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Hangouts Meet, Google’s service for running video and audio meetings, is getting a few new hardware companions. The company today announced the Hangouts Meet hardware kit that includes a touchscreen controller, speaker microphone, 4K camera and an ASUS Chromebox to control it all. The Chromebox (an Asus CN62) is the nerve center of this kit. While Chromeboxes (which you can think of as the Mac Mini to Google’s Chromebook laptops) never quite took off the way Chromebooks did, yet they’ve quietly been around for years, with the likes of Dell, HP, Acer and Asus making them. They power everything from in-store signage to many a computer behind a receptionist’s desk. For a while now, Google has sold numerous meeting kits based around the Acer and ASUS Chromeboxes at prices that range from $999 to $1,999. That was before the Hangouts Meet and Chat schism, though (which is still confusing), and this new kit is specifically geared toward Hangouts Meet and G Suite En...

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Facebook says hundreds of accounts backed by Russian trolls filled news feeds with inflammatory messages Facebook, Twitter and Google lawyers defended themselves to US lawmakers probing whether Russia used social media to influence the 2016 election. The three firms faced hard questions at a Senate panel on crime and terrorism about why they missed political ads bought with Russian money. Lawmakers are eyeing new regulations for social media firms in the wake of Russia's alleged meddling in 2016. The firms said they would tighten advertising policies and guidelines. Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked Facebook - which absorbed much of the heat from lawmakers - why payment in Russian rubles did not tip off the firm to suspicious activity. "In hindsight, we should have had a broader lens," said Colin Stretch, general counsel for Facebook. "There are signals we missed." A day earlier F...

Android users will now be able to battle junk mail and manage their email subscriptions using the new Android app from Unroll.Me. To be clear, anyone with a smartphone could get the benefits of the service already. You just had to connect you email account, then use Unroll.Me’s features to unsubscribe to the emails you didn’t want and roll-up the rest into a single daily digest. However, CEO Jojo Hedaya sounds particularly proud of his team’s app interface — first released on iOS and now on Android. The idea is to turn managing your subscriptions into a fun, Tinder-style interaction, where you swipe left to unsubscribe, swipe up to add a newsletter to your daily Rollup and swipe right to just keep it in your inbox. “I’m very confident this is the best way to remove clutter from your inbox,” Hedaya said. Do most people really have enough subscriptions for to do much swiping? Well, Unroll.Me says the average user has more than 62 subscriptions on ...

In the avalanche of news that was Google’s Pixel 2 event last month, the company kind of glossed over the Fast Pair feature. Understandably so — it had a lot to get through at the event. And besides, it was far from the coolest thing about the company’s new Pixel Buds headphones (that title goes to the Babelfish-esque real-time translation feature). The feature is similar to what Apple offers up with its W2 chip, offering instant, hassle-free Bluetooth pairing with a couple of taps. Of course, Fast Pair has one key advantage: much greater compatibility. Launched as a Google Pixel exclusive, the feature is starting to roll out to all Android devices running Google Play services 11.7 and greater (requiring Android 6.0 and up, mind). Apple’s version was a centerpiece of Apple’s AirPods (along with subsequent Beats releases), and Google’s take will certainly benefit from wider availability. In addition to working across Android manufacturers, Fast Pair is...

Image copyright Strawdog Publishing Image caption The Simon's Cat game requires players to connect matching coloured treats The UK's advertising watchdog has intervened after an adult advert was shown within a video game app popular with children. The pop-up ad featured a "temporary tattoo" that looked like a deep bite mark, placed on a woman's shoulder. The imagery appeared in the match-puzzle title Simon's Cat Crunch Time in July. Wish.com, the retailer responsible for creating the ad, failed to respond to the complaint. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it was concerned by the San Francisco-based company's lack of response and ordered the business to ensure its adverts were properly targeted in the future. Although the body does not have the power to impose fines itself, it can refer repeat offenders to Trading Standards, which can take further action. The game's publisher has also banned Wish.com from serving ads to its pro...

