Samsung is all set to launch its fifth-gen foldable smartphones next month. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 will address several shortcomings of previous-gen models and also bring a few notable upgrades. But these improvements may come at a cost. A fresh rumor suggests the changes made by Samsung have affected the Flex Mode functionality of the devices.
Flex Mode is one of the best features of Samsung’s foldable smartphones. It lets you use the devices in a half-folded state, with each half of the screen serving a different purpose. This makes for a whole new experience in optimized apps. On YouTube, the video plays on the top half while the controls are on the bottom half. Likewise, you get all camera controls on the bottom screen with a clean viewfinder at the top.
Samsung has been continuously improving the Flex Mode experience with hardware and software optimizations in recent years. But the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 may undo all the work if the latest rumor is true. Passed along on Twitter by noted tipster @Tech_Reve, the rumor says that the new hinge of the upcoming foldable duo doesn’t allow the Flex Mode to work as precisely as before.
The new hinge is affecting the Flex Mode on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5
Many of you may already know that Samsung is equipping its fifth-gen foldables with a “waterdrop” type hinge. It allows the devices to fold shut and also reduces the crease on the inner folding display. This effectively makes the devices lighter and thinner, something foldable enthusiasts have been calling on Samsung for. Unfortunately, the new hinge, plus other design changes made by the company to accommodate waterproofing (possibly dust proofing too), is affecting the proper function of the Flex Mode.
Samsung surely has tested the new hinge thoroughly before deciding to use it in the new foldables. In fact, there has been a report a few months back that the hinge is undergoing a month-long test in the company’s research labs. Its engineers may have determined that the Flex Mode isn’t affected severely if at all. Otherwise, it would be a massive letdown from the Korean behemoth. Not a too long wait now before the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 are official. Samsung has announced that the devices will debut on July 27. The Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Tab S9 series should accompany them.
The recent changes Reddit made to its API pricing has left some third-party app developers in chaos, however, some developers — specifically, of apps focused on accessibility — will be off the hook when it comes to the new pricing changes.
Reddit will exempt accessibility-focused apps from its new API pricing
As noted by The Verge. Reddit is reportedly working on an exemption to the unpopular new pricing terms, which will apply to developers of non-commercial apps that address accessibility needs.
“We’ve connected with select developers of non-commercial apps that address accessibility needs and offered them exemptions from our large-scale pricing terms,” Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told The Verge.
It’s no surprise that Reddit’s new pricing terms, which would result in excessively high charges for third-party developers to access its API, has caused a huge stir in the Reddit community. One thing to note is that the company will price access to its API based on the third party’s financial situation. But in some cases, it could result in millions of dollars, which force apps to shut down.
Apollo developer Christian Sengil took to Reddit, for instance, to share that in Apollo’s case, Reddit would charge the app $20 million a year for API access, due to the updated pricing.
Many third-party Reddit apps are built for accessibility
Apollo is one of many third-party apps for Reddit. There’s also Dystopia, RedditForBlind and Luna for Reddit. The last three of which are built with accessibility in mind, allowing users with disabilities to engage meaningfully with the platform. However, Reddit’s new exorbitant pricing for its API access might spell trouble for many of these accessibility apps. Moderators of the r/Blind subreddit posted an extensive message in protest of the pricing terms.
“This doesn’t only impact your ability to access Reddit in a fluid, customizable, and efficient way; many of us on the mod team are also blind, and we depend on those third party apps to make sure that this community remains a safe, fun, and productive place,” the moderators wrote. “Unfortunately, new Reddit, and the official Reddit apps, just don’t provide us with the levels of accessibility we need in order to continue effectively running this community.”
The message also noted that one of the subreddit’s moderators “has had multiple hour-long calls with various Reddit employees. However, as of the current time, our concerns have gone unheard, and Reddit remains firm.” This has since changed though as Reddit is now creating its exemption to the new pricing for accessibility apps. Nevertheless, dozens of subreddits, including r/Blind and r/NewOrleans, are shutting down from June 12th to June 14th in protest.
