The best laptops

Whether it’s in anticipation of back to school season or you just need a new machine for work, a new laptop may be near the top of your shopping list right now. Given we’re still dealing with the global chip supply shortage, you might find yourself con…

Tile’s 2022 Essentials pack is back down to a record low of $68

We’ve all misplaced our keys, wallet or TV remote in the past, but Bluetooth trackers can help you find those things a bit more easily the next time that happens. Tile’s devices are some of the most popular out there since they work well with both Android and iOS devices and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Now, you can pick up a four-pack of 2022 Tile trackers for $68, which is 15 percent off and a return to its all-time-low price.

Buy 2022 Tile Mate Essentials pack at Amazon – $68

The Essentials pack comes with two Tile Mates, one Tile Slim and one Tile Sticker. The Mate chips have built-in keyring holes so you can easily attach them to your keys, while the Slim is designed to slip seamlessly into your wallet, a luggage tag and other thin places. The Sticker has an adhesive backing that lets you stick it to things like a remote control, a game controller or even your pet’s collar. All of these Tile trackers have IP67 water-resistant designs along with three-year, non-replaceable batteries.

Their designs may be different, but all of the Tile trackers in this pack do the same thing: allow you to keep track of your things from within Tile’s mobile app. The trackers connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth and transmit the last known location of your stuff to the Tile app. And if someone else finds your things before you do, you can add your contact information to the Tile so they can get ahold of you.

Each model in this pack has a Bluetooth range of 250 feet, and when you’re within that range, you can force the Tiles to ring so you can more easily find your stuff. The opposite also works too — if you’ve misplaced your phone but have your keys with a Tile in hand, you can use the tracker to ring your smartphone even when it’s on silent. Aside from the fact that you’ll have to replace the entire tracker once the three-year battery runs out, Tile devices are a good way to digitally keep track of your things.

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Amazon installs AI-powered cameras in UK delivery vans

Last year, it was reported that Amazon planned to use AI-equipped cameras to surveil delivery drivers on their routes. Now, the company has started installing such cameras on its vans in the UK, according to The Telegraph. The action has created concern from privacy groups who called it “excessive” and “creepy.” 

Amazon will use a pair of cameras to record footage from inside vans and out to the road. They’re designed to detect road violations or poor driver practices and give an audio alert, while collecting data Amazon can use later to evaluate drivers. 

They don’t allow drivers to be monitored in real time and won’t capture sound, but can supposedly upload footage to a dedicated safety team in certain circumstances. Some of the actions monitored include illegal road behavior like failure to stop or speeding, along with actions like hard braking or seatbelt violations. 

A privacy group called Big Brother Watch said the system is “excessive, intrusive and creepy worker surveillance” and called for it to be paused. “This kind of directed surveillance could actually risk distracting drivers, let alone demoralizing them,” director Silkie Carlo told The Telegraph. “It is bad for workers’ rights and awful for privacy in our country.”

The GMB union that represents Amazon workers said the cameras inside the cabins aren’t necessary and create a major distraction. “We are against cameras being pointed in the face of the drivers every second of every day that they are working. This is surveillance, it does not aid driver safety,” a spokesperson said.

In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson told The Telegraph that “the purpose of introducing this technology is to keep drivers and communities safe, there is no other reason behind that. We have carried out a comprehensive data privacy assessment in line with applicable laws.”

The Morning After: Will EA be the next gaming giant to sell itself?

Electronic Arts is actively courting buyers — or another company willing to merge with it, according to insider news site, Puck. The video game company reportedly held talks with several potential buyers or partners, including major players Disney, App…

Clearview AI fined £7.5 million and told to delete all UK facial recognition data

Clearview AI has been fined £7.55 million ($9.5 million) by the UK’s privacy watchdog for illegally scraping the facial images of UK residents from social media and the web. It was also ordered to stop obtaining the data of UK residents and to delete any it has already collected. “The company not only enables identification of those people, but effectively monitors their behavior and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable,” said UK information commissioner John Edwards in a statement. 

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) opened a joint investigation with Australia into Clearview AI back in 2020, and issued a preliminary fine of £17 million ($21.4 million) against the company late last year. At the time, the office noted that “Clearview AI Inc’s database are likely to include the data of a substantial number of people from the UK and may have been gathered without people’s knowledge from publicly available information online, including social media platforms.”

In issuing a final injunction, the ICO noted that globally, the company illegally collected more than 20 billion facial images for its database. “Although Clearview AI no longer offers its services to UK organizations, the company has customers in other countries, so the company is still using personal data of UK residents,” it said. 

Clearview AI sells an app that can be used to upload a photo of someone, then try to identify them by check its database. The data has been used by thousands of public law enforcement agencies, despite the technology being in a legal grey area. 

