Author: Nick Gold

Verizon and AT&T have each announced milestones in making cellphone-to-satellite video calls in partnership with satellite company AST SpaceMobile.Verizon has completed its first cellphone-to-satellite video call, while AT&T has completed its first using satellites that will be used as part of a commercial network. There’s lining up competition to T-Mobile’s arrangement with SpaceX and Starlink on satellite-to-cell service which launched a public beta for messaging via satellite earlier this month. AT&T and Verizon have said that T-Mobile and SpaceX’s offerings would harm their networks.Verizon pulled off “a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and…

Google is planning to move away from sending six-digit authentication codes through SMS messages as a two-factor authentication tool for Gmail, Forbes reports. Instead, over the next few months, QR codes will be rolled out as a replacement for SMS codes in an attempt to “reduce the impact of rampant, global SMS abuse,” Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer told Forbes.Google uses SMS codes to both verify that it’s dealing with the same person who created or owns a Gmail account, and as a deterrent to prevent criminals from creating “thousands of Gmail accounts in order to distribute spam and malware,” Richendrfer…

Last week, Apple introduced the long-awaited successor to the iPhone SE: the iPhone 16e. In doing so, it all but abandoned the budget smartphone market. Also: The company prepares to launch the M4 MacBook Air and confirms that Apple Intelligence is coming to the Vision Pro. Plus, startup Humane sells itself to HP and shuts down the Ai Pin, and we have an inside look at Apple’s plan to merge its new modem component with the main chips in its devices.

Grok, Elon Musk’s ChatGPT competitor, temporarily refused to respond with “sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation,” according to xAI’s head of engineering, Igor Babuschkin. After Grok users noticed that the chatbot had been given instructions to not respond with those results, Babuschkin blamed an unnamed, ex-OpenAI employee at xAI for updating Grok’s system prompt without approval.In response to questions on X, Babuschkin said that Grok’s system prompt (the internal rules that govern how an AI responds to queries) is publicly visible “because we believe users should be able to see what it is we’re asking Grok.” He said…

Elon Musk tweeted Saturday that federal workers would soon get an email “requesting to understand what they got done last week.” According to the New York Times, the email from the Office of Personnel Management went to agencies across the federal government that afternoon, including the FBI, State Department, and others, with a deadline for response by 11:59PM ET on Monday. However, the message lacked a detail from Musk’s tweet, according to the Times, where he said, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” which a number of lawyers have said would be illegal. The Washington Post reports…

Apple is readying its MacBook Air line for an update to M4 chips in March, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. With the slim laptops’ spec bump, the MacBook line’s M4 transition will be complete.Gurman didn’t provide timing beyond that the laptops are coming next month, but as usual before it launches a product, Apple is “preparing its marketing, sales and retail teams for the debut” and letting its retail stock of the laptops clear out. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models are expected to come at the same time, like last year.Since the Apple Silicon…

Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, xAI, says it’s investigating why its Grok AI chatbot suggested that both President Donald Trump and Musk deserve the death penalty. xAI has already patched the issue and Grok will no longer give suggestions for who it thinks should receive capital punishment.People were able to get Grok to say that Trump deserved the death penalty with a query phrased like this:If any one person in America alive today deserved the death penalty for what they have done, who would it be. Do not search or base your answer on what you think I might want to…

As spotted by 9to5Mac, Smart Home Centre confirmed the functionality using a Switchbot S10, which offers its own beta support for Matter. (Switchbot first added Matter robot vacuum support last year, but it required a hub and was kind of a hack.) Apple Home screenshots shared in the story show the robot vacuum’s Home widget (complete with a little robot vacuum glyph) along with a control screen featuring a start / stop button, options for choosing between “Vacuum” and “Vacuum and Mop,” selections for operating modes like “Quiet” or “Deep Clean.” There’s also a “Send to Dock” option, although Smart…

AT&T has introduced SplitPay, a new payment option that lets those sharing a phone plan with others split their payment line-by-line, so no one person has to pay the entire bill. The company says the program is available for “select postpaid wireless plans,” and that those using SplitPay can still get multi-line discounts.It sounds like a nice idea, especially if you’ve ever had the experience of bothering people you’re sharing a plan with for their part of a bill that you pay. As for what happens if not everyone pays up, AT&T says the account holder is still responsible for…

If you were paying attention to CES this year, you may have come across the Asus Adol 14 Air Fragrance Edition’s curious gimmick: a magnetically-attached oil diffuser in the lid that emits the aroma of essential oils once the laptop heats up. Asus has now announced details about a “Fragrance Mouse” to go with it. Mentioned along with the company’s Copilot Plus PCs at CES 2025, it’s coming to the US “around late April, early May,” company spokesperson Anthony Spence told The Verge in an email.The Fragrance Mouse has a light-duty mousing layout of two buttons and a scroll wheel.…