As a regular user, there are no fees for sending money or making purchases. That’s the standard in the space. With Venmo, for instance, sending money to someone is free so long as you don’t use your credit card to do so. Additionally, WhatsApp payments build on the catalog functionality the company introduced last year. The latter allows entrepreneurs to build a mobile storefront for their business, and that’s the part of the app where WhatsApp users in Brazil can buy things.
Facebook has been working on adding payments to WhatsApp since as far back as 2017. In 2018, the company started testing the feature in India, WhatsApp’s biggest regional market. Part of the delay in getting payments out to more users likely has to do with the fact the social media giant spent time building out backend features like Facebook Pay. Now that payments are officially a part of WhatsApp, the company says it plans to bring the feature to “everyone as we go forward.”
Apple is gearing up for WWDC with a pair of hardware upgrade options for pros. To start, the 16-inch MacBook Pro now has the option of Radeon Pro 5600M graphics with 8GB of speedy HBM2 memory. It’s reportedly up to 75 percent faster than the 4GB Radeon Pro 5500M (thanks in part to 40 compute units), and as much as 3.5 times faster than what you got in the last 15-inch MacBook Pro. It’ll cost you a substantial $700 above what comes with the higher-end stock MacBook Pro configuration, but might be worthwhile for 3D rendering, some video editing and other tasks that lean heavily on the GPU.
There’s also something for Mac Pro owners who want to upgrade their internal storage without resorting to third-party solutions. A new SSD kit includes two drive modules in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB capacities similar to what you can order when buying a system. Details for pricing are forthcoming as we write this, but it’s safe to say these will be expensive. If you’re determined to get a solution that’s as tightly integrated as possible, though, this is your only choice.
The PlayStation 5 was finally unveiled last week and whatever you make of the design, we can probably agree that it’s something of a departure from the console’s previous iterations. Now, PlayStation’s head of UX design has said we can expect the same for its user interface.
A new interface was always on the cards — something that was confirmed last week after we were given a quick demonstration of the start-up screen. But in a LinkedIn thread, Matt MacLaurin said the team has created a “100 percent overhaul of the PS4 UI and some very different new concepts.” He added that the PS5 OS is “more subtle than flashy, but no pixel is untouched,” and that as a UI “it’s practical first, but it’s a whole new visual language and a complete rearchitecting of the user interface.” No word yet on when we’ll get a proper look at it — soon, for sure — but it certainly seems like the PS5 has more surprises in store.
It’s a hard time to sell cosmetically different phones that are merely flagship devices, plus three months and a new colorway. But if anyone can do it, it’s K-pop princes BTS.
Yep, they’re teaming up with Samsung to launch a special edition Galaxy S20+ and a pair of companion Galaxy Buds+ featuring the band’s logo and the purple hearts design that BTS is known for using. The phone is purple — real purple — and ships pre-installed with BTS-inspired themes and K-pop fan community platform, Weverse. Plus, fans are getting decorative stickers and photo cards of BTS members as a nice bonus.
Samsung
I might not be a member of The Army, but these purple-hued Galaxy Buds are, I’ll admit, my kind of thing.
—Mat
Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 updates come with nasty printer bugs
It’s making certain printers unable to print.
The latest updates for Windows 10 give the platform’s security a boost, but they unfortunately come with nasty bugs that make printing impossible. Microsoft released the buggy updates — KB4560960 and KB4557957 — on June 9th, and users started experiencing issues as soon as they installed them. User reports online show that the issue affects various HP, Canon, Panasonic, Brother and Ricoh printer models. Some users even reported being unable to print files as PDFs.
Microsoft has published a notice acknowledging that update KB4557957 may render certain printers unable to print. The tech giant warns users that the “[p]rint spooler may error or close unexpectedly when attempting to print and no output will come from the affected printer.”
The company is still working on a fix and promises to provide more information when it rolls one out. For now, affected users will have to replace their printer’s driver or uninstall Windows 10’s June updates. Continue reading.
The ‘Resident Evil’ series has sold over 100 million copies
How many Jill sandwiches is that?
Capcom
Capcom has sold over 100 million copies of Resident Evil games since the franchise launched its schlocky version of horror in 1996. It didn’t break down the sales by series but noted that RE7 by itself sold 7.5 million units. The Resident Evil 3 remake sold 2 million copies in its first five days. Capcom didn’t note any sales figures for the more obscure spin-offs and online titles. (What about Code: Veronica?)
The franchise hasn’t been in a stronger place. Off the back of the RE2 and RE3 remakes, it just announced Resident Evil: Village, which continues the story from the seventh entry. Zombies are still popular. Continue reading.
SpaceX has a month to prove Starlink is worthy of rural broadband funding
It believes it can easily beat the 100-millisecond funding cutoff.
