Author: batteryforpc

Google today added a new setting to the iOS version of its Gmail app that will let you more easily block unwanted email tracking. The setting in question, the ability to prevent Gmail from automatically loading attached images, used to be found only on the web version of Gmail. Toggling that setting on allows Gmail to block incoming images, including invisible email trackers hiding in the body of email messages that, in most cases, will tell senders when and sometimes even where you opened the message.

This is a pretty clear response to the Superhuman controversy that erupted back in July, when former Twitter executive and designer Mike Davidson penned a blog post about the popular subscription email service that let its users track the location of a recipient and the time of day he or she opened a message. After Davidson’s blog post when viral, shedding light on an age-old and sadly pervasiveness form of privacy violation, Superhuman decided to turn its read receipt feature off by default and removed the location tracking aspect of its service entirely.

Google has built protections against non-consensual tracking into Gmail, by disabling an email sender’s ability to precisely locate a recipient via an IP address. (Google first routes incoming email messages through its own proxy servers, rendering any location tracking useless.) It has also for quite some time allowed you to disable automatic image loading to prevent any of these trackers from gathering data about you unless you deliberately decide to load an image.

But the image loading setting was previously restricted to the web version of Gmail, and that means it may have gone unnoticed by heavy mobile email users of the iOS app. Now, at the very least, you’ll be able to access this setting on your iPhone or iPad if you so choose.

As of Tuesday evening, the setting appears to be live for personal Gmail accounts, but not for enterprise ones managed through G Suite. It’s unclear if that’s because a system administrator has to enable it, or if Google is simply not supporting image blocking right now for users of G Suite. We’ve reached out to Google for further clarification.

Most 5G phones we’ve seen so far have been variants of products at the top end of manufacturers’ lineups: see the Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G, the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, and so on. Samsung’s latest 5G phone, however, is the Galaxy A90 5G, which means it fits into its mid-range Galaxy A lineup below phones like the S10 and Note 10.

Samsung has recently released other Galaxy A models that focus on high-end features like quad-camera systems and flip-up camera mechanisms as part of a strategy to combat aggressively competitive Chinese manufacturers. And to be clear, the Galaxy A90 5G would have seemed like a very high-end phone at the beginning of this year, and still has a more than solid spec sheet. 5G connectivity and Samsung DeX support aside, though, the phone feels pretty familiar.

The A90 5G has a Snapdragon 855 processor, 6 or 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. The screen is a 6.7-inch 1080p OLED panel with a small “Infinity-U” notch and an integrated fingerprint sensor. There’s a triple-camera system with a primary 48-megapixel sensor (presumably Samsung’s own), an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 5-megapixel sensor for depth information, along with a 32-megapixel selfie camera. The battery is 4,500mAh and charges at up to 25W.

5G is of course a differentiator for some, but on paper the specs put the A90 5G right up against reasonably priced phones like the Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro (known as the Redmi K20 Pro in India), and it’s hard to judge how competitive it’ll be without release information for various markets. (5G isn’t yet a factor in India, for example.) All we know for now is that the Galaxy A90 5G is coming out in South Korea tomorrow, and Samsung hasn’t announced pricing details.

With just over a week until Tim Cook takes to the stage and the hand-picked audience prepares to act surprised at the new hardware, the final details of the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max are coming into focus. And there’s a solitary advantage that many will be picking up.

Support for the Apple Pencil is (finally) expected to arrive in the iPhone.

The Apple Pencil was launched alongside the iPad Pro, bringing Apple’s implementation of stylus input to its platform. Since then it has supported more of the iOS powered tablets but has not made the jump to the smartphone. Steve Jobs pointed out that the iPhone used the best stylus in the world, while holding up his finger; and that has been quietly agreed but the design team. Until now.

Serious momentum behind this move stared in late July with a flurry of analyst reports noting the increased support of the Apple Pencil. Case manufacturers working with pre-production mock-ups have a number of iPhone 11 Pro Max cases with space reserved to hold a small Apple Pencil in place. And Job’s iPhone had a 3.5 inch screen, nearly quarter of the expected real estate of the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

It’s also worth noting that only the iPhone 11 Pro Max that will be picking up support for the Apple Pencil. In a world where competing handsets are offering 5G connectivity, improved screen technology, and evolving design, there’s very little that Apple can offer in its 2019 updates that will reverse the trend of falling sales.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max will be the most expensive iPhone yet, which means that it will have one of the highest margins of Apple’s smartphones on a per user basis. As sales fall, Apple needs to counter that by increasing the average revenue per user. One of the long term plans for this is an increase in subscription based services, another is to raise margins and increase the attachment rate of peripherals.

