. And maybe even more importantly, way more people are watching it via their TV sets.

The use of TV when watching YouTube has increased around 70 percent since last year. This includes all TV devices that are somehow connected to the internet, be it a smart TV with a YouTube app or a dumber one with a Chromecast dongle or an Apple TV.

Earlier this year Google announced that YouTube is being watched a billion hours every day. That means that watching on TV is grabbing a fairly nice slice of the entire YouTube watching pie. Obviously computers and probably especially mobile is still where it's still at.

As internet based solutions are grabbing marketshare cable companies are fighting back by raising prices. At the same time Google has been improving their Google Fiber availability with the first location without TV subscription and supporting YouTube TV.

Apple's iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus have been available for over a month but sales might have not been what Apple wanted. According to Customer Intelligence Research Partners, a consumer research company, Apple's new iPhones are far behind last years models.

CIRP told Wall Street Journal that iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have accounted for only 16% of iPhone sales in the quarter ending in September. That is a huge difference to last years 44% accounted by iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

This time around things were different, though, so there's a lot that can change after the iPhone X in released next week. However, iPhone X supply is rumored to be very limited so that is probably not going to change percentages in favor of Apple.

What will change is that Apple's marginals increase tremendously with the more expensive device. It might also make customers waiting for the iPhone X switch to iPhone 8 and 8 Plus after the long waiting times are exposed.

According to analysts many customers are currently waiting for the iPhone X. How many of them are in the end willing to pay the rather hefty price, starting at $999, and possibly wait weeks or even months for the device remains to be seen.

Apple has released a statement regarding yesterday's Bloomberg report on Face ID and its problems. According to the Cupertino company the reports is "completely false."

As we reported yesterday, Bloomberg had received information that suggested Apple had loosened some quality control in their Face ID technology that is heading to the new iPhone. According to the report there were several problems within the manufacturing process, and thus Apple had to drop quality in order to get sufficient amount of components in time for the launch of the iPhone X.

This, according to a short statement by Apple, is entirely false. Apple clarifies that unlike Bloomberg suggested the 3D camera remains the same accuracy it was when first introduced. This means that there's a "1 in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID."

However, if you want to split hairs, and of course we do, then that specific claim still doesn't invalidate the report about manufacturing problems just the fact that accuracy has been reduced from 1 in a million since the unveiling. Perhaps before September 12, the unveiling, it was more accurate.

Amazon is constantly trying to come up with new ways to sell and deliver you products whether its acquiring Whole Foods, trying to perfect drone delivery, or prototyping stores without lines or checkouts with Amazon Go.

Now Amazon has come up with a new concept that gets rid of the package theft problem some portion of Prime members struggle with. Amazon Key allows the delivery man (or woman) to drop the package in your house.

As you might imagine this requires some specific technology that most might not have. You'll need smart lock, one of several supported by Amazon, and you need Amazon Cloud Cam, a new security camera released by Amazon. The latter will cost you $120 and the locks, depending on your choice, start at around $130.

As said, the reason Amazon unveiled this new service is the package theft problem that some unequivocally have. Obviously if the package is left on the other side of the door there's a big difference.

However, the e-commerce behemoth obviously realizes that people don't want to let delivery man, or anyone else, in willy-nilly. That's where the security camera comes in.

Rumors had it even before the launch of iPhone X last month that a new authentication technology would pose problems for Apple. The feature, later christened as Face ID, was so hard to manufacture that the phone would have to be released later in very limited quantity.

A new report from Bloomberg details the problems Apple has had, and perhaps is still having, with the new face recognition technology employed by the upcoming iPhone X. According to Bloomberg Apple has had to compromise in quality to get the phones ready.

To speed up production Apple has had to dropped the quality requirements of the Face ID dot projector, one of three main components in the Face ID technology. The dot projector creates a 3D model of the users face which is used to authenticate comparing it to a saved model.

It is extremely hard to manufacture, fragile, and even the slightest faults, measured in microns, might make the component not viable. While Apple has had to drop the definition of the model making component, it is still said to be more accurate than the Touch ID.

The Finnish phone brand, known for its indestructible phones back in the day, was revived last year. Company behind the Nokia branded smartphones, HMD Global, has so far released five Android phones, but there's a new one coming soon.

The release party is held in India next week, and it's still unknown which device the company will unveil. There are a few options after releasing Nokia 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6, Nokia 7 (the one in the picture), and Nokia 8. Obviously that leaves at least five options if you just look at the numbers, but a few of them have been rumored more than others.

