Tech Talk

If you’ve noticed some changes, you’re not the only one. | Image: Twitter Twitter is introducing a brand-new look for the icons used across the social network, the company confirmed in a thread on its design account on Friday . To my eyes, the icons use slightly thicker lines, and everything feels a bit more angular. “The goal was to create a cohesive set of icons that are bold in shape and style yet still relatable and a little cheeky where possible,” Twitter said in the thread. Two tweets from the thread make it easy to see what’s changed. This one shows what they looked like before and now. The one after shows a whole bunch of them in one picture . We’re so excited to share this with you all, and we’ll be continuing to add to the set. Which icons are your favorite so far? pic.twitter.com/y3Z37apdYu — Twitter Design (@TwitterDesign) October 21, 2022 I wasn’t a huge fan at first, but I’m starting to come around. (My favorite is the retweet button.) Twitter will be making

This year's Adobe Max 2022 went big on 3D design and mixed-reality headsets, but the AI-generated elephant in the room was the rise of text-to-image generators like Dall-E. How is Adobe planning to respond to these revolutionary tools? Slowly and cautiously, according to the keynote – but a significant feature buried in the new version of Photoshop shows the process has already started.  Towards the end of the release notes for the latest Photoshop v24.0 is a beta feature called 'Backdrop neural filter'. What does this do? Like Dall-E and Midjourney, it lets you "create a unique backdrop based on a description". You just type in a backdrop, select 'Create', and pick your favorite result. This is a long way from being Adobe's Dall-E rival, though. It's only available in Photoshop Beta, a test-bed that's separate from the main app, and you're currently restricted to typing in colors to produce different photo backdrops, rather than biza

Customization, even if your phone has limited hardware. | Image: Google Google has announced that over a quarter of a billion devices that people use each month are running Android Go edition, which is designed for phones with limited storage and memory. However, the new version that Google announced on Wednesday, Android 13 Go, will require more power than its predecessors. Based on the latest version of Google’s mainline OS , Android 13 Go edition adds a version of the Material You system, letting you pick one of four color schemes based on your wallpaper. When Google originally announced Material You as a feature of Android 12 (though the Go edition of that OS didn’t feature it), it also touted the inclusion of fancier animations. Its post about Android 13 Go doesn’t mention those, however — it’s possible those would put too much strain on the types of phones the OS is designed for. The new version also adds Google’s streamlined Google Play System Updates system, which the

Image: Konami After rumors and leaks, including an early morning flub that revealed today’s entire showcase lineup , Konami has finally officially shared its plans for the Silent Hill franchise. During today’s showcase, which was presented as a livestream but ended up being a 48-minute-long video, we saw news of a remake, a new movie, an interactive live experience, some merch, and a brand new game, all within the Silent Hill universe. The first announcement came as little surprise: Bloober Team, the studio that developed Layers of Fear and, more recently, The Medium , is working on a Silent Hill 2 remake. No word yet on a release date, but it is notable that the game will be available exclusively on PS5 and PC for the first 12 months post release. The Silent Hill 2 remake announcement was compounded by the news that Konami has once again teamed up with Christophe Gans — director of Silent Hill (2006) — to make a new movie based on Silent Hill 2 . After a lengthy convers

The Logitech Crayon, complete with USB-C charging port. | Image: Logitech Logitech has released an updated version of its Crayon stylus to coincide with the announcement of Apple’s new iPads . The new stylus costs the same as the old model, $69.95, but now features a USB-C charging port rather than Lightning — a helpful change given the 10th-generation iPad’s switch from Lightning to USB-C. The change means that the Logitech Crayon arguably has a much more elegant charging mechanism than Apple’s first-party $99 Pencil when used with the base-level iPad. Logitech’s new stylus can charge using just the USB-C cable that comes with the tablet — no fiddly USB-C-to-Lightning adapter required. The wirelessly-charging second-generation Apple Pencil isn’t compatible with Apple’s new entry-level iPad. Apple’s product page notes that the Crayon can go up to seven hours on a single charge, compared to 12 hours for the Apple Pencil. MacRumors also notes that Logitech’s stylus doesn’t hav

DuckDuckGo’s privacy-focused web browser is now available for download via an open beta to all Mac users. It's still all about keeping your personal details private but does mix in some intriguing new features, as well. For the past several months, the company has been steadily working on a desktop version of the DuckDuckGo browser. Originally, the desktop browser launched as a closed beta back in April , and from the looks of it, everything that was present back then is in this new version.  This includes things like the “multiple layers of defense against third-party trackers”, according to the announcement . The new features are centered around enhancing the user experience by clearing out annoying ads on YouTube, specifically. The developers also added some basic browser features that were missing in the first beta like a bookmarks bar and pinned tabs. You can install the browser on your Mac by going to DuckDuckGo’s website where the download should begin automatically. Up

Australian retail marketplace MyDeal has confirmed it suffered a data breach that has affected more than two million of its customers. The company contacted all affected customers explaining the incident, saying that an unknown attacker compromised its systems and accessed customer identity data.  According to BleepingComputer , the threat actor managed to obtain the login information for MyDeal’s Customer Relationship Management ( CRM ) platform, and used it to extract sensitive data belonging to around 2.2 million users. MyDeal data sold That data included names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, and, for some, birth dates. For a smaller subset of users (1.2 million), the hackers only managed to obtain email addresses. While details on the perpetrators are scarce, what they're doing with the data is clear: trying to sell it on an underground forum for $600.  According to the company, the number of entries in the database, which is still being parsed by the