Technology

Samsung is no stranger to themed special-edition smartphones, having offered Galaxy phones emblazoned with Batman logos and Star Wars themes in the past. The latest collaboration is a Galaxy S20 Plus BTS Edition, with a matching set of Galaxy Buds Plus to go with it. The Galaxy S20 Plus BTS Edition looks like Samsung’s regular flagship, but with a unique iridescent purple exterior (the color is heavily associated with the K-pop group) that has a BTS logo on the back and the band’s heart iconography on the camera array. The BTS Edition of the phone also includes BTS-inspired Android themes, along with a preinstalled copy of the Weverse app (a social media platform used by BTS band members to communicate with fans and share content). Lastly, photo cards of the band are included in the simila...

Germany’s health minister said Sunday that its contact tracing smartphone app will be launched this week, Reuters reported. The app uses short-range Bluetooth to contact people who may have been exposed to someone who contracts the coronavirus, and doesn’t rely on a centralized database, according to Reuters. Contact tracing involves interviewing infected people to find out where they’ve been and who they may have been in contact with, with the goal of slowing the spread of the virus. While several other countries have already launched contact tracing apps, progress has been slower in the US, with concerns about privacy and accuracy. Germany is set to relax its travel restrictions for European Union countries and the UK on Monday, and Health Minister Jens Spahn said the country will offer ...

After four commercial publishers filed a lawsuit earlier this month, the Internet Archive ended its National Emergency Library program earlier than planned, the organization said in a blog post (via ArsTechnica). It opened the “emergency” program in March, providing free access to 1.4 million books for people unable to get to classrooms or libraries during the coronavirus pandemic. The Emergency Library is part of the Open Libraries initiative, in which the Internet Archive scans libraries’ books, allowing digital “check-outs” via a waiting list. But the Emergency Library did away with the waiting lists and made the scanned books immediately available. The intent was to keep the Emergency Library up and running through June 30th. But on June 1st, publishers Hachette, Penguin Random House, ...

After initially postponing it from June to September, organizers have now canceled Computex 2020 due to the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The show will miss a year, like many other tech conferences that were planned for 2020. The next Computex event is slated for June 1st through 5th, 2021. The pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions to help curb its spread meant many participants would not have been able to attend a show in Taipei in September, the organizers explained in a blog post. Taiwan has been hailed for isolating coronavirus patients and imposing travel restrictions relatively early compared to the rest of the world, resulting in fewer than 500 total cases and seven deaths from COVID-19. Computex 2019 drew nearly 43,000 visitors from 171 countries, organizers ...

Microsoft has restored custom Xbox Live gamerpics, Windows Central reported. The software giant turned off the ability to upload gamerpics, club pics, and club backgrounds near the end of March amid a surge in demand. Microsoft’s other cloud services, including Windows Virtual Desktop, Teams, Mixer, and Xbox Game Pass, also saw huge increased demand in March, as many people were on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company also said at the time that it was working with game publishers to deliver higher-bandwidth activities, like game updates, during off-peak gaming hours. Reinstating features like custom gamerpics may mean the strain of demand for Xbox Live has eased, with many areas loosening lockdowns and social distancing measures. Microsoft didn’t immediately reply to a req...

Persona 4 Golden, the enhanced version of Persona 4 for PlayStation Vita, is launching for PC via Steam. The game is available as a standard version for $19.99 or a deluxe edition — which includes the digital soundtrack and art book — for $24.99. The game’s launch on PC is a first for the mainline Persona series, which has previously been restricted to PlayStation platforms. Persona 4 Golden, released in 2012, follows a group of small town teens investigating a series of murders. Golden adds new characters, dungeons, and more from the original game. It’s one of the series’ most highly praised games; it’s also inspired several spinoffs, including Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4: Dancing All Night. The last game in the series, Persona 5, recently had its own enhanced edition with Persona 5 Roy...

It might not necessarily make that early Monday morning video call more fun, but Microsoft Teams will now let users upload their own photos for custom backgrounds, the company announced in a blog post. Custom images and other background effects are only available for scheduled Teams meetings, Microsoft says. Teams has a background blurring effect and a library of pre-installed images to allow meeting participants to conceal their messy home offices. But it’s still playing catch-up with rival Zoom, which has seen huge growth during the coronavirus pandemic (despite multiple security issues), as people have been working and schooling remotely. Zoom already allows the use of custom images for meeting backgrounds. Microsoft said Teams saw a brisk uptick in users during the pandemic as well, an...

Tesla has started adding a wireless phone charger and USB-C ports to Model 3 vehicles built at its Fremont, Calif. factory, Elektrek reported. As first reported by Drive Tesla Canada, the features were already available in Tesla’s Model Y, and the carmaker began adding them last month to its Chinese-made Model 3 vehicles. The Model Y, which Tesla began delivering to US customers in March, comes standard with the Qi wireless phone charger, but until now, it’s only been available to Model 3 vehicles as an aftermarket add-on, according to Elektrek . Tesla lowered the prices of its Model 3, Model S, and Model X in North America last month, as well as the prices of the Model S and Model X cars sold in China. Its Chinese-produced Model 3 cars didn’t see a price reduction. The price cuts were rep...

SpaceX launched 58 new Starlink satellites on its Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday morning, and three satellites from Planet tagged along for the ride. The SpaceX satellites are part of its growing Starlink constellation, which it’s building to provide internet connectivity on Earth. The company has permission to launch some 12,000 satellites as part of the project. The Falcon 9 rocket launched the satellites, then returned safely to Earth, landing on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The Planet satellites are part of that company’s existing SkySat constellation, which includes just over a dozen washing machine-sized craft that generate high-resolution images of our home planet. Three more Planet satellites will go up on SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 Starlink launch in J...

Twitter has reinstated the account for markets blogging site Zero Hedge, and says its decision to suspend the account for “platform manipulation” earlier this year was a mistake, Bloomberg reported. The January suspension of its Twitter account followed a report from Zero Hedge suggesting that a Chinese scientist had created the coronavirus in a lab, a theory that has since been widely debunked. Zero Hedge says in a post on its site Saturday that Twitter told them the suspension was for violating its rules against abuse and harassment, and reiterated its position that the suspension was “motivated by reasons other than the stated ones.” Its post argues Zero Hedge did not dox the scientist in question, but used publicly available information in its report. In its January blog post, Zero Hed...

Even if the world’s biggest video game expos have been canceled this year, we’re being treated to an unprecedented array of virtual events in their place — and today, what’s been dubbed the Summer Game Fest will continue with the PC Gaming Show and the Future Games Show, starting at 11AM PT / 2PM ET. Here’s what to look forward to, and how to watch. The PC Gaming Show What: The PC Gaming Show will showcase “new games, never-before-seen gameplay footage, and announcements from some of PC gaming’s biggest and most interesting developers.” You can see the full lineup of developers involved here. The event will be two hours long, though unlike previous years, it will be pre-recorded instead of shown live. The event was originally scheduled for June 6th, but was delayed to June 13th to “make sp...

Father’s Day in the US is coming up on Sunday, June 21st. That’s next week, so you still have time to do some shopping. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic still has many retail stores shuttered, we recommend doing most of your shopping for dad online. Though, if you’re running short on time to buy a gift, you might be able to arrange a curbside pickup depending on the store. There are a lot of things you can get for the dad in your life, but of course we are here to recommend some tech gifts we think they’ll like. You’ll find a few deals that we know about specific to Father’s Day below, followed by some good offers we’ve had on the site recently. There will be more deals next week, so stay tuned for those later on. Nomad is offering a 20 percent discount on all of its leather cases and char...