Technology - Google News

How to Pass on Your iPhone Data After You Die - Lifehacker
These are Google’s likely ‘Pixel Watch’ watchfaces, complete w/ Fitbit integration [Video] - 9to5Google
Dell’s wire-free webcam could one day eradicate Zoom side-eye - The Verge

How to Pass on Your iPhone Data After You Die - Lifehacker

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 06:00 AM PST

Image for article titled How to Pass on Your iPhone Data After You Die — Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak

Our digital lives are heavily intertwined with our "real" lives, and Apple is finally starting to acknowledge that. The data that lives in our iCloud accounts is not only important to us, but also to our family members. Now, there's a way for our loved ones to access our digital data when we no longer can.

How Apple's Legacy Contacts work

Starting in iOS 15.2, iPad OS 15.2, and macOS 12.1, Apple has made it possible to assign a Legacy Contact who can take over your digital data in the event of your death. As this is Apple, it's all done in a secure way, and there are safeguards involved as well.

The Legacy Contact will require a unique Access Key and a death certificate (verified by Apple) in order to request access to your data, including iCloud Photos, notes, emails, reminders, health data, and your iCloud backups. They won't be able to access payment information and data stored in your Keychain (like usernames and passwords).

How to assign a Legacy Contact

For this feature to work, both parties need to be running iOS 15.2 or higher. After updating, open the "Settings" app and choose your Profile from the top and go to Password & Security > Legacy Contact. Tap the "Add Legacy Contact" button from the bottom of the screen.

Here, you can choose someone who's already added to your Family account, or you can choose someone else from your contact list. Then, tap the "Continue" button again.

Choose the "Send a Message" option to send the Access Key to the contact via a message. You can choose to print it as well. Tap the "Send" button to send the message. And then choose the "Done" option to finish setting up.

Once the person accepts the Access Key, they'll be added to the Legacy Contact section. You can add more than one person to this list.

How to edit or remove a Legacy Contact

You can remove a Legacy Contact any time you want. Go to Settings > Profile > Password & Security > Legacy Contact. Here, choose the person's name, and tap the "Remove Contact" button to get started.

How to access iPhone data after someone's death

If you're a Legacy Contact for someone who has passed away, you'll need to use Apple's Digital Legacy website to retrieve their data.

After opening the Digital Legacy site, click the "Request Access" button to get started. You'll need the Access Key, and the death certificate to retrieve their data.

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These are Google’s likely ‘Pixel Watch’ watchfaces, complete w/ Fitbit integration [Video] - 9to5Google

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 09:30 AM PST

The latest version of the Wear OS 3 emulator in Android Studio has offered a preview of what appear to be watchfaces for Google's long-rumored "Pixel Watch."

Back in May, at Google I/O 2021, the company launched an emulator for the newly announced Wear OS 3. While Samsung has since released the Galaxy Watch 4, which served as the first device to run on Wear OS 3, that smartwatch features numerous Samsung-specific modifications.

As it stands today, other OEMs like Fossil and Mobvoi won't have watches with Wear OS 3 until sometime in 2022. This leaves the emulator in Android Studio as the only way to experience what the stock version of Wear OS 3 will be like on future watches.

Over the last few months, Google has steadily updated this emulator with newer apps and software. Just this week, Android fans on Reddit showed that the Wear OS emulator had many changes from when we first saw it in May.

Digging deeper into this updated experience, our APK Insight team discovered a video within the files of Wear OS 3's emulator. The video appears to show a variety of watchfaces that will be available on an upcoming Wear OS device.

In total, 10 different watchfaces are showcased, including one that prominently shows the Fitbit logo. More importantly though, two of the watchfaces, pictured below, were also seen in internal renders of the Pixel Watch that were shared by Front Page Tech on YouTube earlier this month.

This strongly implies that this collection of watchfaces is intended for the long-rumored Google Pixel Watch. That being the case, let's take a closer look at each of the watchfaces and what they have to offer.

First up, we see a very straightforward face that simply displays the time as numerals, in pleasant shades of pink. The second follows a similar design, but complications surround the time on three sides with info about the weather, your heart rate, and the date.

