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How To
How to Get Started with Fitbit Premium (and Why You’d Want To)
Fitbit Premium is one of many fitness subscriptions you can sign up for, but unlike most, it’s designed to be a complement to the Fitbit device you already own. Fitbit’s paid service gives you deeper insights than its free version, as well as on-demand workouts, personalized instructions, and more, but is it really worth $10 … Continued
By David Nield -
Tech NewsFacebook
Facebook: Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Ads
The exhausting saga of Apple vs. Facebook continues. With Apple gearing up to release a privacy tool intended to allow users to limit the data collected about them across apps and websites—a policy with which the company has specifically targeted Facebook—the social media giant announced Monday it’ll be introducing a prompt of its own to, as … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsFacebook
Facebook Workers Warned About Hateful Groups Well Before Capitol Riot
Last week, Facebook finally announced it would stop recommending so-called “civic” (see: political) Groups to users in the wake of the violent siege on the U.S. capitol. But according to a new Wall Street Journal report, this decision only came well after data scientists within the company had raised the alarm that Groups had become … Continued
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Tech NewsNews
Rep. Matt Gaetz Staffer Cheered On Capitol Rioters Via Parler as They Overran Police
As police struggled futilely to fend off a wave of rioters outside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, Joel Valdez, an aide to Congressman Matt Gaetz, made his way to the rooftop of his boss’s office building across the street on Independence Ave. Surveying the mob as it surrounded the complex, he captured a … Continued
By Dell Cameron -
Tech NewsApple
Nvidia GeForce Now Game Streaming Just Got Support for Apple’s M1 Chips
While Apple is still working on its big two-year transition to homegrown Apple chips, even in these early days software developers are already porting their apps over, with Nvidia having just added support for M1 Macs to its GeForce Now game streaming client. Last spring, Nvidia rolled out support for GeForce Now on iPhones and … Continued
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How To
The Complete Guide to Customizing Your Apple Watch
Apple’s watchOS platform doesn’t have quite as many customization options as other smartwatches, such as those built on Google’s Wear OS, do. But there are numerous ways to make your Apple Watch your own, beyond picking your watch color, size, and strap. Here are the top features to know and how to use them. The … Continued
By David Nield -
Tech NewsAmazon
Police and Fire Departments in 48 U.S. States Are Reportedly Involved in Amazon’s Ring Program
If you have an Amazon Ring smart doorbell, there’s something you should know. A growing number of fire and police departments are interested in your doorbell—or to be frank, in its camera footage—especially if they feel it can help them in their investigations. In fact, there are now 2,014 departments in the program from every … Continued
By Jody Serrano -
Tech NewsFacebook
WhatsApp Is Now Using Its Version of Stories to Convince Users It’s Committed to Their Privacy
As many of you probably already know, WhatsApp’s announcement on the changes to its privacy policy confused and angered a lot of people, who were given the impression that the messaging app would begin sharing their personal data with its parent company, Facebook. Since then, WhatsApp has been running up and down trying to reassure … Continued
By Jody Serrano -
Tech NewsGoogle
Google Suspended Federated Chat App Element for Allegedly Hosting Abusive Content
Google temporarily yanked Element’s Android chat app from the Play Store this week for allegedly hosting abusive content. The decision’s particularly baffling given that Element is only a client for the federated chat protocol Matrix and not a service in and of itself. Meaning that Element can (and does) moderate its own servers, but has … Continued
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Tech NewsNews
Telegram Adds Simple Tool to Bring In Your WhatsApp Data
Following the disastrous announcement of changes to its privacy policy, WhatsApp is losing the trust of millions of users who are now looking for a new encrypted messaging platform. Telegram claims it’s added 100 million new users this month alone, and it hopes its new ability to transfer WhatsApp chat histories will accelerate the transition. … Continued
By Rhett Jones -
Tech NewsGoogle
Google Deletes 100,000 Negative Reviews of Robinhood App From Angry Users
Google removed at least 100,000 negative reviews of the stock trading app Robinhood from the Google Play app store after angry users sent a flood of critical reviews that caused the app’s rating to plummet on Thursday. The app’s rating went from roughly four stars out of five on Wednesday to just one star on … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsFacebook
Facebook Bans Popular Stock Trading Group Amid GameStop Chaos
Facebook has reportedly shut down a popular stock trading group due to alleged policy violations, the page’s founder claims, who argues the real reason behind the sudden ouster is the windfall its members made off all the GameStonks drama this week. Robinhood Stock Traders boasted over 157,000 members before Facebook took it offline on Wednesday, … Continued
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Tech NewsNews
Discord Gives WallStreetBets Another Chance and Offers Help
From the flaming ashes of the GameStop stock clusterfuck, the WallStreetBets Discord group returns from the dead. It’s been a rough morning for anyone trying to get rich by pouring money into garbage stocks. Over the last week or so, we’ve seen a remarkable run on stocks like GameStop, AMC, and BlackBerry that has sent … Continued
By Rhett Jones -
Tech NewsFacebook
Facebook’s Oversight Board Issues First Five Rulings for Everyone to Get Mad About
Facebook’s Oversight Board, the supposedly independent entity the company created to quell some of the heat over its moderation policies, announced its first five decisions on Thursday. The oversight panel, which consists of 20 academics, lawyers, and human rights activists, overruled Facebook moderators on four of their decisions and dinged the company for having vague … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsFacebook
It Looks Like Facebook Might Be Gearing Up for a Big Antitrust Battle with Apple
While it might seem ridiculous for Facebook to accuse any other company of having monopolistic tendencies, apparently the social media giant has spent the past several months preparing for an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. According to a new report from the Information, with the help of outside legal counsel, Facebook has been putting together an … Continued
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Tech NewsNews
Vivaldi Delivers Two-Level Tab Stacking Feature for Tab Hoarders
What’s better than one tab bar? Two, obviously. Vivaldi, the highly personalized browser, announced today a new two-level tab stacks feature that introduces a second tab bar in Vivaldi 3.6. The company already supports plenty of customization features to keep tabs organized, including the ability to group tabs together and orient them vertically. With double-deck … Continued
By Catie Keck -
How To
See Which Apps Are Using Your Camera, Microphone, and Location
Protecting your privacy in the modern age isn’t easy, with everything from app labels to online cookies to think about, but knowing what the apps on your devices are up to has to be one of your top priorities—and in particular, you’ll want to know which apps are using the camera, the microphone, and the … Continued
By David Nield -
Tech NewsNews
Facebook Once Again Pledges to Depoliticize Facebook
After initially pledging not to recommend civic and political groups to its users, but then sort of continuing to do that anyway, Facebook once again affirmed its commitment to reducing the amount of political content that users see on Wednesday. During a fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on the … Continued
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Tech NewsNews
Discord Bans r/WallStreetBets for Hate Speech Violations
After kicking off a historic rally around GameStop stock that has incited the ire of hedge fund tycoons and the SEC, the r/wallstreetbets channel was banned from Discord on Wednesday over apparent hate speech violations. While some on Reddit were quick to speculate that the server had been taken down by hackers as part of … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy and Security
Signal Blocked by Iran as Encrypted Messaging App’s Popularity Explodes
With great popularity comes great scrutiny. Following WhatsApp’s controversial announcement of changes to its privacy policy, users have flocked to the encrypted messaging app Signal. The app has maintained a relatively small userbase for years, but in the last month, it has reportedly doubled in size. And now it’s attracted the attention of government regulators … Continued
By Rhett Jones