Apple Pay launches in Russia

Apple's mobile payments service has officially launched in Russia, marking the tenth country where Apple Pay is now available. According to Reuters this morning, the service is available with support from MasterCard and Moscow-based Sberbank at launch. Users can add their credit or debit card to Apple Pay via the Wallet app on their iPhone or set up Apple Pay directly in the Sberbank Online mobile app.

Leaked photos and commercial show off Google’s Pixel smartphones ahead of today’s unveiling

As we told you, Google will be unveiling a pair of “Made by Google” smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, at a media event later today. Yesterday, British mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse posted a series of slides for the upcoming devices.

These images give us a solid advance look at some of the features of the upcoming smartphones. In addition, Rabid Rotty just captured on video a Pixel commercial that aired in Canada ahead of the unveiling.

Adobe releases Photoshop and Premiere Elements 15 with facial feature adjustments & more

Adobe today released new versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements for Mac and Windows with new automated tools, video collages, facial feature adjustments allowing you to change frowned faces into bright smiles with open eyes, a Photomerge Group Shot option that combines faces and bodies from a series of pictures to create a single perfect composite and much more.

Apple granted patent for a Touch ID sensor that could work through an iPhone display

If you've been waiting for the next iconic design since the release of the black-clad iPhone 5, this year's iPhone 7 probably feels like a slight disappointment. Apple is widely thought to have saved its best innovation and industrial redesign for the Tenth Anniversary iPhone next year which could embed the fingerprint sensor, FaceTime camera and sensors behind the display.

As revealed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Apple has now been granted a patent for a fingerprint-sensing technology that could work through the display itself, paving the way for an iPhone with the full-screen face design.

Let’s Talk iOS 155: Hiding the love

Cody briefly reviews the Steve Jobs movie, Sebastien explains why he got AppleCare for his Apple Watch, and discussions about Apple removing outdated apps from the App Store, the fact that the company logs who you contact on iMessage for 30 days, Swift Playgrounds, and the answer to a life changing question. All in this episode.

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Support Let’s Talk iOS: Get two meals for free from Blue Apron by visiting BlueApron.com/ios.

MinimalisticUI adds transparency across iOS

MinimalisticUI is a new free jailbreak tweak that aims to make the UI throughout iOS a little less noticeable while you peruse through content in various apps.

The tweak can be used to adjust the transparency and more of tab bars and navigation bars so that they appear to ‘fade’ away as you scroll up and down.

macOS Sierra is now available as an automatic download

Apple on Monday told The Loop's Jim Dalrymple that the free macOS Sierra software update will be available as an automatic download later today. This means that the software update will download in the background for Mac owners who have auto update downloads enabled in System Preferences.

Apple is being smart about the move and won't download any files to your computer if it's low on storage or does not meet the system requirements for macOS Sierra.

“Online Stores” dropped from Angela Ahrendts’s title, but she is still Apple’s retail boss

Apple's boss of online and physical retail stores, Angela Ahrendts, no longer has “Online Stores” in her official title. Instead, Apple is now referring to her role simply as “Senior Vice President, Retail” to better reflect its efforts to simply retail branding. Her reworded title along with a tweaked job description is live at the Apple Leadership webpage.

The change occurred over this past weekend. This is a purely cosmetic change: her responsibilities have not shifted and she is still in charge of all things retail at Apple.

Construction is underway for Apple’s $1 billion data center in Foulum, Denmark

In February of last year, the Cupertino firm announced that it will be spending to the tune of two billion dollars on the construction of two huge data centers in Ireland and Denmark that will make iCloud and other services more performant and reliable for European customers. As per The Copenhagen Post, the Denmark facility is located in Foulum.

Foulum is a small town located just outside of Viborg, a city in central Jutland that is home to Aarhus University and agricultural research facilities. Additionally, the iPhone maker reportedly signed a multi-year clean energy deal with Aarhus University on a new biogas research and development project.