Getty
The FCC said it has “serious doubts” that SpaceX will be able to deliver internet service from its satellite network with latency under 100 milliseconds (via Ars Technica). That would not only be bad for users, but means that SpaceX could be at a disadvantage in an auction to distribute $16 billion in federal funds to support rural broadband access.
The FCC admitted that Starlink and other LEO (low-Earth orbit) providers have advantages over geostationary satellites that operate at much higher altitudes. However, it’s skeptical that orbital altitude alone can determine latency, saying “processing, routing and transporting traffic to its destination” can also affect it.
SpaceX argued that the FCC’s doubts are unfounded and that Starlink will “easily clear the commission’s 100-millisecond threshold for low-latency services, even including its “processing time” during unrealistic worst-case scenarios. The company currently has 480 satellites but no consumer services, and it has exactly a month to submit an application for the auction. Continue reading.
From there, things get weirder. If one screen won’t do, the Velvet is compatible with LG’s Dual Screen case (above) that gives you a second display for multitasking, writing, drawing and other chores. And LG being LG, it has arranged the 48-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel ultrawide camera and 5-megapixel depth sensor into a stylish “raindrop” pattern.
LG has yet to reveal the price, but it costs the equivalent of around $700 in Korea. As mentioned, it will appear in Europe (Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Poland) in June and come to North America, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America “in the weeks ahead.”
SpaceX argued that the FCC’s doubts are unfounded and that Starlink will “easily clear the commission’s 100-millisecond threshold for low-latency services, even including its “processing time” during unrealistic worst-case scenarios. In fact, with altitudes at 335 to 354 miles (compared to 21,750 miles for geostationary systems), SpaceX is shooting for a latency below 20 milliseconds — in line with cable internet.
That might prove to be true, but SpaceX is in a catch-22 situation. The FCC wrote that it has “serious doubts that any low-Earth orbit networks will be able to meet the short-form application requirements for bidding in the low-latency tier.” In other words, SpaceX may well be right about its latency claims, but without a working network, it won’t be able to prove it in time to qualify for the maximum funding.
That wouldn’t mean SpaceX would be completely shut out. It can still qualify for funding outside the low-latency tier, but that could reduce the sums it would be eligible to receive.
SpaceX currently has 480 satellites but no consumer services as of yet, and it has exactly a month to submit an application for the auction. The company plans to roll out services in the Northern US and Canada this year, but it would likely be too late.
Google said that Assistant’s Voice Match feature was coming to many more speakers and smart displays in the near future, but it now appears that this includes your television, too. The 9to5Google team has discovered code indicating that Voice Match is in the works for Android TV. While it’s not certain just when this would show or if there will be any changes versus other platforms, it’s easy to see the likely advantages. This could ensure that Android TV launches directly into your Netflix profile instead of making you choose on-screen, for instance.
It’s not certain if anything is prompting the addition beyond Google’s desire for completeness across platforms. Google is rumored to be preparing an Android TV dongle that would clearly benefit from Voice Match, though, and this could be important for tight Stadia integration whenever it’s available on Android-powered sets. Whatever the reason, it’s almost surprising that the feature hasn’t been available sooner. TV viewing is often one of the prime use cases for multi-user support, and support for multiple voices could make your living room experience that much easier.
The discovery could shed much more light on the nature of the bursts. This burst’s proximity to Earth made it possible to detect bursts in other wavelengths, like X-rays, that weren’t practical with more distant examples. It might be possible to determine the cause, whether it’s the product of the magnetic fields themselves or something inside the star.
Don’t expect this to solve every riddle around fast radio bursts. It’s still not certain why some bursts are more energetic than others (the nearby instance was about 1,000 times weaker than usual), and others erupt in patterns that don’t necessarily line up with what you’d get from a magnetar. Nonetheless, this ‘local’ event might answer many questions about the bursts and what they say about the universe, such as the distribution of matter.
Samsung is hoping to court K-Pop fans in the market for a new phone or new wireless earbuds with a BTS collaboration. The Korean tech giant has teamed up with the K-Pop superstars to release a special edition Galaxy S20+ and a pair of special edition Galaxy Buds+ featuring the band’s logo and the purple hearts design that BTS is known for using.
The S20+ 5G BTS Edition comes unlocked, is made of purple glass and metal, and ships pre-installed with BTS-inspired themes and K-Pop fan community platform, Weverse. Plus, fans are getting decorative stickers and photo cards of BTS members as a nice bonus.
The country faces similar challenges, too. Contact tracing apps generally require large-scale adoption to be truly effective, and that doesn’t always happen — Singapore is considering tracing devices for every resident after relatively low uptake of its app. And while Germany’s system makes data theft and abuse more difficult, there are lingering concerns about technology that requires constant (if anonymous) Bluetooth interactions.
Still, a lot may ride on this app. Germany is poised to hold limited events like IFA as soon as September. If it’s going to go forward with these, it needs as much information as possible about potential outbreaks if it’s going to keep infections down and have visitors feel relatively safe.