If it’s tough to find even five minutes of quiet in your busy day, Oak could be the meditation app for you. Launched today by Digg founder and True Ventures partner Kevin Rose, the free Oak app offers quick and simple breathing exercises as well as longer guided and DIY meditations. While apps like Headspace, Simple Habit and Calm focus on selling a wide array of themed meditations, Oak’s minimalist approach delivers tranquility. Isn’t that the point, after all? “Some people just don’t have time some days to do the meditations,” Rose tells me. “But I always find the time, maybe in the back of an Uber, to crank out a breathing exercise.” Rose could probably use some peace after a tumultuous few years. Rose sold Digg to Betaworks back in 2012, then started and sold to GV (Google Ventures) an app studio called Milk. He launched another app maker called North, and, after shutting down its thumbnail photo-sharing app Tiny, built a wristwatch en...

Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of business networking site LinkedIn is starting to pay off – at least in terms of product integrations that make sense. The company today announced that LinkedIn integration within Outlook.com is now going live, allowing email users to view insights, profile pictures, work history and more from within their inbox. The addition of LinkedIn to Outlook was previously detailed in September at Microsoft Ignite. There, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previewed how commercial Office 365 subscribers with LinkedIn profiles would soon be able to view LinkedIn information within Microsoft’s apps and services. In one example, an Outlook user researched the person they were meeting with using the LinkedIn profile information attached to their contact card inside their Outlook Calendar in Office 365. Integrations between LinkedIn and other Microsoft products and services, including Dynamics 365 for Sales and Microsoft’s CRM solution, wer...

How can internet giants know that innocent-seeming U.S. companies aren’t actually shell vehicles for malicious foreign actors to buy ads to interfere with elections? The short answer is they can’t, and that drew questioning from a Congressional probe today into Facebook, Twitter and Google being used to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. The hearing saw Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch dodge whether Facebook supports the new Honest Ads bill, instead touting the self-regulation it’s implementing. Google’s Richard Salgado affirmed that the company sees itself as a technology platform, not a media company or newspaper. And Senator Ted Cruz pressed Facebook about whether it was politically neutral, and if it sways discourse “in ways consistent with the political views of your employees,” which I’ve noted leans Democrat judging by rampant cheering by employees for Democratic talking points during Barack Obama’s townhall at...

Facebook believes up to 126 million of its American users may have come into contact with Russian-backed propaganda before and after last year's US presidential election. The figure emerged ahead of key Senate hearings this week in which Facebook will join fellow tech giants Twitter and Google in detailing the impact of Russian manipulation on the popular networks. Dave Lee looks at what happened and how tech companies responded.

New emojis. Do you need to hear anything else? Apple just released an iOS update. iOS 11.1 is the first feature update for iOS 11. It adds a couple of new things, starting with dozens of new emojis. Apple already previewed some of the new emojis, but they are now available to everyone. It includes mythical creatures, such as wizards, fairies, mermaids and vampires. There are some new activities, such as rock climbing and curling. You’ll also find new clothing elements just in time for the winter, such as gloves, scarf and trench coat. There are a handful of new animals and some new facial expressions. Exploding head might be my favorite one. Overall, Apple promises 70 new emojis, which makes iOS compatible with Unicode 10.0. A couple of emojis have also been redesigned, such as the bee one. As always, each emoji character comes in many variations with multiple genders and skin colors when it’s not an animal or an object. And for the first time, some characters are gender neu...

Microsoft today announced the launch of a new beta version of its mobile gameplay streaming app, Mixer, for both iOS and Android. The company says the new app features an entirely different codebase that will allow it to roll out updates more quickly, and includes a number of changes focused on improving the core user experience, content discoverability, app performance and personalization. The launch comes shortly after Mixer Create’s exit from beta in August, which includes support for live streaming from your phone, as well as the release of new Mixer tools that let people watching streams from Microsoft-owned Minecraft interact with gameplay in real-time. While the Mixer Create app is focused on live streaming gameplay directly, Mixer is aimed at viewers who want to watch streams and interact with content creators and others via live chat. Essentially, Microsoft’s version of Twitch, Mixer offers a similar feature set – like being able to subscribe to favorite chann...

