The Swap Club believes you should trade your old tech in for a refurbished version. They even do the refurbishing for you: While they don’t reveal exactly how they do it, they told iFixit they rely on “specialized equipment and precision robotics” to make “Podswap” possible.

It’s a Swap Club cycle: The company sends you a refurbished pair of AirPods, then you send in yours within three to five days. The Swap Club then attempts to resuscitate those AirPods, performing the complicated task of replacing the batteries without breaking the earbuds altogether. They then clean both AirPods thoroughly, so you won’t be dealing with someone else’s earwax if that’s what you’re worried about.

You still need to pay the Swap Club for a refurbished pair of AirPods: $59.99 for a standard pair, or $49.99 for one with more visible wear and tear.

I suppose some cost is better than just throwing your old pair away. I wonder how much longer it will be legal to just keep selling "new only" AirPods? Battery sellers have often got to at least accept the old batteries for proper disposal / recycling. I did post a few months ago about one set of earphones which allowed battery swap outs, but apart from that, these devices really generate e-waste.

But with regard to Apple AirPods specifically... my first, and only pair, of AirPods I bought gave up the ghost just after 2 years old when the warranty had expired. I was pretty disgusted considering what they cost. After a while I did buy a cheap pair of wireless earphones, and I just realised, that many years later these cheap ones are still working. That now makes me super suspicious as to why the expensive AirPods just stopped working after 2 years!

So maybe what I'm realising now as my Aha moment, is rather buy cheaper 3rd party earphones. They'll last longer!

But what we do know for sure is, Apple won't change this situation unless legally forced to do so...

See https://lifehacker.com/this-company-saves-your-airpods-from-planned-obsolescen-1850302733

#technology #ewaste #airpods

This is hardly the first game to use history as its frame. But it's clear that the team at developer Petroglyph Games took its setting seriously. "We wanted to create that authentic World War One experience," says Chris Becker, The Great War's lead designer, noting that Petroglyph worked with London's Imperial War Museum to make their product as "plausible" as possible. This partnership can be glimpsed in the game's canvas – and its smallest specifics. On a strategic level, players are encouraged to appreciate the attritional nature of trench warfare, each attack incrementally denting their army's resources and national morale. Zoom in, and they'll notice the buzzing of biplanes, and how every shell blasts soil up into the air.

The Great War: Western Front is the definitive (their claim) World War 1 strategy game from Petroglyph, the makers of Command & Conquer™ Remastered & Star Wars™: Empire at War. Play a deciding role in history with this real-time tactical experience as you take charge in the pivotal Western Front from 1914 to 1919.

Pick your faction and lead your forces to victory, by directing your armies in gritty real-time battles and by guiding high-level decisions in turn-based strategic gameplay. Dig detailed trenches, research new technologies such as poison gas and tanks, and make decisions that will have a profound and lasting effect on your success. Think like a Commander to either relive history - or redefine it.

As Theatre Commander, experience enthralling turn-based grand-strategy as you direct the deployment of forces, perform research and carefully consider how you disseminate your resources across the Western Front in a war won by inches. Alongside this, take up the mantle of Field Commander in dynamic real-time battles as you direct units to defeat your opponent, build trenches and perform direct assaults by sending your infantry over the top. Pick your battles and fight them your way to shape the course of history.

The video at https://youtu.be/DoZ3aKKpDvQ gives a pretty good overview of what to expect. What is clear, though, is you can play at the strategic level with some really great animations you can zoom into, but you can also play tactically by laying out trenches, defences, etc.

Although the reviews on Steam Games are mostly positive, there are some issues, especially with the AI. Some lengthy reviews give some detail on some shortcomings, so it is always worth reading through the reviews before buying. A couple of game reviews have also started appearing on YouTube, for example, this popular one at https://youtu.be/z0or9cqxp10.

See https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230404-the-great-war-the-ww1-video-game-thats-eerily-accurate

#technology #gaming #WW1 #strategy

Back in early December 2022, news broke that a new company was attempting to achieve something that no one else done – Bring iMessage and its blue bubbles to Android phones. Granted, there are some solutions out there that “technically” allow users to use iMessage on Android, but they’re clunky and require having a host device running 24/7 to make it work. Yes, there is another app out there that promises iMessage on Android, but it’s currently closed beta, and we already know that it’s not going to be free when it finally arrives for the masses.

As you’d expect, Sunbird if very tight-lipped about how the app is delivering iMessage to users. They insist that the delivery method is 100% secure and doesn’t violate any of iMessage’s ToS. Speaking of security, Sunbird is touting that the app implements iMessage’s 100% end-to-end and that the only data stored on the company’s servers are the credentials for the Sunbird app itself.

Danny Mizrahi says that Sunbird has been able to scale while bringing the cost down to less than 60 cents per user. What is not clear is whether that is 60c per message or per month? But "cost" is not retail "price" so it will no doubt have to allow for a profit margin to be sustainable.

See https://chromeunboxed.com/sunbird-is-steaming-forward-to-bring-imessage-to-android/

#technology #Sunbird #iMessage

But then, two entire days later, Asus confirmed the device was, in fact, not an April Fools’ joke, and the YouTube channels Dave2D and Linus Tech Tips posted hands-on videos with the device. From those YouTube channels, we can glean a few specs, like a 1080p display, support for 120Hz refresh rates, and Asus’ claim that the device offers double the performance of the Steam Deck. While the company still hasn’t shared a price, it seems like it could be a really good product.

