Technology - Google News

Woot! is practically giving away great Amazon devices during its latest one-day sale - BGR
YouTube’s updated terms of service states ‘no obligation’ to host anyone’s video - The Verge
Galaxy S11 giant screen sizes, 108MP camera and colors just leaked - Tom's Guide

Woot! is practically giving away great Amazon devices during its latest one-day sale - BGR

Posted: 11 Nov 2019 06:03 AM PST

You know about Black Friday sales and deals. The kind of days where you have to be at the store hours before it opens, only to possibly battle tooth and nail to secure the electronics you covet. But what about pre-Black Friday sales and deals, especially ones you don't have to stand in a crazy line for? Well, if you've been looking for some new Amazon devices, Woot! has been reading your mind and is about to make you happier than you are when you're enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers the day after.

Our favorite deals site is coming up clutch again, this time with a one-day sale that is blowing out different Amazon devices that will enhance your home and your holidays. Today, and today only, you'll be able to get some of the best selling Amazon items for a fraction of their regular cost. Whether you want to be able to enjoy unbelievable sound quality while listening to music with the Amazon Echo Sub, watch Amazon content around your home on the Amazon Echo Show, or control a smart speaker with your voice with either the Amazon Echo or Amazon Echo Dot, this sale is for you.

Each of the deals Woot! is offering is on refurbished devices that are in great condition. They may have some cosmetic imperfections, but all are in good to very good shape. But, since it is a one-day sale, you'll only be able to nab these excellent electronics while supplies last.

Speaking of deals not being able to last long, Woot! is sweetening the sale on the Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Smart Speaker. For Amazon Prime consumers, you'll be able to get an additional $5 off at check out, dropping that amazing price to just $14.99! It's actually a deal you can't beat! Those will definitely fly off the shelves, so to speak.

Here is a breakdown of what Woot! is offering on Monday, November 11:

Amazon Echo Dot (3rd Gen) Smart Speaker – Used

Meet Echo Dot – Our most popular smart speaker with a fabric design. It is our most compact smart speaker that fits perfectly into small spaces.
Improved speaker quality – Better speaker quality than Echo Dot Gen 2 for richer and louder sound. Pair with a second Echo Dot for stereo sound.
Voice control your music – Stream songs from Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, Sirius XM, and others.
Ready to help – Ask Alexa to play music, answer questions, read the news, check the weather, set alarms, control compatible smart home devices, and more.
Voice control your smart home – Turn on lights, adjust thermostats, lock doors, and more with compatible connected devices.
Connect with others – Call almost anyone hands-free. Instantly drop in on other rooms in your home or make an announcement to every room with a compatible Echo device.
Alexa has skills – With tens of thousands of skills and counting, Alexa is always getting smarter and adding new skills like tracking fitness, playing games, and more.
Designed to protect your privacy – Built with multiple layers of privacy protections and controls, including a microphone off button that electronically disconnects the microphones.

Amazon Echo (1st Generation) – Used

Plays all your music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more using just your voice
Call or message anyone hands-free with your Echo device. Also, instantly connect to other Echo devices in your home using just your voice.
Fills the room with immersive, 360? omni-directional audio. Play music simultaneously across Echo devices with multi-room music (Spotify and Sirius XM support coming soon).
Hears you from across the room with far-field voice recognition, even while music is playing
Answers questions, reads the news, reports traffic and weather, reads audiobooks from Audible, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and schedules, controls Amazon Video on Fire TV, and more using the Alexa Voice Service
Controls lights, fans, TVs, switches, thermostats, garage doors, sprinklers, locks, and more with compatible connected devices from WeMo, Philips Hue, Sony, Samsung SmartThings, Nest, and others
Always getting smarter and adding new features, plus thousands of skills like Uber, Domino's, DISH, and more

Amazon Echo Show – First Generation – Black or White – Used

Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things. Watch video flash briefings, Amazon Video content, see music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, browse and listen to Audible audiobooks, and more. All hands-free—just ask.
Call almost anyone hands-free, or make video calls to family and friends with an Echo Spot, Echo Show, or the Alexa App. Instantly connect to other Echo devices around your home.
See lyrics on-screen with Amazon Music. Just ask to play a song, artist or genre, and stream over Wi-Fi. Also, stream music on Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and more.
Powerful, room-filling speakers with Dolby processing for crisp vocals and extended bass response. Play your music simultaneously across Echo devices with multi-room music (Bluetooth not supported). Adjust the treble, mid, and bass levels with your voice.
Ask Alexa to show you the front door or monitor the baby's room with compatible cameras from Amazon and others. Turn on lights or the TV, set thermostats, control Amazon Video on Fire TV, and more with WeMo, Philips Hue, Sony, ecobee, and other compatible smart home devices.
With eight microphones, beamforming technology, and noise cancellation, Echo Show hears you from any direction—even while music is playing
Always getting smarter and adding new features, plus thousands of skills like Uber, Allrecipes, CNN, and more

Amazon Alexa Voice Remote for Echo & Dot – Used

Official remote for Amazon Echo and Echo Dot (Not compatible with Amazon Tap)
Connects to Amazon Echo and Echo Dot via Bluetooth
Includes an integrated microphone for when you are too far away or it's too noisy for Echo to hear you
Dedicated buttons for volume up, volume down, play/pause, previous, and next
Amazon Echo and Echo Dot work with one remote at a time

Amazon Echo Sub – Used

Echo Sub delivers down-firing, 100W deep bass sound through a 6″ woofer.
Pair with one Echo or Echo Plus (sold separately) to enjoy dynamic music that fills the room.
Pair with two of the same Echo devices for rich left/right stereo sound.
Simple to set up and use—just plug in, open the Alexa app, and wirelessly connect to your Echo device(s) to control music with your voice.

