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Walmart will test driverless grocery deliveries in Houston

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The test run will help Nuro and Walmart “develop and refine” their services, including providing the best “end-to-end” experience for shoppers. Kroger’s earlier use of the vehicles takes scheduled orders through a mobile app, with store staff loading the R1 before it makes its way to a customer’s home.

It could be a long, long time before you can simply assume that a driverless courier will be available to spare you a trip to Walmart. Nuro’s current vehicles are relatively slow, and there are all kinds of real-world challenges (such as snow) to overcome. A lack of consistent regulations for self-driving vehicles will also limit where and how these robotic couriers can operate. This is more of a peek at the future of food delivery than anything else.

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Netflix says 26.4 million accounts watched ‘The Irishman’ in its first week

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Netflix revealed that tally in a tweet, and content chief Ted Sarandos told Deadline that in the film’s first 28 days, it’s expected to reach about 40 million household accounts. To be counted, users must watch at least 70 percent of the film.

The Irishman, which debuted at and opened the New York Film Festival, has already received five Golden Globe nominations, and Netflix is likely hoping it will be an Oscar contender.

With Disney+ (The Mandalorian) and Apple TV+ getting so much attention lately, Netflix is likely happy to have something to boast about. Though, just because a film racks up Netflix views, doesn’t mean it’s good. Just a few months ago, the Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston film Murder Mystery broke the Netflix record for most unique account views (30.8 million) in its first three days, though that was before Baby Yoda existed.



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‘Final Fantasy 7 Remake’ will be a PlayStation exclusive until 2021

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It’s not surprising that Square Enix would agree to an exclusive. Sony is determined to snap up exclusives as a general rule, but Final Fantasy VII is practically synonymous with the original PlayStation — this is a chance to recreate those glory days, even if it’s very late in the PS4’s lifecycle. Still, those who hoped that the role-playing series would stay platform-independent are bound to be disappointed.

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Google Chrome will warn you if your logins have been stolen

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As Google itself notes, this feature is something the company has been working on for a while now. It started with an extension back in February; in October, it embedded the feature directly into Google Accounts.

Chrome password warning

Google is also adding real-time phishing protection to Chrome on desktop. To be clear, Chrome already warns you when it thinks you’re about to navigate to a website that will attempt to steal your information. However, Google says this new feature, which builds on the company’s Safe Browsing database, is now 30 percent more likely to warn you of a potential threat.

Moving forward, Chrome will also tell you when it thinks you’re about to enter your Google Account password into a suspected phishing website. Previously, you were only able to take advantage of this functionality if you had Chrome’s sync feature enabled. Now it will protect whether you’ve turned sync on or not. Additionally, Google says it will work with all the passwords you have stored in Chrome’s built-in password manager.

Chrome phishing warning

Lastly, Google has tweaked the interface of Chrome to make it easier to see if you’re about to save a login on a shared computer or on a different profile. The reworked sign-in indicator is located to the right of the address bar and it will briefly show you the name of the person associated with the account. The redesigned menu item also makes it easier to switch between profiles, according to the company.

If you use a password manager, you already have access to a lot of the functionality that Google is introducing today. 1Password, for instance, includes a feature called Watchtower that warns you of data breaches, and checks your passwords against against the Have I Been Pwned? database to see if you need to change your logins. But if you’d like to use one less app in your day-to-day while still staying safe, Chrome’s new features can help with that. Google says it will roll out everything it detailed today over the next few weeks.

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iOS 13.3 arrives with improved parental controls

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There are also some bread-and-butter functional improvements. You can create new videos when trimming clips in Photos, and Apple News has fresh layouts for News+ stories from papers like the Wall Street Journal. It’s easier to like or dislike stories as well. And if you’re security-conscious, you’ll be happy to know that you can plug in a FIDO2 security key instead of typing in a password. Add to this the usual round of bug fixes (including one that prevents Mail messages from downloading) and this is a worthwhile update, even if parental controls don’t matter.

There’s also a tvOS 13.3 update, although it’s not nearly as substantial. The biggest improvement is an ability to revert the Apple TV’s top shelf to show your Up Next queue. And did we mention a minor watchOS 6.1.1 update? It’s clear that you’ll have a lot of updating to do if you expect to stay current in Apple’s universe — let’s just hope Apple can afford to slow down its rapid-fire update releases in 2020.

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‘Axiom Verge 2’ and more indie games will hit Switch in 2020

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Developer Thomas Happ revealed Axiom Verge 2 at the end of the Nintendo Switch Indie World Showcase livestream with a first-look trailer. Axiom Verge 2 is due to hit the Switch in fall 2020, while Sports Story is scheduled for mid-2020 and Streets of Rage 4 will land in the first half of the year.