It is worth watching the two videos mentioned (links in the original article). It is good to see some more competition in this niche, but I wonder if the Asus version will be as open as the Valve Steam Deck.

See https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/4/23669875/asus-rog-ally-handheld-gaming-pc-announcement

#technology #SteamDeck #ROGAlly #gaming

Good to see there is still effective competition for Amazon. The main improvements though to this model seem to have been around the stylus, from how it attaches, charges, and annotates.

Along with the Elipsa 2E, Kobo also announced the launch of its own take on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, the Kobo Plus service, in the US today. The three-tier subscription grants members access to over a million ebooks and hundreds of thousands of audiobooks starting at $7.99 per month.

See https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/5/23669572/kobo-elipsa-2e-e-reader-tablet-kindle-scribe-onyx-remarkable

#technology #gadget #Kobo #ereader

With the tactile buckling of the internal spring and the click of the flipper against the capacitive PCB, the keys in IBM's Model F keyboards inspired today's mechanical switches.

IBM’s Model F keyboards are prized among keyboard enthusiasts. Introducing buckling spring switches over a capacitive printed circuit board (PCB) in the early 80s, they’re considered the grandfather of mechanical switches. Despite their prestige, Model F keyboards were no more by the following decade and, due to outdated technologies, have become very rare and can be tough to use with a modern computer. Targeting retro keyboard fans who don't want to deal with long searches, repairs, or mods, Model F Labs recreates IBM's Model F keyboards with modern OS support, and it recently introduced the iconic buckling spring switches in a classic full-sized keyboard, as well as some unique form factors.

“Much of the design follows in the footsteps of old Model F keyboards, though these are not exact replicas of a 4704 banking keyboard or any other old keyboard," Model F Labs' website says. "The firmware and hardware components are completely modern and do not use IBM chips or firmware."

See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/new-buckling-spring-keyboards-recreate-ibms-iconic-model-f-for-modern-computers/

#technology #retro #keyboards

Thanks to audio beamforming, speakers and microphones can overcome a variety of problems, such as unwanted noise or poor room acoustics. But beamforming is more than just an audio-enhancement trick, and it will completely revolutionize how we think of sound (if it is done properly).

Modern microphones, especially those that are integrated in smartphones, headphones, or smart speakers, use acoustic beamforming to remove background noise from your voice. The process here is pretty simple—one microphone listens to your voice, while an additional mic (or array of mics) focuses on background noise. The background noise data is subtracted from your voice in real-time, automatically boosting voice clarity.

But the most advanced beamforming systems are like magic. “Invisible headphones” is the classic example—you can use audio beamforming to send a “bubble” of sound to a specific part of the room. Anyone outside of this bubble won’t hear the sound. When combined with face-tracking cameras, this system can create a “moving bubble” that follows the listener.

So, it is a bit like active noise cancellation, but more sophisticated, as beamforming operates in a more 3D dimension. It certainly has a lot of potential for better clarity, less disturbance, etc.

See https://www.reviewgeek.com/146687/what-is-audio-beamforming/

#technology #audio #beamforming

The Mullvad browser’s main goal is to make it harder for advertisers and other companies to track you across the internet. It does this by working to reduce your browser’s “fingerprint,” a term that describes all the metadata that sites can collect to uniquely identify your device. Your fingerprint can be made up of simple things, like what browser and operating system you’re using, to more invasive info, like what fonts and extensions you have installed, and what input / output devices your browser has access to.

It’s possible to configure a browser like FireFox, which Mullvad browser (and the Tor Browser) is based on, to have similar protections. However, doing so would require at least some level of technical savvy, as you have to know which switches to flip and have the confidence that you’ve caught everything.

According to Pavel Zoneff, a spokesperson for The Tor Project, Mullvad browser is very similar to the Tor Browser, it just connects to the internet through a VPN rather than the Tor network. (It doesn’t have to be Mullvad’s VPN either; if you use another service you trust, or if you have made your own then you can use that.) Mullvad browser also doesn’t offer the Tor browser’s censorship circumnavigation user experience, access to onion sites or services, or “circuit isolation and the integration with new-identity.” But again, if you don’t know what those things are, it’s probably not a huge concern.

See https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/3/23665477/mullvad-browser-tor-vpn-privacy-browser

#technology #privacy #browsers #Mullvadbrowser #Tor

Steganography is the art and process of putting one type of information inside another in an attempt to hide it. This is often done in situations where an individual wants to preserve secret information inside normal objects.

Steganography is not a new innovation. Since the time of ancient Greeks, historians have written about how cultures used steganography to hide information in plain sight. To that end, one famous account was Herodotus’s story of Histiaeus, where he tattooed a short message on a servant’s bare scalp. It is now possible to insert an entire book inside a simple JPEG photograph.

This guide shows five of the best steganography tools currently available in Linux: Steghide, Stegoshare, Wavsteg, Snow, and Steganoroute. It also shows you how you can hide your first message using these utilities.

Information can be concealed inside image, audio, text, and even TCP ICMP packets. And the image, audio and text files would still open and be processed like their original file types.

See https://www.maketecheasier.com/best-steganography-tools-linux/

#technology #privacy #Steganography #Linux #opensource