
It might be time to think twice about using your smartphone while it is charging.
Suhana Mohamad, a 30-year-old mother of two from Malaysia, was tragically killed by her handset after being electrocuted during a phone call.

It might be time to think twice about using your smartphone while it is charging.
Suhana Mohamad, a 30-year-old mother of two from Malaysia, was tragically killed by her handset after being electrocuted during a phone call.
A fresh new batch of Apple beta software is now available for developers two weeks after the company dropped its last big set of new software.
New beta builds of iOS 9.3.2, watchOS 2.2.1, tvOS 9.2.1 and OS X 10.11.5 can be found in the Apple developer center, bringing a bunch of new bug fixes, and hopefully some feature improvements as well.

A Bob Marley-themed Snapchat filter designed to celebrate 4/20 has backfired, with hordes of users accusing the company of promoting “blackface.”
It’s the latest instant outrage to flare up on the internet, and a total bummer for anyone just trying to enjoy the high holy day for pot smokers. After all, isn’t April 20 the one day of the year we should all be kicking back and chilling out?
Four years after it stopped producing NAND-Flash memories for the iPhone, Apple has reportedly reached a deal with the South Korean tech giant to be the company’s solid-state storage supplier for next year’s iPhone refresh.
The more I grow to love photography with an iPhone, the more I miss certain things about conventional cameras. Get a grip, you say? A grip is one of the things I am talking about.
miggo, innovative makers of camera bags, straps and mounts, brings to Kickstarter the Pictar, an ergonomic camera grip for the iPhone that also shifts cumbersome menu functions to five programmable wheels and buttons right at the tip of your shooting finger.

Apple is expected to banish the 3.5mm headphone jack to make its next-generation iPhone 7 even thinner. But it won’t be the first smartphone maker to take this controversial step.
LeEco today unveiled a trio of new Android-powered handsets that have all snubbed the headphone jack in favor of digital USB-C headphones and wireless alternatives.

Tech employees at Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are some of the most ardent supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, according to findings by the Federal Elections Commission.
In all, Google employees have donated $250,000 to Sanders’ campaign, while Apple workers have handed over a not-unimpressive $85,576.
That’s in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, both of whom have mainly attracted financial groups as their leading supporters.

Apple and Google have leant their names to an open letter taking aim at a controversial new anti-encryption bill, which demands that tech companies make their devices breakable at will.
“We write to express our deep concerns about well-intentioned but ultimately unworkable policies around encryption that would weaken the very defenses we need to protect us from people who want to cause economic and physical harm,” the letter opens.
In addition to Apple and Google, other tech giants which signed the missive include Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, and more.

If you love rose gold but hate yourself for even thinking about getting locked into Apple’s walled garden, you’re going to love Samsung’s new pink gold (not rose gold) color option for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge.
Just look at how pretty it is!
I love the Metal Slug franchise. I don’t think there’s anyone my age (early thirties), who grew up on a diet of comic books and testosterone-fuelled action movies from the 1980s, that doesn’t.
But while the franchise’s iOS efforts have so far been confined to diverting spinoffs like tower defense games, a new title promises to take the classic Metal Slug spirit (even if it’s not an official game in the series) and pour it into an all new balls-to-the-wall action-platformer-shooter.
Check out the trailer below.
The FBI has had three weeks to examine the unlocked iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, and U.S. law enforcement officials are finally ready to say whether they were able to find anything of use on the handset.
The answer? Not much. Although that’s not the way they’re presenting it.
No need to let those new MacBooks hog all of the attention today — now, you can buy one of those super-luxe Hermès Apple Watch bands separately from the device.
This is, of course, assuming you already have an Apple Watch and enough scratch to bring home one of these things, which are as fabulous as they are ridiculously expensive. But along with their newfound independent retail status, the straps are premiering some new colors so that you can coordinate appropriately.
Here’s how the pricing and options break down.
If you love your MacBook so much, why don’t you marry it?
The real answer to the above, typically hypothetical question is, “Because it wouldn’t be legal, and that’s stupid.” And if you understand that, you’re one step ahead of Chris Sevier, a guy who has just filed a civil suit in Houston demanding his right to be bound in holy matrimony with his laptop. And why would anyone want to do that, other than the obvious tax benefits and status as Ultimate Apple Fanboy?
Sevier’s taking his case across the country in protest of same-sex marriage.
A long running lawsuit between Apple and Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has finally come to an end, and it wasn’t cheap for Apple.
The Dallas-based Dynamic Advances sued Apple for allegedly infringing on a 2007 patent. The patent in question was exclusively licenced to the firm by Rensselaer, but Apple violated it with certain voice features used in Siri.
We’d heard rumblings and observed omens and portents about the imminent release of new 12-inch MacBooks, and now they are here. And that’s pretty cool, I guess.
Longer battery life is always a plus, as are faster Skylake processors and speedier memory. The new Rose Gold option is pretty, too.
But despite the fact that I’m still rocking a 2011 MacBook Pro, I’m not reaching for my wallet to grab one of the new Retina MacBook models. I can’t even explain why that is — I simply don’t care.
Chinese authorities have demanded Apple give the country complete access to its source code within the last two years, but Apple says it has refused to comply with the government’s demands.
Apple’s top lawyer, Bruce Sewell, defended the company’s position before U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing today, after the iPhone-maker was accused by law enforcement officials of refusing to help the U.S. government while at the same time freely giving information to China for business reasons.
Apple’s not-so-secret electric car project has added yet another Telsa engineer to its growing ranks.
Former Telsa VP of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt has reportedly been hired by Apple. Porritt also recently worked at Aston Martin as chief engineer. Now he’ll be working on “special projects” at Apple — like Project Titan.