Those are just the big-name indie games. The Switch is also getting some new, under-the-radar titles, like SkateBird by Glass Bottom Games (late 2020), Boyfriend Dungeon by Kitfox Games (2020), Sail Forth by David Evans (2020), Liberated by Atomic Wolf (2020) and Murder by Numbers by Mediatonic (early 2020).

Murder by Numbers

Murder by Numbers looks like a mix of investigative puzzler Phoenix Wright and apocalyptic bird-dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend, but with robots — and there’s good reason for this. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney composer Masakazu Sugimori is doing the music for Murder by Numbers, and Hatoful Boyfriend creator Hato Moa is on design duties. Liberated, on the other hand, is a noir-cyberpunk adventure that plays out in the panels of a graphic novel, and Sail Forth is a neon-drenched ship-based romp through procedurally generated seas. Boyfriend Dungeon is part dating sim, part dungeon crawler, and completely cute. And finally, SkateBird is… precisely what it sounds like.

SkateBird

This is just a sampling of the 2020 Switch-indie lineup; Nintendo has 14 titles total on next year’s docket. Of course, there’s still time left in this year. To hold indie fans over until January, both The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition and Dauntless are available on the Switch today.

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Facebook tells US, UK and Australia it won’t weaken chat encryption

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If you soften encryption in one area, you soften it for “everyone, everywhere,” Facebook noted. The social network argued that backdoor access would represent a “gift to criminals, hackers and repressive regimes,” letting them pry in the messages of innocent people by exploiting weaknesses. As support, Facebook pointed to more than 100 organizations echoing its sentiment. It stressed that it would help law enforcement so long as the requests were both legal and didn’t “undermine the safety” of users, but it clearly feels that last part is in jeopardy.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and others have previously stated their objections to attempts to weaken encryption.

There hasn’t been a formal reaction to Facebook’s letter, but it’s hard to imagine politicians simply accepting the statement and moving on. Australia already has a law that requires access to encrypted material, and countries like the UK have proposed similar efforts. Barr and other American officials have also called for compromises on encryption. They’re convinced that allowing end-to-end encryption will let terrorists and other criminals communicate with impunity, and in many cases either don’t understand what they’re asking or believe that their desire for surveillance any overrides privacy concerns.

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The most expensive new Mac Pro configuration costs $52,599

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What do you get for that cash? Well, the 2.5GHz, 28-core Intel Xeon W processor adds $7,000 to the price, while upgrading to 4TB of storage costs another $1,400. (Apple says it’ll offer an 8TB SSD eventually, but that’s not available yet.) Right now, the top-of-the-line graphics option is two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo cards, each with 32GB of RAM. That’ll add another $10,800 to the sticker price.

But the real stunner is adding 1.5TB of RAM to the equation. That’s 12 128GB chips of DDR4 EEC memory, and it costs a cool $25,000. Adding Apple’s “Afterburner” PCIe accelerator card costs $2,000, and adding wheels to the chassis is another $400. Got all that?

If you’re interested in spending a house down payment on this Mac, you’ll need to be patient as well as rich — Apple’s store says this configuration won’t ship until late January. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to save up for that fancy Pro Display XDR monitor and its $1,000 stand, as well.

Mac Pro configuration

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Former Apple exec claims the company spied on his text messages

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Apple says Williams violated his contract, which barred him from planning or engaging in any business activities that are “competitive with or directly related to Apple’s business or products,” Bloomberg reports.

“This case involves a worst-case scenario for an innovative company like Apple: A trusted senior director with years of experience, and years of access to Apple’s most valuable information, secretly starts a competing company leveraging the very technology the director was working on, and the same teams he was working with, while still employed by Apple,” the company wrote in a court filing reviewed by Engadget.

But in that filing, it’s clear that Apple reviewed Williams’ texts and had access to his phone records. The lawsuit shares a text exchange that Williams and a fellow Apple engineer had in October 2015, and it details the frequency and length of calls Williams had with NuVia co-founders during business hours while he was employed at Apple.

Williams calls this a “stunning and disquieting invasion of privacy.” Apple, like most Big Tech companies, has promised to protect users’ privacy, so allegations it dug through texts and call records aren’t a good look. Though, we don’t know if the exchanges Apple detailed were from a company phone. If the texts and calls were made on an Apple-issued device, it’s not surprising that Apple had access to those records — but it’s still a bit unsettling.

The case is expected to be reviewed in court on January 21st, at which time we may learn more. Apple has declined to comment.

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Google Fi will warn you about spam calls

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The new features for Fi include a warning on screen if a call is suspected to be spam, which will be handy for those dealing with a deluge of robocalls. There’s also the ability to block particular numbers. The features are available on all Fi phones, including iPhones and Android devices.

Other new functions include the ability to call over WiFi to help in locations with poor cell coverage, and an enhanced VPN network for more secure connections. These features were previously only available on selected devices, but now they’re available on all Android phones using Fi.

The new options can be found in the Phone Settings screen of the Google Fi app.



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