I would suggest that this is the Apple Pencil’s role. Those who want the $99 peripheral are going to need to purchase the highest priced model, then purchase the stylus separately. That boosts Apple’s bottom line, it hands Tim Cook and his team a talking point at the event, and it provides momentum to the iPhone family in the face of Android devices that genuinely push the envelope.

Apple’s long-rumored plans for an augmented reality headset appear to be taking shape. MacRumors claims to have seen documentation for an internal iOS 13 build that points to work on AR headset support. They reference a “STARTester” app that can switch to a head-mounted mode, a “StarBoard” shell (a possible parallel to iOS’ Springboard) for stereo AR apps and code references to special modes, views and scenes. It even references a codename for one device, Garta, that might be linked to the previously rumored T288 project.

Earlier stories have painted varying pictures of what Apple is working on. Rumors from 2018 suggested it could be a powerful AR/VR device with 8K displays for each eye, but more recent reports have hinted the headset could be dependent on an iPhone.

Whatever the plans may be, more than one source has claimed that the headset could be available as soon as 2020. If so, the iOS 13 references would make sense. In this time frame, Apple would have just months to solidify the design and put it into production — prototypes would be virtually necessary at this stage.

The Windows 10 20H1 Update will introduce a new cloud recovery feature that allow users to reset their PC using Windows files downloaded from Microsoft’s servers.

Historically, when Windows users use the “Reset this PC” feature, Windows 10 will reinstall Windows using files already found on the computer.

With Cloud Recovery, Microsoft wants to make the process of recovering a corrupted installation of Windows 10 much easier by downloading a fresh copy of Windows files directly from Microsoft, without the need of Windows media.

“The cloud download option will reinstall the same build, version, and edition, that is currently installed on your device. This new cloud download option is available to all Windows 10 devices and is different from the “Recover from the cloud” feature available on some earlier Windows 10 devices.”

Microsoft notes that with this release, if the following optional features are installed the Reset this PC from the Cloud will not work:

EMS and SAC Toolset for Windows 10, IrDA infrared, Print Management Console, RAS Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK), RIP Listener, all RSAT tools, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Fax and Scan, Windows Storage Management, Wireless Display, WMI SNMP Provider.”

This feature was first rolled out for testing in the Windows 10 20H1 18970 build and will be rolled out to everyone in the spring of 2020.

How to Cloud Reset Your Windows 10 PC from Settings

To get started with Reset this PC cloud downloads, you can follow these steps:

Open Settings by clicking the gear icon on the Start menu.

Navigate to Update & Security and click Recovery in the left pane.

Windows will present you with three options: Reset this PC, Go back to the previous version of Windows 10 and Advanced Startup.

Select “Get started” under Reset this PC section and Windows will present you with two options – “Keep my files” and “Remove everything,”. To continue, select the option you wish to use.

On the next screen, Windows will present you with two options – “Cloud Reinstall” and “Local Reinstall”. If you choose the first option, Windows will reinstall the same build, version, and edition by downloading the files from Microsoft’s servers. If you choose the second option, Windows will be reinstalled with the system image stored in your recovery partition.

For this guide, you should click on the Cloud download option.

Once you select an option, Windows will display a confirmation screen showing the options you selected and how it will be restored. When ready, click on the Reset button.

Windows 10 will now start to download the files from the Cloud that are needed to reset the PC. When done, the PC will automatically restart.

Once restarted, Windows 10 will automatically begin the Reset this PC process and reinstall Windows 10 on the machine.

When done reinstalling, Windows will reboot and then prompt you to login. Once logged in, Edge will be opened to the welcome page as shown below.

Your PC has now been reset from Windows files downloaded from the cloud.

How to Cloud Reset your Windows 10 PC from Recovery Menu

In addition to performing a cloud reset within Windows 10, you can also do so from the Windows 10 recovery menu.

If you start Windows in Advanced Startup and then select Troubleshoot, you will be able to Reset the PC while not in Windows.

This process also allows you to select a “Cloud download” or “Local reinstall” as shown below.