News

How to share your real time location on Google Maps

Google recently introduced a location-sharing feature in the mobile Google Maps app that's somewhat similar in functionality to Apple's Find My Friends app. On your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Google Maps allows you to share your location with others for up to 72 hours, choose who can see where you are, hide other people's locations from a map and more.

In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll learn how to share your real-time location on Google Maps with friends and family in case you'd like to let them know where you are and when you’ll get there.

Researchers demonstrate passcode detection method that uses your phone’s motion sensors

A team of researchers from the United Kingdom's Newcastle University have demonstrated how criminals could steal your passcode simply by tracking the motion of your phone. Don't worry, Apple issued patches last year to prevent anyone from collecting sensor data, but Android users remain at risk of having their passcodes stolen if they visit a rogue website or tap a malware link. Although Google is aware of the issue, they're still looking into a fix.

Popular PC strategy title Total War: Warhammer is coming to Mac next week

Feral Interactive today announced that Total War: Warhammer will be coming to your Mac next week.

Filing as the first game in the trilogy, it was originally developed by Creative Assembly in partnership with Games Workshop and published by SEGA.

Feral has ported Total War: Warhammer to macOS using Apple's low-level Metal graphics framework. The turn-based strategy game is out now on Linux and will launch on Mac App Store next Thursday, April 18.

Facebook unveils group payments via Messenger for desktop

Facebook announced this morning that sending or receiving money between groups of people is now supported on the Messenger service. The social networking company debuted peer-to-peer payments on Messenger in March 2015. The new group payments feature, currently limited to users in the United States, is available starting today on Messenger for Android and via the company's desktop app at messenger.com. Group mobile payments will be coming to Messenger for iPhone and iPad at a later stage.

iPhone 3GS untethered bootrom exploit released

Today saw the release of a new bootrom exploit for the iPhone 3GS, an unpatchable vulnerability which gives jailbreakers total control of this device forever.

Although the iPhone 3GS is now very much a legacy device and few users will be actively using them, the rarity of a bootrom exploit makes it worthy of note. There have been no publicly released exploits of this kind since limera1n, which supported only up to the iPhone 4.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition gains Chinese Mythology mashup pack & other goodies

Microsoft announced today that Minecraft: Pocket Edition is gaining a Chinese Mythology mash-up pack along with a few other goodies and improvements, such as a free Redstone Mansion map available via a new Worlds section in the in-game store.

The new features are available at no charge to existing players and require Minecraft: Pocket Edition version 1.0.6, which is rolling today on App Store.

Instagram Direct now combines ephemeral and permanent messages in one thread

Photo-sharing service Instagram today announced an update for its direct messaging feature, called Direct, which now combines auto-dissapearing photos and videos along with your text conversations in a single thread. Previously, disappearing photos and videos were separated under their own Stories bar at the top of the Direct section. A redesigned Direct feature is rolling out today via Instagram's version 10.16 update.

Apple sues Swatch over “Tick Different” slogan

Apple has filed a complaint against Swatch in a Swiss court after the watch maker has used the slogan “Tick different” to promote its Bellamy quartz wristwatch with built-in NFC Visa payment technology. Apple argues that Swatch is unfairly using a grammatically incorrect slogan that bears too many similarities to its “Think Different” ad campaign.

Watson explains that Apple must prove that Swatch's slogan prompts an association with Apple products in the minds of at least 50 percent of consumers.

Tip: save storage space on your iPhone and iPad by clearing Periscope’s stored data

Clearing caches in your favorite apps is one of the many ways of saving storage space on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that may be lost to the cruft accumulated on your devices. We've already shown you how to clear Twitter's web and media storage as well as delete Dropbox's caches.

In this tutorial, we'll discuss how to clear any cached files in Twitter's Periscope app for iOS, which will help save that precious storage space on your device.

Minecraft’s upcoming update will let creators sell their skins, mini-games, textures & worlds

Minecraft developers announced on their blog today that a community Marketplace feature is coming soon to the mobile Minecraft: Pocket Edition game via an upcoming Discovery update. Marketplace will let Minecraft players and creators sell their custom skins, mini-games, textures, worlds and more.

At launch, Marketplace will offer content created by well-known community members, including Noxcrew, BlockWorks, Qwertyuiop The Pie, Blockception, Sphax, Eneija Silverleaf, Imagiverse, Polymaps and Razzleberry Fox.

Three major Apple suppliers have submitted preliminary bids for Toshiba’s flash chip business

In the coming weeks, Toshiba will unveil a final decision concerning selling a majority stake in its lucrative memory business. Bloomberg reported this morning that iPhone manufacturer Foxconn's preliminary bid for Toshiba's semiconductor unit is valued at a whopping $26.93 billion. According to Bloomberg's sources, that amount is in part to force negotiations, using a bid that's too high to ignore.

SK Hynix unveils 72-layer 256Gb 3D NAND flash memory chips suitable for future iPhones

Apple supplier SK Hynix unveiled 72-layer, 256-gigabit (Gb) 3D NAND flash memory chips based on triple-level cell arrays. By stacking 1.5 times more cells than the company's previous 48-layer technology, a single 256Gb NAND flash chip can represent 32 gigabytes of storage with two times faster internal operation speed and twenty percent faster read/write performance than a 48-layer 3D NAND chip.