Archives January 2023

Open source password manager Bitwarden has announced its acquisition of Passwordless.dev, an API that uses cutting-edge FIDO2 WebAuthn standards.

The deal is a statement of Bitwarden’s intention to enhance its service with passwordless compatibility such passkeys, a central offering that Passwordless.dev helps developers create for sites and services.

Apple has finally unveiled the HomePod 2, its next-generation wireless speaker. It features a very similar design to the first Apple HomePod from 2018, but with a redesigned speaker system that’s even more geared towards Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. It will launch at $299 / £299 / AU$479. It’s available to order today, and will be released on Friday, February 3rd 2022.

Also like the original, it features a high-excursion woofer for deeper bass, and an array of tweeters around its circular body – though this time there are five tweeters instead of seven in the original, and they’re now upwardly angled, which are likely to help with the immersion of Dolby Atmos tracks.

Automaker Nissan has confirmed suffered a data breach in June 2023 where sensitive, personally identifiable information on its customers was accessed by unauthorized third parties. 

The company has reported the incident to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, and began sending out breach notifications to affected customers. 

Google is strongly rumored to be launching its own Bluetooth location tracker to rival Apple’s AirTag and Tile this year – and it could take the little object-finding tools to the next level, for good and bad.

The reliable leaker Kuba Wojciechowski (opens in new tab) has unearthed a lot of evidence for the Google tracker, codenamed Grogu, suggesting that it’s both real and could arrive at Google I/O 2023. Like AirTags, they apparently have an onboard speaker for emitting sounds from lost devices and pack both UWB (Ultra-wideband) and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity.

When I first got my sticky teenage mitts on Final Fantasy 7, I wanted nothing more than to hear what these characters sounded like, I could see their words on screen but my ears felt left out. Thanks to an incredible new release from fan developers Tsunamods, which adds voice acting to the entire game, my ears can finally join the party.

Though Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake has offered a high-budget retelling of the first act of the RPG classic, the Echo-S 7 mod provides voice acting for the entire game. Echo-S 7 is available for free download on Tsnuamods’ website (opens in new tab). The voice acting is provided by the talented people over at Studio Still (opens in new tab), whose YouTube channel is full of impressive fandubs and voice actor showcases.  

PlayStation has announced its Under 20 Sale, and some seriously great games are up for grabs. Everything on this long list is under $20 / £20, so you’ll be able to fill your library while on a budget. 

The Under 20 Sale runs from January 18 to February 1, with PS4 and PS5 deals available. While Sony scatters smaller sales throughout the year, the next major PlayStation Store bargain won’t be until Days of Play in May. So do take a look at what’s on offer, as it could be the last major savings you see on PlayStation for a while.  

Apple has acknowledged two frustrating iOS 16 issues and is expected to roll out fixes for both in an imminent software update. 

Back in December, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max users reported (opens in new tab) seeing green and yellow horizontal lines flashing across their screens when booting up their devices. Now, according to MacRumors (opens in new tab), Apple has issued an internal memo clarifying that it is “aware” of the problem, and a patch is expected to arrive with iOS 16.3 in the coming weeks. 

The other problem relates to the Home app. The release of iOS 16.2 brought about the option to upgrade Apple’s smart home manager to a “more reliable and efficient” architecture, but that option was removed without explanation shortly after appearing.

Amazon has started the roll out of MGM+ – its rebranded version of the EPIX streaming platform – and it has big implications for fans of 007.

EPIX originally came under Amazon’s wing following the online retail giant’s $8.5 billion acquisition of iconic Hollywood studio MGM back in March last year.

Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics card has been sighted, suggesting that maybe the vanilla sibling to the freshly released RTX 4070 Ti isn’t too far off from arriving.

VideoCardz (opens in new tab) spotted a bunch of Galax marketing materials relating to the RTX 4070 Ti GPU – which as we mentioned, has just gone on sale – but the interesting bit is that two of the graphics card boxes seen have ‘RTX 4070’ on the front.

If you found that apps such as Twitteriffic and Tweetbot had stopped working, it wasn’t by accident. In one swoop, third-party apps for Twitter went offline earlier this month, rendering the efforts of many developers over the years pointless, and their loyalty to the company, shattered.

It’s another line in the story of Elon Musk owning the social platform since late 2022, where a bunch of decisions have either been heavily criticized or reversed, apparently depending on how he was feeling that day.