…hotel behemoth Marriott announced a massive hack that impacts as many as 500 million customers who made a reservation at a Starwood [Sheraton, Westin, Aloft & W Hotel] hotel.

The equal 3rd largest hack of all time behind both of Yahoo’s mega-breaches in 2014 (500m) and 2013 (3000m).

Information including guest’s names, addresses, date of birth, passport details, all stolen for anyone that stayed in a Starwood group (and potentially Marriott) hotel up until September 10th, 2018.

Credit card numbers have also been stolen however Marriott believes hackers don’t have the required keys to decrypt them.

Source: The Marriott Hack: How to Protect Yourself | WIRED

Meet Osmo Pocket, the smallest 3-axis stabilized handheld camera DJI has ever designed. In just seconds, the compact and intelligent Osmo Pocket turns any moment into a cinematic memory. Share your life anywhere, anytime.

The Pocket looks like they’ve ripped the camera off a DJI Spark and popped it on top of a handle-grip with a screen. They haven’t and the reason I know that is that the Pocket also does 4K 60fps video, which the Spark does not but besides that they look very similar.

The Pocket will set you back A$599 which is no small amount but when you compare it with top of the line GoPros (which don’t include any of the axis-stability functionality) and former Osmos it’s definitely coming down and competitive.

Source: Buy DJI Osmo Pocket – 3-Axis Stabilized Handheld Camera – DJI Store

…the wild world of influencer marketing, where prices and pressure are high, and hundreds of thousands of dollars change hands daily on murky terms, seeking sway over the posts in your feed

This is an incredible read that I found absolutely fascinating. In a world where every man and their dog has an Instagram account it appears the masses that follow these new-world “stars” believe almost anything they say as gospel and go out of their way to avoid advertising regulations.

A highly recommended read.

Source: Inside the Pricey War to Influence Your Instagram Feed | WIRED

Samsung showed off its future-phone concept under dimmed lights at its annual developer conference today in San Francisco. The phone unfurls to offer a 7.3-inch flexible display for reading, watching television, or multi-tasking with multiple apps.

Chew, chew…. you hear that? It’s Samsung’s PR hype train running at full speed down the tracks direct from 2019… or maybe 2020?

The demoed display was shown off under some heavily dimmed lighting for no more than 20 seconds, which yes showed the display nice and brightly but also hid the giant box that housed the prototype.

Samsung are telling us to expect the display to go into mass production next year and Google have announced their support for the “foldable” display format within Android but as to when you or I might holding one in our hands? Bet longer than shorter on that one.

Source: Samsung’s Folding Galaxy Smartphone Concept Bends All the Rules | WIRED

“We are going to be putting ads in ‘Status’. That is going to be primary monetisation mode for the company as well as an opportunity for businesses to reach people on WhatsApp”

WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels shared that little nugget at a conference in India overnight.

Targeted ads are to be inserted alongside WhatsApps “Status” feature – one that I didn’t even know existed but replicates Instagram Stories & Snapchat.

With more active users than Snapchat, which at this point I don’t think is too hard, the messaging service is skirting the line on their 2016 announcement: “you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication”.

Source: Money matters: WhatsApp to soon show ads in ‘Status’ feature – The Economic Times

Introducing the new iPad Pro, MacBook Air and Mac mini. Powerful tools to imagine and create amazing things.

The Mac Mini has been untouched for four years. FOUR! Today Apple took the covers off a new version with an entirely revamped set of internals that are impressive?

A quad-core i3 or six core i5 are behind the new Mini with support for up to 64GB of RAM. It gets USB-C, which Apple seems to be adopting everywhere now (including the new iPad Pro) as well as an option for 10Gb ethernet.

The Mac Minis are available to order now and start from A$1,249.

Also reborn, my personal favourite Mac, the MacBook Air. The new Air mirrors the Mini in getting a series of new CPUs and ports but like it’s non-Air brothers now gets a Force-Touch trackpad, TouchID and a much welcomed Retina display.

