Gadgets

It is now difficult to escape the severity of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As more and more local and state agencies tell everyone to stay at home, traffic has dropped so much that air pollution in major US cities has decreased significantly (if only temporarily) as people do their daily commuting and give up their school runs. If the commuters are …

It has been almost a decade since fingerprint sensors have proliferated as a quick and easy unlock mechanism for smartphones and laptops. There have been attacks on these scanners for just as long, albeit impractical for everyone except the most motivated – and well-funded – hackers. However, new research shows that the devices required to reliably fake fingerprints and penetrate …

On a rainy night in January 1976, a number of new army recruits trained in Fort Dix, New Jersey were sent on a 5-mile march. The next day, one of the recruits, Private David Lewis, collapsed with severe pneumonia. Lewis died and part of his train fell ill with chest congestion and fever: nearly 200 men, 13 of whom had …

Late last week T-Mobile successfully acquired Sprint, became a company, and effectively reduced the total number of major US cell carriers from four to three. At least for the moment. If you are currently a Sprint or T-Mobile customer, you may be wondering how this merger will affect you. We turned to the "new T-Mobile" to get answers straight from …

The recent back and forth debate – and policy reversal – about using face masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 shows a blatant double standard. For some reason, we've treated this one public health issue differently. We don't see comments that ask whether people on the street really need to be 6 feet apart from 3 feet, or raise …

In summer 2016, Abdullah Naser, a 17-year-old student in Ontario, Canada, suffered from an episode of debilitating depression. "My mood was always bad," Naser told me recently, who publishes YouTube videos about games and games. "I didn't want to go outside or interact with people, and the slightest inconvenience or setback during the day would put me in negative thoughts. …

Yash Bazian estimates that it took three or four hours to apply for unemployment insurance – much longer than if he had received pay slips from an employer. But Bazian drives full-time for Uber and Lyft in California – if the Covid 19 pandemic doesn't deter drivers and makes him nervous behind the wheel because of his own safety. These …

IDC has not yet released data for global smartphone shipments for the first quarter of 2020, which the company typically does in April. Global smartphone shipments declined several quarters in a row before the pandemic, as people stuck to older phone models for longer. There was a modest return to just under 1 percent growth in the third quarter of …

Apple Music today announced to independent record labels that it is launching a $ 50 million royalty fund to ensure that artists are paid for in the ongoing pandemic. In letters to record labels seen and shared by Rolling Stone Apple said that livelihoods are at risk and that it "wants to help". These are difficult times for the music …

Netflix today announced the addition of several new parental controls, including a feature that allows parents and others to add a PIN to their profile to prevent others from accessing the profile. To set a PIN, you can open Account Settings and scroll to the Profile and Parental Controls section. From here, users can activate the "Profile lock" function, which …