Alaska News

Apple unveiled several new products last week, including an iPad Pro that should finally rival computers in terms of power. The new iPad Pro models are the first to ship with the same powerful M-series processor that powers the MacBook. The 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros feature the same M1 system-on-chip as the 24-inch iMac and the three new Mac models launched last fall. On top of that, the new tablets come with optional 5G support. If that’s not enough to make the iPad Pro stand out, you need to check out Apple’s new screen technology for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (5th generation). The bigger tablet comes with a mini-LED display that will offer the same performance as Apple’s premium Pro Display XDR monitor, which retails for $5,000. The new iPad Pro models are available for preorder now, and will ship in the second half of May . Before you get yours, though, you should be aware of the recent Magic Keyboard controversy and what it means. Thankfully, it turns out we have good news on...

An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s Starship rocket ship on the moon. (SpaceX Illustration) NASA says it’ll hold up on its payments to SpaceX for developing its Starship super-rocket as a lunar lander while the Government Accountability Office sorts out challenges to the $2.9 billion contract award from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture as well as from Alabama-based Dynetics. Dynetics and a space industry team led by Blue Origin submitted their protests to the GAO this week, contending that the award unfairly favored SpaceX. The three teams spent months working on proposals in hopes of winning NASA’s support for developing a landing system capable of putting astronauts on the moon’s surface by as early as 2024. The GAO has 100 days to determine whether the challengers’ complaints have merit, and if so, what to do about it. That 100-day clock runs out on Aug. 4. In the meantime, the space agency is suspending work on the Human Landing System contract. “NASA instructed SpaceX that...

Seattle startup Headset , which provides a business intelligence platform for the legal cannabis industry, announced $1.8 million in new funding. Headset will use the funds to expand into recently legalized markets. In the U.S., 16 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana for adults over age 21 and 36 states have legalized medical marijuana. In the past six months alone, half a dozen states have passed or are in the process of passing legislation legalizing marijuana in some form. Headset was founded in 2015 by CEO Cy Scott , Chief Design Officer Brian Wansolich and CTO Scott Vickers , who all previously co-founded Leafly, a cannabis resource platform. The latest funding was led by private equity investment manager Silverleaf Venture Partners with participation from cannabis-focused investors WGD Capital and Poseidon. Last year, Headset raised $3.2 million as cannabis sales surged during the pandemic . Total funding to date is just under $20 million.

Even before Apple unveiled the AirTag tracker , we learned that the company had built protections into iOS 14.5 to prevent AirTag abuse. iOS will warn iPhone users when it detects an AirTag tracker following them around so that they can disable it and prevent stalkers from keeping track of their location. An AirTag that’s been away from the owner for three days will also make a sound when moved so that Android users could discover it as well. Apple also explained that the AirTags were not designed to track children or pets , and the privacy and security features above explain why it’s difficult to track people using AirTags. But a nonprofit dealing with violence against women has identified one situation where the AirTags can be used to track unsuspecting victims without triggering the protection that Apple has in place to prevent stalking. Today’s Top Deal Shoppers are swarming Amazon to get the Roomba 675 robot vacuum while it’s only $199! Price: $199.00 You Save: $80....

Microsoft is previewing Azure Web PubSub, an Azure cloud service for building real-time web applications using the WebSocket protocol for two-way communication. Unveiled April 29, Azure Web PubSub enables developers to use WebSockets and a publish-subscribe pattern to build real-time web applications such as live monitoring dashboards, real-time location on maps, and cross-platform live chats. [ Also on InfoWorld: Why Microsoft Azure wins with enterprise customers ] Microsoft said Azure Web PubSub is meant to spare developers from significant infrastructure investment, setup, and maintenance tasks, allowing them to focus on user experiences. Implementing a WebSocket-based real-time experience would otherwise require a developer to set up infrastructure to handle client connections, establish mechanisms for on-demand scaling, and ensure business SLA requirements are met. To read this article in full, please click here

As of 2021, there are over 2 million apps available on Apple’s App Store. As such, the experience of browsing for new apps has become increasingly overwhelming, which is why Apple has introduced search suggestions in an App Store update this week for users in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Using the new feature is surprisingly slick and easy (two words I wouldn’t often use to describe anything on the App Store). Head to the Search tab in the App Store app and type a word like “food” into the search bar. After you tap the search button, you will see a series of suggested words scroll by near the top of the screen. Tap one of them — such as “delivery” — and your results will automatically be updated. With some searches, more suggestions will appear to help you narrow your search even further, like “Indian” or healthy.” Today’s Top Deal Amazon has real diamond stud earrings for under $60 — and reviewers love them! Price: $59.90 Buy Now Most of the bas...

