Here’s what the new LGBTQ+ Siri voice in iOS 15.4 sounds like

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 Apple adds a fifth American Siri voice option that isn't explicitly male or female. 

Apple

When iOS 15.4 lands on your iPhone in a few weeks, there will be a load of new features to sift through: Face ID with a Mask, Tap to Pay, new emoji, and Universal Control on the iPad. But there will be one smaller change that’s just as meaningful: a new Siri voice.

Released as part of the fourth iOS 15.4 beta, the new voice is simply labeled America (Voice 5). But when you listen to it, you’ll notice that it’s somewhat androgenous and difficult to pin down as explicitly male or female. As part of its continued push for diversity, Apple told Axios that it hired “a member of the LGBTQ+ community” to record the new Siri voice.

It’s not clear whether the new American voice will come to the other language varieties as well. Apple offers five American voices and just two on than any other language

“We’re excited to introduce a new Siri voice for English speakers, giving users more options to choose a voice that speaks to them,” Apple said in a statement. “Millions of people around the world rely on Siri every day to help get things done, so we work to make the experience feel as personalized as possible.”

Apple last year removed the default female voice in iOS 14.5 and added three new voices, including two options recorded by black actors. At the time, Apple said the voice options were “a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.”

To change the voice you hear when Siri responds to a query, head over to the Settings app, then Siri & Search>Siri Voice and select the one you want.

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Lenovo's new Smart Clock Essential with Alexa is 29 percent off at Amazon

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Pick one up for $50, or $20 off the regular price

Lenovo smart clock

 

Smart clocks are ideal devices for the bedroom, as they give key information like the time and temperature but often have no intrusive cameras. If you're looking for a deal on a good one, Lenovo's Smart Clock Essential with Alexa is on sale right now at Amazon for $50, or $20 (29 percent) off the regular $70 price. 

The Smart Clock Essential with Alexa came out early this year to replace the previous model, with the main additions being a new pogo docking pin on the bottom and, well, support for Alexa instead of Google Assistant. It features an attractive, fabric-covered design in colors "Mistry Blue" and "Clay Red," both of which are on sale. On the top edge there are four buttons: volume buttons, a button for activating the assistant, and another for setting an alarm. There's also a USB port for charging.

It neither streams video nor has a camera, though it of course has a mic and speakers so that you can listen to music/podcasts or make voice calls. The entire front face is a dedicated 4-inch LED display, displaying the time, weather, real-time decibel levels and more in white text on a deep black background. 

The docking accessories still aren't available, but once they arrive, you'll have two options. One is a basic pad with room for both the clock and another wireless-charging like a phone, while the other is what Lenovo calls the Ambient Light Dock, which doubles as a nightlight. It'll be available for $30 in two whimsical designs with either a sea lion and a squid, along with eight different lighting modes and a rainbow of colors — so it could work great in a kid's room.

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Garmin Forerunner 255 – do we really need it

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 The mid-range watch might no longer have a place

The venerable Garmin Forerunner 245 is approaching its third birthday, and it's due for an upgrade when the company updates its sports watch portfolio — but do we really need it?

First and foremost, take a look at the current Forerunners lineup. The entry-level 50 series is at the bottom of the list. The 250 series is located above this. These are running watches for athletes who wish to step up their training and possibly start racing competitively.

The Forerunner 750 series is next, which is built specifically for triathletes and seamlessly switches between swim, bike, and run monitoring modes. Finally, at the top, we have the 950 series of devices, which are similar but have a much longer battery life, making them ideal for multi-day events.
The majority of the current Forerunner lineup is at least two, if not three, years old and in desperate need of an upgrade. The Forerunner 55 kicked off the process last year, and the remainder of the series is expected to follow suit in the near future. At least, that's how much of it is.The Forerunner 55 is a fantastic watch; not only is the GPS tracking extremely accurate (as you'd expect from a company that made its name in satellite navigation systems), but it also has a responsive heart rate monitor and a slew of new training tools to help you structure your runs and balance rest and recovery.

It's so good, in fact, that a Forerunner 255 is unnecessary. The 55 is beginner-friendly, but it also contains everything an advanced runner requires. It wouldn't be the first time that a Forerunner line was phased out by Garmin. As technology has improved, the Forerunner 100, 200, 300, and 400 series have all been discontinued, and new watches in the range have filled in the gaps. The real-time stamina chart debuted with the Garmin Fenix 7 is the only thing we can envision the Forerunner 255 bringing to the table. This is a useful graph that illustrates how much energy you have left in your tank during runs and rides, allowing you to adjust your effort as needed. No more running out of gas halfway through a workout or finishing a race wishing you'd pushed a little more.

It's also possible that the Forerunner 255 will include music storage, but Garmin rarely releases a new watch model expressly for that purpose. If it wanted to go that route, it would probably release a Forerunner 55 Music edition instead.

Of course, we can only speculate at this point – and even if the company doesn't release a Forerunner 255 this year, it may pick up the name again at a much later date for a different device,

In late January the Garmin revealed not just the Fenix 7, but also the Epix - a very similar watch, with the addition of a bright AMOLED display. However, this shiny newcomer is officially the Epix (Gen 2).

