Ikea Smart Blinds Suffer From Second Delay

The Ikea smart blinds Fyrtur model have suffered a second delay. The after the first delay they were supposed to be released on October 1. But now the company says “later this year.”

The delay is already obvious to anyone who has been feverishly refreshing the US listing, hoping their local Ikea suddenly shows in-store availability. The blinds are on sale elsewhere. In the UK, for example, the Fyrtur blackout blinds are available for home delivery. Moreover, they’re also selling the less expensive, and more translucent, Kadrilj model that won’t be on sale in the US.

Kamala Harris Asks Jack Dorsey to Suspend Donald Trump's Twitter Account

California Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Wednesday, CNBC reported. She asked him to remove President Donald Trump’s account, highlighting a number of the President’s recent Tweets.

In a letter to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, the senator from California pointed to a series of tweets from the president referring to the whistleblower who filed a complaint about Trump’s July 25 call with the president of Ukraine. Harris said Trump’s tweets were an attempt to “target, harass” and “out” the whistleblower. Harris also pointed to Trump’s tweet that “a Civil War” could break out if Democrats successfully remove the president from office. She said the tweet suggests “that violence could be incited should Congress issue formal articles of impeachment against him.” “Time to do something about this,” Harris tweeted to Dorsey. She included Trump’s tweet calling the impeachment inquiry a “COUP.”

Google Will Tell Users if Their Password has Been Hacked

Google has updated its password manager to tell users if their password has been compromised, Wired reported. The feature, called Password Checkup, resembles those available from other password managers.

The feature, Password Checkup, is built into Google’s existing password manager, and tells you if you username or password has been compromised in a third-party data breach. Along with this service, Checkup will also tell you if your passwords are being reused across different sites, and recommend if your password should be strengthened. Password Checkup is built from a Chrome extension launched earlier this year. Google says the extension has been downloaded more than one million times, with nearly half of those users receiving a warning that their password was compromised. In the future, Password Checkup will be built directly into the Chrome browser by default – users will receive the feature without needing to install a separate extension.

Mark Zuckerberg Discusses Elizabeth Warren and TikTok in Facebook Staff Meeting

On Tuesday. The Verge published leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg talking to staff during an internal meeting. It has now published further transcripts. They revealed the Facebook CEO’s thoughts on a number of issues, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and TikTok.

Question: With the recent FCC fine, investigation, and with the rise of politicians like Sen. Warren, I was wondering how personally worried you are about regulators coming in and breaking up Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg: Well, I think you want to separate out a couple of things. I’m certainly more worried that someone is going to try to break up our company. Now, there’s a separate question about, at the end of the day, there is the rule of law — which, for all of the concern about the direction the country is going in, as someone running a company that operates in a lot of different countries, I have to say one of the things that I love and appreciate about our country the most is that we have a really solid rule of law, which is very different from a lot of other places around the world.

 

Siri Will Work Better With Third-Party Messaging Apps

Apple said that later this year an iOS update will enable Siri to work better with third-party messaging apps. If you use the assistant to send messages, it will default to whatever message you use the most, instead of defaulting to iMessage or Phone. You can currently use third-party apps with Siri but you have to specify “Send this message via WhatsApp.”

For example, if an iPhone user always messages another person via WhatsApp, Siri will automatically launch WhatsApp, rather than iMessage. It will decide which service to use based on interactions with specific contacts. Developers will need to enable the new Siri functionality in their apps. This will be expanded later to phone apps for calls as well.