Author Archives: Carol Edwards

The new Apple iPhone 11 Pro has an interesting issue: it’s collecting mysterious location data from its users, even when it technically shouldn’t be.

Security researcher Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity recently discovered that the iPhone 11 Pro was displaying the small arrow icon, which denotes the use of location data on iOS devices, even though he had turned off location data for all apps and system services individually.

This issue does not appear to affect any previous models of the smartphone or other devices using iOS 13.

Krebs reached out to Apple thinking it was an error. Apple support forums have been talking about this issue as if it was a bug since September. Read more…

More about Apple, Smartphones, Location Services, Iphone 11, and Iphone 11 Pro

Reddit users criticized the platform’s massive investment from a Chinese tech giant with a photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, an event that China censors all mention of to this day. It’s now the site’s most upvoted post of 2019. 

“Given that Reddit just took a $150 million investment from a Chinese censorship powerhouse, I thought it would be nice to pots this picture of ‘Tank Man’ at Tiananmen Square before our new glorious overlords decide we cannot post it anymore,” u/FreeSpeechWarrior captioned the photo.  

Reddit received a $150 million investment from Tencent in February, the Chinese company behind WeChat and League of Legends. It’s the world’s largest gaming company, and very much compliant with China’s censorship. Although they aren’t within Chinese borders, WeChat users in the United States can have blocked keywords or certain messages filtered if their IDs were created in mainland China. China continues to block American platforms like Twitch, Google, Facebook, and intermittently blocks Reddit as well.  Read more…

More about China, Reddit, Censorship, Culture, and Web Culture

Half a century ago, before the first Apple computer was even sold, climate scientists started making computer-generated forecasts of how Earth would warm as carbon emissions saturated the atmosphere (the atmosphere is now brimming with carbon).

It turns out these decades-old climate models — which used math equations to predict how much greenhouse gases would heat the planet — were pretty darn accurate. Climate scientists gauged how well early models predicted Earth’s relentless warming trend and published their research Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Most importantly, the results underscore that climate scientists were always right about how greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide trap heat and warm the surface. It was, and is, well-understood science. Read more…

More about Science, Global Warming, Climate Change, Science, and Climate Environment

TL;DR: Although it’s a small discount, you can get a pair of AirPods Pro for $14 off on Amazon — they aren’t in stock yet, but you can lock-in that low price right now.

We’re honestly pretty surprised, but Apple’s new noise-canceling AirPods Pro have a small discount again.

While they aren’t currently in stock, you can still secure $14 off the high-quality earbuds as soon as… well, right now. Just don’t expect them to come in time for the holidays — if you were planning on getting them as a gift for someone else, you’re better off grabbing them directly from Apple (though we could be wrong, just an educated guess). Otherwise, you can get, like, a nice lunch or something with that extra $14.  Read more…

More about Apple, Headphones, Earbuds, Airpods, and Mashable Shopping

Two USC researchers argue that in order to empathize with humans, robots must care about their own health. This includes a fear of mortality. Read more…

More about Tech, Robots, Mashable Video, Strictly Robots, and Feeling Sensors

The Tesla CEO is being sued for defamation by Vernon Unsworth, the man Musk referred to in the tweet. Read more…

More about Tech, Mashable Video, Lawsuit, Elon Musk, and Vernon Unsworth

Civilization’s carbon emissions — like Earth’s temperature, sea level, and the rate of ice sheet melting in Greenland — are still going up.

Researchers at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) in Oslo, Norway spend each year tediously compiling the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases humanity expels into the planet’s atmosphere. This year, their Global Carbon Budget Report projects that carbon dioxide emissions continued growing in 2019, though by a lower-than-usual amount of around 0.6 percent, reaching a new record high.

Compared to the huge carbon emission numbers in the early 2000s, when emissions jumped by some three percent each year, this is a small increase. But, critically, the 2019 emissions trend illustrates that global society’s carbon emissions aren’t falling, haven’t even peaked, and certainly don’t bode well for meeting the U.N.’s hugely ambitious target for curbing Earth’s warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures, agreed upon at the historic Paris climate accords. Read more…

More about Science, Global Warming, Climate Change, Carbon Emissions, and Science

It’s the end of an era for Google and Alphabet. Google’s two cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are stepping down from their roles as Alphabet’s top executives, the company announced Tuesday. 

Sundar Pichai, who has served as Google’s CEO since 2015, will officially add Alphabet CEO to his responsibilities. While Brin and Page, who still control a majority of the most powerful shares of parent company Alphabet’s stock, will remain on the company’s board.

For those who have watched the company closely, it’s not a surprising move. Pichai has become the public face of Google in recent years, while Page and Brin rarely show at public-facing events, like shareholder meetings. BuzzFeed reported earlier this year that Brin and Page had become no-shows at the company’s weekly town hall meetings.  Read more…

More about Tech, Google, Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, and Tech

TL;DR: Help pass the soul-crushing eternity until The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters with some classic board games for the whole family —  like Monopoly, Operation, and Clue, all with a Star Wars twist — Amazon has them for up to 35% off.   

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is about to hit theaters soon and wrap up that whole new trilogy thing — and we are about lose our minds already. Then there’s The Mandalorian that’s now playing on Disney+ with the squee-inducing cuteness of Baby Yoda driving us all into paroxysms of joy. Oh, and let’s not forget that The Galaxy’s Edge theme park is now open, in case you want to (not really, but really) fly the Millennium Falcon. Here’s a hot take: Now is the greatest time in history to be a Star Wars fan. Read more…

More about Gaming, Board Games, Star Wars, Mashable Shopping, and Entertainment

A reported 62 percent of women say “please” at least sometimes, 17 percent more than men, only 45 percent of whom ask nicely. Read more…

More about Tech, Mashable Video, Digital Assistant, Smart Speakers, and Future Blink