Nathan Ingraham | The Verge

Apple may unveil new iPhones on September 9th

2015-08-07T16:04:01-04:00

To the surprise of almost no one who follows Apple, the company is planning to hold a big event early in September to take the wraps off its next iPhone. According to the well-sourced John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed, that event will happen on Wednesday, September 9th. iPhones are a shoo-in, as they’ve been introduced in this timeframe every year since 2011, but BuzzFeed also claims we’ll see some new iPads as well as the long-awaited new Apple TV. The latter was originally rumored to be introduced at WWDC this year, but it was nowhere to be found; the rumor mill made it sound like it wasn’t quite ready to go.

As for that new iPhone, Apple is on its “S” cycle, which means we’ll likely see a phone physically identical to last year’s iPhone 6, but with some radical hardware changes — the new phone is rumored to include the force touch technology included on the Apple Watch and the company’s new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The Apple TV is expected to be a complete redesign of the hardware that Apple’s been offering unchanged since early 2012; the entire Apple TV experience is largely identical for even longer at this point. If Apple has managed to lock down the content deals it needs to make it stand out, this could be worth a lot of attention in the company’s presentation.

As for new iPads, it feels like a lot for an event that will already feature the iPhone and Apple TV — but given the slowing down of the iPad business in general, the product category might not quite warrant the headlining status in the October events Apple has held in recent years (those events also often feature Mac and OS X updates). Whether or not this will be the year we finally see the rumored large screen iPad Pro remains to be seen — but such a product certainly would take advantage of a lot of the new iPad multitasking features showing up in iOS 9. Fortunately, it seems we won’t have to wait long to find out. As usual, The Verge will be there to report all the news as it happens. We’ve reached out to Apple for a comment on this report and will update if we hear anything else.

Boxee is finally dead, and Samsung killed it

2015-08-05T18:28:02-04:00

It’s been over two years since Samsung bought the streaming set-top box company Boxee, but it looks like all legacies of that purchase are about to be done away with. According to Variety, Samsung is laying off the entirety of the Boxee team and putting the group’s work on ice. Former Boxee CEO Avner Ronen also left the company after spending time working as VP of product. The report claims that Samsung heavily invested in adding members to the Boxee team — growing its staff from 40 to near 100 — in an effort to build a “Perfect Experience” for TV.

That “perfect experience” (or PX for short) was going to center around a media tablet rather than a remote control; using a custom interface, it would show options for live TV alongside streaming offerings. The tablet would be meant to be used communally rather than by a single user as with most traditional tablets. Naturally, Samsung was also looking to partner with a variety of streaming services and pay TV operators, not unlike what Apple is rumored to be attempting for its next Apple TV. The remote and experience would have been packaged with higher-end TVs in an effort to “replace” the traditional TV remote.

Boxee was part of Samsung for two years, but there’s nothing to show for it

While very little about this plan sounds all that revolutionary at this point, it appears that none of it will be coming to pass — at least not from the Boxee team entrusted with the project. Dozens have been laid off recently as part of the PX wind-down, including many who were hired after the Boxee acquisition. This comes after multiple issues along the PX road, including difficulty making deals with content providers as well as internal controversy over the project’s direction.

That’s all in the past now, though. While we wouldn’t bet against Samsung revealing a new and improved Smart TV interface or service at some point down the line, it won’t bear the legacy of Boxee. With that, we can finally lay to rest Boxee and its potentially interesting but ultimately flawed ideas of how to shake up how we watch TV.

India’s internet providers are still blocking porn

2015-08-05T15:27:08-04:00

India may have quickly reversed its ban on internet porn, but that doesn’t mean that internet users will be able to see the 857 sites that the country originally wanted blocked. According to The Times of India, the reversal of this porn ban contains the stipulations that internet service providers can unblock any sites that don’t contain child pornography — but the country is essentially passing on the burden of making that determination to ISPs rather than doing it itself. To avoid further trouble, the ISPs are just going to keep on blocking those sites so as not to place themselves at risk.

“ISPs have no way or mechanism to filter out child pornography from URLs, and the further unlimited sub-links,” the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said in a statement. The ISPAI also called India’s directive “vague” and “confusing” and called the country out for putting the responsibility on ISPs. As such, there’s a bit of a stalemate right now — so while India may have changed its tune about internet porn, the reality of the situation remains unchanged for now.

