Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Apple breaks out its 'best' apps of 2019

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It's Tuesday, December 03, 2019.

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

After a weekend of deal hunting, it’s time to get back to news, and Apple is ready to take a victory lap by highlighting some of the best apps released on its platforms this year. Meanwhile, T-Mobile has launched 5G service, and an amateur helped NASA find India’s crashed lunar lander.

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And now Apple has its own music awards show, too.

Apple highlights some of the best (and most popular) apps of 2019

As expected, Apple's event wasn't about heralding any new hardware -- it was about shining light on some of the year's standout apps. (If Android is more your thing, expect Google's own list of first-class apps to drop shortly, too.) Apple's selections this year run from artsy -- Spectre Camera helps people take long-exposure photos with their iPhones -- to practical fare, like Affinity's desktop publishing app for the Mac. Check out the list here, and mark your calendar for the first-ever Apple Music Awards on Wednesday night, headlined by Billie Eilish.

It hopes to deliver the first ones by December 2020.

Lunaz is electrifying beautiful but unreliable classic cars

Lunaz, named for the founder Lorenz's daughter, is currently working on two classic cars: a Jaguar XK120 and Rolls-Royce Phantom V. From afar, they look identical to the vehicles that rolled off the production line in 1953 and 1961 respectively. Under the hood, though, almost everything has changed.

Engadget’s 2019 Holiday Gift Guide

How to set up a phone or tablet for a child

According to Aaron Souppouris, "Every horror story about a kid racking up hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases is absolutely preventable, and, when used correctly, family plans and controls can serve as a solid way to educate your family on online safety, controlled spending, the power of advertisements and other aspects of digital wellbeing."

Save big on the best devices. And get them on the network more people rely on. It's a holiday wishlist come true.

Also new this week: 'Astronomy Club,' 'Truth Be Told' and 'Fuller House.'

What's on TV: 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and 'Silicon Valley'

This weekend, Silicon Valley ends its run on HBO after six seasons lampooning tech culture. This is also the week you can get Game of Thrones on Blu-ray either as a complete series or just season eight, which is also available on Ultra HD Blu-ray. Either way, you should finally be able to see what's going on in the Battle of Winterfell. Other big releases include Tiffany Haddish’s new comedy special on Netflix, the third season of Amazon's award-winning series Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Halo: Reach on Xbox One and PC.

The new tech could bring OLED-like performance.

iPad Pro and MacBook Pro could switch to mini LED displays in late 2020

Well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (who has a reputation for largely accurate Apple predictions) believes Apple will start using mini LED displays in its devices in late 2020, starting with updated versions of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (what, no love for the 11-inch model?) and the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

But wait, there's more...

1. Apple, Google and Microsoft sign letter backing Paris Agreement

2. Apple now owns Intel's mobile modem business

3. 'Super Mario Maker 2' update adds Link from The Legend of Zelda

4. Lil Bub, the internet's favorite smooshed-face cat, has died

5. T-Mobile's 5G network goes live ahead of schedule

6. NASA photos show the crash site of India's Vikram lunar lander

7. Apple's tap-and-go Express payments come to London public transport

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Monday, 2 December 2019

Editor's Pick: Tapping AI for a Future of Better, Faster, Cheaper Gift Shopping

Tapping AI for a Future of Better, Faster, Cheaper Gift Shopping

Rob Enderle
Dec 2, 2019 10:38 AM PT

If you are like me, every Christmas you dread shopping because figuring out what everyone wants is a bit of a nightmare. You don't know what folks want in your price range. If you find out, there is no easy way to be sure they haven't bought it themselves, or that someone else didn't get it for them. Choosing sizes and colors adds to the nightmare. These problems aren't limited to Christmas. [More...]

More Picks:

Health Tech Trends: Connected Devices, Telehealth, Independent Living Solutions
The U.S. healthcare industry is in the midst of transformation, including an overhaul of its information infrastructure from physical to digital, and the rise of informed and increasingly empowered consumers. Managing consumers' healthcare experience is no longer a selling point, but a must-deliver component of technology vendors' solutions. Adoption of connected health devices is on the rise. [More...]