Clickbait posts on Facebook can lead to malicious websites. In this campaign, crooks are redirecting Facebook victims to scam pages hosted on Google’s infrastructure.
Online criminals are notorious for lurking on social media sites and tricking users into visiting malicious links. We recently observed a scheme where Facebook users are clicking on posts that lead to external websites set up for the sole purpose of scamming them out of hundreds of dollars via fake browser alerts.
What is unique with this campaign is the abuse of Google Cloud Run to generate new malicious links every few minutes. We’ve previously never seen tech support scams hosted on Google’s serverless platform, and certainly not at this scale. In this blog, we expose the techniques used by scammers to lure victims while evading detection.
We have reported these incidents to both Facebook and Google.
Facebook posts with malicious links
Facebook relies on users sharing content by posting photos, videos or links to various stories. However, when a link is posted for an external website, Facebook can no longer control the user experience, and in particular any risk that may occur from visiting it.
We identified several Facebook accounts that were posting a number of stories, ranging from clickbait articles to newsworthy content. We’re unsure whether those accounts were compromised or not, but we noticed that the same account posted more than one malicious link but at different time intervals, indicating that it might have been controlled by a threat actor.
In the next section, we take a look at how these websites are set up in a way to deceive security controls by employing a technique known as cloaking.
Decoy/cloaking
If you were to visit the URLs while running a VPN or perhaps via a country that is not targeted, you will see what appears to be a typical news site devoid of any scam. But the closer you look at those sites, the more you realize they are bogus: They’re essentially the same content with different domain names. This is the same old cloaking technique where a fraudster creates a decoy page to deceive online platforms and security tools.
Now, if you happen to click on a Facebook post as a real human (not a bot or using a VPN), you will get something entirely different, as the cloaking domains will perform a 302 redirect. This is a simple server-side instruction that will load another website immediately and seamlessly.
In the diagram below, we can see the network traffic and details for each web request, eventually loading a page that we are all too familiar with: a fake Microsoft alert.
Google Cloud Run “infrastructure”
One thing that drew our attention immediately was that the fake error pages are hosted on Google Cloud Run, a “managed computer platform that lets you run containers directly on top of Google’s scalable infrastructure”. Essentially, developers only need to create a container and deploy it as a micro service, without the need for a server, allowing them to focus on the code instead.
For a scammer, this is simply another platform they can abuse with minimum overhead costs. In fact, Google offers new customers $300 in free credits to spend on Cloud Run and two million requests free per month, not charged against credits.
We monitored the cloaking domains closely for some time and determined that the threat actor has set up a scheduled task that creates a new Cloud Run URL every 5 minutes. This new URL is immediately available and assigned to the cloaking domain for the malicious redirect. Over the course of a few days, we observed thousands of malicious URLs:
Not only does the URL keep on changing, but the IP addresses they are using are also shared with other customers. This means that any security product relying on a domain or IP blocklist will be unable to keep up with this campaign.
Staying protected with social media and scams
Social media can be a great source of entertainment or a way to connect with family and friends. However, there are inherent risks to using these platforms and caution should be exercized. Clickbait articles are notorious for leading to various bogus offers or worse.
Another issue is how promoted posts can quickly become viral as victims inadvertently share links with their contacts. Certainly, tech support scammers are well aware of how to target certain demographics, such as seniors, and lure them in via deceiving Facebook posts. As always, we recommend not to panic even if your computer screen suddenly becomes hijacked as a stern audio recording plays back. In practically all cases, you can safely close these pop-ups and be back up and running quickly.
Malwarebytes Browser Guard is able to protect against these attacks flawlessly, no matter how many times the fraudsters swap Google Cloud Run URLs. The built-in fraud heuristic engine is able to detect the malicious code and block it in real time.
