After over six-months of on again, off again and lawsuits…Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk finally closed the deal on purchasing Twitter on Thursday, October 27th. The final price tag of tag of the merger between Twitter and Musk’s subsidiary X Holdings II, Inc. was $44B USD. What does this mean for the 16-year old once publicly held company? Rumors have been flying over the past week, some propagated by Musk himself including laying off 75% of the staff. Here is break-down of the recent news before and after Musk’s take-over/merger of Twitter: Elon Musk reportedly tells Twitter he won’t lay…
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Apple Exec have confirmed the future iPhones (likely the iPhone 15 due out in Fall 2023) will have USB-C charging port. So far only the EU has mandated for new mobile devices with 1000 watts or less power consumption produced on/after December 2024 must have USB-C charging port. Brazil and India are considering similar rules and in June 2022 several Democratic US Senators sent an open letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo pushing the US to follow the EU’s steps. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior Vice President of marketing, confirmed on Tuesday that the company will comply with EU’s ruling, but stopped…
Microsoft Corporation 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% has released the October 2022 “C” Update, a preview of the upcoming Windows 11 22H2 KB5018496 update. This update will be released for all other users on the November 2022 Patch Tuesday (November 8th). This cumulative update comes with twenty-six fixes or improvements. The eleven fixes or improvements highlighted by Microsoft are listed below: New! It enhances search visual treatments on the taskbar to improve discoverability. This is available to a small audience initially and deploys more broadly in the months that follow. Some devices might notice different visual treatments as we gather feedback. To learn more about…
Samsung Electronics Co., 40,60 0,00 0,00% has begun to rollout a ‘Maintenance Mode’ feature on their Galaxy devices with One UI 5 installed. For now this means the S22, but more Samsung devices will be added in 2023. This privacy feature was first tested this past July in Korea on the Galaxy S21. The purpose of this feature allows Samsung Galaxy device owners needing to have their device repaired to protect their personal data and still allow a repair tech to have full functional access. Once Maintenance Mode arrives on your phone, you’ll find the option to enable it within…
Today is Sunday, October 23rd: time for the weekly roundup of the good, the bad and the ugly tech news of the week! The Good ‘Car feature’ subscriptions are not that common in the US (except for Tesla’s Full Self Driving) and are the practice of having to pay a monthly subscription fee in order to use a feature that is already installed in the car. In the UK and Korea, BMW is selling autos with heated seats installed, however in order to use this feature consumers must pay BMW a monthly subscription (even though they have already paid for…
I recall seeing earlier this year how BMW is charging owners in Korea and UK a monthly subscription to access their heated seats which they already paid for when they purchased their Big Money Waster. That’s right, the car is sold with heated seats, but they won’t function without an active subscription. Then there is Tesla’s ‘Full Self Driving;’ which annual cost is more than a cheap used car. Some legislators in New Jersey want this money-grab practice to stop. In late September, Assemblymen Paul Moriarty and Joe Danielsen introduced a bill that would prohibit car makers or dealers from offering…
Texas has filed suit against Google Inc. 170,49 -0,33 -0,19% for alleged user privacy violations. There have been a handful of states which are suing or have already settled with Google. This is case is slightly different then the one Google recently settle in Arizona for illegal Android tracking. Texas is claiming Google has been collecting and using biometric data belonging to millions of Texans without their permission. The Texas AG says that Google allegedly used products and services like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max to collect a vast array of biometric identifiers, including voiceprints and records…
Google Inc. 170,49 -0,33 -0,19% has been fined yet again for ‘anti-competitive practices’ with its Android mobile OS. This time around it is India which is their largest market by user base. The commission has slapped Google with a small $162 million fine. I say small as Google’s MONTHLY revenue works out to be around $21.5 Billion. The Competition Commission of India found the following in their investigations: Google has perpetuated its dominant position in the online search market resulting in denial of market access for competing search apps in contravention of Section 4(2)(c) of the Act. Google has leveraged…
On Tuesday, October 18th Google Inc. 170,49 -0,33 -0,19% has released an updated version of Chrome for Android. This update focuses mostly on User Interface and Quality of Life improvements with tabs in the Android version of the browser. However, this update does not include the desktop feature Tab Groups. This feature will be added to the Android version of Chrome, just not with this release. Google has turned its attention to tablets with today’s Chrome on Android update, which focuses on improving tab navigation. The update introduces a side-by-side tab design that makes swapping open pages easier, and an…
Microsoft Corporation 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% has released the 2022 Feature Update (Windows 10 22H2) for Windows 10. Hopefully, this will go smoother than the Window 11 22H2 update release back in September. Note: In order to get this update your device needs to be running Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 update) or later (21H1, 21H2 or 22H1) . Not sure which version of Windows 10 you are running? You can check by pressing the WindowsKey +R and typing winver in the run box and pressing enter. This is an optional update, so users will need to manually check for updates in their Settings,…