Technology

Renders for an unannounced Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, show that the device could have a big 12.4-inch screen (via 9to5Google). That screen size would make the Tab S7 Plus quite large compared to most Android tablets, though it would be a bit smaller than Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The renders come from leaker OnLeaks and case maker Pigtou and were apparently based on leaked CAD drawings. That means you should take anything about the renders with a grain of salt — but what the renders show seems within the realm of possibility. Here they are, if you want to see them for yourself: Grid View Pigtou’s article also has some rumored specs and information about the Tab S7 Plus. It apparently will be approximately 285mm long, 185mm wide, and 5.7mm thick, and it could come with a dual...

Qualcomm is launching its next 5G chipset today, the Snapdragon 690, the first product in its 6-series chips to get support for the next-generation networking standard — although it’ll only support the slower sub-6GHz versions of 5G, not the faster mmWave standard. The new Snapdragon 690 also promises a variety of other improvements over the previous 6-series chips. Qualcomm says it’ll offer 20 percent better CPU performance and 60 percent faster graphics rendering compared to the Snapdragon 675. Cheaper phones can now get 5G support But the addition of 5G support — by way of a new Snapdragon X51 modem — is particularly important for the broader adoption of 5G, given that the company’s 6-series chips tend to show up in midrange and budget phones, like those from HMD’s Nokia, Motorola, and ...

Facebook aims to improve the resources it providers American voters and will attempt to help more people register to vote ahead of the 2020 US election, according to a new op-ed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg published in USA Today on Tuesday evening. Zuckerberg says the company set a goal of helping 4 million people register to vote, up from 2 million four years ago, through resources provided across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Facebook will also introduce a new “Voting Information Center” similar in design to its COVID-19 hub, which features vetted public health information and news about the novel coronavirus and related topics. “The 2020 election is going to be unlike any other. It was already going to be a heated campaign, and that was before the pandemic — and before the killing of G...

DoorDash, the high-flying food delivery startup, was sued by San Francisco’s district attorney Tuesday for alleged unfair business practices and worker misclassification. It was the latest legal challenge targeting a gig economy company in California since the passage of the state’s first-in-the-nation worker misclassification law. In a statement, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin accused DoorDash of “illegally” classifying its delivery workers as independent contractors when they are, in fact, employees. Boudin argues that misclassification hurts workers by contributing to rising income inequality and the shrinking of the middle class, and it hurts the public by forcing other companies that classify workers as employees to compete with DoorDash on an unfair playing field. “Misc...

United and American Airlines said Monday that they will temporarily ban passengers who don’t comply with a new industry-wide mandatory mask policy that goes into effect this week. The new policy announced this week by industry trade organization Airlines for America covers United, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Southwest, and JetBlue. Face coverings will now be required on all these companies’ domestic flights, though the trade group left room for exceptions like young children, people with disabilities, or people with a medical reason for why they cannot wear a mask. Masks must be worn the entire flight, except for when drinking or eating. While some major airlines already required masks, there were reports that the companies weren’t actually enforcing those policies mid-flight. The trade gro...

Apple is threatening to remove Hey.com from the App Store if the ambitious new email service doesn’t begin offering an in-app subscription and sharing a cut of its revenue, according to an executive at Basecamp, which makes Hey. David Heinemeier Hansson, the CTO of Basecamp, said that Apple is acting like “gangsters,” rejecting a bug fix update and asking the company in a phone call to commit to adding an in-app subscription to prevent it from being removed. “I was taken aback by how brazen that threat was,” Heinemeier Hansson told The Verge. “I thought you were supposed to wrap the threats in euphemisms or something. But it was pretty clear.” In an email to The Verge, Apple said that it requires all developers to follow strict guidelines around business models. The company declined to com...

PS4 and Xbox One owners now have the chance to play the PC version of The Witcher 3 at no extra cost. The Witcher 3 originally released in 2015 on all three of those platforms, but the PC version is arguably the best way to experience the game: console versions were limited to an average framerate around 30 FPS and screen resolutions as low as 720p on the original Xbox One and 900p on PS4. Though the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions would receive 4K resolution and HDR support a few years later, some visual details took a hit, so it’s still worth checking out on PC for better graphics alone. Have you upgraded a gaming PC in the past five years? Better performance is not the only reason console owners should snag it on PC: downloadable fan-made mods can add numerous things not previously foun...

Hey, the newly announced email service, has a unique product on its slate of offerings: a rare, exclusive two- or three-letter email address, like ok@hey.com or fun@hey.com for example (or perhaps just your initials). But it’s going to cost you. As noticed on Twitter and confirmed by David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Hey parent company Basecamp, Hey considers these shortened addresses “premium” and worth the extra money. For a two-letter address, it will be $999 a year. For a three-letter one, the cost drops to $375 a year. Everyone else who signs up for Hey, which is still in an invite-only phase until a broader launch next month, can simply pick a four-letter or longer email address and pay the standard $99 a year. Hansson jokes that its premium address offering is how it will ...

Humble Bundle has launched its Fight for Racial Justice Bundle, which contains over $1,200 worth of PC games, comics, and books. Unlike many of its previous bundles that let you choose how your payment is divvied up, this bundle funnels 100 percent of what you pay directly to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Race Forward, and The Bail Project. And when you donate to these organizations, you’re helping in the fight against racial injustices inflicted upon black people in the US. A snippet of what a $30 pledge for the bundle includes is FTL: Faster Than Light, System Shock Enhanced Edition, System Shock 2, Kerbal Space Program, Hyper Light Drifter, This War of Mine, Armello, Baba Is You, Spelunky, Surviving Mars, EarthNight, Broken Age, BioShock Remastered, Gonner, Neo Cab, and NBA 2K20, along ...

Seattle gaming convention PAX West will not be happening this Labor Day weekend. Instead, it will shift into a nine-day online conference that takes place in the middle of September, the conference’s organizers announced today. The new PAX Online will take place virtually from September 12th through the 20th. There will be three channels hosting content “non-stop each and every day,” including panels, concerts, competitions, and esports events. PAX Online plans to offer downloadable demos to replicate the experience of trying games out on the show floor, and if you want to get PAX merch, you’ll be able to buy it online. PAX West’s organizers said in April that the event was still on for Labor Day weekend PAX West’s organizers had said in April that they planned to host the conference as sc...

You don’t need Google’s own gamepad or dongle to try its Stadia cloud gaming service, particularly now that it works on practically any Android phone — but if you want to fire up Stadia on your 4K TV with a wireless gamepad, you can do that for cheaper now. Today, Google is offering a new Stadia Premiere Edition starter kit for $99, which comes with the company’s Chromecast Ultra HDMI dongle and the Stadia Controller you’ll need to control it from your couch, and which also works plugged into a phone or wirelessly with a computer. Previously, Google sold both devices in a $129 bundle that also came with a free three-month subscription to the Stadia Pro service, which offers 4K-ish streaming, surround sound, and access to free games each month. The new bundle no longer comes with three free...

Sonos has announced a new color option for its portable $399 Move speaker: it now comes in a “lunar white” design in addition to the grayish-black color the company already offers. It makes sense since every other Sonos speaker (from the $799 Arc soundbar to the cheapest $179 One SL) already comes in both black and white color options. The new design allows the Move to match the rest of the Sonos speaker lineup. Image: Sonos The Move is different from Sonos’ other products in one key respect: while it’s still a home speaker that’s designed to stream music over Wi-Fi and in conjunction with other Sonos products, it also has an integrated battery and Bluetooth support, allowing it to be moved around (or even outside) your house. Additionally, Sonos has managed to eke out an extra hour of bat...