This week, we’re diving into some of a Facebook hack you might be affected by, and then talking up what rocked up this week from Apple, Nokia, Ring, and the latest Sonos reviewed. All in five.
Subscribe to The Wrap at Apple Podcasts…Transcript
For the week ending April 9 2021, you’re listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest technology round up, and we start this week with some bad news. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of good technology news on the way, but there’s some sad news followed by some bad news, and then plenty of good news. It’s rather like cursed froghurt.
The sad news is that LG is leaving mobile phones, and not just in Australia, but the rest of the world. It means Australia won’t see the dual screen LG Wing, nor will it see any other LG phone, because there are no more LG phones.
If you have an LG phone, LG Australia told us that it will continue to support local phones with security fixes and such, which is good news, but it’s one less phone maker in Australia, joining Sony and HTC, neither of which has phones locally anymore.
There are plenty of other phones on their way, and Nokia announced at least one more was on the way to Australia this week, with a $199 G10 with a staggering three day battery life. Don’t expect best in class performance for this 6.5 inch phone, but the battery life is the feature aimed at impressing here, alongside the $200 price.
We’re sure there’ll be other phones shortly, even though the year has largely seen a slow phone roll out to begin with.
But it has had other problems, and this week, that came in the bad news: Facebook has been hacked.
Kinda, sorta, anyway, because it wasn’t so much of a hack as it was a scrape. But it’s a bad scrape, as much of the Facebook database has been leaked, with the details from around 533 million accounts leaked online, including that of seven million Australians.
The database is from two years ago, so we’re sure you’ve likely changed some details. However it covers details like your name, email address, job, phone number, and relationship status, and while the good news is it doesn’t affect your password, the bad news is it’s likely to be a sort of treasure trove for scammers. It doesn’t take a good data scientist to work out that the details here could make for more targeted scams, so you’ll want to make sure to keep your wits about you in the coming weeks.
So that’s the bad news. What’s the good news?
Well there’s more happening in just about everywhere, starting with 5G, as Optus and Telstra play a tit-for-tat sort of fight on records. Optus this week chimed in that it had hit a new benchmark of 10 gigabits per second — that’s about one gigabyte per second — and then Telstra claimed it had double that in one location.
The long and short of it is that 5G is already fast, but it could soon be faster again, and that’s good news for everyone moving forward.
Also good news is being able to find stuff, which if you’re an iPhone owner, or if you partake in any other Apple gadgets, might soon be a little easier.
Apple has this week opened up its “Find My” platform beyond devices made by, well, Apple. If you own an iPhone, you might have dabbled with “Find my iPhone” in the past, and that’s what this is, except for gadgets including the iPhone, and even beyond. Normally, it’s Apple tablets, wearables, earphones, and computers, but now it will be open to other companies, too. Bikes, headphones, and other gadgets look set to be included, but it won’t be all of them.
Ring also has a new style of floodlight on the way, though it’s one you’ll need to wire in place. It’s a special type of security light that features radar, and can tell you when someone is getting close to your door. That’s right out of Ring’s recent doorbell update, which does the same.
And Huawei has new wireless earbuds in the FreeBuds 4i, Samsung has new monitors coming to market shortly, and THX has built a USB C dongle that brings the power of THX to your phone or computer.
So there’s plenty of new gadgets, and one of them we’re checking out in a review, the Sonos Roam, and this is the latest speaker from Sonos to embrace the multiroom concept, whereby you can sync music from one room to another with ease. There’s only one major difference: the Roam is small.
Not far from the size of a can of energy drink, the Roam is a speaker for any room of the house, and even outside of one. Basically, it’s a Sonos made for home and outside, joining the Sonos Move in this way.
There’s about ten hours of battery life here, and it can stand up or lie down, but the sound is excellent, with more bass than you might expect, and a microphone that can tune the sound based on where you’re using the Roam, inside or outside.
It’s water resistant and supports wireless charging, and yet also manages to be one of the least pricey Sonos speakers, hitting $279 in Australia. It could do with a touch more volume, but overall, it may well be one of the ways to get stuck in the Sonos system.
We could talk more about the Roam, but we’ve run out of time.
So you’ve been listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest technology roundup. A new episode can be found every week at Listnr, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. For now, have a great week, and we’ll see you next time on The Wrap. Stay safe, stay sane, and take care.