Nokia 4 or Nokia 1 haven't really been in the rumor mill much at all and you can probably scrap those. Nokia 9, a new super high-end flagship, has been rumored but it might be too soon after Nokia 8 release so it is more likely that it will be the Nokia 2.

Nokia 2 would be the cheapest of the bunch which would probably mean a relatively small 720p screen and especially a really low price point. While previously India as a release place would suggest a cheap phone, that isn't necessarily the case anymore. So it could be that there's a more high-end phone to come, perhaps something about the recently unveiled Nokia 7, which is a higher mid-tier smartphone.

Facebook is allegedly currently trialing a new news feed where the main feed might be swarmed by ads. This would entail that some more relevant posts get moved to a secondary feed.

According to the information by The Guardian the new feed is being tested in six countries that include Slovakia and Serbia.

Facebook's new approach would mean that most of the content from liked paged would be moved from the main feed to the secondary feed, and thus the main news feed would consist of posts by friends as well as so-called promoted posts, also known as advertisements.

This would obviously mean that if a news source wants to reach the Facebook users they have to promote their piece or otherwise it'll be shown only in the secondary. And we all know what happens when you demote something to, for example, Google's second page or further.

It of course could be that people who want to follow liked paged, including the ones publishing news, will start following two pages instead of one but so far in the trial it doesn't look like it. According to the Guardian the user engagement has dropped between 60 and 80 percent.

Google has released a new blog post which celebrates the success in adoption of secure web connections. A year ago the search giant announced that it would start giving preferential treatment to secured websites, now a year later it seems to have all worked out amazingly.

In its web browser, Chrome, Google started to mark websites using regular HTTP and included visible forms as not secure. This meant that most websites had to make conscious efforts to adopt HTTPS.

Obviously no website wants to be marked anything else than secure in any browsers, much less on the popular Chrome, and thus web services have been getting more safe in spades. According to Google 71 out of 100 most popular websites in the world now use HTTPS. An impressive increase of 37% in just one year.

The fight for safer web is far from over but Google's efforts have definitely paid off, and we can expect the trend to continue as the rest are moving towards HTTPS as well.

You can't, however, disregard the effect of project Let's Encrypt which brought free and easy to use SSL certificates to the public, and more importantly to webmasters. Before Let's Encrypt many of the admins would have had to pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars every year just to buy the certificates. While that might not be a problem for the top 100 websites it does help significantly with less popular ones.

Cable TV has been in decline for quite some time and there's no reason to believe that cord-cutting is slowing down any time soon. Netflix et al have just made this particular entertainment sector better, and there's no going back to clunky DVRs.

While internet based television, or streaming media in general, is becoming more popular you still need the means to acquire the content. That's where cable companies usually come in trying to force you into home phones and TV packages to drop your internet prices to reasonable levels.

The U.S. is largely divided into areas controlled by either Spectrum, formerly Time Warner Cable, or Comcast. So often you have no real choice where you'll get your internet from.

And unfortunately for most of us that means that you might be facing a fairly steep rise in prices in the near future.

According to Investor's Business Daily cable companies are looking to increase internet prices to keep up with the profits that have been suffering because of decline in cable TV subscriptions.

Comcast and Charter Communications (Spectrum) report Q3 results next week and according to analysts we'll see a further decline in TV business. According to Morgan Stanley cable as a result companies hiked the internet-only plan prices as much as 12% from year prior to an average of $66/mo.

Apple's computer lineup has been refreshed fairly steadily during the past years, and even though lineup has changed slightly most products are still intact. Even the iMac was updated this year with the new iMac Pro launching in December.

One product seems to have been forgotten though, the Mac mini. Many have probably thought that the 2014 launched computer was the last of its kind.

However, even though earlier this week it celebrated three years since and update, the Mac mini still has some life in it, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

In an email Tim Cook has revealed that the inexpensive desktop computer will have an important role in Apple in the future. That would suggests that Mac mini is coming back sometime soon. Unfortunately, albeit not surprisingly, Cook did not reveal any schedule or plans about the release.

MacRumors reader asked Cook in an email if there was anything in the pipeline to update the beloved Mac mini, and while Cook couldn't share any details he said "we do plan for Mac mini to be an important part of our product line going forward."

It could be that Mac mini is the product Apple uses to introduce ARM based chips to mac OS. The device has never been a speedster but instead meant for normal office work or perhaps a media device with a focus on easy of use. This would be a perfect opportunity to perhaps narrow the gap between iOS and mac OS devices.