Epson’s new printers will make ink cartridges a thing of the past

2015-08-04T14:26:26-04:00

Thank god we’re moving closer and closer to a paperless society, because dealing with printers still sucks. The printer destruction scene from Office Space rings just as true today as it did in 1999. Printer drivers, paper jams, running out of ink, it’s all the worst (though the advent of wireless printing makes things marginally less horrible). Epson is trying to do its part to make things a little better with its new line of EcoTank printers — despite the ridiculous name, they have the smart idea of coming with huge tanks of ink that should last about two years before they need to be replaced. Epson claims that these printers have about the same capacity of 20 sets of ink cartridges; when the tanks run low, you can top them off with a bottle of ink.

Basically, the EcoTank is the Droid Turbo of printers: can’t come up with better ink / battery technology? Just make things bigger. These printers don’t come cheap, either — the least expensive EcoTank printer starts at $379. The good news is that replacement ink bottles are reasonably priced at $52 for a set of four different color bottles. I fortunately have reached a point in my life where I print so infrequently that replacing ink cartridges is a pretty minor inconvenience, and I hope the same can be said for you — but if that’s not the case, these new printers might save you some ink-related headaches.

Watch Homestar Runner and Strong Bad panic about the impending death of Flash

2015-08-03T17:26:21-04:00

Of all the things that the now-hated Flash plugin brought to our internet experience over the years, it’s not a stretch to say that the Homestar Runner internet toon is among the best. However, it’s a cartoon that hasn’t exactly got with the times; its creators have largely put it on the backburner over the last five years to work on other projects. As such, the site’s cartoons (both new and old) are proudly dependent on Adobe’s plugin, which is currently receiving death threats from a number of companies.

As such, the Homestar Runner gang has weighed in on the impending doom the beloved cartoon is facing — in typically ridiculous fashion. Homestar himself doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, but Strong Bad knows the score: Flash (“what we breath!” ) is dying, and as such the peaceful greens of Free Country USA are in danger. Fortunately, Strong Bad has enough spare Flash junk to keep the cartoon running for six months while they all learn how to live in the HTML 5 world. Fortunately, Homestar Runner’s creators have started uploading cartoons to YouTube, so you don’t even need to visit the old-school flash site anymore.

Twitter is testing out a breaking news tab in its mobile apps

2015-08-03T15:19:48-04:00

Twitter has indicated that it’s going to get into the news game in a big way, and today it looks like the company is making its latest attempt at serving its users timely and relevant news content — as reported by BuzzFeed and confirmed by Twitter, the company is rolling out a “news” tab that’ll appear in its iOS and Android apps. Screenshots from BuzzFeed show it appearing in the iOS app’s bottom navigation bar, right between notifications and messages. A Twitter spokesperson gave us the following statement: “We’re experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android as we continue to explore new ways to surface the best content to users.”

When you click the news tab, you’ll be presented with trending stories that appear to be curated from major news organizations like CBS News and The New York Times. Tapping on one of the stories brings you to a view that shows off the beginning of a news story (with a link to tap for the full article) as well as top related tweets. Conceptually, it doesn’t feel wildly different than what Twitter attempted with its old “Discover” tab or the current interface when you tap the search bar, but it’s definitely more single-purpose — something that might help give Twitter a more easily explained headlining feature. Alongside the upcoming “Project Lightning” feed, which will let users follow events as well as people, Twitter is increasing its focus around news and events as they happen.

It’s unclear exactly when you might start seeing this feature, however. It’s live for both iOS and Android users in Japan, but there’s no word on exactly where and when it’ll roll out to others. As for the content, it’s being tested with a handful of partners for now, but it seems likely that list will grow when the news tab has a more formal launch.

Why do Apple Music’s own curated playlists have songs that no one can play?

2015-08-01T12:00:01-04:00

There’s no doubt that Apple Music arrived in the world not quite ready for prime time — the UI is far more confusing than I’d have hoped for, there’s a host of weird bugs, and it’s reliant on iTunes for desktop listening. That said, it does a lot of things far better than the competition, as well, most notably the curated playlists. There’s a ton of variety to be found there, with numerous selections under a host of genres and different activities. Spotify has been doing this for a while, and Spotify’s playlists are often fine, but they’re also usually 100 songs long. I’m more a fan of the Apple Music approach — the 15-30 song range feels a lot more digestible to me and makes it easier to find songs that really stick with me.

Between the shorter lengths and Apple’s smart recommendations, I found myself following a couple dozen playlists shortly after I started using Apple Music. By and large found them a really enjoyable way to find new tracks or dig in on a particular style, era, or artist. However, perusing these playlists has led me to one of the most ridiculous and unfathomable Apple Music bugs yet: a whole bunch of these playlists include songs that aren’t playable on Apple Music.

