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A Japanese billionaire has broken the retweet record on Twitter after pledging to give away money.

Yusaku Maezawa - who has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion - tweeted on January 5th a pledge to share 100 million yen ($925,000) between 100 randomly selected people. In order to be in with a chance of getting a share of the cash, Twitter users have to follow his account and retweet.

The tweet was made in celebration of his website, Zozotown, reaching 10 billion yen in sales over the holiday period.

At the time of writing, the tweet has been retweeted more than 5.5 million times. The previous record was held by a teenager who asked for retweets to win a year of free chicken nuggets from Wendy's. The number of retweets reached over 3.5 million. Prior to that, Ellen Degeneres had held the record with a selfie she took with Hollywood actors while hosting the Oscars.

Maezawa has made his fortune in the fashion world and is known for his taste in art. He could become one of the first commercial astronauts in a few years time as he has booked a ride atop SpaceX' Super Heavy rocket & Starship. The plan is to fly Maezawa and several others that he will hand pick around the Moon.

Sprint will roll out 5G service with Samsung smartphones in the United States starting in the summer.

The carrier is teaming up with the South Korean CE firm in plans to offer 5G smartphones and services starting in the summer in nine cities. At the time of rollout, the pair hopes to offer the service in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington D.C.

Rival wireless carrier Verizon announced very similar 5G rollout plans for mid-2019 just last month.

Depending on circumstances, 4G speeds can be up to 100 times father than current 4G technology in wide usage. Samsung will undoubtedly benefit from getting into 5G ahead of Apple Inc., which reportedly is planning to release its first 5G iPhones in 2020.

Samsung is showing off its modular Micro LED technology at CES in Las Vegas, with a 75-inch display and a giant 219-inch 'Wall' display.

The displays are made up of individual modules of self-emissive Micro LEDs, featuring millions of inorganic red, green and blue microscopic LED chips that emit their own light. Samsung first showed off the technology at last year's CES with a giant 146-inch Micro LED display.

This year the South Korean firm is back with an enormous 219-inch display. However, it has also brought along a home-friendly 75-inch 4K display.

The promise of the technology is down to its modular nature. Users can actually expand their display to any size they desire. The displays can be customized to fit any room or space, even at irregular 9×3, 1×7 or 5×1 screen sizes that suit their spatial, aesthetic and functional needs. MicroLED displays are bezel-free, meaning there are no borders between additional modules.

"For decades, Samsung has lead the way in next-generation display innovation," said Jonghee Han, President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics.

"Our Micro LED technology is at the forefront of the next screen revolution with intelligent, customizable displays that excel in every performance category. Samsung Micro LED has no boundaries, only endless possibilities."

Tesla has launched its Model 3 configurator page to those living in left-hand driving European countries. The configurator page allows potential buyer to tweak the Model 3 options and see how the changes effect the price in his/her country. Page has been open in selected European countries since December, but now it seems that almost all European countries where Tesla operates, are included.

As the value-added tax (VAT), various subsidizes and possible car taxes vary from country to country, the pricing varies quite wildly across Europe. In Finland, for example, the cheapest Model 3 configuration will cost €63,070 (appx. $71,800) while the same car costs only $49,000 in some parts of the United States. In France, the prices start from €53,000 and in Germany, from €57,900.

European Model 3 will have a different charging port in Europe, opting to use European CCS Combo charging port instead of its own proprietary port. Tesla will be retrofitting its existing Supercharger stations in Europe to accept both connectors.

Apple has been ordered to remove from iPhone models from retail stores in Germany in an ongoing patent dispute with Qualcomm.

The chipmaker has accused Apple of patent infringement related to power-saving technology present in certain iPhone models. In December, a court in Munich sided with Qualcomm in finding that Apple had infringed the patents in question.

In Germany, the winner of a patent dispute must post a bond to protect against damages incurred by the losing side if it were to later have the decision overturned in court. Only once this bond is posted will the judgment become enforcement. Qualcomm complied with the law by paying a €1.3 billion bond.

"Qualcomm insists on charging exorbitant fees based on work they didn't do and they are being investigated by governments all around the world for their behaviour," an Apple spokesman said back in December.

It is appealing against the court's decision.

One of the first things you could customize on a mobile phone was ringtones. Now that customizability includes wallpapers, apps, and widgets, and voice calls are a little rarer, the ringtone might have lost some of its flair.

However, you might still want to listen to something better than different types of beeps.

Unfortunately there's no single way to explain how changing a ringtone works on Android phones, because manufacturers might have implemented the feature in different ways and thus different smartphone models behave differently.