There aren't many more important upgrades coming to Google's app store than what the company calls Android Instant Apps. Unveiled first time more than a year ago and already available for developers for months now, Instant Apps have now been made public.

Google has added a new category to Google Play called 'Apps to Try Now' which includes a total of eight Instant Apps – not eight thousand or eight hundred, eight. While only a very limited amount of apps can, at this point, be tried before downloaded for actual use, one can expect the availability of this feature to be expanded in the future.

You can find a host of other apps featured on the Android Instant Apps developer page. Android 8.0 Oreo brings along a built-in support for Instant Apps.

Currently you can try the following eight apps: Hollar, Onefootball Live Soccer Scores, dotloop, ShareTheMeal, BuzzFeed, NYTimes Crosswords, Red Bull TV, Skyscanner. At this moment all the apps are free to not only try but to download, but one can imagine that in the future Google will also bring paid apps to Instant Apps.

Netflix has become one of the most important partners for Marvel very recently. In only a few years Netflix has released five Marvel shows with one more in line before the end of the year.

The streaming giant has been the publisher of more Marvel TV shows in 2015-2017 than Hulu, ABC, FX, and Fox combined. Six out of ten Marvel shows during that three year period have been brought to you by Netflix.

Now the latest of them has finally gotten a release date.

The Punisher got a second official trailer today and with it Netflix unveiled the release date, November 17. Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, will hit the streaming service with 13 episodes.

The new trailer, with music from Metallica, shows some of the dark history of Frank Castle and his family, and the subsequent action-packed fight against the crime that is running rampant in New York City. The Punisher, previously guest starred in Netflix show Daredevil, is played by Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead).

Without further ado...

There's no bigger player in the streaming TV and movies scene than Netflix – no matter how much you want it YouTube. This year the streaming giant will spend approximately $6 billion in programming, only to increase the spending by quite a margin in 2018.

According to Bloomberg, Netflix is going to up the game another 33% in 2018 bringing the total program spending to a whopping $8 billion. This obviously means that there will be tons of new and popular returning TV shows, host of exciting documentaries as well as record number of original movies.

Netflix's content chief Ted Sarandos told in an investor call that Netflix will release 80 original movies next year, more than three biggest Hollywood studios (Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures) combined. Not every single one of them, or even most, are big budget blockbuster type of movies but there are those too.

In addition to increasing the content altogether, Netflix has focused their efforts in few specific niches. The upcoming year will bring along Netflix's first ever Danish show (The Rain, a post-apocalyptic adventure) as well as its first Swedish series (Quicksand, a suspenseful crime drama) among other foreign content. This year the company released their first Italian and German shows.

Google Fiber has been officially launched in Louisville, KY. Louisville becomes the tenth city to get search giant's super fast internet service.

Google has been working on San Antonio, TX as well as Louisville for a while now. San Antonio is still under construction but today first customers will be able to apply for Google Fiber in Kentucky's most populous city.

Louisville mayor Greg Fischer welcomed Google Fiber earlier today to the city with Google representatives visiting the city. The availability is fairly limited at this point, and only available in three neighborhoods (Portland, Newburg and Strathmoor). Google hasn't revealed the exact number of potential customers reached with the launch.

Louisville is the first city to not get Google Fiber as an Internet and TV bundle. Instead, you'll have separate Google Fiber internet connection which you can pair up with the new YouTube TV streaming service that costs you an additional $35/mo.

The internet service itself, however, is priced just like in other Google Fiber cities. 100/100Mbit for $50 and 1000/1000Mbit for $70/mo.

Microsoft has announced today a new Surface Book 2, the second generation of the hybrid laptop. It is aimed solely at competing against the MacBook Pro, which Microsoft promises it will blow out of the water.

According to Microsoft's Panos Panay, the new Surface Book 2 offers double the performance compared to Apple's offering. What this exactly means is questionable but it definitely offers impressive specs.

The device comes now in two form factors, 13.5" and 15", which offer either Core i5 (for 13.5") or Core i7 (both) processors, GeForce GTX 1050 or 1060 graphics chips, massive 70 (13.5") or 80 Wh (15") batteries, improved hinge mechanism that allows multiple use cases, and detachable display for tablet use.

With big battery (and touchscreen) comes big burden: 13.5 inch Surface Book 2 weighs in at 3.38 lbs while the bigger one is fairly hefty at 4.2 lbs. Fortunately Microsoft promises up to 5 hours battery life in tablet mode and a whopping 17 hours with the keyboard base.

