Articles by John P. Mello Jr.

Subscription models have taken hold in everything from software to smartphones, and now Sonos is testing the idea in the premium wireless speaker market The Santa Barbara, California, company has launched a pilot program limited to 500 homes in the Netherlands, which allows consumers to gain access to Sonos hardware for as little as 15 euros (US$16...

Xiaomi on Tuesday introduced a refresh of the Mi 9 Pro with support for 5G and a groundbreaking smartphone with a wraparound display The Mi 9 Pro 5G (pictured above), with a base price of 3,699 yuan, or US$520, works with 5G offerings of China's three main carriers -- China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom -- and supports speeds from 1.78 Gb...

A website created to gather faces for an art project has created a controversy over the use of artificial intelligence to classify human beings The faces collected at the ImageNet Roulette site are being incorporated into a work of art at the Fondazione Prada Osservertario in Milan, but that is only one reason American artist Trevor Paglen and Mic...

Early reviews on the new iPhone models are appearing, and for owners of older versions of Apple's flagship mobile, an upgrade may be in order Reviewers had plenty of praise for Apple's more expensive iPhone models -- the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max....

The Wi-Fi Alliance on Monday released certification standards for Wi-Fi 6 devices, signaling that the technology is ready for prime time The certification program assures buyers that products carrying the Wi-Fi Certified 6 label will deliver the best user experience with devices supporting IEEE 802.11ax....

Apple raised the curtain on its latest iPhone models, introduced a new iPad, refreshed its watch, and announced pricing for its subscription game and premium TV services at an event held Tuesday at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California The highlight of the presentation was the new iPhone lineup: the iPhone 11 (US$699), the 11 Pro ($999) a...

A larger version of Google's Nest Hub smart display hit retail shelves on Monday, and it's garnering mixed reviews The new Nest Hub Max has a 10-inch screen, compared to its predecessor's 7-inch display, and it sells for US$229, compared to $129 for the Nest Hub introduced at Google's I/O conference in June....

Samsung's first-generation foldable phone isn't expected until later this month, but reports of a second-generation device to be released in early 2020 already have started appearing online The next-generation model will be a luxury phone that folds into a square, Bloomberg reported Tuesday....

A new application may be in the works that allows Instagram users to share real-time information with their closest friends Called "Threads," the app allows users to set up automatic sharing with their closest Instagram buddies of such information as location, movement and battery life, as well as text, video and photo messages generated using Inst...

Hackers affiliated with the Chinese government have been making a concerted effort to steal medical research, particularly cancer research, from institutions in the United States, according to a recent report The step-up in medical research theft by Chinese APT hacker groups appears to be linked to China's growing concern over cancer mortality rate...

Owners of iPhones looking for an extra measure of protection when using applications and logging into websites can get it with a new dongle from Yubico, a maker of hardware authentication security keys based in Palo Alto, California Its new YubiKey 5Ci, which retails for US$70, supports both USB-C and Apple's Lightning connectors on a single device...

The US$11 billion export component of the business American companies do with Chinese electronics giant Huawei is safe for at least 90 days. The U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security on Monday announced an extension of the Temporary General License for Huawei and its non-U.S. affiliates so they can continue to buy goods from American companies...

With Tuesday's announcement of its Spectacles 3 sunglasses, Snap must be hoping three times will be the charm Unlike the two previous generations of the product, Spectacles 3 has two HD cameras -- one at each corner of the glasses frame -- to add depth perception to the peepers' repertoire....

Samsung and Xiaomi on Monday announced a new sensor for smartphone cameras comparable to those used in high-end DSLR shutterboxes The new Isocell Bright HMX packs 108 megapixels on a three-quarter-inch sensor, similar to the sensors found in digital cameras that use interchangeable lenses....

The Russian hacking group known for stealing sensitive emails from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election season has been cracking into printers, phones and video decoders to gain access to corporate networks, the Microsoft Security Response Center Team reported on Monday The group, known by a number of names includ...

Cloudflare, an Internet infrastructure and website security company, on Monday announced that it was cutting service to 8chan, an online forum it called a "cesspool of hate." The move was motivated by the role 8chan played in mass shootings in El Paso, Texas; Christchurch, New Zealand; and Poway, California....

Capital One Financial Corporation on Monday announced a data breach affecting some 100 million people in the United States and another 6 million in Canada. The FBI arrested the alleged perpetrator of the breach in Seattle Capital One on July 19 discovered someone had accessed its data stored online and obtained personal information of credit card c...

Apple's 2019 crop of iPhones haven't been released yet but there's already talk about its 2020 plans, largely because that will be the first year the company's mobile lineup will support 5G Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst known for his accurate predictions, wrote in a note to investors that he believes all three iPhones introduced in 2020 will suppo...

A flaw in a Facebook app designed for children under 13 years old allows kids to chat online with people unapproved by their parents The messaging app is designed to give parents control over who their kids text and video chat with online, but a bug in the software lets a contact approved to chat with one child talk to another without the approval ...

The United States Federal Trade Commission on Monday announced that Equifax has agreed to pay a minimum of US$575 million as part of a global settlement of claims against it arising from a 2017 data breach that affected 147 million Americans The settlement with the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and 50 states and territories potenti...