Articles by Derrek Lee

It’s a feature Samsung is familiar with.

What you need to know

Google Messages may tap into Google Photos for MMS.
This is likely to send the recipient a link that will open to higher-resolution video.
This method may be similar to how Samsung shares high-resolution media with its Messages app.

Anyone who sends a video over MMS would know that the result can be hit or miss, and it’s not great even when it’s a hit. However, according to code found in the latest beta version, Google seems to be preparing to fix that by integrating Google Photos into its Messages app.

9to5Google dove into Google Messages version 10.4 APK and found a new setting that would allow users to “share sharper clarity video in text (SMS/MMS).” The setting is marked under Google Photos, meaning the apps would somehow integrate to share high-quality videos.

It’s unclear how this feature would work whenever Google rolls it out, but it could potentially create a link for the video file that’s shared to the …

A fun take on a viral throwback feature.

What you need to know

The Google Arts & Culture app adds a new Pet Portrait feature.
The new feature matches an image of your pet with museum art.
It’s similar to the Art Selfie feature that went viral in 2018.

Google recently updated its Arts & Culture feature with a new feature specifically for animal lovers dubbed Pet Portraits, which takes an image of your pen and matches it to artwork.

The latest update, which started rolling out on some of the best Android phones this week, opens directly to the new Pet Portraits mode when selecting the camera icon. When selecting “Take a photo,” you can either capture a picture of your pet with the viewfinder or upload one using your phone’s gallery.

The feature will analyze the image and compare it and compare it to various museum artworks, listed based on the percentage of likeness. From there, you can either retake, save, or share the image. You can even enter a slideshow to display al…

Most who have Android 12 love it, but plenty are still without it.

What you need to know

Most poll responses are in favor of the latest major Android update.
The second highest response shows that many people still don’t have Android 12.
Some users aren’t too fond of the new design changes.

After a couple of weeks since Android 12 rolled out to older Pixel smartphones, we wanted to know what our readers thought of Google’s latest major OS update.

From our poll results, most of our readers seem to love Android 12. Over 37% of responses favor the update, while a combined 32% of respondents either weren’t too excited or just don’t like the new design changes.

Many people that like Android 12 seem to still have a problem or two with some of the features. Many comments criticized the changes to the quick settings tiles, likely due to their increased size, as well as the loss of the smart home power settings.

I like the design but I’m still really frustrated that they binned the …

She’ll be fighting the good fight, likely against Google.

What you need to know

A former Google employee is moving to a new role at the FTC.
Meredith Whittaker will serve as senior advisor on AI for the FTC, working alongside Lina Khan.
Whittaker has been an outspoken critic of Google’s practices since exiting the company.

The FTC has another weapon in its arsenal in the fight against Google and other Big Tech companies. Former Google employee, Meredith Whittaker, has announced that she will be joining the FTC as the senior advisor on AI.

Whittaker worked at Google for 13 years as an AI researcher before leaving the company in 2019 after it became clear that the company did not align with her AI ethics work.

As noted by The Information, her exit also followed protests she helped lead in 2018 over Google’s handling of sexual harassment accusations, and she was openly against the company’s contracts with the Department of Defense. For this, she reportedly faced retaliation from …

Third time’s a charm.

What you need to know

Several of Meta’s apps experienced an outage on Wednesday.
Users on Twitter expressed that they were unable to send messages on Instagram or Messenger.
This would be the third outage from Meta in just one month.

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is currently experiencing an outage affecting several of its apps. A cursory glance on Down Detector shows that Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger are experiencing outages. However, reports seem to be decreasing, indicating things are improving. WhatsApp appeared to be unaffected by the outage.

It seems that the outage affected users’ ability to send messages, with DMs not going through.

This would be the third time in just one month that the apps are down, including a massive outage in early October that knocked Meta’s services out for nearly six hours.

The outage was addressed by the Instagram and Messenger accounts, the latter of which indicated that services should be in the process of r…

Qualcomm faces more competition but sees continued growth.