The original Epix was a touchscreen sports watch released in 2015 that was somewhat ahead of its time. Although it worked well, it was a bit of a monster, and it was some time before technology caught up with its designers' intentions and its components could be packed into a more modestly sized case.

If a Forerunner 255 doesn't arrive this year or next, it may still appear in a revamped form at some point in the future. Only time will tell.

 

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Google abandons FLoC on Topics API to replace tracking cookies

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Google’s new concept assigns users five interests per week based on web activity

 

Google is walking back plans Instead of replacing third-party cookies with FLoC, Google is proposing the Topics API, which is a new method for interest-based advertising. Topics works by identifying five of your interests, such as "Fitness" or "Travel & Transportation," based on your web activity over the course of one week as evaluated by participating sites.

Your browser will store these topics for three weeks before deleting them. Google says that these categories “are selected entirely on your device” and don’t involve “any external servers, including Google servers.” When you visit a website, Topics will show the site and its advertising partners just three of your interests, consisting of “one topic from each of the past three weeks.”

As noted on the Topics API GitHub page, there are currently about 350 available topics in its advertising taxonomy (although Google plans on adding anywhere from “a few hundred” to “a few thousand” eventually). Google says Topics won’t include any “sensitive categories” like race or gender. And if you’re using Chrome, the company is building tools to let you view and delete topics, as well as turn off the feature.

 

Google’s running out of time to replace third-party cookies in Chrome by 2023, as promised. The company plans on launching a developer trial for Topics in Chrome, but there’s no information on when exactly that will begin.

“Browsers have traditionally worked only for the users — remember how great it was when they all started blocking pop-up ads?” John Bergmayer, the legal director at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that promotes an open internet, points out. “Google’s concepts on this topic seem to flip that.”

Google’s previous replacement for third-party cookies, FLoC (or Federated Learning of Cohorts), is a form of interest-based tracking that identifies you based on your “cohort,” or a group of people that share similar interests.

Privacy critics, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), argued the system poses additional privacy risks, such as making it easier for advertisers to identify you with browser fingerprinting, a tool used by sites to gain specific information about your device and browser, and may also expose information about your demographics, potentially resulting in discriminatory targeted ads. Due to these concerns, browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, and Mozilla have all refused to use it.

But Google’s idea of assigning topics to users isn’t exactly new. As EFF points out, Google’s Privacy Sandbox weighed the idea of PIGIN in 2019, otherwise known as “Private Interest Including Noise.” Like Topics, it would work by sharing a list of interests with advertisers, but as Bennett Cypher of EFF explained at the time, it could still “provide trackers with a massive new stream of information they could use to build or augment their own user profiles.” A recent update says a newer version of that approach, under the name FLEDGE, is in early testing on Chrome and Chrome Canary. Google will share more details on that plan and “measurement technical proposals” later this week.

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Dutch App Store change allows dating apps take third-party payments

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Apple

 

Apple has announced that it will follow a court decision to amend its App Store payment policies, allowing dating applications in the Netherlands to accept third-party payment methods.

Apple claims it is complying with an order from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) to provide two "optional new entitlements" in a statement sent to developers on Friday. The two changes will only apply to payment processing choices in the Netherlands App Store, and they will only affect dating applications.

The notice includes a link to a new developer help website dedicated to the changes, as well as information about what developers can offer users.

The developers that are affected by the order have three options:

Continue to use Apple's in-app purchasing system.

Include an in-app link to the developer's website where customers may finish a purchase.

Within the app, use a third-party payment method.

Developers should also be aware that Apple "cannot validate the security and safety of payments that occur outside of the App Store's private and secure payment mechanism." Apple will also be unable to "help users with refunds, purchase history, subscription management, and other concerns" connected to purchases made outside the App Store since it lacks this information.

"You will be in charge of dealing with such issues with clients," Apple says.

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How To Get Spotify Premium For Free

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You Can Get 3 Months of Spotify Premium for Free Right Now

Spotify

Everyone loves a freebie. Right now, Spotify is offering a good one, as new members can get three months of Spotify Premium for free. Typically, Premium would sell for $9.99, so getting three months free is a great deal.

In a blog post, Spotify announced the deal for new subscribers. The company said, “Here’s the breakdown: from November 29 through December 31, 2021, eligible Spotify Free and first-time Spotify listeners can sign up for our Individual Premium plan for three months for free.”

That means even if you have an existing Spotify Free account, you can switch to Premium for three months without spending a penny. Of course, you’ll have to cancel your account before the free trial ends, or you’ll be charged at the regular $9.99 per month rate after. On the other hand, you might decide that you can’t live without offline listening, the lack of ads, and the entire on-demand music library and want to keep it.

If you’re a former Spotify Premium member, the company also has a special offer designed to bring you back. You can sign up for three months of Premium for $9.99. That’s essentially paying for one month and getting two free. While it’s not as good as three months for free, it’s still a solid deal.

Of course, you can always make a new email address and Spotify account if you want to take advantage of the freebie, but you won’t have all of your playlists and saved music from your existing account.

 

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How to Sign Up for Comcast Gigabit

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Comcast tech top more gigs on it internet service. How to sign up?

