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Some new HomePod owners are hitting a problem that prevents them from setting up the device. During the initial set up, one of the popup screens is simply blank with seemingly no way out but to cancel the process. It turns out there’s an amusing bug causing this, but luckily there’s a simple fix … HomePod works best with an Apple Music subscription, but it is not required. This bug affects people who don’t use Apple Music at all, so they have deleted the system stock Music app entirely....

This Monday, HomePod completes one month as a discontinued Apple product. Different than the iMac Pro, which vanished from the store within 13 days, the white HomePod is still being sold almost everywhere in the U.S. It was March 12 when Apple announced that the original HomePod would be discontinued, as it shifted its focus to the HomePod mini. Here’s what the company said back then: At that time, the Space Gray HomePod was already gone, but the white one remained on the Apple Online Store and in most Apple retail stores....

If you are in the market for a desktop or NAS/Server hard drive, you’ve no doubt been checking out some of the 2TB drives pictured above. HotHardware just reviewed most of the majors in the market from Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung. There are 10 pages of hard drive testing glory, but like a lot of people, we’re most interested in the results: Ultimately, our picks for each class of drive are as follows....

Facebook Messenger has a way of showing when someone is active on the platform. You’ve probably seen the green dot on Facebook Messenger and concluded that the person is active. The main question is, “how accurate is Facebook Messenger’s active status?” People have reported different experiences when using the active status on Facebook Messenger, and today we will dig into the details and facts. We will understand the active status on Facebook Messenger and how to know when someone is active....

James Cameron had already worked on his Avatar sequel trilogy for close to seven years when he took the stage at the 2016 CinemaCon in Las Vegas, in order to announce that he now has four new Avatar movies in the pipeline - the first of which is tentatively set to arrive in December 2018. The news wasn’t completely unexpected for those who’ve closely followed development on the Avatar sequels; it was Cameron’s frequent collaborator James Horner who, just a couple of months before his death in 2015, revealed that the filmmaker had enough script and story material to fill four new Avatar movies....

The video game movie curse has finally been broken, and all it took was Ryan Reynolds voicing a bright, yellow, crime-solving creature in Detective Pikachu. Based on the Nintendo 3DS title of the same name, there was an initial air of skepticism surrounding Detective Pikachu, the first live-action movie from the Pokémon franchise, with many wondering why a relatively niche title would be adapted instead of the more recognizable “Ash Ketchum” story....

With all the hubbub surrounding Twitter, other apps are trying to capitalize. A German app called Mastodon is emerging as one of the most popular Twitter replacements. Tap or click here for more on Mastodon and why you may consider making the switch. If you’re ready to leave Twitter, you’re probably thinking of just deleting it and moving on. That would be the obvious choice. But it turns out that this might not be the best move....

An alternate take on Peter’s homemade costume in Spider-Man: Homecoming drew inspiration from the original Scarlet Spider. While War for the Planet of the Apes may win this weekend, Spider-Man: Homecoming is still going strong in theaters. Thanks to its near-universal critical acclaim and its massive global opening last week, Homecoming is a much needed hit for Sony and another win for Marvel Studios. While Peter’s appearance in Civil War was a lot of fun, Homecoming has proven that Spider-Man is an essential part of the MCU....

Crowdfunding website Kickstarter has made some amazing things happen. While mostly used by unknown artists and inventors to fund all kinds of projects, there have been a few times when certain projects have made headlines. Some of them have been kind of silly, such as the kid who tried to raise $10 to make a potato salad and ended up raising $55,492. And some have made millions, such as the Veronica Mars movie and bringing Reading Rainbow to every child....

This is absolutely exciting news – Google has just announced the launch of Google Operating System – Google Chrome OS. Microsoft has always targeted Google’s search business and had recently started BING search engine to cut into Google’s revenue considerably. And now, Google has struck a super-blow with the announcement of Google Chrome OS. What is Google Chrome OS? Quoting directly from the Google blog- Also Read: Google Chrome OS : Windows Killer or Google Killer?...

But is it real? Is there an actual skills gap? It can’t be for lack of humans to do jobs — the world population is around 7.8 billion as of December 2019. And it can’t be for lack of education, either. Around 1.8% of the U.S. population has a Ph.D., and almost 21% have a bachelor’s degree. As a SHRM report pointed out, in the U.S., “7 million jobs were open in December 2018, but only 6....

In February of 2020, Maroon 5 is trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. The iconic pop band has had a rough go in the public spotlight these last few years, after attaining social media infamy for headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Now they’ve managed to court criticism for another questionable performance. The band was scheduled to headline the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile. The Festival has a long history of performances from both world-renowned artists and budding stars (Shakira famously placed 3rd competing in a singing contest at the festival in her youth)....

The first version’s name was the Java Alpha Beta version in 1995. Java Development Kit, also called JDK, was first introduced in 1996. When Sun Microsystems released the first version of Java in 1996, it was called JDK 1.0, and the code name for this project was OAK. The OAK word was taken from the name of OAK Tree. The picture of the OAK tree is shown below. The developers used this name because they had a vision of this language in mind....

My wife and I have recently finalized the plans for our new home, so I am now able to think through how the HomeKit setup will work thoroughly. I plan to completely rebuild the “Home” to eliminate any software “crud” accumulated over the years. The first aspect I’ve been thinking through is what kind of cameras I want to use. I’ve debated using Nest cameras for outdoor use and bridging them to HomeKit using the Starling Home Hub....

Smart locks offer a number of benefits over the traditional key-operated kind. There’s the fact that you are less likely to get locked out if you have multiple methods of entry – key, phone and Watch, for example. Auto-unlocking is also convenient when you are carrying shopping and don’t have any free hands. Typical smart locks offer another key benefit: the ability to allow other people entry into your home when you’re not there....

Last week, Apple released the first build of the upcoming HomePod’s firmware, allowing curious developers to unpack the code and learn a few additional details about the smart speaker. Now, developer Steve Troughton-Smith has discovered code that seemingly confirms that the upcoming iPhone will support face unlock… Smith explains that the code indicates the existence of infra-red face unlock in BiometricKit, which is the framework responsible for Touch ID. The code further suggests that Apple’s face unlock feature will be able to detect partially occluded face and faces from various angles....

A&E’s series, Bates Motel, was a fascinating look at the events that led up to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho, but the ending of the series changed the movies that came after - and the franchise - for good. Hitchcock’s film was based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, and is one of the most iconic and well-known horror films of all time, though many audiences try to elevate it with the classification of ’thriller’....

Apple’s new Animoji feature has proven to be a viral and fun part of the iPhone X, but the $999 starting price is an understandable roadblock for a lot of potential customers. Apple says Animoji requires the TrueDepth camera system to work, but a quick hands-on test appears to show the playful messaging app working even when the IR camera unique to iPhone X is covered… YouTuber Marques Brownlee cleverly tested this during his iPhone X review and demonstrated Animoji facial tracking working reliably even when the infrared camera which is exclusive to the iPhone X is covered....

It’s a given that you’re giving up a degree of privacy when using social media. You’re putting your name and photos out there for anyone to see, not to mention any personal information you include in your profile and comments. And your clicks and likes are all being tracked. When you create an account with Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you’re asked if you’d like to sync your contacts so you can more easily find friends, family and business associates....

First launched in 2011, Siri is a voice assistant available on various Apple platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, and tvOS operating systems. The assistant uses voice queries and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, perform actions, and make recommendations. In time, it also adapters to the language usages, searches, and preferences of each user. New Siri Features Apple has added the following new features to its voice assistant with iOS 14/iPadOS 14, watchOS 7, macOS Big Sur, and tvOS 14....