Google Play now sees more than twice as many downloads as Apple’s App Store, according to the latest data from App Annie — but it still can’t rake in anywhere near as much revenue.

Popular cross-platform messaging service Viber has announced that it will follow Apple’s example by embracing user privacy through the introduction of end-to-end encryption.
Viber revealed today that it will start rolling this out for all of its one-to-one and group conversations, whether that be video, voice, or text messages. According to a spokesperson for the company, the encryption update will be available to users worldwide within “several weeks,” although an exact date isn’t specified.
Update: As several readers have pointed out, right now Apple’s “buy” page appears to be down for its new MacBooks. Either the company’s not quite ready to make the MacBooks available for sale or someone in Cupertino is costing Apple thousands and thousands of dollars.
Apple today unveiled its new MacBooks, boasting the latest Intel processors, improved graphics, faster flash storage and an additional hour of battery life.
The new 12-inch notebooks are available in four different aluminum finishes, including gold, silver, space gray and — for the first time ever — rose gold.
3D Touch is all well and good, but future Apple devices may incorporate advanced haptic technology which lets software simulate textures ranging from the grain of wood surface to the cold feeling of metal.
That’s according to a new patent published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describing a “Touch Surface for Simulating Materials” through the touch-sensitive display or trackpad of an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
From reuniting families separated by a California wildfire to tracking down kidnapping victims, there are plenty of high drama stories concerning Apple’s location-tracking Find My iPhone/iPad feature for iOS.
Well, you can add one more to the list — as police in Bangkok recently captured a violent armed gang responsible for a string of vicious robberies in the country’s northern region — all thanks to their ill-advised decision to steal an iPad mini with the feature enabled.
Apple has released its latest report on government information requests, showing how many times it has been asked to hand over data on its users over the six month span running from July to December 2015.
At a time when Apple was increasingly finding itself at odds with the Justice Department over the topic of encryption (something which exploded earlier this year with the San Bernardino shooting case), U.S. law enforcement made requests relating to 5,192 individual Apple accounts.
Apple Pay has made its debut in Singapore, bringing the total number of countries adopting Apple’s mobile payment service to six — also including the U.S., Canada, China, Australia, and United Kingdom.
As in Australia and Canada, the service is initially available only for American Express customers, although Apple says it looks forward to new banks and card providers joining throughout 2016.
Do you know how many times a day you unlock your iPhone? Every time you do, you’re participating in Apple’s user-friendly encryption scheme.
Friday, the company hosted a security “deep dive” at which it shared some interesting numbers about its security measures and philosophy as well as user habits. To be honest, we’re less concerned with how Apple’s standards work than the fact that they do and will continue to. But that’s kind of the point behind the whole system — Apple designed its encryption system so that we don’t even have to think about it.