Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. Photography can be a perilous hobby — just ask Jeff Bezos. The Amazon kingpin had to tell the world about his “below-the-belt selfies” to avoid an alleged blackmail by the National Enquirer. While you may not have beef with a sleazy tabloid or a love of dick pics, there’s a high chance that you’ve got some sensitive photos of your own. Perhaps you have an emb
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the supply chain has been in a world of pain over the last few years. This has been caused by COVID shipping delays, bottlenecks at the ports, and significant lags in truck delivery. And one of the biggest pain points is a shortage of long-haul truck drivers. And now, transportation companies are developing tech-driven approaches that not only solve problems that have been plaguing the industry for decades, but also turn trucking itself
In February this year, reports surfaced on Twitter and Facebook that the Ukrainian government was undertaking a mass genocide of civilians. Around the same time, conspiracy theorists began saying Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was an agent of the “New World Order”. These claims have been thoroughly debunked, but not before attracting millions of views and offering a purported justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More recently, Russian and Chinese officials have claimed the Un
On its way to net zero, Jaguar has developed a portable EV charger, powered by “second-life” batteries from prototype and test I-Pace vehicles. The so-called Off Grid Battery Energy Storage System (ESS) is essentially an energy storage unit, designed to supply power where access to electricity is limited or unavailable. The portable EV charger was created in collaboration with Pramac. Image: Jaguar The device has a capacity of up to 125kWh — more than enough to juice up the I-Pace or to power
A common view of developers and other tech folks is they’re anti-social. In other words, people who prefer to work alone with their headphones and avoid speaking to others at all costs. While this stereotype doesn’t hold true for most programmers, it’s especially wrong for IT architects, a profession that relies heavily on communication. “My work consists of talking, making some notes, doing some sketches, and more talking,” explains Lotje Meijknecht. She works as an IT architect for the Dutch g
It’s that time again, people! The long-awaited iOS 15.4 is finally here — and that means one thing and one thing only: it’s time to rank the new features soon to be on your iPhone. We’ve done this a few times before — whether that’s rating each iOS 14.5 update by how much they’ll annoy Zuckerberg, or those in iOS 14.7 by how useful the new features would be in space. And this time? Well, we’re gonna be boring and rank them from worst to best. What? Don’t complain! All this means is the next Appl
Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. Apple just released its iOS 15.4 update, which means you can finally unlock your phone through Face ID when you’re wearing a mask. Notably, this feature works only on iPhone 12 and beyond, so if you’ve got an older version, you’re out of luck. But thankfully, in 2020, Apple introduced a feature of quickly bringing up the passcode screen if the iPhone detects a
There’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine — well, except maybe time crystals. But as far ebikes are concerned, the Vello Bike+ is about as close to a perpetual motion machine as it gets. Starting at €3,290, it’s a really pricey folding bike, but it does a lot to justify its price. The Vello Bike+ is super lightweight for an ebike at 14kg (31 lb). It has a unique folding mechanism that contorts the bike into a smaller footprint than anything I’ve used other than the Brompton. It uses a
A multi-disciplinary team of researchers from Technische Universität Berlin recently created a neural ‘network’ that could one day surpass human brain power with a single neuron. Our brains have approximately 86 billion neurons. Combined, they make up one of the most advanced organic neural networks known to exist. Current state-of-the-art artificial intelligence systems attempt to emulate the human brain through the creation of multi-layered neural networks designed to cram as many neurons in a
Okay, who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? The Earth is actually flat, COVID-19’s nothing but a hoax, we never landed on the Moon, and the Lizard People are controlling us. But did you know that the soaring gas prices in the US aren’t the result of the Ukraine war and the sanctions against Russia? Well, now you do thanks to our fellow conspiracy theorists, who believe that the Biden administration is using the war as a pretext to intentionally drive gas prices up. Why, you ask? To make you