Tag: small business news

Apple’s wireless charging tech may interfere with pacemakers

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A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association shows that the iPhone 12 Pro Max can cause magnetic interference when placed very close to implantable cardiac devices from three major brands. Researchers first tested the iPhone 12 Pro Max by placing it on a patient’s skin right over the implant, replicating the impact of a phone placed in the breast pocket of a shirt. In a second test, they placed the phone on top of an unwrapped implantable device, still in its box. In both cases, researchers were able to detect significant magnetic interference. The study was small, involving three patients and a total of 14 devices from Medtronic, Abbott, and Boston Scientific. Still, interference was present in all of the implanted devices and more than 70% of the boxed-up devices. The culprit here is MagSafe, a feature that was reintroduced in 12-series devices and refers to Apple’s various magnetic accessories for iPhone and iPad. This includes MagSafe wireless chargers, cases, and wallets. To connect iPhones and iPads to these accessories, Apple has installed a ring of magnets inside the 12-series devices. This allows the accessories to snap onto its phones and tablets and stay attached Read More …

Firefox still wants to be the ‘Anti-Chrome.’ Can it beat Edge, too?

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With a major redesign, Mozilla Firefox is back but no longer in black. The most obvious change in Firefox 89, which arrived on Tuesday morning, is the toolbar atop the browser: It now comes in a shade of pale gray instead of black, so it fits in much better with other Mac or Windows apps. Below that, the new release of the open-source browser—which has also been updated for Linux, with a corresponding iOS and iPadOS update—shows considerable pruning of its interface. The address bar has lost the traditional home button and condensed the raft of buttons at the top right, while the menu available there is no longer festooned with the icons that made Firefox look even more like a stranger on a Mac or PC. A June 1 blog post calls this “a modern new look designed to streamline and calm things down.” But the face-lift also represents a recognition that this privacy-focused browser continues to get squeezed between Google’s dominant Chrome, Apple’s equally privacy-minded Safari, and Microsoft’s reinvented Edge . So while past Firefox updates have emphasized its protection against online tracking —it blocks third-party ad trackers and the Facebook widgets that let that firm follow us across the web, displays a privacy report card for each page, and even encrypts your domain lookups—this one sells a less-is-more design. That was the right call for Firefox, a browser that broke Microsoft Internet Explorer’s lock on the market by offering tools Microsoft wouldn’t—starting with pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing—but then grew to suffer from a certain amount of feature-itis. For example, the previous release featured two rectangular toolbar buttons, one with mostly vertical lines and the other with a mix of horizontal and vertical lines. The former, Library, provides access to your bookmarks and history, while the latter, Sidebar, offers a different way to view your bookmarks and history while adding the ability to see tabs synced from other copies of Firefox. Updating my Mac and Windows installations of Firefox expunged the Sidebar button and with it the chance that I’d once again confuse it for the Library button. You can undo that in the Customize Toolbar screen or choose the latest Firefox defaults—which remove the Library button as well but add a button for Mozilla’s  Pocket page-saving service . Read More …

The political TikToks in your feed might be ads in disguise

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There is a lot of political content on TikTok. Much of it has the spontaneous, home-made look of other TikTok content. But looks can be deceiving. Some political TikToks are financed by political influence organizations like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, and, worse, they often give no indication that they are, in essence, paid political ads. That’s the troubling finding of a new study by researchers at Mozilla. “What we found was evidence of paid or material relationships between political influencer influencers on TikTok and political organizations in the U.S. across both sides of the (political) spectrum,” said Mozilla researcher Becca Ricks, who co-authored the report. Mozilla is now calling on TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, to be more transparent about which short videos on its app are posted by influencers receiving funds from political groups. On Thursday, the nonprofit launched a public petition urging TikTok to prioritize ad transparency. “[W]e looked into the metadata of posts on TikTok and found that TikTok does not seem to be monitoring these posts and considering them as advertising,” Geurkink says. Mozilla found more than a dozen TikTok influencers across the political spectrum that have undisclosed paid relationships—or “dark money” arrangements—with various political organizations in the U.S. TikTok has managed to stay mostly out of the discussion of the social media mis/disinformation crisis by proclaiming that it would not sell political ads on its platform. But, Mozilla points out, even though TikTok doesn’t sell political ads via its social platform (as Facebook does), it’s still easy for political organizations to form direct financial arrangements with TikTok influencers to spread a certain point of view Read More …

Amazon’s Halo wearable adds a fresh approach to personalized workouts

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Amazon is getting into personalized fitness with a new feature for Halo, its fitness tracker and app, Called Movement, it measures how a person moves, identifies areas of improvement, and offers up curated exercises. Amazon introduced its Halo fitness tracker at the end of 2020. It was a notable departure from other wearables such as Apple Watch and Fitbit, with features for tracking body fat percentage, body temperature during sleep, and tone of voice. Overall, it focuses on tracking aspects of a person’s health that are simple to understand, such as body fat percentage instead of BMI and a weekly activity score instead of daily one. The new Movement feature is consistent with that approach. Inside Halo’s smartphone app, the Movement assessment directs users to record themselves performing various exercises using their phone’s camera. The test takes roughly five minutes and assesses for 20 potential physical limitations relating to issues such as range of motion and strength. Once complete, it serves up 5-7 routines based on a person’s specific problem areas that will improve exercise form and ultimately mobility. Through the app, users can record every time they do these exercises and track their improvement. What this feature is really about is preventing future injury. The goal of Movement is to build muscle memory around correct movements. When you do a squat, is your back straight or are you tucking your pelvis at the bottom of the squat? Are your knees over toes? The app aims to let you know for sure. [Image: courtesy of Amazon] There are a total of 35 possible corrective exercises—roughly ten minutes or less each. Read More …

Amazon’s Halo wearable adds a fresh approach to personalized workouts

Posted onAuthoradmin

Amazon is getting into personalized fitness with a new feature for Halo, its fitness tracker and app, Called Movement, it measures how a person moves, identifies areas of improvement, and offers up curated exercises. Amazon introduced its Halo fitness tracker at the end of 2020. It was a notable departure from other wearables such as Apple Watch and Fitbit, with features for tracking body fat percentage, body temperature during sleep, and tone of voice. Overall, it focuses on tracking aspects of a person’s health that are simple to understand, such as body fat percentage instead of BMI and a weekly activity score instead of daily one. The new Movement feature is consistent with that approach. Inside Halo’s smartphone app, the Movement assessment directs users to record themselves performing various exercises using their phone’s camera. The test takes roughly five minutes and assesses for 20 potential physical limitations relating to issues such as range of motion and strength. Once complete, it serves up 5-7 routines based on a person’s specific problem areas that will improve exercise form and ultimately mobility. Through the app, users can record every time they do these exercises and track their improvement. What this feature is really about is preventing future injury. The goal of Movement is to build muscle memory around correct movements. Read More …