Did you get an Apple AirTag and are not quite sure how to set it up? Not a problem! Pairing an AirTag to your iPhone or iPad is as simple as connecting a new pair of AirPods to your Apple account. Here’s what you need to know. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Which way will you go? Various Seattle routes and times are show in Apple Maps after selecting cycling-specific routing. (Apple Maps screenshots) For years, Apple Maps has lacked the cycling-specific routing that for a decade has made Google Maps the popular choice among bicyclists. Not anymore. With the recently updated iPhone software, Apple tucked a nice Seattle surprise into Maps , according to MacRumors.  Along with bicycle routing, the new cycling functions add elevation changes, traffic density, and off-bike features within a route such as stairs. App users simply click on the bicycle icon after seeking directions to a specific location. They can choose things to avoid on routes, such as hills or busy roads, and set cycling as a preferred transportation mode by default. While cycling directions have had a limited place in Apple Maps for a short time — Portland, California, London, and mainland China have been recently added — the addition of Seattle is a welcome improvement, sa...

iOS 14.5 finally rolled out to the public on Monday , and it is by far the most substantial update for the mobile OS since iOS 14 dropped last fall. It added an Unlock with Apple Watch feature that allows Apple Watch owners to unlock their iPhones while wearing a face mask, AirPlay 2 support for Apple Fitness+ users, support for the new PS5 DualSense controller as well as the Xbox Series X controller, a crowdsourcing feature in Apple’s Maps app, a ton of new emoji characters , and worldwide support for 5G in Dual SIM mode on iPhone 12. But the update train rolls on, and this Friday, Apple released the second iOS 14.6 beta to developers. This update will undoubtedly be a fraction as exciting as the previous update, but it will likely include new features for the Apple Podcasts Subscription service which is set to launch in May, alongside this new feature: “You can now directly update your iOS or iPadOS device to the latest Release Candidate without removing the beta profile. After updat...

The creator of the Have I Been Pwned data breach alert website is once again urging Internet users to check his site to see if their data has been caught up in yet another high-profile security incident — the incident, this time, being a botnet called Emotet, which the European Union’s law enforcement arm has described as “ the world’s most dangerous malware .” What happened: Emotet has been rampaging all over the Internet since 2014, but it was finally taken down by a joint law enforcement effort earlier this year between the US, Canada, and Europe. The botnet had ended up harvesting a few million email addresses, and the FBI thought the best way to let those people know about the issue was to give the 4.3 million addresses to Have I Been Pwned creator Troy Hunt’s service, which is regarded as a gold-standard resource for checking to see if your data has potentially been compromised or is in danger of being compromised thanks to the litany of leaks, stolen credentials, hacks, data br...

Zulily co-founder Mark Vadon in a rare appearance at the GeekWire Summit Mark Vadon is on the prowl for the next e-commerce superstar. Vadon, who previously co-founded Zulily and Blue Nile and served as chairman of online pet products retailer Chewy, is the CEO of a new “blank check” company called Big Sky Growth Partners that just raised $300 million via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker BSKYU, Big Sky shares fell slightly from its $10 offering price on its first day of trading, yet another signal that the red hot SPAC market may be cooling. Even still, Big Sky now has $300 million to go after a retail or direct to consumer company. The newly-formed SPAC, created in February, said it has yet to identify an acquisition target. “Our management team has an extensive network of founder, entrepreneur, board, C-level and venture investor relationships from which to source opportunities, and we believe that the experience and capabilities of...

Amazon Prime trailers are an increasingly common sight on Interstate 5, reflecting the company’s rapid growth. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Year-over-year quarterly growth of 44% would be significant for any company, but when the underlying numbers are this big, it starts to qualify as astonishing. Amazon’s first-quarter sales of $108.5 billion compared with $75.5 billion a year earlier, setting a new record for the Seattle-based e-commerce giant and providing a glimpse of its strong position as the world emerges from the pandemic. The company is easing its spending on COVID-19 initiatives, but consumers’ online purchasing habits appear to have changed permanently. The result : profits more than tripled, to $8.1 billion, from $2.5 billion a year ago. The impact of that structural shift on Amazon’s bottom line is the big takeaway from its first-quarter results, released Thursday afternoon . Continue reading for highlights, and listen to our commentary on this episode of Day 2 , Geek...

At 11:23 a.m. local time Thursday at Wenchang, Hainan Island, China launched Tianhe-1, the first module of a new orbital space station. It’s scheduled to be operational by the end of 2022. The launch, which went flawlessly, sets China up for a very busy next two years as it seeks to build upon the decade’s successes and follow through with one of its most ambitious space projects yet.  Although this project was conceived and approved back in early 1992, it’s finally coming together at a time when the future of humans in low Earth orbit is up for grabs. The International Space Station is heading into its final years. Russia may actually be leaving the ISS early to build  its own independent space station . And companies like  Axiom Space  and  Sierra Nevada Corporation  are aggressively pursuing plans for commercial stations as potential successors. “A space station is a space station,” says Namrata Goswami, a space policy and geopolitics expert and coauthor of Scramble for the Skies . ...