Image copyright CCP Games Image caption CCP also made the Sparc ball-tossing game for the PlayStation VR headset Developer CCP Games has significantly cut the time and money it is investing in virtual-reality based games. The Iceland-based studio is best known for sci-fi title Eve Online but has also created several VR-centred games. Spaceship dog-fighting simulator Eve Valkyrie helped launch the Oculus Rift headset and CCP also made the Sparc VR ball-tossing game for the PlayStation. CCP boss Hilmar Petursson said the company would re-invest in VR when market conditions improved. The move was a "blow to the viability of VR as a major gaming platform", said Adam Smith on the Rock, Paper Shotgun gaming news website, adding that Valkyrie was one of the few games that tempted him to try VR. The changes come just over a month after CCP overhauled Valkyrie in a bid to get more people playing it. Niche market CCP has cut its investment in VR as part of a broader restruc...

Alan Dye, who was responsible for leading the software design teams that had to decide how to handle the sensor package, says that it felt the most honest. “We’ve got this amazing True Depth camera system packed into this space at the upper center of the display. And we thought a lot about how to design for that. And ultimately we felt really comfortable with this notion of being really honest about it and allowing for the content to push out into those beautiful rounded corners,” says Dye. Dye says that Apple did consider using digital bezels. “We did look at various different design iterations and considered some things that kind of acted as digital bezels if you will. But ultimately we never really felt comfortable with this notion of cropping into the content. We really love the new display, we love that it’s edge-to-edge. We love the way that it fits. It feels so perfectly designed for the overall form and so we’re encouraging people just to kind...

Astropad’s forthcoming Luna display adapter and software turns your iPad into a wireless, essentially lag-free monitor for your Mac – and the company wanted to make it even cooler by including a clever hack that turned the iPad’s mostly useless front-facing camera into a software button. But, unsurprisingly, Apple has nixed the feature by rejecting the update which included the functionality from the App Store. The Camera Button was rejected based on section 2.5.9 of the App Store’s review guidelines, which states that apps which alter the behavior of native hardware or software elements will be rejected. It’s amorphous enough that it could definitely apply if Apple feels inclined, which in this case it obviously does. Still, it’s a bummer, because developers pushing the boundaries of Apple’s available APIs and developer tools is what makes apps, and iOS in general, better. This also looked like a great way to take a tricky UI problem and turn i...

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'I was completely caught up in gambling' The maximum stake for fixed-odds betting terminals could drop to as little as £2 under a government review. Currently, people can bet up to £100 every 20 seconds on electronic casino games, but ministers are considering a new limit somewhere between £2 and £50. The consultation aims to reduce the risk of people suffering large losses and to tighten up advertising rules. The Association of British Bookmakers said problem gamblers would find somewhere else to continue their habit. Changes would hit UK gambling company revenue, put at £1.8bn last year, but problem gamblers say action must be taken - including, but not only, lessening the amount they can lose in one hit. A good bet? The fixed-odds controversy 'I lost £5k in 48 hours on betting machines' Gambling vlogger Andrew Margett told BBC Radio 5live how the machines, also known as FOBTs, proved addicti...

With the iPhone X, Apple has had to rethink many of the iOS core gestures. The new device features a brand new design with a taller display, Face ID and no home button. If you plan on buying a new iPhone X, it’s going to take a while to get used to these new metaphors. So here’s a list of some not-so-obvious features in the iPhone X. Matthew Panzarino also wrote a thorough review of Apple’s new device in case you want to dive deeper.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Facebook says hundreds of accounts backed by Russian trolls filled news feeds with inflammatory messages Facebook has said as many as 126 million American users may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based operatives over the past two years. The social networking site said about 80,000 posts were produced before and after the 2016 presidential election. Most of the posts focused on divisive social and political messages. Facebook released the figures ahead of a Senate hearing where it, together with Twitter and Google. will detail Russia's impact on the popular sites. Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. In a separate development on Monday, an investigation by independent counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia produced its first charges against two former aide...

