The best laptops for college students

We’re all contending with a return to normalcy, and going back to school likely feels strange yet exciting. Whether you’re heading to a physical campus, taking classes online or a mix of both, a laptop is sure to be the control center for your studies….

Engadget Podcast: Our digital privacy and rights post-Roe v. Wade

This week, Cherlynn is joined by senior editors Jessica Conditt and Karissa Bell to discuss the United States ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, and how, in our digital age, it affects the most vulnerable in our communities. Then, our hosts look at the Supreme Court ruling that guts the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enforce the Clean Air Act. In consumer tech news, we also look at Sony’s new PlayStation-inspired peripherals and Snapchat’s new subscription service.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

  • What digital privacy looks like post-Roe v. Wade – 1:41

  • SCOTUS nerfs the EPA’s ability to enforce carbon emission limits – 42:10

  • Layoffs at Unity, Niantic, and Tesla – 45:26

  • Apple is starting to allow third party payments in Korea – 49:55

  • Sony’s new hardware brand brings headsets and monitors with PlayStation style – 52:17

  • Snapchat + is membership model for power users – 56:25

  • Picks – 59:59

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Jessica Conditt
Guest: Karissa Bell
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

Chrome on iOS will be able to autofill your saved passwords on any app

If you store all your passwords on Chrome and use an iPhone, signing into your various accounts is about to get easier. The latest release of the browser for iOS (version M104) will bring the ability for you to set Chrome as your Autofill provider. It’ll also add new “enhanced safe browsing” and Chrome Actions to the app on iPhones and iPads. 

Many of this features are already available in the Android edition of Chrome, like the Password Manager, which uses data you’ve elected to store in the browser to sign into apps on your phone. Enhanced Safe Browsing, when activated on your iPhone or iPad, will check if websites you’re visiting are dangerous. Also, “Chrome warns you if your username and password have been compromised in a third-party data breach” when you enter your credentials into a website. It’ll then urge you to change them everywhere. 

Something that’s not yet available on Android is the first page when you re-open Chrome after awhile. According to Google’s blog post, “We’re making it easier for you to discover new content or start a fresh search in Chrome for iOS when you’ve been away for awhile.” This is supposed to make “it easier to browse content, start a new Search or easily get back to your most frequently visited sites” while still letting you locate your recent tabs. Google added that this “will also come to Android soon.”

Those who rely on Chrome’s built-in translation tools might find the updated language identification model helpful. Google says this new on-device version will help you “accurately figure out the language of the page you’re visiting, and whether it needs to be translated to match your preferences.”

Meanwhile, Chrome Actions will make doing things like clearing your browsing data or opening an incognito tab easier on iOS. You won’t have to go into the three-dot menu to hunt for those options anymore — you can just type a search term for the setting into the URL bar. “Delete history,” for example, will bring you to the page to clear your browsing data. And if you were looking for info on that setting online, you’ll still see the suggested search results below the suggested Action. 

Finally, Google also tweaked the three-dot menu “to be scannable and to highlight the most important destinations, such as your history, passwords and settings. The company said “your most commonly used destinations will be available at the top of the menu” and actions like creating Bookmarks or adding stuff to Reading List will be located higher up in the vertical menu. 

FBI warns crypto fraud on LinkedIn is a ‘significant threat’

If you have a tendency to talk to people you don’t know on LinkedIn, you may want to take extra care. According to a CNBC report, the company has acknowledged a “recent uptick of fraud on its platform,” and this time the scams involve persuading users …

Engadget Podcast: Google’s AI isn’t sentient but we must examine the ethics

This week, Devindra and Cherlynn dig into the story around Google engineer Blake Lemoine’s interview with the Washington Post and his belief that the company’s LaMDA language model is alive. What does it mean for AI (or anything else) to have consciousness? Do people understand AI, and what other areas of concern should we as a society consider as machines become more sophisticated and human-like? Then, we recap some of the biggest gaming news this week, as well as some wacky gadget announcements.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

  • No, Google’s LaMDA AI isn’t sentient – 1:40

  • First look at gameplay from Bethesda’s Starfield RPG at Summer Games Fest – 25:39

  • Capcom announces Street Fighter 6 with a gorgeous trailer – 29:22

  • Hideo Kojima’s next game will be for Xbox – 32:55

  • Overwatch 2 early access coming on October 4th – 33:43

  • US proposes legislation to ban sale of location data – 34:14

  • Sony released a $3,700 Walkman – 38:42

  • Working on – 43:13

  • Pop culture picks – 44:34

Video livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks
Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien

WhatsApp finally makes moving from Android to iOS less painful

If the thought of losing your tremendous trove of WhatsApp chat histories, files and other data has been keeping you from making the jump to iOS, you’ll no longer have to worry. Today, the app is adding a feature to help you move your content over, and it’ll be part of Apple’s existing “Move to iOS” tool. To be clear, WhatsApp’s feature is available as a beta for now, so you may encounter bugs during the transfer process.

To port your files over, you’ll want to pay attention to the Apps and Data transfer page while setting up your iPhone. After you select the “Move data from Android” option, your new iPhone will look for the Move to iOS app on your older device and create a peer-to-peer connection. Here, you can choose what apps, files, contacts and more to bring over to your iPhone, and starting today the option for WhatsApp will join that list. 

When you select WhatsApp, it will open automatically and prompt you to give permission to move your data over. Depending on the amount of content you have, it’ll take awhile to package everything up to transfer to your iPhone. Apple will also pre-load the WhatsApp icon on your home page so you can just tap it to finish installing it on your new iPhone, instead of having to go through the App Store. 

You’ll need to authenticate in WhatsApp when you first open it in iOS before the data is decrypted, but once that’s done you should see all your chats safely transferred to their new home. Once the migration is completed, you can also choose to back your WhatsApp chats to iCloud Drive to make upgrading to new iPhones easier.

The Move to iOS process will also look at the apps on your Android phone and see if they exist on Apple’s App Store. If they do, the icons will appear on your new iPhone’s home screen and you can tap them to finish downloading . This feature works for those using Android 5 and later, as well as iOS 15.5 onwards. 

Prior to this, WhatsApp users making the move from Android to iOS had to give up their chat histories (or find extremely convoluted ways to port their data over). Though this process still requires numerous steps, it at least offers those switching platforms a built-in method of transfer. Those who already made the move before today will unfortunately not be able to make use of this tool.

Engadget Podcast: Apple’s WWDC 2022 and the Surface Laptop Go 2

This week, Cherlynn and guest co-host Sam dive into all the announcements from WWDC 2022, as well as what it was like to cover the event both remotely and in-person. How did we (and our audience) feel about things that we did and didn’t see at the show? Plus, Sam tells us more about Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop Go 2, plus news on regulations around USB-C and our right to repair our devices.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

Subscribe!

Topics

  • WWDC 2022 – 1:39

  • The new M2 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro – 4:18

  • New features in macOS Ventura – 15:27

  • What’s coming to iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 – 20:13

  • Big changes to the iOS lock screen – 21:04

  • WatchOS 9 – 44:46

  • Surface Laptop Go 2 hands-on – 58:21

  • The EU reaches deal to use USB-C to charge all devices – 1:06:07

  • New York state passed a Right to Repair bill – 1:12:31

  • Working on –1:20:07

  • Pop culture picks – 1:21:12

Video livestream

Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Sam Rutherford
Producer: Ben Ellman
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks
Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien