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Last week, Apple announced the new changes after reaching a $100 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit from US app developers. While these changes are mostly seen on the developer side, App Store users should become more aware of their apps going forward and what they’re being charged for. “If Apple is opening up their doors more towards developers who want to expand their price point, consumers should be wary of how much one app or another will want them to spend once they’re using it,” Bill Mann, a privacy expert at Restore Privacy, wrote in an email to Lifewire....

What to Do if Your PSN Account Is Hacked If you suspect that your PSN account has been compromised, you should immediately take the following actions: Change or reset your PSN passwordRemove payment methods associated with your PSN accountReview your PSN and bank transactions How to Change Your PlayStation Password on PC The first action you should take if your PSN account gets compromised is to change your password. PlayStation Network Account Recovery If you get locked out of your PSN account, your login information could be compromised, in which case you should reset your PSN password right away....

In most cases, chkdsk is still running. The problem is, in Windows 8 and Windows 10, Microsoft changed the appearance of the chkdsk display. It no longer shows you what exactly is going on the way earlier versions did. The Waiting Game The short solution to this problem is one that can be frustrating: Wait it out. This wait can be quite long, hours even. Some people who have encountered this issue and waited, trusting that the system would pull itself together, were rewarded with success after anywhere from 3 to 7 hours....

Bitdefender Retires the Free Edition Unfortunately, as of December 2021, this software from Bitdefender is no longer free-to-use software. You can install the similar Bitdefender Total Security from the same company, but it’s free only for 30 days. Here’s the company’s reason why they’ve pulled the program: Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition Overview This free virus scanner was easy to use and didn’t bombard you with a bunch of tools that most antivirus programs include....

The View Once option for WhatsApp has been available for Android since June 2021, and has just begun testing on iOS, giving users the ability to toggle the setting before sending anything. Enabling View Once will cause the message to delete itself after the recipient views it, so they can’t go back and check the message again later. It sounds like a straightforward way to address privacy, in theory, but there are several elements that make View Once all but meaningless....

There’s talk of MagSafe coming to the iPad, and it’s easy to assume this is the iPhone kind of MagSafe, which is essentially just a Qi charging puck that sticks to the back of the phone using magnets. But that’s a terrible idea for the iPad, as we shall see. Far better would be the addition of a MacBook-style MagSafe charger, or two, which would solve several of the iPad’s biggest shortcomings....

From individuals pulling off some impressive automotive trickery to companies building custom vehicles, the act of replacing an internal combustion engine with an electric motor and a bunch of batteries has been going on for years. These restomod (a combination of restoration and modification) creations have created a cottage industry and drawn the ire of some classic vehicle associations while being embraced by individuals. The reasons for transforming a vehicle from something that burns oil into something that requires a plug vary....

According to The Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle, keeping eBooks readable takes way more work than you might expect. Changing file formats, copy prevention, and the fragile nature of digital storage make managing digital books a never-ending task. And that’s for a professional library. For individuals, it’s even worse. “With the constant change, not just in file formats but in digital devices, it is difficult to maintain a digital library. Having begun my digital library using a Nook device, before moving to a Kindle and then settling on Apple, many purchases have been lost,” ebook reader Caroline Duggan told Lifewire via email....

What Does the Xbox Series X Actually Offer? As a long-term Xbox fan, I watched the announcements and pored over the bullet points, and they were…fine. Just fine. In a way, it felt like Microsoft had become a victim of its own success. I love my Xbox One X and use it most days, so was there any need for another console to try to tempt me away? To me, launch games were crucial and, well, they aren’t great....

Currently, there are only two alternatives for phone operating systems, both of which are controlled by US companies in California (iOS and Android). India wants a third, home-grown choice, and it also plans to grow its electronics manufacturing industry from $75 billion per year to $300 billion, which could include Indian-designed phones for the domestic market. India’s Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar has announced a desire to mix things up....

