WhatsApp’s latest privacy features include the ability to hide your online status

WhatsApp just introduced several important privacy features including the online status blocking option it recently showed in beta, TechCrunch has reported. The aim is to eventually make WhatsApp “as private and secure as face-to-face conversations,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. 

The new “online presence control” feature allows you to send messages while appearing to be offline. That offers another level of privacy over the ability to hide your “last seen” status from specific contacts, a feature introduced earlier this year. 

You can control the feature in a granular way, deciding which contacts can view your online status and which can’t. There are no limits, and you can swap people in and out at any time. The feature will roll out to all users across desktop and mobile, later this month. 

WhatsApp is also testing screenshot blocking for view once messages that disappear after a single view. When those messages were introduced last year, Meta said that you should still take caution as you wouldn’t know if someone screenshotted them. A new feature that lets you block such screenshots is now in testing, but the company hopes to get it to all users “soon.” 

With the final change, you can leave leave groups privately without sending out a mass notification to everyone else that you’re gone — though group admins will still be notified. That should save some awkwardness when it rolls out to the desktop and mobile apps, also later this month. 

Google and Sonos are now fighting over voice assistant patents

Google has sued Sonos, alleging that its new voice assistant violates seven patents related to its own Google Assistant technology, CNET has reported. It’s the latest salvo in a long-running smart speaker battle between the companies, with each suing and countersuing the other following a period when they worked together. 

“[Sonos has] started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. 

Sonos’ Voice Control assistant arrived in June, letting users give commands with the phrase “Hey Sonos,” much like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant. In the complaint, Google said it “worked for years with Sonos engineers on the implementation of voice recognition and voice-activated devices control in Sonos products… even providing its Google Assistant software to Sonos for many years.” 

The fight erupted in early 2020 when Sonos sued Google for alleged patent infringement after the companies had collaborated for several years. Sonos claimed that Google gained knowledge of its technology when they worked together and used that information to develop its own smart speaker line. The company filed another suit in September 2020, claiming that Google infringed on five more patents. 

Google countersued, alleging that Sonos was using Google’s search, software, networking, audio processing and other technology without paying a license fee and made “false claims” about their work together

In 2021, the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google infringed on five Sonos patents. That forced Google to change the way its speakers were set up to avoid an import ban. Most of those were related to the way speaker groups are controlled — for instance, users can no longer change the volume of a group of speakers and must adjust them individually instead. 

“Google previously sued us all over the world and Sonos has prevailed in every decided case,” Sonos’ chief legal officer Eddie Lazarus told CNET. “[The latest lawsuits] are an intimidation tactic designed to retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices.” 

OtterBox now offers $150 toward iPhone screen replacements

OtterBox is trying to differentiate itself from its rivals by offering up to $150 toward the repair of your iPhone screen if it breaks while using the Amplify or Alpha OtterBox screen protectors, the company said in a press release spotted by 9to5Mac. It’s available with the updated OtterBox Protection Program that also covers the case and screen protector, for a price bump of around $5 over the same product with Antimicrobial protection only. 

“Our robust limited lifetime warranty program already covers your case and screen protector, and the OtterBox Protection Program extends that protection to your device screen as well,” said OtterBox CEO Jim Parke. 

The extra protection is valid up to 12 months after purchase, and Otterbox promises that you can “easily activate and track coverage, and file a claim through the OtterProtect app.” The eligible Amplify and Alpha screen protectors with the coverage range from $40 to $55 — just choose the “Antimicrobial + OtterBox Protection Program” when checking out. 

The insurance won’t cover the full cost of an iPhone screen replacement, but it’ll certainly make it less painful if you don’t have AppleCare. As far as I can see, there aren’t many other (if any), screen protectors with similar coverage, other than a few niche offerings. The execution will also be key, but we should see soon enough if filing a claim and receiving payment is as easy as OtterBox says. 