Most, if not all, Android phones allow the usage of external ringtones. We'll try to go through a couple common ways to change your ringtone on an Android phone to either a pre-installed one or one of your choice.

Selecting your default ringtone

1) Open Settings from your app drawer or from the sliding notification bar

2) Head down to Sounds (might also be called for example Sounds and notifications, or Sound & vibration)

3) Select Phone ringtone (or Ringtone)

4) Choose your preferred ringtone from the list (note: selecting ringtone will also play it)


Selecting an external ringtone

Apple's latest and greatest iPad, the 2018 edition of iPad Pro, is a marvel of a tablet. While it doesn't have many of the proper computer features, it is a mighty powerful device.

One might claim that what makes it marvelous isn't so much the power, but how it's built. The build is indeed extraordinary in its thinness.

Unfortunately there seems to be a problem with the thinness.

Customers have been complaining that they've received bent iPads straight out the packaging. Reports about the bendgate quickly reached Apple, who just claimed it was normal and thus not covered by warranty.

Now couple days after, even the Apple VP of Hardware Dan Riccio has commented saying that it is indeed a minimal variation in the production, not so much an error of any kind.

According to Riccio there might be 400 micron variations which translates to less than half a millimeter. Thats just ten times the thickness of human hair.

Pictures surely have showed more variation than that, but that's Apple's official stance. According to Apple the quality meets the company's quality standards of design and precision manufacturing.

In both your professinal as well as personal life you might come up with situations where recording a phone call is worth a fortune. Perhaps you want the details as fresh as possible, and there's really no better way to get every nuance right.

Fortunately smartphones allow recording calls, although the ease of it definitely depends on the phone, which we will go here through for both Android phone as well as iPhones.

Is recording calls legal?

The feature is not found in most smartphones by default because in some states and countries recording calls might be illegal.

In the U.S. recording calls is legal, although consent law depends on your state. Federal law as well as most states have adopted one-party consent which means that at least one of the parties (which could be just you) in the conversation needs to know of and accept the recording.

Two-party consent laws are in effect in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Recording calls in Android

You can find an endless sea of both free and paid apps for Android that promise some type of recording function. So the problem becomes: which of these dozens of apps should you pick?

Microsoft has turned from an entirely software-based company into a hardware maker with some interesting devices.

Surface lineup includes some of the most impressive laptops, tablets, and hybrids, but Microsoft is developing devices even beyond that.

Lately Microsoft came up with ANC headphones, and next year it is planning to introduce a webcam, Thurrott.com reports.

According to the information, Microsoft's upcoming webcam features 4K resolution for video recording and supports unsurprisingly Windows Hello facial recognition.

The camera is also compatible with Xbox One which can be used in Kinect-like fashion.

Microsoft's webcam game has been already ahead of Apple, whose MacBook cameras are very low quality. Surface devices have passable camera but even those aren't enough for the pixel hungry streamers.

A video made by a former NASA engineer went viral this week, but it turns out some of the reactions of package thieves were staged.

Mark Rober delighted the Internet with his invention; a smart glitter bomb with multiple cameras, GPS and fart spray aimed at package thieves. After a package was stolen from his residence months before, Rober designed a device that would spray the thieves with glitter when opened, film their reactions and also unleash an intoxicating fart spray.

Even if the devices could not be recovered, the four included phones recording the reaction were set to upload video to the Internet using LTE. GPS also allowed Rober to find out exactly where the packages are.

However, Rober has since re-uploaded the video to cut out about 90 seconds of reactions after finding out that some of the reactions were staged. Unbeknown to Rober, a friend had recruited others to fake their reactions, posing as victims.

After the edit and re-upload, Rober apologized to his subscribers and explained the situation.

Note about 2 missing the reactions in the video- I was presented with information that caused me to doubt the veracity of 2 of the 5 reactions in the video. These were reactions that were captured during a two week period while the device was at house 2 hours away from where I live. I put a feeler out for people willing to put a package on their porch and this person (who is a friend of a friend) volunteered to help. To compensate them for their time and willingness to risk putting a package on their porch I offered financial compensation for any successful recoveries of the package. It appears (and I've since confirmed) in these two cases, the "thieves" were actually acquaintances of the person helping me. From the footage I received from the phones which intentionally only record at specific times, this wasn't clear to me. I have since removed those reactions from the original video (originally 6:26-7:59). I'm really sorry about this. Ultimately, I am responsible for the content that goes on my channel and I should have done more here. I can vouch for that the reactions were genuine when the package was taken from my house. Having said that, I know my credibly is sort of shot but I encourage you to look at the types of videos I've been making for the past 7 years. This is my first ever video with some kind of "prank" and like I mentioned in the video it's pretty removed from my comfort zone and I should have done more. I'm especially gutted because so much thought, time, money and effort went into building the device and I hope this doesn't just taint the entire effort as "fake". It genuinely works (like all the other things I've built on my channel) and we've made all the code and build info public. Again, I'm sorry for putting something up on my channel that was misleading. That is totally on me and I will take all necessary steps to make sure it won't happen again.

