Technology - Google News

Right now, you can get an Amazon Echo Dot for $0.99 - Yahoo Lifestyle
Apple: Use only our special cloth to clean the $1,000 coating on our $5,000 Pro Display - TechCrunch
Google Chrome 79 Brings Enhanced Security and Anti-Phishing Features - MacRumors

Right now, you can get an Amazon Echo Dot for $0.99 - Yahoo Lifestyle

Posted: 11 Dec 2019 06:38 AM PST

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Starting on Dec. 11 (while supplies last), you can get an Amazon Echo Dot for just $0.99. Yep, you read that right. Amazon's massive promotion is back and has brought the Echo Dot's price down to what you'd see at a dollar store -- and we have all of the details.

Shoppers can snag the smart speaker for $1 when they buy a one-month subscription to Amazon Music. For Prime members, that subscription comes out to $7.99, while for non-Prime members it's $9.99. So if we do the math on that deal, Prime users are getting one-month of unlimited access to over 50 million songs and an Echo Dot for under $9 and non-Prime users are getting the same deal for under $11!

Bring home an Amazon Echo Dot for $0.99

Beyond millions of songs to listen to, Amazon Music is always ad-free, gives you unlimited skips, has hands-free listening with Alexa and you can listen to your favorite songs on all of your devices. Talk about music to our ears... And while after your first month, your subscription will auto-renew for $9.99 per month, you can cancel or change anytime.

We've been fans of the Echo Dot for ages, thanks to its rich sound and compact look. You can think of it as the traditional Amazon Echo's mini-me, with pretty much the same capabilities, just smaller and more affordable. The Echo Dot has Alexa, Amazon's personal assistant, built right in too, so you can ask your device what the weather is outside, to set a kitchen timer, to play music and a ton more (your Alexa can even help you host during the holidays).

With over 65,000 reviews and over four and half stars out of five, it's not too difficult to figure out what people love so much about the device.

One Amazon reviewer shared that they "cannot say enough about this amazon echo dot. It is WONDERFUL. Loud, crisp, and knows my voice so well." While another declared, "I'm in love with this little guy," calling out its "unending entertainment and usefulness."

If you want in on this deal, click here.

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Apple: Use only our special cloth to clean the $1,000 coating on our $5,000 Pro Display - TechCrunch

Posted: 11 Dec 2019 06:53 AM PST

If you thought the saga of the $7,000 Apple Pro Display XDR couldn't get any more ridiculous, prepare yourself for the proverbial cherry on top: The company insists that you only use the single special cleaning cloth that comes with the monitor. If you lose it, you're advised to order another.

Apple, already under fire from longtime users for the ever-increasing price of its products, attracted considerable ire and ridicule when it announced the high-end monitor in June. Of course there are many expensive displays out there — it was more the fact that Apple was selling the display for $5,000, the stand separately for $999, and an optional "nano-texture" coating for an additional grand.

Just wait till you see how much the Mac Pro that goes with it costs.

Technically it's not actually a "coating" but an extremely small-scale etching of the surface that supposedly produces improved image quality without some of the drawbacks of a full-matte coating. "Typical matte displays have a coating added to their surface that scatters light. However, these coatings lower contrast while producing unwanted haze and sparkle," the product description reads. Not so with nano-texture.

Unfortunately, the unique nature of the glass necessitates special care when cleaning.

"Use only the dry polishing cloth that comes with your display," reads the support page How to clean your Apple Pro Display XDR. "Never use any other cloths to clean the nano-texture glass. If you lose the included polishing cloth, you can contact Apple to order a replacement polishing cloth." (No price is listed, so I've asked Apple for more information.)

Obviously if you're cleaning an expensive screen you don't want to do it with Windex and wadded-up newspaper. But it's not clear what differentiates Apple's cloth from an ordinary microfiber wipe.

Do the nano-scale ridges shred ordinary mortal cloth and get fibers caught in their interstices? Can the nano-texture be damaged by anything of insufficient softness?

Apple seems to be presuming a certain amount of courage on the part of consumers, who must pay a great deal for something that not only provides an uncertain benefit (even Apple admits that the display without the coating is "engineered for extremely low reflectivity") but seems susceptible to damage from even the lightest mishandling.

No doubt the Pro Display XDR is a beautiful display, and naturally only those who feel it is worth the price will buy one. But no one likes to have to baby their gadgets, and Apple's devices have also gotten more fragile and less readily repairable. The company's special cloth may be a small, even silly thing, but it's part of a large and worrying trend.

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Google Chrome 79 Brings Enhanced Security and Anti-Phishing Features - MacRumors

Posted: 11 Dec 2019 02:08 AM PST

Chrome 79 adds official support for the 2019 Mac Pro with 1.5TB RAM. You can now keep the whole two Chrome tabs in memory with such gigantic amount of RAM.

Would you rather... have Safari for Windows or be able to change the default iOS Browser?

Definitely ability to select default browser (and other default apps!). This is purely anti-competitive behaviour of Apple and if they don't do the right thing, I truly hope institutions like the European Union force them.

It's easy to move away from Chrome these days, Brave (Chromium) is currently the best browser. Privacy, feature & performance wise, UI not to bad either. Firefox has been greatly improved also.

All in all we wish we could use Safari for everything and that it's performance was really the best being a native app, sadly is lightyears away from that.

I think the biggest improvement would be to not tie safari updates to OS updates

I understand about the nightly builds etc but even for the official version

Still spyware for the second largest harvester of our personal information.

so who cares if it offers other protection. It's like the wolf offering bear insurance to the chickens.

Choosing a default browser would be so nice, chrome would not be my choice, though. I'm concerned about privacy with google.
Stick to safari due to convenience on iOS and macOS, but I love Firefox on Windows at work.

Isn't 79 the version that kills lots of anti-tracking and anti popup/advertising blocking plugins? uBlockOrigin etc..

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