Technology

Fujifilm recently joined Canon and Panasonic in developing an app to let you use its high-end cameras as high-quality webcams, but Mac users have been left out — Fujifilm X Webcam has so far been Windows-only. That’s changing next month, though, as the company has confirmed that the tool will get Mac support in mid-July. Fujifilm is also expanding the number of X-series mirrorless cameras that work with Fujifilm X Webcam. New firmware for the X-T200 and X-A7 is out today, letting you hook up each camera over USB for webcam functionality. That brings the total number of supported X-series cameras to eight, including the X-H1, X-Pro2, X-Pro3, X-T2, X-T3, and X-T4. Fujifilm X Webcam also works with all three GFX medium format cameras. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Da...

Apple is set to unveil its long-awaited Mac transition from Intel to ARM processors today at its online WWDC 2020 keynote, and analyst Ming-chi Kuo has issued his predictions for the first Macs that will use the new Apple-designed processors. His research note was reported on by MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and AppleInsider. First of all, Kuo says the last new Intel-based Mac ever will be a brand new iMac design with thinner bezels and a 24-inch display. This iMac is said to be planned for a release in Q3 2020, but an ARM version will follow it in the first quarter of next year. The first ARM Mac is likely to be a 13-inch MacBook Pro in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021, Kuo says; the form factor is believed to be similar to the current model. Production of the Intel version will reportedly cease once the ARM mod...

Android’s upcoming AirDrop-style sharing feature, called Nearby Share (and referred to also as Nearby Sharing), may also come to Chrome on numerous other platforms, 9to5Google reports. The feature will allow Android users to directly share photos, links, and other files with other devices, similar to how AirDrop works across macOS and iOS. The feature has apparently started to show up in the settings of the latest build of Chrome OS Canary: Originally called “Fast Share,” Android’s answer to AirDrop has been in development for more than a year, according to XDA Developers. It’s expected to be available through Google Play, and references in the code suggest that it will work not only on mobile Android devices but also on Chromebooks and other computers with Google’s Chrome browser installe...

In an era where everything is up for grabs for rebooting, Perry Mason is one of the strangest. The show takes its name from a 1957 CBS series that focused on the eponymous criminal defense attorney from author Erle Stanley Gardner’s detective stories. Perry Mason ran for nine years in its initial run, followed by an ill-fated ’70s revival and a more successful stretch of TV movies throughout the ’80s and ’90s. HBO’s new Perry Mason miniseries, however, has little in common with these previous iterations — it’s less a legal drama and more an old-school hard-boiled detective story with a prestige TV sheen. And what a sheen it is: Perry Mason is gorgeous to look at and sink into. Its portrayal of 1930s California is beautifully shot and populated by an excellent cast. It’s just frustratingly ...

[extreme Stefon voice]: This story has everything: A high-speed super-yacht, a secret disaster strike force, a Google co-founder, and strawberry ice cream. The Daily Beast’s Mark Harris has a wild story about Global Support and Development (GSD), a disaster charity founded by Sergey Brin that’s being run by his former bodyguards. The story opens detailing how GSD provided disaster relief in the form of medical care and road-clearing crews after Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas last year. For the past five years, GSD has been quietly using high-tech systems to rapidly deliver humanitarian assistance during high-profile disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. These range from drones and super-yachts to a gigantic new airship that the outfit apparently hopes will make it easier to get aid...

On Monday, Apple will kick off its annual developer conference in the strangest and most contentious climate it has faced in many years. Not only does Apple have to hold all of its presentations online, it’s doing so to a developer audience that has become aware of a collective, unspoken discontent. Chaim Gartenberg has posted our long list of features you should expect to come to Apple’s operating systems this year. The short version: what’s most likely is a smattering of feature updates for the iOS-based platforms like iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and iOS and then a potentially massive shift for macOS from Intel to ARM. That’s what you should expect, but there are five things that I’ve been wanting Apple to deliver for years. Some of these have actually been rumored for this year, some are thi...

