Latest news

The rumors of the upcoming iPhone have been going wild for a few months now, and there's only a few things they seem to be focusing on. One is the display, which according to most rumors covers the whole front panel. The second one is the placement of a fingerprint reader and other possible biometric sensors.

Now it is rumored that Apple will be adding a new type of sensor in their future iPhone which might remove the need for fingerprint reader altogether. A front-facing 3D camera will supposedly scan your face and log you in not only to your phone but to Apple Pay as well.

Traditional face recognition is not very reliable and earlier implementations by the likes of Samsung have been fooled by photos for example but this new technology is said to be secure enough to use for online payment.

According to Bloomberg, the new technology is so capable that is can read your face even if the phone is laying on the table and not pointing straight at you. Apple is also said to be considering adding iris scanning to the system.

The sources tell that this 3D face recognition is even more secure than the fingerprint as it is based on more data points. However, the technology is still in development and might not be ready for the next iPhones that will be revealed in just couple of months.

As the Korean smartphone manufacturers have delivered their flagship phones for this year the press in their homeland finds something else to focus their eyes on. Oddly enoguh, as of late it seems to be much to do with Apple.

Both Korean manufacturers have of course have a lot more to offer, be it refrigerators or washing machines, but one of the more important aspects in their portfolios is display manufacturing. Both are known for their TVs and smaller panels that they include in their own smartphones. Now, however, there are even bigger fish to fry.

Apple is said to be moving towards OLED displays in their upcoming iPhones.

According to Korean press both of the country's major display manufacturers are trying to strike deals with Apple. Samsung has been the leading OLED manufacturer for years, and their Galaxy smartphones have been the showcase for the best in quality screens.

For Apple, Samsung is a far bigger competitor than LG, though, and that might swing at least some of the deals in their favor. And that is exactly what is going to happen, according to The Korea Herald, as they are closing in on a multi billion dollar deal.

Last year's catastrophic release of Galaxy Note7 made a lot of people question whether Samsung will ever release another Note smartphone. At this point, however, it is all but confirmed that Note8 will be released in just a couple of months. Note8 will not be the only Note device Samsung has to offer this year, though.

Late last year we started hearing rumors that Samsung might still try to bring the Note7 back even after releasing it twice while prone to exploding or catching fire. Many questioned the veracity of the rumors as it would seem highly risky to bring back such a controversial device. Nevertheless Samsung announced later on that it would bring the hardware back in the limited quantity it was sold last year.

Obviously this time around the phone needs to be safe, Samsung can't afford to fail once again, and the company has been taking their time to make sure the battery is repaired appropriately and works flawlessly. Now Samsung has, however, revealed that Galaxy Note FE, which stands for Fan Edition, will be available in Korea on July 7th. Pre-orders have already started.

Samsung has not revealed if Note FE will be available outside their homeland. Some reports have claimed that Samsung is bringing the phone to other Asian countries but no word on Europe or the US.

A Mexican tribunal has upheld a ban on the import of Roku streaming devices in the country, citing piracy.

Cable TV provider, Cablevision, had successfully managed to have the import and sale of Roku streaming devices banned in the country on the grounds that some owners are using them for illegal television streaming. Roku did manage to have that order suspended for a few days, but has now suffered another setback.

This week, a Mexico City tribunal upheld the initial import ban, keeping it illegal to sell devices from California-based Roku in the country.

"Cablevision cannot allow the content that it licenses from domestic and foreign companies to be illegally used," Cablevision spokeswoman Maria Eugenia Zurita told Reuters.

"We would also like Roku Inc to better supervise the use of its software so that it's not used inappropriately."

Roku devices are set-top media boxes that are intended to be used with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Starz and plenty of other legal streaming services on the Internet. In recent years, such devices have fueled a growth in cord-cutting, the practice of dropping cable and satellite television services in favor of online streaming services.

A Finnish startup by the name Ruuvi introduced its Bluetooth beacon project to the internet in a Kickstarter campaign last summer. In mere hours the campaign was funded and in the end it crushed its goal with pre-orders exceeding $170 000.

Now the company has officially released the product, which according to their press release came quicker than expected. Since yesterday's launch RuuviTag has been selling like hotcakes. The founder of Ruuvi, Lauri Jämsä, told us that the demand has been so high that the supply has almost been depleted.

In the upcoming batches the company aims more and more in the B2B markets where orders might exceed a thousand units.

RuuviTag is a small Bluetooth 4.2 beacon that has radio and NFC connectivity as well as a multitude of sensors that can measure temperature, relative air humidity, air pressure, and acceleration. It can be used as a Eddystone or iBeacon, and the RuuviLab community has already created a variety of applications, including the likes of portable weather station and vehicle locator. Of course because it's open source platform anyone can join in.

UEFA Champions League football matches will be streamed on Facebook from the coming football season, according to reports.

The UEFA Champions League is the arguably the most prestige club-level football (soccer in U.S.) competition in the world. In recent years, a competition that has been largely available on freeview has been increasing restricted behind paywalls.

As a result, global viewership of the competition has declined.

In the UK, BT Sport even decided to broadcast the Champions League final, and the Europa League final, for free on YouTube, reportedly attracting more than 3 million viewers in the region.

According to a Reuters tweet, an agreement has been reached between Fox Sports and Facebook to stream UEFA Champions League via Facebook Live during the 2017-18 season.

Music streaming service Pandora is winding down its operations in Australia and New Zealand, it has announced.

Australia and New Zealand were the only territories that Pandora operated in, outside of its U.S. home, and it counts more than 5 million registered users there. It also has partnerships with Rolling Stone, Woolworths and others in the region.

Speaking to Billboard, a spokesman for Pandora confirmed the firm will exit the markets after much analysis.