Storage options include 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1TB SSDs, the display is either a 10-point PixelSense touchscreen with 3000 x 2000 (267 PPI) on the 13.5" or 3240 x 2160 (260 PPI) on the 15" model.

Surface Book comes with a more impressive array of connectivity compared to MacBook Pro. While it only has one USB-C, capable of charging and data transfer, many will appreciate two USB-A ports as well as the integrated memory card reader.

Huawei unveiled yesterday the new Mate 10 lineup that included two flagship phones with newly found AI prowess. There was however a third new release as well, a much more affordable one.

The Chinese manufacturer's third option is Mate 10 Lite which is in many ways the lightest of the bunch. If is the slimmest at 7.5mm, the lightest at 164 grams or 5.78 oz, and definitely weighs the lightest on your wallet at 400 euros (approx. $470).

As you might imagine with half the price of the Mate 10 Pro you can't exactly get all the specs. That means no AI powered Kirin 970, instead more of a mid range Kirin 659.

However, Mate 10 Lite is still not horribly stripped-down – there's still a dual camera setup, actually two. In the back you'll have a 16MP + 2MP setup and in the front a dual 13 MP selfie camera. The battery is still an impressive 3340, and the display is the same resolution as Mate 10 Pro with Full HD+ or 1080 x 2040. The size is very comparable too, 5.9 inch vs the Pro's 6.0 inch.

It is definitely one of the cheaper large displays that shrink the bezels enough to squeeze out even the home button. Fingerprint sensor, however, is still there in the back.

In yesterday's press event Huawei unveiled this years Mate-lineup. That included two new flagship phones Huawei promised even before the launch would blow iPhones out of the water when it comes to AI.

Both of the new flagships, Mate 10 (top picture) and Mate 10 Pro (bottom picture), include the AI enabled HiSilicon Kirin 970 chipset. Armed with a Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, the Mate 10 duo should be able of some impressive feats, right?

Well, yes and no. It might be able to do things most smartphones can't do but currently it is used very sparingly. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer said that the phones smart features include context-aware camera that changes its settings to match the place and subject. Also Mate 10 (yes, the Pro as well) knows how dim the screen depending on more than just the ambient light sensor, and improve battery life according to your usage.

However, according to Huawei it is up to 3rd party developers to fully unshackle the power of Kirin 970 and its NPU.

Fortunately Huawei's new flagships aren't all about AI unlike you might have imagined after such a strong AI focused marketing campaign before the launch. The Mate 10 features a 5.9 inch QHD resolution (1440x2560) display, 64GB microSD expandable storage, 4 GB of RAM.

The Chinese smartphone OnePlus was a few days ago caught pants in their ankles collecting data from their customers. A OnePlus 2 user found the phone sending strangely irrelevant data to OnePlus servers.

Later on it was found that all OnePlus models, including last year's OnePlus 3 and the latest flagship OnePlus 5 send data regularly to OnePlus operated AWS server. After OnePlus was confronted about it, and after the OnePlus Twitter support was unhelpful, the company claimed that it was all about after-sales support data and usage analytics transmitted securely.

Even though there's likely no malicious intent, collecting data like when the user is turning on their screen, with timestamps even, seems awfully unnecessary.

Now OnePlus has come out and given another statement. According to the company it will stop collecting private data. OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei says in the post that while none of the information has ever been given to third parties the company has decided to stop collecting such data as telephone numbers, MAC addresses, and WiFi SSIDs.

Additionally all Oxygen OS phones will have a new setup wizard that will ask if the user wants to join the user experience program, the one collecting data to improve the OnePlus user experience, and "indicate that the program collects usage analytics."

Tesla has fired hundreds of workers this week, Reuters reports. According to the numbers received around 400 employees have had to go.

A former Tesla employee told Reuters yesterday that this includes workers across different positions. He worked on the assembly line but claimed the fired included associates, team leaders and supervisors, but couldn't confirm how high up the firings went.

The electric car company has said, full statement below, that it has over 33 000 employees and the it has been an annual performance review period which means that some people are going to be receiving hefty bonuses, other are being let go. The Reuters informant, however, claims he had never received a bad review.

Tesla is currently challenged by the Model 3 production. Model 3 is Tesla's first high volume affordable car meant for the masses. It'll be revealing the electric semi-truck on November 16.

The iPhone X is one of the most anticipated smartphones is years. First major revamp in the iPhone design in three years, and first of its kind ever.

