Anxious About a Possible Recession? Some Answers on Layoffs, Debt and Investing - CNET

Here's a little advice to keep in mind during a shaky economy.

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Why a Chromebook Is Probably All You Need - CNET

Commentary: Looking to buy a new Windows or Mac laptop? You'll first want to consider Chromebooks, too.

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With Stranger Things Season 4, volume 2 landing on Netflix today, it might be a good idea to figure out your own personal “saviour song,” the one that will deliver you from the clutches of Vecna. Spotify can help with that.

To backtrack a bit – to Stranger Things Season 4, volume 1, specifically – in episode 4 the gang discovers that music can supercharge Max, allowing her to break free from the clutches of Vecna and escape the Upside Down. The song that makes this happen is Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’, a track that charted in the Billboard Top 100 upon its initial release in 1985, but has since climbed to the number 1 spot in the UK and number 4 in the US upon the airing of that episode of the popular Netflix show.

With 465 million ‘Running Up That Hill” streams (and counting) on Spotify, the service took notice and partnered with up Stranger Things, which subsequently tweeted a link to an Upside Down playlist on its official Twitter account:

wanna know what songs would save YOU from vecna? head to your Upside Down Playlist on @Spotify to find out🎧 the first Song on the list = your savior song 🎧 [https://t.co/rZ10wCJ6tA] pic.twitter.com/N3KOU3ohSKJune 29, 2022

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By clicking that link, Spotify users can check out an Upside Down playlist topped by a personal saviour song as determined by the service’s algorithms. Does it work? Well, sort of. My own saviour song as determined by Spotify is ‘Simba Lines’ by something called Baked Shrimp. I had never heard it before and, after a brief listen, determined it should instead be at the bottom of my list or, better yet, cast into the Upside Down.

The second song, Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust for Life’, was more my speed, and absolutely would provide the burst of energy required for me to evade the ruthless Vecna. So Spotify isn’t 100% off.

Analysis: Spotify’s pop culture partnerships could keep it relevant 

Competition in the music streaming world is fierce, with Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited steadily chipping away at Spotify’s dominance along with smaller services like Deezer, Tidal, and Qobuz. Given that situation, Spotify is constantly adding new features – everything from podcasts, to the recently announced audiobooks, to a new Karaoke mode where users can sing along to tracks and the service listens in and rates the performance on a scale of 1-100.

Despite these efforts, Spotify, which has recently seen a big dip in its paid subscriber base, doesn’t exactly stack up as a good value compared to its competitors. A main sticking point is the no-show of Spotify HiFi, a lossless CD-quality tier that the company originally announced back in February 2021. As the company continues to keep that promised upgrade on the back burner, Apple Music and Amazon Music have added both lossless and high-res audio to their basic under-$10 subscription plans, while Tidal offers lossless audio at the same price. Spatial Audio is another compelling feature found on all three of those competing services, and it’s one that Spotify has yet to even mention as a potential upgrade.

What Spotify does have to offer that differentiates it is a free ad-supported service tier, though quality on that is limited to a paltry 160kbps (on the mobile app, 120kbps on desktop). Its $9.99/month Premium tier, in contrast, maxes out at 320kbps. 

Between its free ad-supported tier, clever features like Karaoke mode, and sly marketing partnerships such as the one with Stranger Things, Spotify could manage to stay relevant and keep its listener base stable, even as its paid-service competition provides superior offerings. When you add these all up, the cumulative result might just be Spotify’s very own saviour song.

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OnePlus 10RT is said to launch in India soon as the smartphone has reportedly been spotted on the BIS India database. Some specifications of the smarpthone have been tipped as well.

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Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: Every New Pokemon Revealed So Far - CNET

Take a look at some new Pokemon debuting in the upcoming Nintendo Switch games.

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Score one for consumer protection as Amazon agreed to follow the rules set by the European Commission and will make canceling a Prime subscription a lot easier.

The process has been greatly simplified to follow a "two-click" process after consumer groups complained about how anti-consumer the process originally was. Now, European subscribers can go into their Prime account where they will be met with some text explaining how canceling will work. Afterward, they'll select the prominent “End membership now” button. Gone is the maze of menus that people dealt with previously.

The updated process will be making its way to Amazon on desktop and mobile devices. Customers can still adjust their payment options and change the cancellation date to a slightly later one.