Google has silently launched Chrome Canvas, which allows you to doodle and take notes in your browser that will be saved to your Google account.

It isn't just compatible with Chrome either, it will work with any browser that supports WebAssembly. You don't need to download and install it, it can be accessed by simply visiting the URL: https://canvas.apps.chrome/

It offers basic drawing tools, including Pencil, Ink Pen, Marker, and Chalk. There is also an eraser. If you don't have a touchscreen, you can use your mouse or touchpad to control the tools.

Your drawings are saved to your Google account and can be downloaded as PNG graphics files at any time.

Try it out at: https://canvas.apps.chrome/

via: Engadget

A report from the New York Times into how Facebook shared user information with third-party services has the social network on the defensive.

The report detailed how Facebook has shared access to user data with third parties including Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Microsoft and more over the years. However, the company responded to the report insisting that no user data was shared with those third parties without authorization.

"None of these partnerships or features gave companies access to information without people's permission, nor did they violate our 2012 settlement with the FTC," wrote Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Director of Developer Platforms and Programs, at Facebook.

Furthermore, most of the features driven by the data sharing are now gone. Facebook shut down instant personalization, which powered Bing's features, in 2014, but did acknowledge that it had left APIs in place after the shutdown that left some partners with access to data until late 2017. The social network stresses that Instant Personalization only involved public information.

Facebook has been scrutinized in several countries by politicians and regulators for its use of user data, and allegations that it has been used as a means to influence elections by Russia, Iran, and other states.

Apple has announced that it is stopping the sales of a couple older iPhone models in Germany due to a recent court order.

Chipmaker Qualcomm and Apple have been exchanging blows in the courtroom over patents recently, and one of the cases has gone to trial already.

San Diego based Qualcomm won the case and due to that Apple has decided to pull both iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 from its own stores. Third party retailers will still be selling the devices.

In the court case Qualcomm claimed that Apple was infringing the company's patents on power saving. The District Court of Munich agreed, and even though Apple is planning on an appeal, they've pulled the phones from the Apple Stores both offline and online.

The issue is with hardware, a chip made by Qorvo, so there isn't an easy software update to fix it. Fortunately for Apple the newer models like iPhone X or XS do not have the same chip.

In the U.S., Qorvo's chip has been determined to not infringe on Qualcomm's patent portfolio.

This isn't the first time Apple has suffered losses against Qualcomm in the courtroom. However, in China the issue was with software and Apple was able to patch it.

Last year was immense for virtual money, or cryptocurrency as the kids like to call it, Bitcoin. 2018 was supposed to be even bigger as Bitcoin was meant to break through to the masses.

It never really happened, and the value has melted away fairly consistently over the months.

Even though Bitcoin's value has been eroding, cryptocurrency aficionados still believe in revolutionizing the monetary system.

Even Facebook is building their own cryptocurrency, report from Bloomberg says.

According to Bloomberg sources, Facebook isn't trying to build a currency for its social media site, but instead is trying to develop a cryptocurrency for WhatsApp.

However, it's not the most renegade of the cryptocurrencies since its planned to be pegged to the U.S. dollar to give it more stability.

What they call stablecoin would be featured in WhatsApp but the development idea likely comes from Messenger boss David Marcus who formerly worked for PayPal.

There no release date for the stablecoin yet, and Bloomberg doesn't expect it to be released in the nearest of futures, especially not here in the West.

Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, is suing Epic over a dance displayed in Fortnite.

The dance is known as the "Carlton dance", and is performed with Tom Jones' It's Not Unusual. The dance in Fortnite is very similar to the Carlton dance and is even performed with music reminiscent of the Tom Jones classic.

Ribiero claims that Epic has mimicked the dance in the megapupular Fortnite without asking permission and paying compensation.

Several weeks ago, Epic was hit with a similar lawsuit from rapped 2 Milly for allegedly mimicking the "Milly Rock".

You can view a comparison of the Carlton Dance and the dance movies in the game below.