There's was a lot to talk about a month back for Apple at the Steve Jobs Theater as pretty much the entire smartphone had been redesigned ground up. It might have not been just a case of limited time but Apple probably wanted to keep some features under wraps for the launch, or to be unveiled during the waiting period.

Now, two features previously not revealed have surfaced. And they are pretty impressive.

First there's a feature that combines iOS notifications and the new TrueDepth camera. As you turn on the display you'll see the app notifications, just like you would on your iPhone 8 or iPhone 7.

However, Phone Arena has discovered that on iPhone X the Face ID camera detects whether it is you holding the phone and shows further information instead of showing just the name of the app.

There's still almost a month until Apple's hyped iPhone X will hit the Apple Stores – and Town Squares, *sigh*. Since there's been an unprecedented amount of time between the unveiling and release of iPhone X, people have been paying close attention to all the pictures posted online.

One of them is a picture showing an iPhone X users playing Pokémon GO on the streets of perhaps Cupertino. Likely held by an Apple employee, this iPhone X revealed on Reddit shows how not all screen estate is in use, contrary to the way you'd probably want it to be.

Obviously its just a pre-production model, and only one app, but it does spark an interesting discussion about what type of concerns people have with the new aspect ratio.

Of course iPhone X's screen is the first time iOS device has a 2.17:1 aspect ratio – close to 2:1 aspect ratio in many Android phones – which means that apps need to be customized for it if they want to use all that extra space. As this picture shows at least Pokémon GO, one of the more popular mobile games, does not take advantage of this and there's a visible forehead and chin.

As with most, if not all, so-called unlimited data plans the T-Mobile ONE and T-Mobile ONE Plus are limited in some ways. You will get unlimited amount of data but after a certain cap the service provider will slow down the connection or throttle.

With T-Mobile ONE and ONE Plus the limit is 50 gigabytes. After using the 50GB of LTE data you'll likely be slowed down to a crawl, especially during the more congested hours.

After unveiling a new 'Mobile Without Borders' deal in 2015 to all ONE and ONE Plus customers, you've been able to enjoy that oh so sweet LTE data abroad in Mexico and Canada. For now.

T-Mobile is going to limit LTE data further, and starting next month customers with T-Mobile ONE and ONE Plus plans only get 5 GB of guaranteed LTE data in Mexico and Canada. After that you'll be throttled to 256kbps connection with ONE Plus and 128kbps with ONE, BGR reports.

According to T-Mobile less than one percent use more than 5 GB of data on their trips abroad. The company is trying to "prevent usage beyond the intent of the product" with the new 4G LTE limit.

The limits go into effect on November 12.

A group of open source advocates started a few years back a company called Purism. The idea behind the company was to attain crowdsourcing for a new type of computer and operating system, known as PureOS. Now the same company has decided to develop a smartphone.

Like the computer the new smartphone, called Librem 5, runs PureOS, a Linux-based operating system. Purism markets the phone as the truly pure GNU+Linux-based smartphone product.

While Android is based on Linux too, PureOS is based on GNU free software and Debian Linux distribution and is entirely open source. This means that Librem 5 owners can, for example, change the Linux distribution to something else if they don't like PureOS.

In addition to being the holy grail of nerd smartphones with a proper Linux operating system, Purism hypes the security aspects of the phone. According to the company because of the open source nature of the operating system it is completely transparent. Thus you'll never be snooped through hidden backdoors, and your information won't be used to profit the manufacturer.

Librem 5 has been succesfully crowdfunded via the company's Puri.sm website. As of writing this it has $1,612,858 in funding which is 107.52% of the $1.5 million goal, and there are still 12 days to go.

Fake news is clearly the meme of the year, and while it might be often thought to infect mostly politics a new case has made stock markets react. Dow Jones Newswire, the news service designed for investors, reported a what would be the acquisition of the century.

According to CNBC Dow Jones reported yesterday that Google was going to buy Apple. The fact of course is that no such thing is going to happen, and no investor would believe such an extraordinary thing without checking another source first.

Obviously, when true, news like these have a huge effect on investors and stock markets, and even though some bots sold and bought stocks because of the news, fortunately this didn't end in a catastrophe.

Perhaps the news was too easily dismissible because the story said Google would pay $9 billion for Apple. Even though it's a large amount of money you'd have to pay probably at least 100 times more for Apple. Apple's market cap is closing on a trillion dollars.

In addition to that there were several other errors that might have hinted at fake news. For one Google would not acquire the likes of Apple but it would instead be the parent company Alphabet.