Word on the street has it that the TSMC 2nm fabrication process is about to enter its production stage. To facilitate the production process, TSMC might rely on the power of artificial intelligence to a certain extent. According to the sources of this information, TSMC is kicking off pre-production work on their coming 2nm fabrication process.
Currently, the semiconductor industry is making use of the 3nm fabrication process. The next step in the evolution of the industry is the introduction of chips made using the 2nm process. Many competitors such as Intel, Samsung, MediaTek, and so on are preparing to make this technology available to their customers in the coming months.
But it seems as though TSMC has beaten them all to it, as they are already preparing to begin production with the 2nm fabrication process. It seems as though the Taiwanese company is more than ready to kick off the pre-production trial using the 2nm fabrication technology. Here is all the information concerning the TSMC 2nm fabrication process currently in the development stage.
Details on the TSMC 2nm fabrication process that is currently going into pre-production trial
The source of this information points out that TSMC is employing artificial intelligence for the 2nm production process. The artificial intelligence enhancement method is known as AutoDMP and its job is to increase the speed of the design process. This technology puts the Nvidia DGX H100 chip to use to improve its power and performance.
From the available reports, this artificial intelligence-enabled process is 30 times faster than other chip design techniques. With this on the ground, TSMC will be able to hit its target to produce 1,000 wafers before the end of the year. Starting the pre-production trials now is not in line with previous plans to kick off the project next year.
TSMC is moving ahead of the competition to make its 2nm fabrication process ready for usage early enough. By integrating artificial intelligence into its fabrication process, TSMC will reduce carbon emissions. This process will also make use of the gate-all-around (GAAFET) transistors during design.
With this technology, TSMC will be able to cut down transistor density and reduce any current leakage. Some benefit of the GAAFET technology for the end users is that it will improve performance while using less energy. In comparison with chips using the 3nm process, those to launch with the 2nm process will step up the performance bar.
Mass production of 2nm wafers will kick off after the production trial is over. Coming smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices will launch using processors developed on TSMC’s 2nm fabrication process. Competitors within the semiconductor industry might be moved to hasten up in the rolling out of their individual 2nm fabrication processes.
Blue subscribers on the bird app get access to the Twitter post edit feature. With this feature, they can edit posts to correct mistakes or add new information, previously the wait time to edit a post was 30 minutes. Now the bird app is increasing the wait time for those wanting to edit a post on Twitter, they can now do so after an hour.
By adding 30 more minutes to the original wait time, Twitter is expanding the edit window for their users. So even if you find out that you made an error in a tweet, you can make the edit under 1 hour after the tweet. This time increase is great, especially for users that lead a busy life and might not notice an error on their tweet early enough.
Well, despite the time increment, this Twitter post-edit feature remains limited to Blue subscribers. So if you are a Twitter Blue subscriber, you can benefit from this time increase for editing your posts where you make errors. This time increment is coming in light of some changes that Twitter has undergone in the past weeks.
Twitter Blue subscribers can now use the post-edit feature an hour after posting a tweet
Twitter is increasing the wait time to edit a post from 30 minutes to an hour. The company took to their Twitter Blue page to announce this change with a tweet. To announce the feature, they tweeted, “Blue subscribers now have up to 1 hour to edit their tweets.”
Despite being able to edit their tweets in under an hour, Blue subscribers won’t be able to edit their replies. The exact tweet that Twitter used to introduce this feature was first posted and then edited after a while. After the edit, there was no time stamp to show how long the user waited before making the edit.
But users can calculate how long a Blue subscriber waited before making an edit to their tweet. To do this, the user will need to have seen the first tweet and taken note of the time it was posted. After the edit, Twitter will update the tweet with a little pen icon followed by a “Last edited” and then the edit time.
With these details, a user can then calculate how long it took a Blue subscriber to edit the tweet, hence correcting any errors. This Twitter post-edit feature time increment will join a host of other features the Bird app is making available to users. One feature that might arrive at Twitter is a job search tab, which will be made possible by the company’s most recent purchase.
