A customer holds a new iPhone 6. A customer holds a new iPhone 6.
Two very important things might be missing from the next iPhone, according to leaked pictures. The next Apple handset might have the mute switch that usually sits on the side of the phone taken off, as part of a re-design that is expected to leave the phone looking mostly the same, but remove the headphone jack from the bottom and the antenna lines from the back.
In what is claimed to be a leak from Chinese social media site Weibo, pictures confirm previous rumours about the upcoming iPhone. But they also offer the clearest look yet at the side of the phone - showing the new changes. Removing the mute switch on the side of the phone would be in keeping with Apple's apparent strategy for its hardware, which tends to focus on making it simpler and smaller than the year before.
It could also help Apple ensure that the new phone is waterproof - one of the reasons that have been suggested for the widely-rumoured removal of the headphone jack. It already removed the same switch from the iPad, encouraging people instead to mute their tablet by turning the volume all the way down with the switches or to flip the mute switch in the software's control centre.
Pokémon Go reads people's emails by accident
Pokémon Go had full access to everyone's Google accounts - but developers have said it happened by accident. Controversy erupted over the apparently huge amounts of data that developers Niantic were giving themselves when users signed up to play the game.
Registering to play Pokémon Go requires users to sign up with their Google account, which also contains Gmail messages and Google Drive documents. When users go through that process, they appear to hand over access to all of those files - apparently without ever knowing. But developers Niantic said that they haven't accessed any data other than “basic profile information”. It also said that it is working on a solution so that all of those permissions can be reduced and the game will be safer and less invasive.
Apple opens public beta for new iOS and Mac operating system
Apple will now let anybody upgrade their phone and computer to its new operating system after opening up its public beta programme. The company is letting Mac users install the new software, called MacOS Sierra, onto their computers and iOS 10 on their phones ? though advises that not everyone should do so.
Both will be made available through Apple''s public beta programme, which users can join at beta.apple.com.
Since the software is new and still in development, Apple advises that some applications and services might not work as expected. For the same reason, the company advises that people only install the new software on a secondary machine and that they take a full backup before they do. When the full version of iOS 10 and Sierra come out, users will be able to upgrade to it as normal. There will also be periodic updates to the beta software as Apple improves it.
China space station Tiangong-1 could secretly be hurtling towards
Earth China's first space station might be in freefall in space and on its way to crashing back down to Earth. The Tiangong-1 satellite was launched in 2011, and should have come back down to Earth in the ocean in a controlled crash. But watchers have said that it now appears to have gone freewheeling, with China losing control of it, and so it could crash down onto the Earth any time.
Like other lost satellites, it's likely that the freefalling station would burn up on its way back into Earth and come back down as molten metal rather than with a big crash. People have warned that it could still be a “real bad day” if the rocket fell back down to Earth, “but odds are it will land in the ocean or in an unpopulated area”.– The Independent