What you need to know

Qualcomm announces its fiscal Q4 earnings with more than $9.3 billion in revenue.
Revenue from Qualcomm’s chip business rose compared to last quarter and the same period last year.
Qualcomm expects revenue to exceed $10 billion this quarter despite the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

Qualcomm managed to exceed expectations when it announced its fiscal year Q4 earnings on Wednesday. The company reported over $9.3 billion in revenue, with total yearly revenue of more than $33 billion.

Quarterly revenue was projected to hit somewhere between $8.4 billion and $9.2 billion, with analysts expecting just under $8.9 for the quarter. It’s a notable growth over last quarter’s revenue and a 12% growth compared to the same period last year.

The company’s chip business, QTC, which provides chips for the best Android phones and other connected devices, contributed the most with $7.7 billion, more than the proje…

Support for More Echo devices will come soon.

What you need to know

Amazon commits to supporting Matter over Thread in its products.
The standard will be supported on Eero devices and the fourth-gen Echo next year.
Additional Echo devices will gain support at a later date.

Amazon is one of the companies involved in the Matter initiative, so it comes as no surprise when the company announced on Wednesday that it’s committing to support Matter over Thread in its products.

For the uninitiated, Matter is the smart home alliance consisting of players like Google, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, and more. It will create a standard that will be used across smart home products to simplify the experience for users and ensure that devices will work no matter what ecosystem they’re on.

Thread is the wireless protocol that companies are implementing in order for these smart home products to communicate with each other, which Amazon describes as a “low-power, low-bandwidth, and low-latency mesh ne…

Android 12 is here for some, on the way for many.

Stable Android 12 has been available for a couple of weeks now, whether you own an older Pixel smartphone or a new Google Pixel 6. There’s a lot to like about it, from the new Material You design language and themes, to the new privacy and security settings. However, not everything is perfect, and some changes may be less than favorable for Pixel owners.

So how are you enjoying Android 12 so far? Is it what you hoped it would be?

How are you enjoying Android 12 so far?

There are a lot of new features with Android 12. For example, widgets are much cleaner and more functional. In addition, there are dedicated hubs for privacy and security, you can search for content within apps from the on-device search engine, there’s finally a dedicated game mode, and so much more. So far, it seems to be a much bigger update than the transition from Android 10 to 11, and as mentioned before, there’s a lot to like about the update.

However, nothi…

Meta gets extra meta as Meta PCs reportedly offers to sell the name “Meta” to Meta.

What you need to know

A PC company has reportedly already filed a trademark application for the name “Meta.”
The application was filed before the Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced its rebranding.
Meta PCs’ founders are reportedly asking for $20 million from Meta in order to stop pursuing the trademark.

Mark Zuckerberg may run into some problems after announcing his company name change to “Meta.” Apparently, the name “Meta” is already in the process of being trademarked by another tech company.

TMZ discovered that the trademark application for “Meta” was filed by an Arizona-based company called Meta PCs, which sells their own brand of desktops, laptops, software, accessories, and more. The company has been in business for just over a year and filed the trademark application in August, well before Facebook’s Meta’s announcement.

Meanwhile, Meta filed for its trademark on October 28, acc…

Let your embarrassing WhatsApp messages be a thing of the past.

What you need to know

WhatsApp is reportedly going to let users delete messages for everyone in a thread.
The feature will likely be paired with an extension to when users can delete messages.
It’s unclear when the new update will roll out on devices.

WhatsApp is working on adding a new feature that will expand its message deletion capabilities and may prove helpful for users of the app.

A new beta was spotted by WABetaInfo that details the ability to delete messages for everyone in the thread after a specific time. Currently, that time limit is just over an hour, but WhatsApp may be extending that even further.

It’s unclear just how long the “delete for everyone” feature will extend its time limit, but the folks over at WABetaInfo managed to have the prompt show up on a message sent more than two months ago.

It’s very possible that WhatsApp has completely done away with the time limit, or it’s merely longer th…