The increment to the tweet edit feature’s time window comes a few days after a major resignation. This one involves the head of content moderation at Twitter, who took her leave with little reason for her actions. However, this Twitter post edit feature will catch the fancy of most Blue subscribers.
WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature that will allow users to send high-definition (HD) photos on iOS and Android. The feature, which is currently being tested by a small group of beta testers, will allow users to send images without them being heavily compressed, although a light compression will still apply.
As per WABetaInfo‘s reporting, the new option is available in the latest beta version of WhatsApp on Android (v2.23.12.13) and iOS (v23.11.0.76). However, this option is just that — an option — and not the default setting. This means that it will need to be selected anytime you want to send an image with lighter compression.
The current photo sending options include “auto,” “best quality,” and “data saver,” but none of these options allow for no compression at all. Similar to other popular messaging applications, WhatsApp utilizes automatic compression of photos and videos to minimize their size and facilitate expedited image transfers.
Once you’ve chosen an image to send, you can send it at a higher quality by tapping the new HD icon that appears at the top. However, the option only appears if you are trying to send an image with higher resolution.It doesn’t look like this feature will extend to videos, which is a shame considering that WhatsApp is used by many as an alternative to iMessage/RCS when sending videos cross-platform. However, there is a workaround to this by attaching the movie as a document instead of a media file.
It is unknown when this feature will roll out to the masses as it is only just now rolling out in beta. However, The new HD photo and lightly compressed image feature is a significant improvement to WhatsApp’s media sharing capabilities and will allow users to send higher quality photos and videos to friends and family without worrying about file size or compression.
Motorola just released its latest stylus phone. As such, the company is touting the different things that you can do with the built-in stylus pen. It’s far from the price of the Galaxy s23 Ultra, so it’s a much more budget-friendly option. If you’re planning on getting the Motorola G Stylus 2023, here’s a rundown of the best ways you can use the built-in stylus.
Before we get into it, Android had lines has a lot of content about this phone. You can check out our full review of the phone if you want to know the ins and outs of it. We cover stuff like the performance, battery, display, speakers, software, Etc.
Also, if you have this phone, and you are curious about how to best utilize it, we have several how-to guides as well. Check out the list below:
The best ways to use the stylus on your Moto G Stylus 2023
If this is your first Moto G Stylus phone, then this might be a bit overwhelming. The software touts a bunch of functionality that comes with the stylus. So, let’s go over the best uses and save you a headache.
Note-taking
Obviously, having a stylus makes it really easy to write on your phone. Thus, this can be a great note-taking device. Applications like Moto Note and Google Keep Notes are great applications to use.
So, if you have to quickly take down some information, and you’re not the best when it comes to typing on a digital keyboard, you can simply write on your screen. The Moto Note app in the Google Keep Notes app should come pre-installed on your phone. You can simply access those apps to take notes.
However, there’s a quicker way to take down a note. If you take out the stylus while your screen is off, the phone will start a blank note for you to take. All you have to do is take out the pen and start writing the note. When you’re finished, your system will automatically save that note to the Moto Notes app.
Handwritten typing
The stylus comes in very handy when it comes to taking notes, but if you want to use it to do general typing on your device, you can do that too. The first time you access an app and summon the keyboard with the stylus out, it will tell you about the handwriting feature.
This will give you the ability to directly write onto the text field you are using. The system will recognize what characters you’re writing, and transcribe those into digital text.
If you don’t see this feature, then you will have to enable it. Access your settings, and go to the stylus settings. At the very top of the stylus settings, you will see the Stylus writing section. Turn that toggle on, and your device will start using this method. If you tap on the section itself, it will give you a short tutorial about how to use it.
So, all you’ll have to do is write directly on the text field you want to type with.
Drawing
The Moto Stylus 2023 isn’t quite a drawing tablet, and it will not replace your Galaxy Tab or iPad. However, you can still use it to make drawings. If you need to make a quick doodle, use a simple animation app, or at a visual element to your notes, feel free to do so. The Moto G Stylus 2023 has a nice large screen, so you have plenty of real estate to fully illustrate your ideas.
