Archives for October 12, 2019

The price on the base models keeps dropping.

Apple is no longer selling its Apple Watch Series 4, but you can snag one for a steep discount on Amazon. Last week, we saw the price drop on the base silver aluminum and white sport band versions of the 44mm models. Today, the watches are on sale for even more. You can save up to $160.

The GPS model is currently listed at $330; that’s $100 less than its original price. The more expensive GPS + cellular Watch is on sale for $370, meaning you’ll save $160 off the original list price of $530. We’ve never seen Series 4 prices this low.

Apple has moved on to the Watch Series 5, but the Series 4 is still a great watch. The new Series 5 features are pretty subtle, and they’re things most people will be able to live without — like an always-on display and a Compass app. The Series 5 basic, no-cellular, GPS-only aluminum version starts at $399, and if you add cellular, that will bump the price to $499. So, if you’re looking for a solid watch but don’t want to pay full-price for a Series 5, these Amazon deals might be the way to go.

And if it does, it’ll be even happier to sell you one of its QLED sets.

Samsung might be all about OLED in smartphone displays, but it’s steered away from using those types of screens for its TVs, instead harnessing LCD and QLED tech. As part of its efforts to remind people that OLED can be susceptible to burn-in, it has released a super-helpful (and not at all borne out of self-interest) way to check your screen for the problem.

Its YouTube video points out the types of visual vomit you should be on the lookout for when checking for burn-in (discoloration of pixels caused by static images). It includes a 10-second static display of red that fills the TV and should make burnt-in parts of the screen more obvious.

The OLED burn-in issue’s not quite so clear-cut in practice or as widespread as Samsung might have you believe. Testing by Engadget editors and others has found that those displays can be pretty robust. Features such as pixel/screen shift (which moves the entire image by a pixel every now and again) and logo luminance reduction (which dims static parts of the picture, like a network logo or scorecard in a sports game) help diminish the likelihood of burn-in too.

If your screen does have burn-in, it’s likely noticeable enough without you having to look at a solid color on the TV for 10 seconds. Samsung’s also more than happy to sell you one of its QLED screens it claims are free from the burn-in blight. It’s had its own troubles with OLED displays elsewhere though — it used that tech in its Galaxy Fold screens.

It’s about time.

As of today, Amazon customers in the US can speak to Alexa in Spanish. They can switch Echo and Alexa Built-In devices to Spanish using the Alexa app, or they can take advantage of multilingual mode. That feature allows Alexa to respond in English or Spanish, depending on which language the question was asked in.

Echo and Alexa Built-In devices also support a new Spanish voice, and developers can build new skills for Spanish speaking users. Amazon Music listeners in the US can ask Alexa for new Latin music playlists in Spanish, too.

We knew these changes were coming, but that doesn’t make them any less significant. The US has the second largest concentration of Spanish speakers in the world next to Mexico — a total of 48.6 million. Though, Google Assistant and Siri both speak Spanish (and several other languages), so Amazon is playing catch up on a pretty important capability.

SEC says Telegram can’t avoid federal securities laws by labeling their product a cryptocurrency.

Telegram’s plans for its cryptocurrency and blockchain network may be in jeopardy. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an emergency action and obtained a temporary restraining order against the company, which prevents it from distributing and selling its Gram tokens in the country. According to the regulators, the company sold 2.9 billion Grams at discounted prices to 171 initial purchasers worldwide, raising $1.7 billion in the process. A billion of those tokens were purchased by people in the US.

The agency says Telegram didn’t register the offering with its office, and since it sees Grams as securities, it’s accusing the company of violating the Securities Act of 1933. It’s not clear how this restraining order would affect Gram’s launch as a whole. Former SEC attorney Zachary Fallon told Bloomberg that it could also complicate the company’s ability to sell tokens in other countries. But even if it doesn’t prevent Telegram from launching outside the US, it could still cause huge issues for the company. The New York Times reported back in August that Telegram promised investors it would deliver Grams by October 31st or return their money.

The SEC Division of Enforcement’s Co-Director Stephanie Avakian said:

“Our emergency action today is intended to prevent Telegram from flooding the US markets with digital tokens that we allege were unlawfully sold. We allege that the defendants have failed to provide investors with information regarding Grams and Telegram’s business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and management that the securities laws require.”

The agency also stressed that companies can’t avoid federal securities laws just by labeling their products a cryptocurrency or a digital token.