Clarity is key

Clarity was a major sticking point for the European Commission. This all started when several European consumer organizations, including the Norwegian Consumer Council, published a report bitingly titled “You Can Log Out, But You Can Never Leave”. The report detailed how difficult it was to cancel an Amazon Prime subscription and referred to its design as having “dark patterns.”

The report claims these dark patterns aimed to manipulate people into keeping their subscriptions. Screenshots provided in the report show the old cancellation process and it is rather confusing. Users had to navigate through a series of menus, “skewed wording, [and] confusing choices.” And along the way, Amazon would prod people to stay by repeatedly reminding them of what they’re losing out on.

Not one to blindly trust, the European Commission states that it and government authorities will continue to keep an eye on Amazon to make sure it's following the rules. We asked Amazon about this decision and if these changes will be making their way to American users.

An Amazon spokesperson told us, "Customer transparency and trust are top priorities for us. By design, we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership. We continually listen to feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience, as we are doing here following constructive dialogue with the European Commission."

For the US, Amazon Prime will be staying the same. That same spokesperson did say Amazon is open to feedback from users, but there are no changes at this time.

Reigning in

The European Union has, in recent years, been particularly harsh toward tech giants. Several new laws have been put into place to increase consumer protection and chip away at monopolies. Back in March, the EU laid out its Digital Markets Act (DMA) which may allow users to uninstall default apps and use services on other platforms. 

Not satisfied with software, the EU has its eyes set on establishing a universal charger standard. So instead of having a thousand different cables, you can just have one. Unsurprisingly, the tech giants aren’t too happy. Apple is totally opposed to the idea of a universal charger.

If you’ve decided to keep Prime, be aware that Amazon Prime Day takes place on July 12 and July 13, 2022. In preparation, TechRadar published a guide on the hottest deals for those days.

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Pilot Strikes, Bad Weather, Staffing Shortages: If Your Flight Is Canceled or Delayed Over July Fourth - CNET

The three-day holiday is predicted to be a nightmare for air travelers.

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I think I wildly underestimated the impact of iOS 16 and its new Lift Subject from Background feature. This is next-level image stuff that fundamentally changes how you can interact with the 15-year-old platform.

Let's start by getting something clear: Apple's next big mobile platform update, iOS 16, is still months away from final release and is currently only in developer beta. The public beta could arrive as soon as next week (the week of July 3). This means that, while I can talk about what I've learned, I can't show you any more than what we all saw during Apple WWDC 2022 keynote last month.

Granted, the demo of someone grabbing a bulldog out of a photo and casually dropping it onto a Message was pretty cool on its own. Actually using it, though, is something else.

The demo (Image credit: Apple)

Hold it

From what I can tell, it doesn't matter what kind of photo from your library you use, or even its age. Virtually any photo with a clear subject (or subjects) is game for the Lift Subject from Background feature.

In my library, I opened photos shot with my iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, and iPhone 6 and was able to select subjects in all of them.

The iOS 16 Lift Subject from Background selection process. (Image credit: Apple)

As demonstrated in the keynote, you open the photo on the iPhone and place your finger on the subject (or multiple subjects, as it's happy to let you grab a group of people). You know your iPhone is finding the subject thanks to a cool visual effect that appears to marquee the subject and transport it to your finger's control.

As Apple told me last month, the ability to identify subjects is all part of the company's rapidly developing image-segmentation technology. Apple uses it on the lock screen to put just your image subject in front of the time. In the case of Lift Subject from Background, it lets you select and move the photo subject almost anywhere.

It's more

I think I understood what I saw during the WWDC keynote demonstration, but it wasn't until I tried the Lift Subject from Background feature myself that I understood the radical iOS change that comes along with it.

Look, it's cool that iOS 16 can identify and lift any subject (person, flower, bird, dog) from a photo. What I didn't understand is how you might move that subject elsewhere. This is not a cut-and-paste feature; it's also not a photo-editing feature, à la the Google Pixel's Magic Eraser. It's more like a mobile platform magic carpet ride.

Once I had a subject selected, I paused for a moment as I tried to figure out what to do with the floating image under my finger. How would I get it to Messages as they did during the WWDC demo?

