New Tesla Model Y Unveiled

Tesla unveiled its latest vehicle Friday, the Model Y. The Verge reported that CEO Elon Musk bragged that despite being SUV-like, the vehicle «will ride like a sports car.» It will be available in the fall of 2020, with prices starting at $47,000.

“It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like a sports car,” Musk said. “So this thing will be really tight on corners.” The $47,000 long range Model Y will come first in the fall of 2020, and will have a range of 300 miles, Musk said. Tesla will also sell an all-wheel-drive dual motor version for $51,000, and a performance version for $60,000— both of which will also be available in fall 2020. The cheaper, standard range version with a range of 230 miles won’t be available until 2021, Musk said, and will sell for $39,000.

How Teens Turned Google Docs into the Must Have Messaging App

The days of bored teenagers passing notes around a classroom are long gone. However, it is not the likes of Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok that they now use to plot, gossip and flirt during class. According to The Atlantic, teens have turned Google Docs into the place to talk. The service is often used in the classroom and has a live chat function – quite a dangerous combination!

“We don’t really pass physical notes anymore,” said Skyler, 15, who, like all the other students in this story, is identified by a pseudonym. As more and more laptops find their way into middle and high schools, educators are using Google Docs to do collaborative exercises and help students follow along with the lesson plan. The students, however, are using it to organize running conversations behind teachers’ backs.

Security Expert Talks iPhones and Viruses

Security expert Maik Morgenstern talks about iPhones and viruses and how in theory an iPhone could get one.

“In theory, yes,” Maik Morgenstern, chief technology officer for AV-Test, told Digital Trends. “However, the practical hurdles are quite high, and it is unlikely for a normal user to get affected. But vulnerabilities exist that can be exploited by attackers.”

MWC 2019: 5G Announcements by Each Carrier

Digital Trends writes:

At Mobile World Congress, a spotlight usually shines on new and improved smartphones, and this year was no different. From the LG V50 ThinQ to the Sony Xperia 10, a number of handset announcements were made at MWC. But handsets are only part of the news from the show. Carriers made some big announcements too — especially when it comes to the deployment of 5G.

AT&T and Verizon are off to the races.

Spectre Camera 1.1 Adds More Stabilization Support

The developers of the Spectre camera app shared some news about their app. They added stabilization support for iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, and iPhone SE.

With Spectre 1.0, we only supported stabilization on iPhone 8 and later. Stabilization pushes your phone to its limit, and if it can’t keep up, it creates a noticeable drop in quality. We hoped to someday bring it to older devices, but wanted to under-promise and over-deliver.

Free Dropbox Users Now Limited to Three Devices

Dropbox has quietly updated the terms for its free Basic tier. Free Dropbox users are now limited to three linked devices.

If that’s too confining, you’ll have to shell out for a $10 Plus or $20 Professional subscription. You can keep any links you’ve already established, but you won’t get to add any more until you go below that three-device maximum.

As kind of an aside, because I use iCloud instead of Dropbox, I wonder how much Dropbox would be affected if Apple added the ability to share entire iCloud folders, instead of just individual files.

iPhone Crushed for Science

LONDON – For most people, having their iPhone crushed is the ultimate nightmare. Not for scientists at the University of Plymouth, Cult of Mac reported. The UK university put an iPhone into a high-powered blender to discover what chemical elements a handset is made up of. There’s a video too, if does cause you too much pain to watch.

The video does a good job of breaking down the precise quantities of elements which go into a smartphone. Where it gets particularly interesting, however, is looking at this figure in the context of the 1.4 billion mobile phones produced each year, Among other astonishing figures, that includes 52 tons of gold, 131 tons of silver, and a mind-boggling 10.2 kilotons of chromium. Unfortunately, a large number of these handsets are made using conflict minerals from various parts of the world.

Poor People Need Privacy As Much as Everyone Else

Elizabeth Brico writes how privacy might be turning into a luxury, and how poor people can’t afford the legal costs if their identity is stolen because of all the data breaches.

For her part, Gilman argued that many times, names and addresses can be enough to commit the types of identity fraud she has helped her low-income clients battle. “It can cost time and money to clean up the effects of identity theft because low income people are already living on the economic margins, any loss of funds can be catastrophic,» she said. «You have less privacy as a poor person,» Muentz added. «Privacy is becoming a luxury.”

Apple Suppliers Reportedly Gearing up For Next Generation of iPads and AirPods

Apple’s suppliers in Tawain are preparing to produce new iPads and AirPods. DigitTimes reported that Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are getting ready to mass produce the next generation of the devices. Those sources said that the new iPads and AirPods will also be unveiled art Apple’s March 25th event. It is though expected  that even will largely focus on services,

Flexible PCB firms Flexium Interconnect and Zhen Ding Technology are gearing up for mass production for Apple’s next-generation iPad devices, while Compeq Manufacturing and Unitech PCB supply rigid-flex boards for the forthcoming AirPods, according to industry sources….Both Zhen Ding and Flexium may see their shipments for Apple’s upcoming iPad models offset a slowdown in shipments for the iPhones in the first half of 2019, the sources noted. Meanwhile, the availability of Apple’s long-awaited AirPods 2 is seen as a boost to revenues at both Compeq and Unitech during the six-month period, the sources continued.