(Photo: Dole777/Unsplash)We’ve known for a while that social media poses real to our mental health, but what about our wallets? A new poll has found that the online platforms are taking a toll on users’ minds and finances alike. Bankrate, a finance publication and comparison service, partnered with research company YouGov to 2,664 adults about the effects of social media use last month. Specifically, Bankrate wanted to find out how social media impacted users’ budgets, whether through subconscious social comparison or overt marketing. The results of the survey were glaring: at least one in every three American adults have thought of their financial situations negatively after seeing other users’ social media posts.
Regulatory pressure continues to ramp up on big tech firms like Apple, and a new lawsuit takes aim at one of the iPhone maker’s lesser-known cash cows. According to an antitrust lawsuit filed by Affinity Credit Union, has abused its market position with Apple Pay to keep other companies out, earning fees on every tap-and-pay iPhone transaction. Apple’s mobile payment system uses near field communication (NFC), which is the same technology Google uses on Android. However, it probably won’t come as a surprise that Apple’s version is much more locked down. On Android, you can register different contactless payment providers in the settings.
The internet drama between Elon Musk and Twitter has been building for months, and you’re probably wondering when we’ll reach a resolution. Now we know: October 2022. A Delaware judge has sided with Twitter in its request for an expedited trial. At issue is whether Musk will be forced to abide by the terms of his $44 billion takeover offer, which he announced he was abandoning a few weeks back. Musk’s aborted quest to acquire the social media platform began secretly early this year when the world’s richest man scooped up about nine percent of Twitter’s stock. He then refused to join the board, which would have prevented him from attempting a hostile takeover.
The Google Play Store on your phone has gone through a lot of changes in the last year, some of which have made certain features harder to find while pushing others to the forefront. Don’t go hunting for the app permission section of a listing, though. It’s not hiding — has removed it. Instead, the Play Store will rely on developers to truthfully explain an app’s privacy and security practices. It might be hard to believe at this point, but there was a time when we were just expected to install apps without knowing what data they would access.
(Photo: Dan Nelson/Unsplash)A pair of legislators have requested that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) begin cracking down on deceptive marketing practices in the Virtual Private Network (VPN) industry. In a sent to FTC Chair Lina Khan last week, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Senator Ron Wyden urged the agency to turn toward VPN providers’ questionable—and often abusive—advertising techniques, which tend to exaggerate the level of security VPNs can provide. Many VPN ads make claims of “total anonymity” and “military-grade encryption,” the first of which should be regarded with skepticism and the second of which doesn’t exist at all, according to the letter.
(Photo: Meggyn Pomerleau/Unsplash)Bees are a well-respected part of the general ecosystem, and for good reason. They’re responsible for the pollination of most flowering plants, giving the species dependent on those plants a fighting chance at survival—not to mention the sweet, syrupy byproduct of their work that ends up on the kitchen table. But there might be yet another reason to admire these buzzy little creatures: they’re clever and might experience emotions. According to Lars Chittka, a seasoned bee researcher and a professor of ecology at Queen Mary University of London, we “now have suggestive evidence that there is some level of conscious awareness in bees—that there is a sentience, that they have emotion-like states.
Microsoft is rumored to be working on a new premium Surface Duo smartphone, though the timeline is uncertain. We can say with reasonable certainty that it won’t be launching a cheaper version as many had hoped. The budget Duo existed internally at Microsoft, as evidenced by a dev sample that recently appeared on eBay. However, the mid-range Duo has reportedly been canceled. The Surface Duo line is Microsoft’s take on a modern Android phone. While some device makers are focusing on foldable screens, Microsoft is all about dual screens. Like its more expensive sibling, the leaked mid-range Duo has a “book” form factor with both of its screens inside.
Hard drive unit sales have been generally trending down for years, but the rate of decline may have just accelerated sharply. From 2017 – 2020, the HDD market fell by 7-18 percent per year. 2021 bucked that trend, with drive sales holding steady, but Q2 2022 shipments are much lower than this time last year. Enterprise drive demand has mostly held steady, but the bottom dropped out of other markets. The site tracks drive shipments across client and enterprise for the three remaining HDD manufacturers. It reports that just 45 million hard drives are believed to have shipped in Q2, down from a peak of 162 million drives in 2010.
Step aside Voodoo 5 6000, there’s a new monster GPU in town so over the top you can’t help but admire the audacity of it. (As a onetime functional Voodoo 5 6000 owner, I take exception to this statement – Ed) EVGA has released its most premium Ampere GPU, the RTX 3090 Ti Kingpin. As you may know, the Kingpin moniker is reserved for the company’s extreme overclocking GPU. It’s also designed in coordination with overclocker Vince “KingPin” Lucido. EVGA’s “Kingpin” cards usually include premium cooling as well, which is part of its overclocking pedigree. This card however, comes with a lot more than just a fancy cooler.
