MacRumors reports that a team of Barclays analysts claims they have ‘confirmed’ that 3D Touch will be eliminated from all iPhone models coming out in 2019. The company intends to replace it with the cheaper Haptic Touch technology that it introduced with last year’s iPhone XR. This adds credence to previous reports from the Wall Street Journal back in January, which said Apple was looking at removing the feature in an attempt to cut costs: The feature, introduced four years ago with iPhone 6s, made use of pressure-sensitive sensors integrated into the iPhone’s display to let you access handy shortcuts, preview messages, photos, and other content by detecting how hard you pressed on them....

Apple seems to be accelerating its self-driving efforts again. According to a report by Bloomberg, the company’s set to buy Drive.ai – an American startup that works on AI that aids autonomous vehicles. According to The Information, this is going to be an acqui-hire deal, which means Apple‘s just going to hire talent from the startup without getting a claim to any of Drive.ai’s intellectual property. Until now, the iPhone maker’s self-driving journey has been a roller coaster ride....

Though we can’t confirm the exact date, the March timing seems about right. That’s the month Apple chose to announce the original iPhone SE, it means the device doesn’t get drowned out in WWDC announcements in June, and it leaves an ample gap until the iPhone 12 arrives. The phone will reportedly go on sale soon after the event, on April 3 (a Friday, as is typical for Apple). Earlier rumors indicated the device would retail for $399, placing it firmly in the midrange price category....

Armored Brigade is my favorite war game. It has a unique playability that both consistently challenges me and makes me feel really smart. But I’m not a huge fan of the Cold War era. For my money, there’s no setting quite like World War II. Luckily for me, AB 1943, as the mod is called, converts the Armored Brigade experience into a WW2 game set in the Eastern front....

VW’s Electric rebirth in America begins After years of anticipation, I finally got to see and touch a Volkswagen ID.4 crossover back in mid-September. I examined it from every angle, sat in the seats, and handled the controls. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I actually got behind the wheel of this gamechanger from Volkswagen for the U.S. market. VW gave me 45 minutes to myself on a route that let me measure the white crossover’s behavior on city streets, freeways, and empty, narrow country roads....

The company’s Orion tech is a framework that optimizes cloud gaming performance, so as to reduce latency by up to 20 percent per frame, and to reduce bandwidth requirements by up to 40 percent. Orion is meant to be integrated into game engines to make this magic happen. The company noted this could mean lower data costs for broadband users, and increased availability of game streaming services for players worldwide – by reducing the requirements to enable streaming....

Bitcoin’s “hash rate” measures the total processing power of the network at any one time. As more miners join the network, the hash rate increases. A strong hash rate is indicative of a secure blockchain, as hypothetical bad actors would need to acquire more resources to pull of a “51-percent attack.” When hackers stole $40 million worth of cryptocurrency from major exchange Binance earlier this year, many speculated they took Bitcoin specifically to avoid having their illicit transactions “rolled back” by colluding miners, which has been documented to happen on alternate blockchains like Bitcoin Cash....

While owning an electric vehicle is still far from the norm in most of the world, they’ve been around long enough for there to be a decent amount of options now available on the second-hand market.c Buying a used EV isn’t exactly the same as buying a regular used car, and there are some things to be aware of. Assuming you’ve already decided what EV you’re going to buy, here are five things to consider before you part with your cash....

Activision has acknowledged the issue and confirmed it is investigating the matter following numerous reports from miffed players, but has yet to release a fix. The timing is especially irritating considering the latest season dropped just yesterday, so naturally everyone is eager to explore what’s new. Instead, players have had to deal with intermittent server connectivity complications and unexpected crashes. “We’re actively investigating an issue where some players are experiencing crashes after the update in ModernWarfare and Warzone,” Activision wrote in a tweet....

This might sound like a scene from a Black Mirror episode but is, in fact, a real possibility thanks to tools available on the social media app Telegram, which allows users to upload innocent images of a (clothed) person, and request that the person in the image is “digitally undressed” for a fee. Telegram has more than 400 million active monthly users. While Telegram operates predominantly as a messaging app, it facilitates autonomous programs (referred to as “bots”), one of which is able to digitally synthesize these deepfake naked images....