Now you have your subject under your finger or thumb. (Image credit: Apple)

Instinctively, I kept one finger on the subject and with my other hand I touched the screen and swept up from the bottom to access my home screen. Then I selected Messages.

I found I could hover with the captured image over my messages list and drop it into one of the threads, or go directly to an open message conversation.

Alternatively, I could open a different app like Notes or Keynote and drop in. As long as I held my finger on the captured subject, I could do whatever I wanted with my other hand, including launching new apps or swiping up one-third of the way from the bottom of the screen to access all my open apps and choose the one where I wanted to drop in my subject.

You can drop in in a wide variety of apps. (Image credit: Apple)

I couldn't recall ever seeing iOS 16 work in this fashion before, like a multi-window system.

It's weird, cool, and a distinct departure from previous versions of iOS. We've always had multi-touch, but this is like multi-modal touch -- and with a pretty wild new image feature to boot.

Time to message that dog. (Image credit: Apple)

It's possible that Lift Subject from Background will undergo many changes before Apple launches the final version of iOS 16 in the fall, but I don't see it going backward from this near-revolutionary change (which also happens to work in iPadOS 16). It's the start of something big.

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ISRO's PSLV-C53 was launched on Thursday from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. It is designed to orbit the DS-EO satellites along with two other co-passenger satellites from Singapore.

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Best Gap Insurance Companies for July 2022 - CNET

You aren't required to buy gap insurance, but it can come in handy if you're financing or leasing your car.

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TV and projector maker Hisense announced that its flagship line of L9G Laser TV projectors have received a free Dolby Vision upgrade. The upgrade was supplied this week via an automatic firmware update, allowing L9G owners to immediately experience the benefits of Dolby Vision high dynamic range.

While Hisense isn’t the first company to announce a projector with Dolby Vision – Xiaomi has released a model with Dolby Vision compatibility, though that model is only available in China – the L9G is the first such model in the US market to provide that feature, which is commonly found in the best 4K TVs, but not in projectors.

Otherwise, the L9G is a complete A/V package consisting of a 4K ultra short throw (UST) projector and bundled ambient light-rejecting (ALR) projection screen. The projector, which sits approximately 12 inches from the wall-mounted screen, features a built-in 40-watt Dolby Atmos audio system, Android TV for streaming, and Google Assistant voice control. It’s sold with either a 100-inch screen for $5,499 (about £4000, AU$7500) or a 120-inch screen for $5,999 (about £4400, AU$8000)

Hisense calls the L9G a ‘TriChroma’ projector based on its advanced light engine that uses separate red, green, and blue lasers to beam images. Along with high brightness – the L9G delivers a specified 3,000 lumens light output – Hisense’s UST projector is said to achieve 107% of BT.2020, the recommended color space for Ultra HDTV. (Few TVs or projectors are capable of hitting anywhere near full BT.2020, which is not even supported by current streaming or disc-based video formats.)

Analysis: It’s about time projectors got Dolby Vision 

Why did it take so long for Dolby Vision to arrive in projectors? Compared with regular flat-panel TVs, projectors have limited light output. The HDR10 format that 4K models do support is a basic high dynamic range variant where the movie or TV program conveys its maximum and average HDR brightness to the display (either a TV or projector) and it then accommodates that static information to the best of its capability.

Dolby Vision, on the other hand, is a dynamic HDR format where the contrast range of images are determined on a scene-by-scene or even a frame-by-frame basis. With Dolby Vision, the display (again, a TV or projector) can convey information about its maximum brightness/contrast potential to the source, and video content can then be ‘tone-mapped’ on a dynamic basis to make the most of the system’s potential.

Note that I used the word ‘system’ there. With a pre-configured projector-and-screen package like Hisense’s L9G, both the projector’s light output and the contribution of the screen to the brightness and contrast levels of images are a known quantity. This differs from most projector setups, where screens with different gain (the ratio of projected light that’s reflected back by the screen material) levels are used, or there’s no projection screen at all.

With its high brightness, TriChroma laser light engine, and bundled screen with predictable performance characteristics, Hisense’s upgraded L9G Laser TV seems to be the right candidate for launching Dolby Vision in projectors. TechRadar previously reviewed the LG9 and commented favorably on its picture quality. Maybe we’ll have to call it back in now to see how it performs with the Dolby Vision upgrade. 