The third face shown in both videos shows the time numerically, surrounding it with a step counter that gradually fills in a progress ring around the border of the screen. Notably, this watch face features a shoe icon next to your step count. This shoe design is identical to what is used in the Fitbit app today to represent your step count.

The fourth watch face artistically depicts something of a landscape, with the primary colors of the design gradually shifting as the sun moves lower in the sky. It's not clear if the sun moves according to the time of day, as the watch's displayed time never changes.

These are Google's likely 'Pixel Watch' watchfaces, complete w/ Fitbit integration [Video]

The next three watchfaces all appear to be variants on each other. They each feature the same design of a very thick hour hand, thin minute hand, and an even slimmer second hand. The differences come in the number of complications – weather, step count, etc. – shown and how the clock's numbers are shown, if at all.

The next watch face after that shows the current hour in the center, along with two rotating wheels that represent the minutes and seconds.

The second to last watch face puts the clock off-center, with three complications shown on the right-hand side. The final watch face shown in the video is one of the most interesting, as it features a prominent Fitbit logo and uses a color typically associated with that app.

Interestingly, these final two watchfaces are not included in an alternate version of the video found within the same location. So far as we can tell, this second video is for use outside of the United States, suggesting that these two faces – and possibly Wear OS's broader Fitbit integration, announced in May – may be exclusive to devices in the US, at first.

One thing that's abundantly clear from these watchfaces is that Google intends for the next generation of Android-powered smartwatches, including the Pixel Watch, to be colorfully and playfully designed. This could easily be seen as a continuation of the efforts the company began with Material You on Android 12.

More on Wear OS:

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

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Dell’s wire-free webcam could one day eradicate Zoom side-eye - The Verge

Posted: 15 Dec 2021 08:54 AM PST

Dell's vision for the future of webcams, the Concept Pari, isn't the kind that stays glued to the same spot on top of your monitor — it's one that offers a lot more mobility. Ahead of CES, the company showed off the webcam alongside its ultra-repairable Luna laptop concept. The Concept Pari doesn't just cut the wire — it adds magnets that would theoretically make it easier to place anywhere on your screen, which means instead of automatically giving people side-eye on Zoom calls, you could finally make some eye contact.

At first glance, the Concept Pari looks like the typical webcam that sits atop your monitor. However, Dell made it so that you can remove the cylindrical camera housing from its dock (which also doubles as a USB-C wireless charging station, letting you carry around the 1oz camera in your hand). The camera itself shoots in 1080p, has a built-in mic, and because it's wireless, is connected to Wi-Fi. Dell also notes that it comes with a vertical indicator light, helping you maintain alignment as you use the camera freehandedly.

What might be neater than its wire-free housing is that if you're tired of staring into the face of a soulless webcam during virtual meetings, the Concept Pari comes with a magnetic backing that allows you to stick the camera anywhere on your monitor (hopefully without affecting the display). Place the camera just above the head of the person you're talking with, and you should be able to comfortably maintain eye contact while actually looking at the person on your screen.

Drew Tosh, a design strategist at Dell, told The Verge that the concept cam works with displays that are "modified." In other words, this might mean that the Pari can only be stuck on specific Dell-made monitors that are also magnetic (at least for the time being). Tosh also noted that Dell has "explored various magnet solutions" and found "no evidence of damage" when using the webcam on its displays.

When you're done with a meeting, you can reverse the camera in its dock so that it's facing away from you, offering additional privacy when the camera's not in use. Dell says it will still charge when it's in this position. Although the webcam isn't for sale just yet, and very well may never be, it's a concept that doesn't seem too unrealistic to see a lot of people adopting.

Correction December 15th, 2021 6:40PM ET: An earlier version of the article incorrectly attributed Dell's statement to a Dell communications consultant, when it actually came from Drew Tosh, the design strategist at Dell. We regret the error.

Update December 15th, 2021 5:55PM ET: Updated to add a statement from a Dell spokesperson to provide more context about the Pari Concept's magnetic backing and its compatibility with other monitors.

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