Amazon is ending support for its Dash Wand, an Alexa-enabled device that let shoppers scan grocery barcodes and order household essentials from their homes. In an email to users, the company said the devices will no longer be supported as of July 21st. Shoppers can still use other Alexa-enabled devices to add items to a shopping list, the company noted. Released in 2017, the Wi-Fi-enabled Dash Wand was a few inches long and made out of white and black plastic, an update to Amazon’s original Dash devices. In a 2017 product review, Verge editor Nilay Patel said the Dash Wand was “a fun toy and it certainly makes adding things to your Amazon cart easier.” After giving them away to Prime members practically for free, however, Amazon didn’t do much else with the Wand. The company killed its phy...

As part of a coordinated effort, K-pop fans and teenage TikTok users scooped up tickets to President Trump’s Saturday rally in Tulsa, potentially leaving at least hundreds of empty seats, The New York Times reported. A tweet from the Trump campaign June 11th urged people to use their phones to register for the free tickets. The K-pop fans shared the information and encouraged their followers to get tickets, and then not show up for the rally. The plan quickly caught on on TikTok, where people followed the K-pop fans’ lead. CNN credited Iowa grandmother Mary Jo Laupp with leading part of the charge on the video platform. She posted a TikTok video last week encouraging people to “go reserve tickets now and leave him standing alone there on the stage.” YouTuber Elijah Daniel told the Times th...

Snap’s vice president of diversity and inclusion apologized this weekend for the distribution of a Juneteeth filter that many people found offensive and offered new details about the how it was created. In an email distributed to the company, Oona King said the filter released Friday was a collaboration between black and white employees — and pushed back against criticism that the company had been culturally insensitive. The filter — Snap calls them “lenses” — asked users to “smile and break the chains” of slavery. King, who is black, said that “in hindsight, we should have developed a more appropriate lens.” “Speaking on behalf of my team, clearly we failed to recognize the gravity of the ‘smile’ trigger,” King wrote in a letter to the company. “That is a failure I fully own. We reviewed ...

Samsung Blu-ray players appear to be malfunctioning for hundreds of users, and no one is sure what the issue is, ZDNet reported. Some users report their Blu-ray players get stuck in an endless reboot loop when they’re switched on, others reported hearing a buzzing noise as if the device is trying to read a disk, but in many cases there’s no disk in the machine. Some machines are shutting down soon after turning on, and still other users report their devices have become unresponsive to commands and pressing buttons. The issues don’t appear to be confined to one particular model. [embedded content] On Samsung’s community support message board, some users posited the problems started with a firmware update, but ZDNet says this doesn’t appear to be the case, suggesting the likely culprit was a...

Neighborhood social networking app Nextdoor says it is discontinuing its Forward to Police feature which let users send message board posts directly to local police, Bloomberg CityLab reported. The site has been under increasing scrutiny for how it handles communications with law enforcement, and for how it handles racism among members on its app. “As part of our anti-racism work and our efforts to make Nextdoor a place where all neighbors feel welcome, we have been examining all aspects of our product,” the company announced in a blog post. “After speaking with members and public agency partners, it is clear that the Forward to Police feature does not meet the needs of our members and only a small percentage of law enforcement agencies chose to use the tool.” Black Nextdoor users have tol...

Google is ending the trial program of a service that sent users algorithm-selected prints from their Google Photos libraries, Droid Life reported. The subscription-based service launched in the US in February with a monthly fee of $7.99 that got you 10 4×6 prints from the previous 30 days. The printing service allowed users to choose which themes the service should prioritize in selecting the prints, offering “people and pets,” “landscapes,” and “a little bit of everything” as options. Users were able to edit the selections before the photos were printed. Google sent a notice to subscribers that the service would not be available after June 30th, according to Droid Life: Thank you for your invaluable feedback these last several months. You have provided us with a lot of helpful inform...