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Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has been accused of exceeding its assets threshold and providing false information by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Crypto broker Voyager Digital issued 3AC with a default notice on Monday after it failed to make payments on a loan.

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NextGen TV: Everything You Need to Get Free TV - CNET

NextGen TV, formerly known as ATSC 3.0, is the new over-the-air broadcasting standard. Here's what you need to know about its free content.

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The early days, when the iPhone was new, were special. 15 years ago, Steve Jobs and Apple engineered what could best be described as a hype beast of a product launch.

First, Jobs unveiled the iPhone at Macworld in January 2007, but it would be months before the iPhone would officially launch. Whether by design or necessity, that delay turned out to be the best possible way to launch what would become a technological and cultural touchstone.

Anticipation for availability details and the official launch date built and built until Apple announced and, naturally, the tech media reported it.

Hype central turned out to be the one-year-old Apple Flagship Store on Fifth Ave. While I remember launch day, I don’t recall attending or even walking by. However, reports from the time described a line that literally ran down the front steps of the store and snaked around the block. There was media, and third-party companies trying to ride this cresting wave of excitement. It was pandemonium.

The old-fashioned way

Apple generated all this without the benefit of social media. Facebook was just a couple of years old and mostly only college students used it. Twitter hadn’t caught on with the general public. There was no Instagram.

This was all built on traditional media hype and word of mouth.

Apple leaned into it, hard. There were store employees acting as cheerleaders, leading people in chants of “When I say ‘I,’ you say, ‘iPhone.’”

The scenes of people waiting all night (sometimes for days) outside of Apple Stores were repeated around the country. 

Why?

Apple and Jobs had spent the last eight years building brand devotion that some might argue surpassed the concurrent quality of their products. I don’t see it that way. There’s never been a company, tech or otherwise, that managed to pair exquisite design and industry-leading quality and utility with a brand affinity that built into something approaching a cult.

As one guy told The New York Times in 2007 while he waited online outside a Chicago Apple Store for the first iPhone, “If Apple made sliced bread, yeah, I’d buy it.”

The devotion was born out of products like the iMac, iBook, and iPod. Steve Jobs was the glue that bound it all together. It was hard to find an Apple fanatic who wasn’t as devoted to Jobs as he was to his iPod.

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Devotion and repetition

After that first launch, I became a regular at the yearly launch events, which eventually moved from the Summer to September or October. For a while, the hype machine continued unabated. At the iPhone 6s launch, I remember meeting one of the first eager iPhone recipients, a young woman who traveled from Lithuania to get a Rose-colored device she still couldn’t buy in her home country.

Still, by then the tenor of the events had shifted. Yes, there were still lines, but they were often filled with professional line waiters who would buy the phones for other people and those who were buying for resale. Pre-orders, home delivery, and at-home activation all became commonplace – and easier than waiting outside an Apple store.

The lines were starting to shrink, but Apple’s team of hypers was growing and getting bolder.

After the Lithuanian woman brought her new, still-boxed phone outside, they demanded she unbox it for the crowd. She complied and seemed excited, but I thought it was a little forced.

Never the same

There are the occasional blips back to past excitement, like when Apple introduced the iPhone X in 2017. Its radical new look and notch created a buzz not seen since the Jobs days. I thought the line at the Fifth Avenue store was among the biggest I’d seen in years. I had the phone early and when I waved it in front of a few future iPhone X owners, they visibly swooned.

Obviously, the pandemic vaporized that phenomenon for a few years, but even before then, I’m not sure the lines of iPhone customers were as big as the groups of professional Team Apple cheerleaders who created a gauntlet for new iPhone owners to run through.

15 years on, Apple’s iPhone is still an excellent smartphone, clearly a leader in its field, but the hype bubble Apple and Steve Jobs nurtured and grew is visibly deflated. We still love the devices and buy them by the millions, but that cultural moment is gone.

I look forward to the next product that can generate that kind of thrill.

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Flipkart Big Bachat Dhamaal Sale July 2022 is going live from July 1 till July 3 with deals and discounts on smartphones and other home appliances. The e-commerce platform will be offering new deals every day at 12am, 8am, and 4pm between the specified dates during the Flipkart Big Bachat Dhamaal Sale July 2022.

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