Nigel Barnett has spent his childhood designing, building, destroying and tinkering. He started with LEGOs, moved on to DC motors and circuits, then computer hardware, 3D printing, and now, in high school, a solar car. Someday he might take his love for building stuff to the International Space Station. A 17-year-old senior at Seattle’s Raisbeck Aviation High School, Nigel is GeekWire’s Junior Geek of the Month for April. The monthly honor, presented by Northern Trust , recognizes talented young innovators, creators and entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest. A STEM kid like many who have been nominated for Junior Geek, Nigel is particularly interested in the way stuff is built and moves. Learning more about physics and aerodynamics and engineering has only fueled that interest. “I find that learning new subjects is really cool because I get to look at everyday objects differently and I get to understand how they work better,” Nigel said. “Before, I didn’t really know why you would ha...

Roku removed YouTube TV from its channel store on Friday morning as a contract dispute between Google and the streaming device maker rages on. Roku initially threatened to take action earlier this week after claiming that Google was asking for preferential treatment and proposing other “unfair terms,” and now that the distribution agreement has expired, the YouTube TV app will no longer be available to new subscribers. For existing subscribers that had already downloaded the app, the live TV service will be available unless Google demands its removal. In an email to its customers Friday morning, Roku alleged that Google was proposing anticompetitive requirements that would “allow for the manipulation of your search results, impact the usage of your data and ultimately cost you more.” Earlier this week we learned that those proposals included giving YouTube search results more prominent placement in the UI and pushing Roku to include more powerful and expensive chips in its hardware. T...

The iPhone and iPad come with Apple’s own Safari web browser. Microsoft Edge is also available for these devices, and you can even set it to be the default browser. We’ll show you how to do it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Apple likes to maintain control over its platforms and products, which is why the technology giant has scuffled with everyone from Epic Games to Basecamp over bypassed App Store fees. However, Apple’s level of control is going to shift as progressive web apps increase in popularity. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) Allow Devs to Create Web Apps PWAs  allow developers to create web apps that operate like native apps without the need to download anything from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store. How Will Google’s and Apple’s Battle Over PWAs End? Apple maintains that apps need to be “ beyond a repackaged website ,” subjectively approving native apps based on their perceived unique value. While  Apple suggests  some developers turn their projects into PWAs, it’s clear that the tech giant prioritizes native apps. Google, on the other hand, actively supports PWAs through its open-source Chromium foundation and Project Fugu (which helps PWAs compete against native apps). PWAs are still a gro...

If you’re a Mozilla Firefox user, you can take a screenshot of a web page or a selected region directly within your browser on Windows, Linux, and Mac using a built-in tool—no plug-ins necessary. Here’s how to use it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

EU charges Apple in landmark App Store competition case Facebook to pay $5 mln to local journalists in newsletter push Real-estate vloggers are giving viewers an intimate look at pricey penthouses and massive mansions, racking up millions of views and subscribers in the process The world’s first dogecoin billionaire watched their stock soar to $11BILLION as the “joke” cryptocurrency boomed after Elon Musk dubbed himself the “Dogefather”. Phil Collins, Genesis Reunite For First Tour In 14 Years, Ending In Boston How the hunt for the world’s most notorious terrorist actually went down—as told by the people inside the room. Unrest from World’s Largest Volcano Prompts Alert from Local Authorities Roku pulls YouTube TV from its store, saying Google let contract expire Google Messages is getting a makeover on Samsung phones. Is your phone eligible? An Oracle exec’s brass-knuckled approach with a reporter leads to a Twitter suspension Aaron Rodgers doesn...

Docker gives you several options to manage your container’s lifecycle. Containers do not normally restart automatically after they terminate. With restart policies, you can take control over individual container lifecycles. Read This Article on CloudSavvy IT ›

If you need to quickly take a photo or video on your iPhone, you can swipe into the Camera app in a jiffy without unlocking your phone. Here’s how to do it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Apple’s professionally shot 4K cinematic screen savers are one of the best things about the Apple TV. If you’d like to use them on your Mac, you can get them for free using an open-source app. Here’s how. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

The time for self-driving cars is already here. A permit was awarded to Nuro — the state’s first commercial permit for self-driving cars — from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in late December 2020. This permit allows it to operate autonomous vehicles commercially on the roads of two counties. Welcome to the world of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, wherein soon everything shall be autonomous and automated. What’s Next? Machine Learning 2021 As per current reports, 65% of companies who are planning to adopt machine learning say the technology helps businesses in decision-making. In the article, we shall help you further understand and analyze these developments. What is Machine Learning? The current big data technology developments are churning out eons of data every second. But, what exactly should be done of this data if it cannot be well utilized well. Machine Learning ensures that the data patterns and processes thus created are utilized well to “train”...