Twitter, Google and YouTube have all sent cease-and-desist letters to the company, alleging that it violates their terms of service. Facebook has also demanded that Clearview stop scraping its data. The company has received complaints from privacy groups in Europe, and was hit with a €20 million fine in Italy.

In the US, the ACLU sued Clearview for violating Illinois state laws. The company recently settled that lawsuit by agreeing to restrict the use of its database in Illinois, though it will still supply it to federal agencies and other states.

Corsair’s first gaming laptop puts Elgato Stream Deck tech in its touch bar

PC accessory manufacturer Corsair has unveiled its first laptop, the 16-inch Voyager AMD Advantage Edition, that’s unabashedly designed for gamers and streamers. It’s an all-AMD affair, packing both Ryzen 6000-series processors and an AMD Radeon RX 680…

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 desktop chips are coming this fall with 5nm Zen 4 cores

AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 chips will mark another major milestone for the company: they’ll be the first desktop processors running 5 nanometer cores. During her Computex keynote presentation today, AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that Ryzen 7000 chips will launch this fall. Under the hood, they’ll feature dual 5nm Zen 4 cores, as well as a redesigned 6nm I/O core (which includes RDNA2 graphics, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 controllers and a low-power architecture). Earlier this month, the company teased its plans for high-end “Dragon Range” Ryzen 7000 laptop chips, which are expected to launch in 2023.

Since this is just a Computex glimpse, AMD isn’t giving us many other details about the Ryzen 7000 yet. The company says it will offer a 15 percent performance jump in Cinebench’s single-threaded benchmark compared to the Ryzen 5950X. Still, it’d be more interesting to hear about multi-threaded performance, especially given the progress Intel has made with its 12th-gen CPUs. You can expect 1MB of L2 cache per core, as well as maximum boost speeds beyond 5GHz and better hardware acceleration for AI tasks.

AMD is also debuting Socket AM5 motherboards alongside its new flagship processor. The company is moving towards a 1718-pin LGA socket, but it will still support AM4 coolers. That’s a big deal if you’ve already invested a ton into your cooling setup. The new motherboards will offer up to 24 channels of PCIe 5.0 split across storage and graphics, up to 14 USB SuperSpeed ports running at 20 Gbps, and up to 4 HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2 ports. You’ll find them in three different flavors: B650 for mainstream systems, X650 for enthusiasts who want PCIe 5.0 for storage and graphics and X650 Extreme for the most demanding folks.

Given that Intel still won’t have a 7nm desktop chip until next year (barring any additional delays), AMD seems poised to once again take the performance lead for another generation. But given just how well Intel’s hybrid process for its 12th-gen chips has worked out, it’ll be interesting to see how it plans to respond. If anything, it sure is nice to see genuine competition in the CPU space again.

While Ryzen 7000 will be AMD’s main focus for the rest of the year, the company is also throwing a bone to mainstream laptops in the fourth quarter with its upcoming 6nm “Mendocino” CPUs. They’ll sport four 6nm Zen 2 cores, as well as RDNA 2 graphics, making them ideal for systems priced between $399 and $699. Sure, that’s not much to get excited about, but even basic machines like Lenovo’s Ideapad 1 deserve decent performance. And for many office drones, it could mean having work-issued machines that finally don’t stink.

Xiaomi and Leica to launch a co-branded phone in July

After some earlier rumors, today Xiaomi finally confirmed its “long-term strategic cooperation” with Leica, and that they’ve been co-developing a flagship smartphone ahead of its July 2022 launch. This will be the German camera firm’s latest mobile imaging collaboration after Sharp, Huawei and Panasonic. 

Xiaomi isn’t the first Chinese phone maker to leverage the photography know-how from a renowned camera brand. In late 2020, Vivo followed the footsteps of Sony plus Nokia and joined forces with Zeiss, with the latest release being the X80 series. More recently, Oppo and OnePlus started releasing handsets that were jointly developed with Hasselblad, including the Find X5 series and the OnePlus 10 Pro.

Xiaomi hasn’t shared much else about this upcoming product, but our money’s on Qualcomm’s brand new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, along with the usual classic imaging aesthetics and filters from Leica’s side. Name-wise, it’ll either be “Xiaomi 12 Ultra” or possibly kickstarting a “Xiaomi 13” series. In the press release, CEO Lei Jun added that “this cooperation will provide a strong boost to Xiaomi’s imaging strategy.” We shall find out more in July.

WhatsApp will end support for iOS 10 and iOS 11 on October 24th

WhatsApp plans to end support for iOS 10 and 11. A new notification spotted by WABetaInfo prompts iPhone users to install the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system supported by their device to continue using the app after October 24th. A su…