Different to Airs of the past the new version will only be available in a 13″ variety and is now bigger than Apple’s MacBook lineup at 12″. The decision further muddies Apple’s lineup and, at a guess, is aimed at making people who want the smaller footprint to move to a far inferior solution (in my opinion) and get an iPad Pro.

The new MacBook Air is available to order today and start from A$1,849 which will get you 8GB of RAM & 128GB of storage.

Lastly the iPad Pro got all of the leaked updates and features we expected. A new screen, the removal of the home button and the new A12X Bionic chip.

More exciting is the fact the re-released Apple Pencil now has a magnet that allows it to clip onto the side of the new iPad Pro. It’s also meant that bot the pencil and the sides of the iPad are now flat akin to the iPhone 6’s sides but with a god-awful lens bump.

People are making a big deal of the iPad losing its headphone jack but it’s really not that surprising to anyone – or rather it shouldn’t be. The inclusion of a Thunderbolt equipped USB-C port over Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector is a boon that hopefully proliferates across the iPhone and other iPads in the future. Another reason not to upgrade my phone it would seem.

The new 11″ & 12.9″ iPad Pro are available today and start from A$1,229.

And lastly Lana del Ray was there singing a couple of songs off her new album. Why? I’m not sure, why not I guess? Maybe that’s why the whole thing was in Brooklyn?

At least if she’s a “brand ambassador” she probably uses an iPhone already and we don’t have tweet around a photo from Twitter where she uses an Android phone or something.

Brand ambassadors unite!

Source: Apple (Australia)

…the three big things meant to set the Hydrogen One apart — its holographic display, 3D photo and video capture, and a powerful accessories port — all fail, and are ultimately the phone’s weakest points.

Ooooof!

Blurry display, slow SoC, oversized and accessory poor. There’s very little the folks over at The Verge could find to put in the “positive” column of their review.

Are you surprised though? The holographic-hype was real but I kinda bought into it – or wanted to!

Source: RED Hydrogen One Review: Red, dead, no redemption – The Verge

Most people can probably find a better way to spend $2250 than on infinite black levels.

Probably the most telling pull from The Verge’s hands-on review with thew new iPhone XR.

Despite its LCD panel, with a relatively low 326 PPI density, and single rear facing camera the iPhone XR is set to be what I think will be Apple’s highest selling model of the current generation.

Significantly cheaper, almost no functioning difference and what I consider a sweet spot in physical size sitting perfectly between the iPhone X  and the iPhone 8+.

Very keen to get hands-on with one and see how it feels in hand.

Source: Apple iPhone XR review: better than good enough – The Verge

At an exclusive event for twenty corporate customers at the Marriott Hotel in Shenzhen, China, Samsung revealed a new technology milestone that could enable the Galaxy S10’s radical new design: a display that allows front cameras to poke through without the need for a notch.

Samsung are said to have developed a display with four underlying technologies built into its AMOLED core that would allow the hideous notch to be removed and introduce a truly edge to edge display.

The four components said to be included are:

• Finger-on-Display (FoD) for finger print reading
• Sound-on-Display (SoD) which emits sound without speakers
• Haptics-on-Display (HoD) for localized feedback aimed at gaming.
• Camera/Image sensors for photography and depth sensing.

Speculation of how the screen works is the AMOLED being able to make areas of the screen transparent/translucent to allow sensors to operate beneath it, but little is really known beyond the single leaked slide below.

It’s also unclear whether we can expect the upcoming Galaxy S10 to include the display or not. It looks like, at this stage, the tech is in heavy development but whether or not its at a mass production level is yet to be seen.

All I know is that I’m yet to own a “notch” based smartphone and it looks like, given I haven’t upgraded again, I may never have that burden.

Source: Here’s How the Galaxy S10 Could Kill the Notch Forever