That application crash need not be the end of the journey! Learn the basics of using GDB, the powerful GNU Debugger and know how to debug core dumps on Linux. Ideal for end users and debugging newcomers alike. Read This Article on CloudSavvy IT ›

Telegram is a convenient chat app. Even malware creators think so! ToxicEye is a RAT malware program that piggybacks on Telegram’s network, communicating with its creators through the popular chat service. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

For better privacy, devices running Android 10 or later use a randomized Wi-Fi MAC address by default. In some cases, you might want to disable this feature. Here’s how to do it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

VPNs are a big business worth billions of dollars a year. With so much money up for grabs, it’s no surprise that many VPN providers just aren’t trustworthy. So how do you choose a good, trustworthy VPN? Here are some telltale signs to watch out for before opening your wallet. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Bitcoin and the entire crypto space have had a spectacular year so far, and the 2021 bull run continues. Bitcoin, ethereum, and even meme coins like doge have climbed to all-time highs at various points throughout the year, and others are expected to continue to surge in the coming months. Increased interest from retail investors, the involvement of multiple institutions, the NFT phenomenon , are all factors that might have fueled the growth of bitcoin. The infusion of cash into the economy to prop up industry sectors and people who lost their jobs during the pandemic can also explain the crypto bull run. After all, when bitcoin goes up, everything else follows. Coinbase, one of the world’s most popular exchanges where people can buy and sell various digital coins, has recently gone public, with IPO documentation highlighting the impressive year the company had so far, thanks to the current bull run. Separately, PayPal started supporting crypto purchases on its platform for four dist...

A report said a few days ago that the European Commission would issue antitrust charges against Apple in a Spotify case. The music streaming service filed a complaint with the EU’s antitrust regulator, claiming that Apple’s App Store rules “purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience.” Spotify complained about Apple’s 30% tax for in-app purchases; the App Store rule that prevents companies from advertising any alternative payment options in the iOS app; and that Apple competes directly with Spotify via Apple Music. The Commission filed antitrust charges against Apple on Friday, finding that Apple “distorted competition in the music streaming market as it abused its dominant position for the distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store.” Today’s Top Deal Amazon shoppers are obsessed with the $30 gadget that opens your garage with your smartphone or voice! Price: $29.98 Buy Now The EU only issued the official Statement of Objec...

CRN published one of those slideshow articles revealing “The Most In-Demand Cloud Computing Jobs For 2021.” Spoiler alert: Cloud engineers are in the most demand, earning an average annual salary of $118,000. Of course, “cloud engineer” could mean many different things in many different organizations. Let’s just say it’s someone who knows a lot about cloud computing and is also a hands-on problem solver. [ Also on InfoWorld: Cloud tech certifications count more than degrees now ] The great thing about cloud computing is it has been in demand for the last 8 to 10 years, depending on what aspect of cloud computing you wanted to specialize in. As the demand rose, so did the number of those in and outside of IT who sought a cloud computing career path. I’ve seen teachers, cops, social workers, stay-at-home-parents, and those on very different career paths pivot to cloud computing, and most have done well. To read this article in full, please click here

JetBrains is taking its TeamCity CI/CD ( continuous integration/continuous delivery ) platform to the cloud, with the introduction of the TeamCity Cloud service. Introduced April 27, after having been beta tested by nearly 5,000 users, TeamCity Cloud is intended for software development teams who want to escape the burden of maintaining their own infrastructure. Based on the original TeamCity CI/CD server, the cloud service integrates with version control systems, issue trackers, IDEs, and cloud providers, with JetBrains taking care of updating build tools and installing security patches. To read this article in full, please click here

Kian Kelley-Chung was wearing a black T-shirt with the logo of his documentary and art collective on the day last summer when he found himself filming the Washington, DC, police during a protest. It was August 13, 2020, and Kelley-Chung had been recording Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the city for a couple of months. At this one, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, he saw an officer push somebody to the ground—and as he rushed over to film it, he says, he was shoved by an officer himself. Quickly he was trapped, or “kettled,” with a small crowd of people.  Kelley-Chung says that’s when an officer carrying zip ties said he had to arrest someone, before looking directly at him, grabbing him, and pulling him out of the kettle. Kelley-Chung—whose photos had been published in the Washington Post —was carrying multiple pieces of video equipment, along with his cell phone.  “I yelled out, ‘They are arresting a journalist!’” he says. Others in the crowd echoed his call, but he was shuttle...