France Seeks Removal of 'Wish' From App Stores, Search Engines

The French administration wants app stores and search engines to remove Wish after an investigation of its products. They found that many of the products listed in Wish don’t meet European standards.

When Wish is notified that it is selling a dangerous good, those products are removed from the marketplace within 24 hours as expected. And yet, “in most cases, those products remain available under a different name, and sometimes even from the same seller. The company doesn’t keep any log related to transactions of non-compliant and dangerous products,” France’s Ministry of the Economy says in its statement.

Apple Temporarily Halts Sales in Turkey

Apple temporarily halted sales in Turkey following a currency crash in the country, MacRumors reported. While the site was functional, customers could not add items to an online basket or check-out. The move occurred on Tuesday, but remained true at the time of this writing.

Right now, Apple’s Turkey storefront is up and operational, but no devices are able to be added to a virtual cart or purchased at this time because of the volatility. A Turkish lira is equivalent to approximately 0.078 U.S. dollars at the current time, and its value has been steadily falling since last week. Over the course of the last year, the Lira has dropped 45 percent vs. the dollar. There is no word on when Apple might resume sales in Turkey, but inflation is close to 20 percent and with Erdogan continuing to refuse to raise interest rates, the downward slide may continue.

WhatsApp Working on Audio Message Playback Speed Controls

WhatsApp is seemingly working on a feature that will allow users to control the playback speed of audio messages, something that already exists for voice notes. iMore spotted the development on a WABetaInfo post. Audio messages seem to be becoming increasingly popular, so I imagine this feature will be a welcome addition on the widely used app.

Audio messages are essentially forwarded voice notes, but while the latter can have its playback speed manipulated by the user, that isn’t the case with the former. According to a WABetaInfo post, that’s going to change — and has already done so for those who are testing the WhatsApp beta release. “The feature to play voice notes using different playback speeds was a huge success. After releasing the feature on WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.9.10 and WhatsApp Messenger beta for iOS 2.21.90.11 updates, WhatsApp is now working on a new version of the feature, making it compatible with audio messages.”

'NeoFinder' Digital Asset Manager for Mac Updated to 8.0 Release

After almost two years of development, NeoFinder for Mac 8.0 has finally been completed today and is now available for download. It offers a fresh user interface with new icons, and added color options. The Metadata Editor adds the Dublin Core XMP Contact fields, autocompletion with recently used field values, and the ability to copy or move metadata between fields. The updated Map shows satellite imagery, multiple geotags at once, and edit geotags by just moving them. Navigation of large catalogs is faster by having the folders of catalogs visible and selectable in the LIBRARY already. Machine learning tools and AI are used for OCR, AutoTags, and face detection, and a lot more tightly integrated into NeoFinder. The new version is a paid upgrade for NeoFinder or CDFinder customers who purchased their license before October 2020. Licenses purchased after October 1, 2020 will get this upgrade for free.

Loopring's New Smart Wallet Can Help Recover Stolen or Lost Crypto

Loopring Wallet is a first-ever Ethereum smart contract wallet with zkRollup-based transfers. Gas-free, secure, and simple. It allows you to avoid gas fees and network congestion. It integrates Loopring’s zkRollup, a layer-2 scaling protocol to increase speeds and lower fees by 1000x relative to Ethereum mainnet. Completely self-custodial; only you control your assets. Say goodbye to seed phrases and paper backups, say hello to social recovery. Choose a combination of friends, your other wallets (hardware or software), or institutions as guardians of your wallet. If you ever lose access to your mobile, they help you recover your assets. As long as more than half of your guardians are trustworthy, your assets are secure.

Build a DIY Raspberry Pi Magic Mirror

Forget about a magic mirror that tells you what you want to hear. This DIY Raspberry Pi magic mirror can update you on the news and weather while you prepare for your day. All3DP‘s Jackson O’Connell has just published an excellent walkthrough on building your own smart, or magic, mirror using Raspberry Pi, common building materials, and a code repository that’s just waiting for you to make the most of it. It’s hands-down one of the coolest and most useful Raspberry Pi DIY projects I’ve come across.