Screenshots
When you take your stylus out of the silo, you’ll see a little toolbar appear on the right side of the screen. One of the tools, which looks like a hand pulling on the corner of a rectangle, is the screenshot button. You can use this method if you don’t want to bother with the other methods.
Speaking of other methods, there are five ways you can take screenshots with this device. You can check all five of them out by following the link earlier in the article.
Quick app access
If there are certain apps that you use all the time, then you can quickly access them by taking the stylus out of its Silo. As mentioned before, when you take the stylus out of the silo, you’ll see the toolbar come in from the right. The toolbar comes preloaded with a selection of applications, but you can edit them and add your own.
Tap on the little gear icon at the bottom of the toolbar. You’ll enter a page showing the apps that you have already in the toolbar. Right under that, you will see the five featured applications that come pre-made for the toolbar. Under that, you’ll see your full list of applications that you can add to the toolbar.
Adjusting the stylus settings
So, if you want to help personalize your device, it’s pretty simple. Go to your device settings and to the stylus section. When you do, you’ll see a new page appear.
You can adjust what happens when you take your stylus out of the silo when your device is locked and when it’s unlocked. Also, you can set the system to remind you if the stylus has been out of the silo for an extended amount of time.
If you’re afraid that you will lose your stylus, you can enable the Last Known Location function. It will show you your stylus’ last known location if you lose track of it. You will have to Grant Moto Notes permission to access your locations, however.
Lastly, you can set it so that your phone will vibrate or make a sound when the stylus has been taken out. If you don’t want those to happen, you can just flip those toggles.
Now that you have this information, you can use your Moto G Stylus 2023 to its fullest potential. Click here to order this phone.
Artificial intelligence is becoming a bigger part of our daily lives with AI chatbots being one of the main reasons. Google, seeking to bring generative AI into the medical field, has entered a partnership with a world-renowned clinic. According to CNBC, Google’s partnering to bring generative AI to the Mayo Clinic.
Generative AI is making its way into several fields. It’s already made its way into journalism, creative writing, art, music, video making, web development, and so on. What really kicked off this revolution was OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT which launched in October 2022. It showed us what was possible with AI, and it led others to follow suit. As time goes on, generative AI is only going to become more ubiquitous.
Google Cloud partners with Mayo Clinic to bring generative AI
Since ChatGPT shook the world last year, Google quickly boosted its AI efforts. Now, we have the AI chatbot Bard which is extremely useful. However, the company is not stopping there, and it wants to bring AI prowess into the medical field.
The company partnered with Mayo Clinic to provide the tools to help it create its own AI chatbot. The clinic will use a service called Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder. Google introduced this on Tuesday, and basically, it lets its users create their own chatbots to help them search for patients’ information.
This will be very useful when looking for specific details about a certain patient. The chatbot will be able to search through the records and give you information specific to the query that you put in. Say, a doctor wants to search a patient’s medical history. Theoretically, all the doctor would have to do is type in the query saying “What is [patient’s name] medical history”. The chatbot will deliver a person’s medical history.
It seems like it’ll be a much more intuitive way than a traditional search which may just deliver the patient’s full record. This will probably help speed up the process of searching records for specific details.
There are concerns
Now, AI is still on shaky ground. Several months after its debut, ChatGPT is still giving inaccurate details, and that goes for Google Bard as well. This is inconvenient at best and devastating at worst. So, you can imagine how bad a slip-up like that will be on a patient’s medical record.
If Google plans on making this a core part of the medical industry, it, along with the people developing the chatbot, will need to be sure that all information given is correct. All it takes is one inaccurate detail about medical history, blood type, weight, age, Etc. to cause some real harm or death to a patient.
