Google has teamed up with the US Black Chambers, Inc, which empowers Black-owned businesses through resources and initiatives, to spread awareness about the new attribute. Google and the organization plan to train Black business owners on how to be more visible on the search engine using My Business and Analytics.
This move comes a month after the company announced its racial equality initiative. Google chief Sundar Pichai revealed back then that Google will contribute $175 million toward creating economic opportunities for Black businesses and workers. As part of that initiative, Google for Startups has also unveiled its inaugural Accelerator for Black Founders class. Twelve black founders will train under Google and other industry experts on technical challenges, business growth and outside investment opportunities to help them grow their organizations.
CVS pharmacies will soon let you do touch-free payments using your PayPal or Venmo accounts by using PayPal’s QR code payment system, PayPal has announced. The system will let shoppers “securely pay for their items without needing to touch a keypad or sign a receipt,” according to PayPal.
PayPal supports various means of payment, including stored debit or credit cards, bank accounts, a PayPal balance or a PayPal credit. On Venmo (which is owned by PayPal), “customers can pay using their stored debit or credit cards, bank account, Venmo balance or Venmo rewards” without any user fees, according to PayPal.
This week on the show, Devindra and Cherlynn chat about Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon’s congressional long-awaited antitrust hearing. Are they too big to compete fairly? Or is the tech industry being overly criticized? (It’s most likely the former.) Also, we dive into Garmin’s lackluster response to its widespread system outage, Quibi’s surprising Emmy noms, and Tenet’s international opening.
Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! Watch us record the show live on YouTube Thursdays at 10AM ET! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Match Moving is the process of anchoring a CGI object inside a real-world space, so that the camera treats it as if it was really there. If you’ve seen anything where a camera flies past a movie’s title like it was a road sign, then you’re familiar w…
Huawei’s had it rough in 2020 — and 2019, for that matter. But somehow, well thanks to sales in China, it’s shipped more phones than anyone else. More than Apple, more than Samsung. That’s in the face of US bans, its own conservative sales estimates and the whole lack-of-Android-on-its-flagship-smartphone… thing.
Engadget
Huawei’s sales declined by only five percent to 55.8 million units, compared to a huge 30 percent drop for Samusung, down to 53.7 million smartphones shipped. While smartphone sales dropped significantly in the US and elsewhere due to the coronavirus, sales in China suffered far less, and 70 percent of Huawei’s sales are now in its home country. It helps that devices like the P40 Pro are incredible phones if you ignore the whole Android / lack of Google element.
Huawei’s time in the top spot may be short: Samsung, naturally, thinks sales will rebound in the next quarter.
— Mat
Apple confirms its new iPhones will be delayed by a ‘few weeks’
The company’s CFO was very candid about the delay on a conference call.
Engadget
New iPhones appear in September, typically weeks after a splashy press conference at Apple HQ. Not so, this year. During the company’s post-earnings conference call, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri, confirmed that Apple’s new iPhones would be arriving later than usual, something Qualcomm had hinted at earlier this week.
“As you know, last year, we started selling new iPhones in late September,” Maestri said. “This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.” In these times of COVID-19-related delays, a few weeks really isn’t too bad. Unless things change — it is 2020. Continue reading.
Google posts its own Pixel 4a ‘leak’
Expect to see it revealed on August 3rd.
Google
We’ve seen hints and renders of Google’s next budget phone floating around for months, and now Google is getting into the conversation. Headers on its social media pages and a dedicated website introduce some placeholder text, and if you manipulate the colors to match Google’s logo, the page reveals a launch date for its “Just What You’ve Been Waiting for Phone.” Continue reading.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars
It’s scheduled to arrive in February 2021.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The launch was successful, with the team announcing it received telemetry from the spacecraft and sent commands back to it. A few issues did arise during launch, but they have been dealt with. According to Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace, “With the understanding of the causes of these issues, we are conducting the operations necessary to move the spacecraft back out of safe mode and into normal cruise mode.” Continue reading.
Such a move would be huge for the Halo franchise. But it’s not all that shocking in 2020. Last year, for instance, Infinity Ward released Call of Duty: Warzone — a battle royale successor to Blackout, which was only available through Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — as its own free-to-play experience. Unlike Halo Infinite, you still need Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to play the franchise’s more traditional multiplayer modes. The strategy is basically the same, however: offer something free-to-play in the hope that it gains a massive player base, then transition that interest into battle pass purchases and sales of the game that contains the campaign. (Or, in Microsoft’s case, additional subscriptions to Xbox Game Pass.)
Since then, Twitter has updated its policies by banning links that promote “hateful content.” It didn’t say which links might have prompted Duke’s permanent ban, but noted that its policies prohibit the promotion of violence or threats of attack towards people on the basis of religious affiliation, race, ethnic origin and other categories. Other figures definitively suspended from the site include far-right UK activists Katie Hopkins and Milo Yiannopoulis.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Duke is a “figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now international spokesman for Holocaust denial.” The ban is a good start, but a great many white supremacist figures, including Richard B. Spencer, can still surprisingly be found on the site.
Google has rolled out a couple of security tools to protect the financial info and passwords you saved with Chrome’s autofill feature. One of them will allow you to verify your identity using biometric information, such as your fingerprint, whenever you want to use your credit card online.
Currently, autofill requires you to type in your card’s CVC every time you use it. But if you choose to switch on biometric authentication — it’s completely optional and can be found in Chrome’s Settings page — you only have to type in your CVC the first time you use a card. This could help prevent card loss or theft, since you don’t need to take out your CC anymore in case you’re in public. You can already rely on the feature to retrieve your card details on Chrome for Windows and Mac, and it’s coming to Android in the next few weeks.
The FCC has unanimously approved Amazon’s Project Kuiper, giving the tech giant the go-ahead to deploy and operate a constellation of 3,236 satellites. Amazon asked the FCC for permission to launch thousands of Low Earth Orbit satellites in July 2019, just a few months months after announcing the project. Similar to SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, Kuiper’s purpose is to provide satellite-based broadband services. Amazon is hoping to help expand internet access to households and businesses in remote areas across the United States and around the world.
The company plans to invest over $10 billion on the project, which will be deployed in five phases. According to the FCC, Amazon must be done deploying half of Kuiper’s satellites by 2026, and the whole constellation must be in place by July 30th, 2029.
Elon Musk’s hopes for Starship to reach orbit before this spring didn’t quite pan out, but a recent test firing has the SpaceX CEO expecting to see the company’s new vehicle take flight shortly. On Thursday he tweeted that its new SN5 build completed a full duration static fire, and said a 150m test hop will happen “soon.” Of course, ten days ago he said there would be a flight attempt within a week, but they are making progress.
Starship SN5 just completed full duration static fire. 150m hop soon.
Last August we saw SpaceX’s Starhopper test vehicle complete a 150m Raptor-powered “bounce” and sooner or later the actual Starship will make a similar test flight. The company has continued to iterate on its design and pressure test prototypes — we remember SN4’s end — as it moves closer to actual flight. If there’s any information on a webcast of the event, we’ll let you know. Even with the Crew Dragon scheduled for a return this weekend, SpaceX’s priority is the Starship project.
Match Moving is the process of anchoring a CGI object inside a real-world space, so that the camera treats it as if it was really there. If you’ve seen anything where a camera flies past a movie’s title like it was a road sign, then you’re familiar w…
