Given that a lot of us are now being forced to work and study from home away from our friends and even family, it means that communication tools like video conferencing apps are more important than ever as a means to keep in touch with our loved ones. If you have been largely relying on FaceTime, you might want to skip the latest iOS update.
These days many of us are undoubtedly constantly scanning the news related to the coronavirus. We’re also seeing a lot of information popup on social media, emails, forwarded WhatsApp messages, and so on. However, it seems that cyber criminals are now weaponizing our need for information to hijack our computers.
Video conferencing app Zoom has been around for quite a while now. Granted, it might not have been quite as mainstream compared to Skype, Google Hangouts, and other similar apps, but in the recent months, the app’s popularity has exploded due to people being forced to work and study from home as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
One of the criticisms faced by Apple with its App Store is the cut that Apple takes from in-app purchases, which is 30%. While some developers do not have a choice, others have opted for alternative measures, such as by removing in-app purchases and getting customers to make the purchase directly from their websites instead.
Advertising
As more people are staying home to work or study due to the coronavirus outbreak, there also seems to be a rise in demand for home entertainment systems, such as the Nintendo Switch gaming console. Now, the console was always pretty popular, but now that more people are stuck at home, it has resulted in the console being sold out across various retailers.
During the process of creating drugs to treat various illnesses, sometimes there can be a side-effect that was not intended, and sometimes this can be a good thing. Take for example Viagra, which was originally developed to treat hypertension, but was later discovered to be more effective at treating erectile dysfunction.
Testing for the COVID-19 virus is critical at this point in time. This is because it will help governments identify who has been infected and quarantine them to help stop the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, the problem with the virus is that in some cases, there are those who have been infected but are asymptomatic, meaning that they do not display any signs of being sick.
A couple of years ago, Instagram introduced a new feature that allowed users to add music to their Stories. Some of the music sources that Instagram users could choose from included Spotify and Pandora. Missing from that list was Apple Music, but that could change soon, according to a recent sighting in the iOS 13.4.5 beta.
In order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, health officials are actively encouraging social distancing. This means that people should not gather in large crowds, and if you are in a public area, you should stand a certain number of feet away from another person. While social distancing won’t cure the coronavirus, it will at the very least slow down its spread.
Robocalls are a nuisance, and it was only back in 2019 that the FCC finally allowed carriers to block robocalls by default. Before that, carriers did offer robocall blocking services, but it was a paid service that was optional, meaning that if you did not pay, you could be subject to receiving these kind of calls.
Recently, a photo showed that cases for Apple’s rumored iPhone 9 have started to show up at Best Buy’s stores. This seemed to indicate that the phone was close to being officially announced, and it looks like it could be true. This is according to Jon Prosser, founder of YouTube channel Front Page Tech.
If you do a lot of writing, then Grammarly might be a software you have heard of. For those unfamiliar, Grammarly is a piece of software that can check your grammar as you write, identifying problematic sentences and so on. This is helpful regardless of whether or not English is your native language.
Apple is a company known for their secrecy when working on new products. We have heard stories of how employees are generally not allowed to take work home in a bid to help keep their operations as secretive as possible. However, with the coronavirus outbreak, many people are being forced to work on home.
The world is starting to shift towards the use of LED display panels. This is because unlike LCD, LEDs are more energy efficient as they only light up the parts of the display that are needed, whereas LCD requires a backlight that lights up everything. This is why it doesn’t come as a surprise that Samsung will be winding down their operations for LCD display panels.
One of the things that the world is currently facing a shortage of is face masks. These are used not just by healthcare workers, but also the public in general to help protect themselves and others from the coronavirus. GM is hoping to solve the problem and lend a helping hand by announcing that they will start producing face masks.
If you’re not a doctor, scientist, or medical researcher, it doesn’t mean that you can’t help fight the COVID-19 virus. Simply staying at home to help flatten the curve is already a contribution towards society, but if you want to be more active in lending a helping hand, researchers at UC San Francisco could use your help.
In the past we have seen companies launch smartwatches for kids. It still isn’t particularly common yet, but it seems that this could be a market that Apple wants to tap into. According to a report from 9to5Mac, they have discovered code within iOS 14 that suggests that the next major watchOS update could introduce new kid-friendly features.