Yup, that’s right — I’ll be in the middle of enjoying Pitchfork’s Modern Americana Gold playlist and come across a song that has somehow been added to a playlist that Apple itself created, and that song will be greyed out, teasing me. It’s incredibly bizarre and frustrating and I have no idea how such a thing slipped past the humans curating these playlists.

Granted, part of the fun of streaming music is the fact that artists and record labels can change the rights they’ve granted to a service and pull their songs, but the fact that I first noticed this right after launch just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. (One theory could be that many of these playlists were pulled into Apple Music from the Beats Music service it replaced, but it would surprise me if Beats had access to music that Apple doesn’t.)

Regardless of the reason, it’s yet another one of the more ridiculous and goofy things about Apple Music. On the plus side, it seems to be getting better — a quick scan of playlists today, about a month after the service launched, shows a lot less holes than I was coming across a few weeks ago. Still, I’m hoping for a future where I can scan Apple Music’s playlists and not expect to see a song or two inexplicably missing. Until then, I’ve started compiling a bunch of songs missing from Apple Music playlists that are available on Spotify. (To be fair, three of the 16 songs I was looking for here were also not on Spotify.) Just don’t expect much of any flow to this list, people.

The first trailer for Zoolander 2 is here

2015-07-31T20:39:49-04:00

Forget Star Wars — the world’s most anticipated sequel is unquestionably Zoolander 2. And the first trailer is here. Sure, most of the trailer is some weird science-themed graphics with a narration by Stephen Hawking (we assume), but before long Ben Stiller’s making the Blue Steel face and everything is all good. Check out the trailer above — Zoolander 2 will arrive in February of 2016.

Update, 8:50PM ET: Well, that didn’t last long. The trailer was apparently not ready for public consumption, because the hosting YouTube page has already pulled it down. We’ll be keeping our eyes out for an official version — usually after such a leak, the real thing get published pretty quickly.

Update, August 1st, 5:17PM ET: And now it’s back — officially! Check it out above.

US exploring ways to strike back against China hacking, says New York Times

2015-07-31T20:29:15-04:00

Last month, millions of current and former US government employees had their personal information stolen in a hack believed to have originated from China — and the US may finally respond with more than words. According to a new report from The New York Times, President Obama has decided to retaliate against China, though his administration has not decided exactly how it will respond. The Times, citing an anonymous senior administration official, says the government wants to make a public response in an effort to deter future similar attacks.

The White House is reportedly weighing whether to employ a symbolic response, such as a diplomatic protest, or something more aggressive. Regardless of what the response will be, the Times says that the Obama administration decided to respond because of the wide “scope and ambition” of the Office of Personnel Management attack. One potential response named in the report involves breaching China’s famed “great firewall” to embarrass the Chinese government and damage its ability to control what its citizens can and cannot see on the internet.

Broadcasting the threat of retaliation, even in a vague “all options are on the table” kind of way, could be the beginning of the response. At this point, however, the government still has not made an official statement accusing China of being behind last month’s theft, though director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. made it clear in earlier comments that the government considered China to be at fault.

Sony’s C5 Ultra and M5 smartphones may be the latest to jump on the selfie phone bandwagon

2015-07-31T18:27:30-04:00

Sony’s mobile division may be bringing the rest of the company down, but that hasn’t stopped the company from working on new phones just yet. Thanks to 9to5Google, we’re getting a look at the forthcoming Xperia C5 Ultra and M5, the latest in Sony’s lineup. These leaks apparently came from the site Mail.ru, which appeared to inadvertently post a review of the devices early — but 9to5Google managed to grab the photos and info before it was all taken down.

The Xperia C5 Ultra appears to be a successor to the Xperia C4; it looks like the C5 will boast a bigger screen (6 inches, up from the 5.5-inch C4) and a front-facing camera that sports a super high resolution of 13 megapixels. It’ll also have a flash, making this a phone clearly aimed at selfie fanatics. One feature that should appeal to anyone buying it is the super-thin bezel — we’ve seen a lot of phones that have been pretty much all screen on the front, and the C5 is right there with the rest.

The Xperia M5 is a smaller-screened device, coming in at a more reasonable 5 inches with a 1080p display. Otherwise, it sounds quite similar to the Xperia Z4 (and its Verizon-branded variant the Z4v, though it features a higher-resolution 21.5-megapixel camera. It also has a 13-megapixel front facing camera, like the C5. These details are far from confirmed yet, but you won’t have to wait long to officially find out — Sony is believed to be introducing both of these phones next Monday, August 3rd. While these phones sound like perfectly okay options, it’s hard to imagine they’ll make much of a dent in Sony’s struggling mobile business.