Is Your CEO Committed to Delivering a Great Customer Experience?
Consumers have been adopting disruptive digital technologies in their daily lives at a rapid pace. Customers went from being limited to brick-and-mortar stores to researching, comparing and buying a company's products and services online. Along with those shifts came a change in how customers communicate with companies, and the need for positive, consistent and engaging customer experiences. [More...]

You've Come a Long Way, Linux-Baby
When Linux first emerged from its cocoon in a frenzied Usenet thread, it is doubtful that almost anyone imagined the project would ascend to global prominence. Even more astonishingly, its dominance was driven as much, if not more, by its adoption by the private sector -- although it posed an antithesis to its business model -- as by any of its other notable traits. [More...]

Consider Service Mesh as a Security Tool
If you're like most security pros, chances are you're starting to get frustrated with microservices a little -- or maybe a lot. Microservice architectures -- that is, architectures that leverage REST to build a number of small, distributed, modular components -- are powerful from a software architect's point of view. Want to make a change to a component quickly? Add new functionality? [More...]

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'E.T.' returns to sell you on Comcast services

Engadget Email Newsletter

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It's Monday, December 02, 2019.

Hey, good morning!

Welcome back to Cyber Monday, which already sounds far too dated to be used in 2019. As stores wring the last tenuous bargains and discounts from old stock today, the long weekend is over. According to figures from Adobe, those Black Friday sales got us good.

Get ready to have your childhood memories sullied.

Comcast revives 'E.T.' to hawk cable and internet service

Comcast has posted a short film that reunites E.T.'s namesake alien with human pal Elliott to pitch Xfinity internet and TV service. Yes, it's exactly as cheesy and hollow as it sounds. Expect to see E.T. struggle with tablets, voice remotes (we feel you) and VR. The ad tries to rehash the major themes of the 1982 movie in the space of four minutes. You might have to rewatch the original to erase the memory of this thing.

People spent $2.9 billion using the device in their pocket.

Nearly 40 percent of online Black Friday purchases were made with phones

Not only did shoppers stick to their phones to hunt down the best Black Friday buys, but they spent more. According to Adobe shopping data, we spent roughly $2.9 billion using phones versus 'just' $2.1 billion a year ago.

It was also a banner year for online Black Friday shopping as a whole. There was a record $7.4 billion in internet-based sales versus $6.2 billion last year, and people were more comfortable buying expensive items, with an average order of $168. Roughly the price of some true wireless earbuds, which surely everyone owns now, right?

An electric wedge of death might just intimidate speeders.

Tesla Cybertruck will join Dubai's eclectic police fleet

Dubai's police force is well known for incorporating supercars and other oddities into its fleet, but its latest might be the most eccentric to date. The law enforcement agency has revealed that it'll add Tesla's Cybertruck to its stable -- it claims this will happen in 2020, but that's clearly not happening when production doesn't start until late 2021. Commander-in-Chief Major General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri explained that this would help "enhance security presence" in tourist spots like the Burj Khalifa.

The Cybertruck, however, could be genuinely more practical than other fleet vehicles. The dual-motor version arriving in 2021 is quicker off the line than most cars, and the extra-tough steel could help knock pursuit targets off the road. With that said, officers had better hope criminals don't take aim at the windows... the glass might not be quite as resilient as cops would like. Never forget.

Make the holidays even happier with this LG Stylo V deal. Even better: it comes with the network more people rely on.

Scientific models might have to change.

Astronomers find stellar black hole so large it shouldn't exist

Just because there's a picture of a black hole doesn't mean astronomers have figured out how they work. Chinese-led researchers have detected in the Milky Way a stellar black hole with a mass so large that it breaks current stellar evolution models. LB-1, a black hole 15,000 light-years away, has a mass 70 times greater than that of the Sun -- previous estimates suggested that no stellar black hole would have more than 20 times the Sun's mass. Scientists expected many dying stars to shed most of their gas, making something this large impossible without readjusting theories. This could force a significant rethink of how stellar black holes are born.