"While our experience in these markets reinforces the broader global opportunity long-term, in the short-term we must remain laser-focused on the expansion of our core business in the United States," the representative said.

Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren stepped down as CEO earlier this week, while earlier this year the firm witnessed the departure of Jane Huxley, the director of its ANZ operations.

Social network giant Facebook has hit a new milestone of 2 billion users around the world.

The milestone was announced by Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his personal Facebook page. According to Facebook, each day more than 800 million people like something on the service.

175 million people share a "Love" reaction, and more than a billion people user Groups on Facebook every month.

"As of this morning, the Facebook community is now officially 2 billion people," Zuckerberg wrote in his announcement post.

"We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together. It's an honor to be on this journey with you."

The European Commission has handed down a staggering €2.4 billion fine in one of its antitrust probes against Alphabet subsidiary Google.

The fine is the equivalent of around 3 percent of Alphabet's global turnover. It has been imposed on Google by the EU's competition regulators after it found that Google had abused its dominant position in Search in order to push its own shopping ads over rival services, such as price comparison services.

"What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The U.S. multinational was given 90 days since the ruling to stop favoring its own services in search results related to shopping, or face a further daily penalty of up to 5 percent of Alphabet's daily turnover.

Google has responded with respectful disagreement with the conclusions reached by the European Commission and is assessing its options.

Nintendo of America has confirmed that it will launch the SNES Classic this year with two controllers and 21 built-in games.

The inclusion of two controllers is notable as last year's NES Classic only came with one, and among its list of classic games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (released in the U.S. in August, 1991) is the unreleased Star Fox 2.

SNES Classic will be available in the United States from Setpember 29, with an $80 price tag. Outside the U.S., the same mini-console will be released but come in the Super Famicon styling.

The 21 included games are Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, F-Zero, Super Metroid, Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Punch-Out, Super Castlevania IV, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X, Kirby Super Star, Final Fantasy III, Kirby's Dream Course, Star Fox, Yoshi's Island, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Secret of Mana, EarthBound, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Star Fox 2.

Google's Gmail service will stop the controversial practice of scanning through e-mail contents in order to deliver personalized ads, according to the firm.

The decision was revealed by Diane Greene, head of Google's cloud computing efforts, in a blog post related to Google's G Suite business. Privacy activists had criticized the practice of the automated scanning of incoming and outgoing e-mails as part of Google's deliver of personalized ads to end users.

"G Suite's Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalization, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service," Greene wrote.

"Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products."

GMail claims more than 1.2 billion users worldwide.

Rockstar Games has moved to reassure developers of PC game mods that publisher Take Two is unlikely to launch legal action against them.

Earlier this month, developers of a popular mod tool, OpenIV, suspended development after receiving a cease and desist letter from Take-Two Interactive. The tool allowed users to create modifications for the PC versions of Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V single player mode. However, the legal letter sent to the developers claimed the tool could be used to defeat security features and modify the software in violation of Take-Two's rights.

Players then targeted the GTA games on Steam with torrents of bad reviews, and a Change.org petition in defence of OpenIV is approaching 80,000 signatures.

Rockstar Games responded in a post on its support forums that may reassure some developers of mods for their PC games.

After discussions with Take-Two, Take-Two has agreed that it generally will not take legal action against third-party projects involving Rockstar's PC games that are single-player, non-commercial, and respect the intellectual property (IP) rights of third parties. This does not apply to (i) multiplayer or online services; (ii) tools, files, libraries, or functions that could be used to impact multiplayer or online services, or (iii) use or importation of other IP (including other Rockstar IP) in the project.

Uber founder Travis Kalanick is resigning as chief executive officer under investor pressure, following a slew of controversies that rocked the ride-hailing firm.

The New York Times cites two anonymous sources close to Uber in reporting that Kalanick resigned as CEO on Tuesday from the company that he co-founded in 2009 and helped build into the global operation it is today. Investors had reportedly sent Mr Kalanick a letter demanding that he step aside.

"I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight," Mr. Kalanick said in a statement.

Kalanick will remain on Uber's board of directors. He had previously committed to changing Uber's corporate culture from the inside as the company experienced a slew of controversies.

Allegations of sexual harassment at Uber surfaced earlier this year prompting an internal investigation into the firm's culture. On top of that, a federal probe has been launched into 'Greyball', a software tool Uber is alleged to have used to help drivers avoid law enforcement or regulations.

Spotify is introducing Group Playlists for Messenger, allowing for a group to build playlists even if some of the group don't use Spotify.

You could use this new feature to build playlists for planned parties, for example, or just to keep up to date with new music that your friends hear.

Users can now create a Group Playlist, share it with their friends, and add songs to it directly within the Messenger app using the Spotify Chat Extension. Once a friend has created a Group Playlist, others in the conversation can add more songs directly through the Spotify Chat Extension, available by tapping the blue "+" icon next to the composer. They do not need to be on Spotify.

To try it out, visit m.me/Spotify

Starting today, Spotify is now available as a downloadable app from the Windows Store in all 60 countries it operates in.

It is available as a downloadable app from the Windows Store for Windows 10 (Anniversary Update or later) and for Windows 10 S. Of course, Spotify has been available as a 32-bit application for Windows for some time now, but the launch of Windows 10 S makes bringing popular apps to the Windows Store more important.

Windows 10 S is a feature-limited version of the operating system designed for low-end devices, with a nod toward the education market. Users can only install apps on Windows 10 S from the Windows Store.

Spotify beat rival iTunes to the Windows Store, with the latter projected to be available frop Microsoft's store later in the year.

Earlier this week, Spotify revealed it had reached 140 million users worldwide.

You can get Spotify from the Windows Store now.