Comcast

Comcast recently raised its Xfinity net speeds in California to match what it's providing nationwide. this suggests high uploads and downloads area unit currently three gigabits per second for the company's highest and most costly speed tier, the $300 per month Gigabit professional arrange.

Previously tied with Google Fiber for the quickest residential net arrange, at 2Gbps, Comcast Xfinity currently sees itself within the lead among major United States of America net service suppliers thanks to the speed boost. Last Gregorian calendar month, Xfinity discharged a report showing that its average client has twelve devices within the home and high-end Xfinity users have thirty or additional. although it's additional speed than simply concerning any menage presently wants, the symmetrical speeds of a 3Gbps arrange area unit as future-proofed because it gets and will surely facilitate keep those devices running swimmingly and while not fail.

The 3Gbps Gigabit professional arrange is not just on the market to all or any Xfinity customers across California. it's currently the national customary for Xfinity's commanding residential arrange, a Comcast advocator aforementioned.

According to Federal Communications Commission information from mid-2020, Comcast's fiber possibility is obtainable to solely zero.02% of its national footprint. Granted, that information is quite a year recent, however it raises the question: what number Xfinity addresses really qualify for the fiber Gigabit professional plan?

The Comcast advocator did not have the most recent figures however confirmed that a website survey remains necessary to see if your address is eligible for the Gigabit professional arrange.One last splash of cold water: not like some ISPs that do not need a contract, Gigabit professional customers should sign a biennial minimum agreement at $300 a month. If you cancel before those twenty four months have terminated, you owe early termination fees. Triple-gig speeds could also be here, however they will not come back low cost.

How to Sign Up for Comcast Gigabits

To take advantage of Xfinity's Gigabit professional set up, you will 1st have to be compelled to reach intent on Xfinity and schedule a web site survey. albeit you are a current Xfinity client or understand you are in associate Xfinity-serviceable space, Comcast can still have to be compelled to examine to visualize if your house is at intervals the minimum distance from a fiber node. If everything checks out, it should take many weeks before your house will get Gigabit professional absolutely put in.

All that aforesaid, if you simply wish gigabit web rather than Xfinity's Gigabit professional speed tier, you'll choose Xfinity's Gigabit set up, that is on the market altogether Xfinity locations. No web site survey is needed. It options most transfer speeds of one,200 megabits per second, however in contrast to the Gigabit professional set up, that boasts symmetrical Georgia home boy transfer and transfer speeds of three,000Mbps, its transfer speed topnotch out at 35Mbps as a result of it is a cable association rather than fiber.

Finally, if you wish to induce gigabit web and you are not serviceable by Comcast Xfinity, there area unit many alternative choices for you. Gigabit web, via a cable association, is on the market through many suppliers, together with Cox, Optimum, RCN, Spectrum et al.. Fiber gigabit service, that provides symmetrical transfer and transfer speeds, will be found with Verizon Fios, Google Fiber, AT&T, Frontier transmission et al.

What does Xfinity comcast internet cost?

On the surface, Xfinity's Gigabit professional arrange is one in all the priciest broadband packages you will find. It prices $300 a month, and you'll cotton on on condition that you register for a biennial contract. However, the price per Mbps, at ten cents, is sort of cheap. however there is a $20 a month rental charge for instrumentality. there is conjointly a reasonably hefty further expenditure right out of the gate: Households face Associate in Nursing activation fee of up to $500 and an extra installation fee of another $500. that is a complete of $1,000 before you even get to the regular monthly charges.

On the opposite hand, if you inspect Comcast competitors, those with a fiber net affiliation can offer the most effective performance -- that includes symmetrical transfer and transfer speeds -- and gift the foremost reasonable gigabit plans. for instance, Google Fiber, which incorporates all instrumentality prices and charges in its monthly rate, is that the least expensive we have seen, at seven cents per Mbps. However, it's presently on the market solely in twelve markets across the country, therefore you would possibly ought to communicate AT&T, CenturyLink or Verizon Fios, that all average between thirteen cents and sixteen cents per Mbps. That beats most cable net costs and does not need the extra instrumentality, activation and installation fees of Gigabit professional. Nor do they have the biennial term agreement. 

Is gigabit internet worth the price?

Perhaps. Xfinity's Gigabit professional arrange is doubtless dear, and it needs you to register for a biennial contract. that is a $7,200 commitment that also does not account for the extra monthly instrumentation payment and also the quondam installation and activation charges. however the monthly price of ten cents per Mbps is truly quite competitive. Plus, the symmetrical three,000Mbps transfer and transfer speeds definitely originated your family with many opportunities to utilize a large number of connected devices, currently and within the future.

However, most households immediately do not want all that speed. If you go one step down and decide on Xfinity's Gigabit arrange, you'll get one,200Mbps for simply over nine cents per Mbps. rather than a biennial agreement, you have got to sign solely a annual contract. Finally, your modem/router instrumentation fee is enclosed, instead of an extra monthly price (as it's with Gigabit Pro). it's going to not be as flashy as having the quickest residential arrange presently accessible, however it's going to get you gigabit speeds at a cheaper value.

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