The 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (2018 version) is selling for just $1,599, down from $1,999. While Apple refreshed the MacBook Pro lineup this year with new processors, this version’s specs are still pretty solid. Specifications 2.3 GHz 8th gen Intel Core i5 Quad-core processor 13.3-inch Retina display 8GB RAM 512GB SSD Integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 Touch bar 8Wh lithium-ion polymer battery that lasts up to 10 hours...

If you ask any tech reviewer about top camera phones out there, almost every one of them will mention Google’s Pixel 3. While other phones rely on two, three, or even four cameras, the search giant’s phone banks on a single camera and some insane AI wizardry. In our camera comparison with the iPhone XS, Google’s phone came out on top, helped by its great image quality and features such as Night Sight and Super Res Zoom....

Joy can be found in unexpected places. It could be the sound of birdsong in the morning, the movement of a plastic bag caught in the wind, or a fucking rocking t-shirt you can play like an electric guitar. Yes, friends, you heard that correctly; someone has created a t-shirt you can play like an electric guitar. Even better, you can buy it. And even better than that, the electric guitar t-shirt is on offer and currently has 68 percent off its list price, meaning it can be yours for only $7....

The launch was initially scheduled for June 16, however it was postponed for a week after technical difficulties. Yesterday, China’s space agency was able to successfully execute the liftoff with the satellite mounted on the Long March-3B rocket. With this completion, China joins the US’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, and the EU’s Galileo navigation services that provide global services. This third phase in China’s navigation system plans was designed to provide global services....

The Chinese are not exactly upstarts in the traditional sense: it’s more than a decade since they surpassed America to become the most prolific car-makers in the world. But despite reaching that milestone in 2008, China’s cars were still mostly clones of cheap western vehicles. Now, however, China is arguably producing the best cars in the world, and on track to dominate auto manufacturing. How did this happen, and will the west be able to regain its crown?...

China is developing a Mars helicopter — and it looks extremely similar to NASA’s Ingenuity. A prototype of the “Mars surface cruise drone” was unveiled on Wednesday by China’s National Space Science Center (CNNSC). The announcement was spotted by SpaceNews’ Andrew Jones, who described the chopper as “more Familiarity than Ingenuity.” — Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) September 1, 2021 My Mandarin’s a little rusty, but according to Google Translate, the chopper is equipped with a micro spectrometer....

We watched every second of the more than five and a half hours of Congress’ grilling of some of the richest men in the world so you wouldn’t have to. Let’s start with the ending. House Antitrust Committee Chairman David Cicilline closed today’s hearing with the following statement: Now that we’ve got that bit of cogent observation out of the way, let’s get onto the good, the bad, and the GOP....

Microsoft yesterday revealed its Q4 fiscal year earnings, and noted console sales were sluggish: “Xbox hardware revenue declined 48%, primarily due to a decrease in volume of consoles sold.” Sony released its fiscal year financial results earlier this year, and also reported a decline in PS4 sales. While some units are still moving, it appears consumers are generally losing interest. It was last month — during E3 in particular — that we got the most details about the next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft....

Wouldn’t you want to know what happened in those instances? Well, you can’t. At least, regarding Waymo. On Tuesday, the California Superior Court in Sacramento ruled that Alphabet’s Waymo can keep crucial safety and crash data about its autonomous vehicles secret. What’s the story? In January, Waymo sued the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), to prevent the agency from disclosing what it considers “trade secrets.” According to the lawsuit, in October 2021, the DMV notified Waymo that an anonymous third party requested to view the company’s application for its autonomous vehicle deployment permit, along with email correspondence between Waymo and DMV....

The findings — disclosed by California-based enterprise security solutions provider Proofpoint US — discovered at least 77 percent of email attacks on the medical sector during the first three months of 2019 involved the use of malicious links. “URL-based attacks are effective because although users have grown more cautious about opening attachments, they still click URLs,” Proofpoint researchers said. “That’s especially true if the URL is that of a known, trusted source such as a file-sharing service....