The new Twitter Blue, rebranded and relaunched upon Elon Musk’s takeover of the popular social networking site, launched late last year with some exclusive features for its subscribers. One of these features is the ability to edit your sent tweets, albeit only for a limited time, a limit which has now been increased.
Previously, the amount of time Twitter Blue subscribers had to edit a sent tweet was within 30 minutes of posting. This was considered a reasonable amount of time to fix a spelling mistake or to quickly fix any grammar issues noticed after the fact.
However, there are instances in which you won’t notice a mistake until someone points it out, and that can happen at anytime and not just within a half hour window. To help with this, Twitter has recently announced a change in their policy pertaining to the editing of tweets and has extended this time frame to a full hour.
Blue subscribers now have up to 1 hour to edit their Tweets.
This change is also reflected on Twitter’s Help Documentation, explaining how editing tweets actually work. To the surprise of many, editing tweets does not extend to replies, but only to original tweets and quote tweets.
Edit Tweet: This highly requested feature gives you a 1 hour window to make a limited number of changes to published Tweets. Use it to make updates, tag someone, or reorder the media you attached. Edit Tweet currently only applies to original Tweets and quote Tweets.
Meanwhile, Musk continues to experiment with new features within the platform. The latest announced via a tweet, seemingly in response to Twitch’s new controversial guidelines restricting streamers and causing a lot of backlash within that community and criticism from Musk himself.
This platform will provide email addresses of subscribers (who opt in) to content creators, so that creators are able to leave this platform easily & take their subscribers with them if they want
Though no further details have been shared on this announcement, it is safe to assume that this will function as sort of a mailing list for creators to keep of their subscribers should they ever want to leave the platform. It is unclear at this point how the opt-in process will work, but one could discern that it will be something that can be done in-app either while subscribing to a creator or anytime thereafter.
If you’ve had your Roborock for a while, then you may experience the laser and motor not working quite like it should. Especially if have pets, as that dirt and dust (and other things) can get into the module on top of the robot vacuum and cause it to not clean properly. Potentially running into furniture, walls, etc.
Luckily, there is a way to fix this issue. It mostly has to do with the LDS motor on your Roborock robot vacuum. And below, we’ll show you how to replace it. This is the easiest route to go, as replacing the entire laser module can be quite cumbersome and expensive. We’d only recommend doing this if your vacuum is outside of the warranty phase. Otherwise, you can just send it into Roborock to get it fixed.
How To Replace The LDS Motor On Your Roborock Robot Vacuum
It may seem daunting to replace the LDS motor on your Roborock robot vacuum, but it’s actually pretty simple. Here’s what you need to do.
First, remove the dustbin and the cleaning tool from the robot vacuum.
Next, you’re going to need to remove the cover that goes over the power button, dock and spot cleaning buttons. You will need to use a bit of force to do this, but it will just snap right off.
Remove upper housing trimming
Now, you’ll see that there are six screws holding the rest of the top cover (that covers the dust bin) in place. You’ll need to unscrew those. Then remove the top cover assembly.
Remove top cover assembly
Next, you will need to remove the LDS protective cover. There are five screws around it, hidden under caps. Which are simple to take off.
Remove LDS Protective Cover
With the LDS protective cover removed, there are four more screws around the motor that you need to unscrew.
Remove LDS
There are two more smaller screws that need to be removed, to remove the LDS Motor. Unscrew those.
Remove LDS Motor
Then detach it from the rest of the module. And the motor will pop right out.
Remove LDS Motor (part 2)
Now to put it back together, just redo everything we just mentioned. Starting with reattaching the LDS Motor to the module with those two screws. Then replace the four screws that puts the module back onto the robot vacuum.
Afterwards, you’ll need to use the five screws for the LDS protective cover and put that back in place.
Then you’ll be ready to use the six screws used for keeping the top cover assembly in place.
Pop the top cover back on, and put the dustbin and cleaning tool back inside, and you’re all set.
And that’s it. It might seem daunting, but it is actually pretty easy to do.