Just a day before tech’s big Russia-focused Congressional hearings begin, Google is out with a new report on the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election across its platforms. “While we have found only limited activity on our services, we will continue to work to prevent all of it, because there is no amount of interference that is acceptable,” Google wrote in its latest blog post on the issue, titled “Security and disinformation in the U.S. 2016 election.” Google’s report appears to be limited to accounts with observable ties to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian state-affiliated organization that produces political disinformation and sock puppet accounts. That narrowed scope is possibly an effort to appease Congress with some hard numbers, so it’s worth keeping in mind that we don’t yet know the scope of these disinformation campaigns beyond those pre-defined parameters. Google reports t...

Image caption June King is in almost constant contact with her phone Are we seeing the start of peak phone? For the first time, young people in the UK aged between 16 to 24 are spending slightly less time on their smart devices, according to a report. Market researcher Kantar TNS found that those within that group now spent an average of 3.8 hours on their phones a day down from 3.9 hours last year. And this may be a surprise to parents, but a third of those said they thought they spent too much time on their phones and wanted to cut down. That of course leaves the other two thirds. June King, who is 24 years old, says she has not cut down her usage: "It's part of my life, I just use it all the time. I think I'm on it for 12 hours a day! "The only thing that worries me is electro-magnetic waves at night. So I try to keep it away from me while I sleep." Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The average smartphone use across all generatio...

Samsung posted another record quarter, and it again has its components business to thank for more stellar results. The Korea tech giant shrugged off scandals, which include a jail sentence for its de factor leader and last year’s Note 7 saga, to record a 14.53 trillion won ($12.92 billion) profit for the recent Q3 2017 period. Revenue came in at 62.05 trillion won ($55.18 billion), up 30 percent year-on-year and a record for a third quarter, in no small part due to Samsung’s components business, which supplies chips for a range of consumer electronics including smartphones from other firms. Samsung sells more phones each year than any other company on the planet, but its semiconductor business has traditionally been its best performer and that was once the case in Q3. Overall revenue from the unit was up 51 percent to reach 19.9 trillion won ($17.7 billion), with its profit up close to three-fold to reach 9.96 trillion won, $8.86 billion. The Sa...

Microsoft today announced that in December it will launch a Surface Pro with built-in LTE Advanced support to its business customers. Panos Panay, Microsoft’s corporate VP for Windows devices, made the announcement at the company’s Future Decoded event in London. In the announcement, Panay argues that as the global workforce evolves, being a mobile worker will become the new default for many. “The office is no longer restricted to a set of buildings – it’s at home, in a café, a city across the globe, or on a plane,” he writes. “With so many changing locations your device becomes your office, and many of our customers tell us that’s what their Surface is to them – a mobile office.” That’s obviously where the Surface Pro with LTE Advanced fits in. Microsoft says the new Pro will feature a Cat 9 modem and support for 20 cellular bands, so you should be fine in virtually any country in the world (assuming your roami...

Image caption Catherine Harry says the new design couldn't have come at a worse time for Cambodia Until recently, video blogger Catherine Harry was a Facebook success story in Cambodia. Her page, A Dose of Cath, featured a series of outspoken first person videos on taboo topics like virginity and menstruation that never got airtime on TV. Then, on 19 October, Facebook tweaked its News Feed in Cambodia and five other small countries. Instead of seeing posts from Facebook pages in their general News Feed, users in the test had to go to a new section called Explore Feed to see the content. And so when Ms Harry posted a new video on Facebook on Saturday, just 2,000 of her fans saw it in the first hour, compared to about 12,000 who normally watched. "Suddenly I realised, wow, they actually hold so much power," she said. Facebook "can crush us just like that if they want to". Ms Harry, who quit her job to focus on vlogging, isn't just worried about her li...