Star Wars movie saga is nearing the end, or at least the original nine episodes soon run out. Of course we've seen that Disney is more than willing to spin-off Star Wars in new anthology films.

This December it is time to witness the release of the episode eight, The Last Jedi. Now Disney has released a new official trailer for the upcoming movie.

The trailer features familiar characters, including Luke Skywalker, Leia, Kylo Ren, Finn, Rey, and of course Chewbacca, and show off snippets of epic action and perhaps even teases a few potential monumental plot twists to be experienced.

There's still more than two months until the premiere so you can watch the new trailer over and over again for another 36175 times before you need to shut your phone for the convenience of your fellow moviegoers.

Here, enjoy.

If you spent the first half of this year watching closely at smartphone rumors and leaks, you would have thought that an in-screen fingerprint sensor in smartphones this year is an inevitability. If not for iPhone, it's going to be in one or more Android phones by the end of the year.

This might still, of course, hold true but Apple has already chosen a different technology for authentication, and according to a respected analyst it's not the only one.

Apple chose to remove the fingerprint reader from its upcoming flagship phone iPhone X entirely. It has developed a new type of recognition to replace Touch ID called Face ID. Because there's no room for a fingerprint sensor in the front with the new 'bezel-less' display, and perhaps in-screen sensors weren't up to par yet, Apple developed and introduced a face detection system that could be even better.

According to the company it is even more secure, and, since you are wondering, can take into account that you might grow a beard and occasionally wear a hat. Using so-called TrueDepth camera the iPhone X detects your facial features in three dimensions.

All this sounds very sci-fi, and it's not clear how well the technology works because the phone isn't out yet, but according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo Android manufacturers have already made shifts towards the face detection technology. After the iPhone X reveal manufacturers have been contacting face detection firms in unprecedented pace.

Microsoft has finally confirmed that it does not intend to release any new smartphones with Windows 10 Mobile or provide software updates for current hardware. To make it as clear as day it means: Windows phones are done with.

Microsoft doesn't entirely abandon current Windows 10 Mobile customers because there will likely be some bug fixes and security patches but nothing new is being implemented. Microsoft has cut the funding as much as it can, and only tries to keep the current customers, mostly business customers, safe from hackers and other security problems.

Even though it was pretty clear a while ago that this is the fate of Windows phones. Now the Windows mobile boss man himself, Joe Belfiore, has revealed that he has changed to using an Android phone.

That if anything should be a sign that it's time to call it a day and move on from Windows phones. Belfiore didn't reveal what phone exactly is he using but it would be funny if it was one of the new Nokias.

According to Belfiore the company tried their everything to lure in more software developers and thus improve the state of their app store. No amount of money or other incentives proved effective, and that is why Microsoft has decided to give in.

It seems like BlackBerry should be a word that is no longer uttered in this day and age, but the company has somehow managed to survive over the past decade while being replaced by superior smartphones.

The Canadian phone manufacturer, originally known as RIM, has had to readjust dramatically by abandoning their own operating system (BlackBerry OS) for Google's Android system, and even moving partly away from their perceived core strength, the physical keyboard.

However, credit where credit is due, it remains almost a miracle that they are still in the business of making smartphones.

Now they've released a new phone called the Motion, CrackBerry reports. BlackBerry Motion is a rather uninspiring looking Android phone but it does come with a few tricks up its sleeve. While the specs are mediocre, including 5.5 inch Full HD display and midrange Snapdragon 625 processor, the software features are why anyone would choose a BlackBerry nowadays.

BlackBerry Motion features a Locker Mode, which allows users to store important documents and other files inside a virtual locker that in order to access them requires a further PIN code to be entered or fingerprint to be scanned. The other new feature, Convenience Key, lets users easily switch between four profiles: Home, Car, Office and User. The profiles can be automatically switched for example with a login to Home or Work WiFi, in-car Bluetooth, or synced meetings.

Google has been slowly but surely expanding its fiber optic internet, aptly called Google Fiber, around the country. Originally started in Kansas City, the fiber connection is now available in ten locations, and two more are already on their way.

The next two, Louisville and San Antonio, are going to be, however, somewhat different. Google is trying out a new way of offering the fiber package. Unlike previous installments of Google Fiber, the cities in Kentucky and Texas will only be having the superfast internet (up to gigabit) without the TV add on service.

According to an official blog post by Google's Head of Sales and Marketing Cathy Fogler this is due to the fact that people are moving away from the traditional TV format and towards more control over how, when, and where they view the content. Of course Fogler specifies the new YouTube TV service but also recognized the likes of Hulu and Netflix as the new age of television.