Desktop Publishing Is Affordable Desktop publishing makes it possible to efficiently produce printed and electronic—online or onscreen—documents without the expertise and expensive equipment that was once required. Although skilled graphic designers use desktop publishing, so do small business owners, freelancers, website owners, and club presidents. Desktop Publishing Is a Desirable Skill Set Office managers, teachers, administrative assistants, real estate agents, restaurant managers, and just about any office or clerical job require some level of desktop publishing skill....

Nvidia is a graphics processor (GPU) company, but it also makes systems on a chip (SoC) for mobile devices. And Arm licenses designs for its chips to other chip designers. Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and other devices are all Arm-based designs, and even the blistering-fast M1 Macs use the same chip architecture. According to Arm’s Japanese owner Softbank, “The technologies of processor designer Arm are used in the main chips of almost all smartphones and tablets....

Google’s new Pixel 5a, which starts at $449, is the latest addition to the budget-conscious “a” line of phones. It’s got a hardly shabby 6.34-inch OLED screen and a Snapdragon 765G chipset. There’s also a 16-megapixel ultrawide camera and a 12-megapixel primary camera. “Users want to be able to access cloud applications and high-speed data like 5G,” Kevin Ryan, a professor who teaches about network technology at Stevens Institute of Technology, told Lifewire in a phone interview....

The startup Joipaw is making a gaming console for canines. While video games for pups may involve more fetching and drooling than, say, your average human Call of Duty title, experts claim there’s a method behind the venture. “These games can be of varying types, but all aim to achieve the same thing: giving the dog something visually stimulating to look at and react to,” Patrik Holmboe, the head veterinarian for Cooper Pet Care, told Lifewire in an email interview....

Apple’s hardware dominance in mobile is down to its A-series chips, which power iPhones, iPads, and the Apple TV. Variants are used in the Mac and other Apple products. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry relies on Qualcomm’s SnapDragon chips. Google’s next Pixel phone will use the Google-designed GS101 “Whitechapel” system on a chip (SoC). But will Google—infamously fickle with its products—be able to stay the course? “Google Silicon might turn the Pixel into the biggest contender of the iPhone,” Caroline Lee, co-founder of Cocosign, told Lifewire via email....

The ExpressVPN Digital Security Lab found that trackers released by X-Mode, a data broker involved in multiple privacy scandals, are in many more apps than previously reported. X-Mode trackers appeared in apps that have been downloaded at least 1 billion times. The trackers, which can reveal your location, are raising privacy concerns. “A person’s location information reveals a lot of them,” Sean O’Brien, a principal researcher at cybersecurity firm ExpressVPN, said in an email interview....

2020 was an outstanding year for Nintendo. The Switch dominated sales charts throughout the year, driving the company’s stock price up 60 percent by year’s end. Nintendo’s superstar console is closing in on its four year anniversary, however, and is starting to show its age. “Where we are in the Switch lifecycle—almost 4 years since launch—we are hitting peak sales, and it is a good time to consider releasing an improved version to maintain momentum,” Piers Harding-Rolls, Head of Game Research at Ampere Analysis, said in a Twitter DM with Lifewire....

What Is an XLX File? A file with the XLX file extension is most likely associated with Xcelsius, as either a Crystal Reports file or an add-on file. Incomplete download files saved from the XoloX download manager also use this extension. XLX Files and Microsoft Excel There’s some confusion regarding XLX. While it might sound like a Microsoft Excel-based format, it’s not. Excel doesn’t support XLX files and XLX files aren’t typical spreadsheet files....

For those who aren’t aware, Apple has been pushing for more users to adopt its iPhone, and in recent years it started accepting trade-ins of your older devices. This essentially made it possible to get some money back on the device you’d been using while letting you put it toward the purchase of a new one. While Apple doesn’t accept all Android phones, the ones it does accept have recently seen a change in value....

“How much driving range would a fully charged all-battery electric vehicle need to have in order for you to consider acquiring one?” That’s the question Deloitte asked 927 of-age drivers in the United States. The 518-mile range result is an answer the company says is based on consumer expectation from a fully-charged EV. If you’re an automaker, you might be looking at this and having a bit of a breakdown; batteries are typically the most expensive part of an electric vehicle....