MG’s new all-electric hatchback will cost just $31,400 when it arrives in the UK

Last month, MG revealed the all-electric MG4 hatchback with range of up to 281 miles (on the WLTP system). Now, we know it will be one of the least expensive EVs available in the UK with a starting price of £25,995 ($31,400). It’s set to arrive in the …

Samsung rolls out Android 13-based One UI 5 beta on Galaxy S22 smartphones

Samsung has launched its Android 13-flavored One UI 5 OS in beta for Galaxy S22 smartphones, the company announced. Much like Android 13 itself, most of the changes are minor, with some cosmetic improvements along with enhancements for security, notifi…

YouTube testing ‘pinch to zoom’ feature for Premium users

YouTube has quietly introduced an experimental feature called pinch to zoom exclusively for Premium users, Android Police has reported. It lets you zoom into the video player and then pan around to look at different parts of the screen, both in po…

NASA develops ingenious solution to fix its troubled ‘Lucy’ asteroid explorer

Last year, NASA launched the Lucy spacecraft designed to explore the Trojan asteroids trapped near Jupiter’s Lagrange points. However, a problem arose just 12 hours after launch — one of the large solar arrays designed to generate power from an increasingly distant Sun had failed to fully deploy and latch. Now, NASA has announced that a team was able to troubleshoot the problem sufficiently for the mission to continue — thanks to several clever tricks. 

Hours after the problem was first discovered, NASA pulled together an anomaly response team with members from the science mission lead Southwest Research Institute, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the spacecraft’s builder, Northrop Grumman. 

Since there’s no camera aimed at the solar arrays, the team had to figure out another way to find the problem. To that end, they fired the spacecraft’s thrusters to measure any anomalous vibrations, and created a detailed model of the array’s motor assembly to determine the array’s rigidness. They finally figured out that a lanyard designed to pull the array open was probably snagged on its spool. 

The team quickly honed in on two potential solutions. One was simply to use the array as it was, because it was still generating 90 percent of expected power. The other was to attempt to pull the lanyard harder by using the back-up deployment motor as well as the primary motor, hopefully allowing it to wind further and engage the latching mechanism. 

Both motors were never designed to work at the same time, so the team modeled it to test out possible outcomes and potential ripple effects. After months of simulations, they decided to proceed with the two-motor option. They ran both the primary and backup solar deployment motors simultaneously seven times, and succeeded in further opening and tensioning the array. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t close enough to latch, but it’s now “under substantially more tension, making it stable enough for the spacecraft to operate as needed for mission operations,” NASA said. It’s now “ready and able” to complete its next deadline, getting a boost from Earth’s gravity in October 2022. It’s scheduled to arrive at its first asteroid target in 2025. 

Virgin Galactic postpones space tourism flights again

Virgin Galactic has announced that its commercial space tourism service has been delayed yet again, from the end of this year until Q2 2023. During its earnings report, the company said that the delay is “due to the extended completion dates [i.e., delays] within the mothership enhancement program.”

The mothership VMS Eve is a crucial part of its launch system, carrying the VSS Unity spacecraft to 50,000 feet before it launches to the edge of space. The enhancement program launched July 7th with the aim of improving flight frequency, along with “reliability, predictability and durability.” 

At the same time it revealed the updates, Virgin Galactic announced that Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences will design and manufacture its next-gen motherships, expected to enter service in 2025. The company is also working on a new spaceship, the VSS Imagine, set to make a debut test flight in Q1 2023. 

Virgin Galactic had already delayed its first paid flights from Q3 to Q4 2022 out of an “abundance of caution” due to a possible flight control system issue. The next flight was supposed to launch three Italian Air Force members to the edge of space, to study the effects of transitioning from regular Earth gravity to microgravity on both humans and the environment. Yesterday, the company reported a $111 million quarterly loss and plans a $300 million stock offering.

Canon EOS R7 review: A strong start for RF-mount crop sensor cameras

Canon launched the EOS R7 and R10 APS-C RF-S mount cameras earlier this year, finally introducing lens compatibility between crop-sensor and full-frame mirrorless cameras. That puts the future of its current APS-C EOS-M line in doubt, however.Today’s r…