Google also has noticed that more and more customers in current Google Fiber cities are choosing alternative TV or streaming services instead of traditional TV, but for now services in those locations stay as they are.

European Union has decided to sue Ireland for not collecting taxes on Apple. Ireland had 12 months to recover taxes that were unfairly avoided by Apple. The bill totals at $15.3 billion and was originally due on January 3rd.

While Ireland claims that the decision is unnecessary, the EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told Bloomberg that member states need to pursue the money effectively even when it can be very complex in some cases.

EU had a long-lasting investigation into Apple's tax rate that lead into discovering unfair benefits granted by Ireland that reduced the effective tax rate of Apple's subsidiary to mere 0.005 percent. Thus Apple avoided paying nearly all the corporate tax.

The EU Commission considers the situation to be an illegal advantage until resolved. The tax deal allows Apple to get unfair advantage compared to other companies whom are not offered the same tax breaks. This is considered to be a state aid that are forbidden and illegal in the EU.

Apple has continued to have a strong relationship since the 80s with Ireland where many of its European operations are centralized.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told last month that the upcoming semi-truck will be revealed late October. Now, the front man of both Tesla and SpaceX has pushed the event back a little bit.

Originally unveiling of "the beast" was meant to be 26th of October but after issues with Model 3 as well as a possible new initiative with Puerto Rico the semi-truck event has been pushed back to mid November.

Elon Musk says the new date is November 16th, as Tesla is "diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks and increase battery production for Puerto Rico and other affected areas."

Puerto Rico's officials have engaged Elon Musk on Twitter about replacing the hurricane devastated island's energy supplies with Tesla powered battery and solar systems.

Analysts expect the semi to hit the streets in 2020 and cost $100,000 with additional costs for replacing batteries.

Tesla Semi unveil now Nov 16. Diverting resources to fix Model 3 bottlenecks & increase battery production for Puerto Rico & other affected areas.

-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2017

Google introduced a new type of product this week. It's a camera that employs one of their core fields of expertise, AI, and decides for you when to record video and snap pictures.

Creepy, right? Well, it might be if you are extremely worried about privacy but the ease of use and smarts it has inside might win you over, especially you have kids or a puppy, according to Google.

You just set it up on the table, strap it on your kids stroller, or take it with you to the dog park. As long as you point it towards the subject you'll automatically get pictures and video on your mobile device (read: Pixel smartphone's Google Photos).

Everything is done under the hood thanks to AI and machine learning. The camera has a custom processor developed by Movidius called Myriad 2, The Verge reports. The so-called VPU, or visual processing unit, takes over all the calculations instead of having to transmit it to cloud processing.

This saves battery and makes the product more secure and privacy oriented than other AI applications that need to transfer data constantly.

As The Verge notes, this type of specialized processing units are becoming more and more popular among consumer electronics. Not long ago Apple introduced a neural engine on the new A11 chipset inside new iPhones, and soon Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei is set to unveil their newest flagship which they promise is going to deliver impressive AI features.

Google's yesterday's press event's beef was definitely in the Pixel 2 launch but there was plenty of other new products on display as well. Two of them improved Google's smart home lineup.

Google Home got two new siblings with Home Mini and Home Max. Unlike we expected, Google didn't release a smart screen (a smart speaker with a display) to combat Amazon's Echo Show. Instead Google has focused on audio only I/O.

Home Mini is essentially an Echo Dot. It's a smaller Home device that costs only $49. There's no audio out but you can use Chromecast to play music on Cast supported speakers. Mini will come available on October 19th.

The bigger speaker, Home Max, is meant for a more serious music enthusiast, Google says. According to the company it produces 20 times more powerful audio than the regular Home. The audio is produced by dual 4.5" subwoofers and custom tweeters.

However, Home Max does not come cheap. At $399 it's more expensive than Apple's HomePod, although you do get 12 months of YouTube Red (with music subscription) free.

Netflix has been getting pricier ever so slowly. In the recent years the company has been both raising the prices in different markets as well as adding new tiers to make the platform more profitable. Now there's another price raise ahead, Mashable reports.

The streaming giant is raising its prices on two of its payment tiers in the U.S. starting next month. The subscribers that are currently paying $9.99 for the standard streaming and the ones paying $11.99 for premium tier will have to shell out some extra cash from November on.

Standard service will rise from $9.99 to $10.99 and premium from $11.99 to $13.99. Basic service, which includes only standard definition and one screen at a time, stays at $7.99 for now. Standard tier includes 2 screens at time and HD resolution and Premium 4 screen and UHD resolution, as shown below.

Customers affected will be notified shortly by email and are given at least 30 days notice about the increase.

Price increases are meant to finance the increasing content, especially the expensive original produced by Netflix themselves. The company is spending $6 billion this year on content alone. Next year the figure is expected to be closer to $7 billion.

Google has announced a new laptop product yesterday in its October event. The super slim and extremely lightweight device runs, of course, Google's own Chrome operating system.


Named Pixelbook, the new laptop has a 12.3 inch 2400 x 1600 resolution touch screen that means a nice 235 pixels per inch density. You can get it in three different configurations, with either Core i5 or i7, and 8 or 16 GB RAM. The SSD ranges from 128GB to 256GB and 512GB.

The notebook weighs only 2.4 pounds and is 0.4 inches or 10 mm thin.

One of the more hyped features of the new Pixelbook is Instant Teathering which allows moving from WiFi to smartphone teathering a breeze. When you move out of WiFi's range the laptop automatically changes to your mobile data. Unfortunately you'll need a Pixel phone to use the feature.

Google also introduced a stylus developed with Wacom to work perfectly with the Pixelbook. Pixelbook Pen is the only Google Assistant supported stylus.

Pixelbook starts at $999 (i5/8GB/128GB), and the top of the line i7/16GB/512GB configuration will retail for $1649 when it launches later on. You can order the two cheaper models starting now.

WhatsApp has released a new beta version of their world-leading messaging app. You might not immediately notice anything new after downloading the new app on to your smartphone but there's definitely something that you'll notice once you start typing messages.

See, the messaging platform has updated their emojis. Before WhatsApp has been using default emojis from Apple's iOS mobile platform. Now the company has removed the dependency and moved on to use emojis designed in-house.

Well, I say designed in-house but really they are just copied from iOS emojis with a few details changed.

Most of the emojis are very similar to the Apple's but WhatsApp has tried to make the pictures even more lighthearted. However, while in many smileys it might be hard to even notice the difference, there are definitely differences.

Emojipedia has highlighted some of the differences, like the ones in the picture attached.

Currently the new emojis are only used in the pre-production version of WhatsApp on Android but will soon come to stable versions on both Android and iPhone/iPad.

Spotify has added its streaming service another AI powered features. This time around Your Time Capsule brings you songs from the past according to your personalized music history.

The feature tries to guess what type of music you've listened when you were a teenager, basing the selections on what you've been listening lately. Your own Time Capsule is approximately two hours of music that is automatically generated for each individual users.

You can access your Time Capsule from your mobile app or visiting timecapsule.spotify.com on your browser. In my case at least a few dozen songs were spot on, or at least fairly appropriate, but there are definitely a few misses.

Anyways, check out yours and let us know how well Spotify knows you!

The company synonymous with action cameras, GoPro, has unveiled their newest HERO series camera. The new HERO6 Black is the successor of HERO5, obviously, and brings along a couple nice to have features.

The upgrades aren't anything revolutionary, though. The identical design perhaps reveals that this is definitely an iterative upgrade. There is no 6K or 5K recording, but GoPro has included an all-new GP1 custom chip that provides better performance.

HERO6 Black can now record 4K and Full HD 1080p with twice the framerate. That means you have the option to record 4K@60fps or 1080p@240fps, both of which are rare in even more expensive cameras.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that the top tier resolution and framerate combinations (4K@60fps and 1080p@240fps) do not support electronic image stabilization.

In addition if you'd like a little bit of a slow motion but need more resolution you can choose 2.7K@120fps. Of course GP1 image processor is said to improve the picture quality as well.

Like the predecessor, HERO6 Black supports voice commands, so you can start (and stop) recording without touching the camera. It also now supports touch zoom in case you don't hate digital zoom.

Apple, without fanfares or even a special announcement, released today the iOS and macOS kernels to the public as open source.

What we are talking about here are the cores of Apple's operating systems, known as XNU (which is an acronym for XNU is Not Unix), that are used in iPhones, iPads, and in the case of macOS all the Mac computers. XNU has been Apple's kernel of choice since the early 2000s.

Now all the latest kernel versions can be found straight from Github, an online repository and cloud storage mostly used for code, with the exception of the newest mobile platform version, iOS 11.

With the open source releases Apple hopes to educate developers about the relations between kernel and software working on top of it.

The software is released under Apple Public Source License 2.0, which isn't exactly a free for all. You can read more about the license here.