Follow @BGRDeals on Twitter to keep up with the latest and greatest deals from around the web. Quantities may be limited. Prices are subject to change without notice and coupons may expire at any time. Some deals may not be available to all customers. BGR may receive a commission on orders placed through this article.

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YouTube’s updated terms of service states ‘no obligation’ to host anyone’s video - The Verge

Posted: 11 Nov 2019 06:53 AM PST

YouTube is rolling out updated terms of service on December 10th, and a new line acts as a reminder that the company doesn't have to keep any video up that it doesn't want to.

"YouTube is under no obligation to host or serve content," the new terms of service policy reads.

It's another way of saying that just because YouTube is a relatively open platform, it doesn't mean that the company is required to keep videos up.

YouTube has faced criticism from all sides over its video removal process. Some critics argue that YouTube could do more to take down videos that butt up against the company's rules but don't outright violate them; others argue that YouTube ought to be a fully open platform and shouldn't control what remains up and what doesn't. Executives have long defended the platform as a champion of free speech, but have started to clamp down on the type of videos allowed to circulate.

Companies update their terms of service all the time — this is YouTube's third change just in 2019. These latest updates seemingly coincide with upcoming changes YouTube will make in accordance with new Federal Trade Commission guidelines for YouTube, although a YouTube rep denies these changes were made because of the FTC ruling.

Specifically, many of the updates center around who's using the platform and protection for children. In September, the Federal Trade Commission issued a $170 million fine against Google for alleged violations of the children's online privacy protection act (COPPA). YouTube also agreed to make changes to further protect children's privacy and comply with the law.

The terms of service now come with an updated section on parental responsibility when children use the platform, and have more clearly stated the age requirements per country for using YouTube. This also includes a notice stating "if you are a minor in your country, you must always have your parent or guardian's permission before using the service."

YouTube said the terms of service are being changed "in order to make them easier to read and to ensure they're up to date," a spokesperson told The Verge.

"We're not changing the way our products work, how we collect or process data, or any of your settings," the spokesperson added.

Other changes just seem to give YouTube more power. One of the most controversial clauses that creators have tweeted about since YouTube began alerting people to the upcoming changes has to do with termination. Various YouTubers have tweeted out a segment from the terms of service that states "YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account's access to all or part of the service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the service to you is no longer commercially viable." Some creators have read this as saying that YouTube can simply terminate channels and accounts if they're not earning revenue.

A version of that line has been in YouTube's terms of service since early 2018, however. This update just modifies the wording to give YouTube more leeway to make the determination. It now says that YouTube has the "sole discretion" to terminate an account, whereas before it said that YouTube must "reasonably believe" it should do so. A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge that the company is "also not changing how we work with creators, nor their rights over their works, or their right to monetize."

Update (November 11th, 10:05am ET): The story has been updated to include additional comment from YouTube about monetization concerns from creators.

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Galaxy S11 giant screen sizes, 108MP camera and colors just leaked - Tom's Guide

Posted: 11 Nov 2019 02:55 AM PST

A new leak says that all of the Samsung Galaxy S11 phones will come in even bigger sizes than the S10 line, reaching up a skateboard-worthy 6.9 inches for the S11 Plus, which will come only as a 5G phone. Moreover, software leaks confirm they will come with an oversized 108MP camera sensor.

The screen size leak — which is new and not in the latest batch of features — comes from reliable leakster Evan Blass. He claims that the Galaxy S11 will start at 6.4 inches in the S11e, 6.7 inches for the Galaxy S11, and 6.9 inches for the Galaxy S11 Plus.

Compare that to the current Galaxy S10 line up: 5.8, 6.1 and 6.4 inches. Yes, according to Blass, the Galaxy S11 will start where the Galaxy S10 Plus left it. Phablet, shmablet. According to Blass, the S11 Plus will come with 5G connectivity standard, while there will be two models for both the S11e and the S11: one LTE/4G only and the other one with the addition of 5G.

If confirmed, the Samsung Galaxy S11 line will have yet another feature to beat the iPhone 12 — if you are into giant screens, anyway. The other features are SpaceZoom — which will allegedly provide a crystal clear 50x hybrid zoom — an in-display hidden selfie camera (although other rumors say that the camera hole will just get smaller) a 120Hz super-smooth display, a giant 500mAh battery, and the aforementioned 108-megapixel camera sensor.

108MP camera mode confirmed

According to XDA Developers, the Samsung Camera app code has a 108MP photo mode. Max Weinbach found out that the latest version of the camera software in the One UI 2.0 beta — Samsung's flavor of Android 10 — contains support for 12,000 x 9,000 pixel images. In other words: 108 megapixels.

XDA Developers claim that the camera software will most likely not output at that resolution by default. Instead, it will choose to group the pixels in the Isocell Bright HMX sensor in clusters of 4 o 9 pixels, saving 27MP or 12MP photos. That will dramatically increase the light sensitivity of the device.

The Isocell Bright HMX has a larger surface than any other sensor in the market, which in theory means it will be able to capture more light than all the competition — especifically from the Sony sensors found in the iPhone and Huawei phones. Sony is reportedly working on a much larger chip to compete with the Samsung sensor, dubbed the IMX686.

Bonus rumor: Galaxy S11e and S11 colors

According to another reliable leakster — Ishan Agarwal — the Samsung Galaxy S11e will come in blue, grey and pink and the S11 will come in at least blue, grey and black.

The Samsung Galaxy S11 will likely appear around February 2020, so it makes sense that the rumors keep increasing in detail and size. See our Galaxy S11 rumor hub to see all the latest leaks in one place.

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