TechCruuse

An Australian consumer watchdog has barred four banks from collectively bargaining with Apple for gaining access to the contactless payment technology used in iPhones. Four banks — Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank — wanted to negotiate with Apple to gain access to its payments technology used in “Apple Pay” for their own apps, avoiding having to pay fees to Apple, the BBC reported on Friday. The banks do not allow their cards to be used with “Apple Pay” because they never reached agreement on the conditions. By collectively bargaining with the Cupertino-headquartered tech giant, these four banks wanted to convey to Apple that unless it gave them access to its iPhone technology, they would continue to prevent their customers from using Apple Pay. In its final ruling on Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that the collective threat to boycott Apple was “likely to reduce or distort competition”. The

Chicago authorities on Saturday said they had arrested a 14-year-old boy in connection with the sexual assault of a teenage girl by multiple young men that was seen on Facebook Live in March. “Tonight, CPD (Chicago Police Department) arrested the first of several juvenile offenders in the Facebook sexual assault incident,” the department’s chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said on Twitter, adding that a news conference would provide further details on Sunday. The mother of the victim of the March assault had approached police after an unrelated news conference and shown them images of her daughter being assaulted by five or six young men. The mother said the girl’s uncle had told her about a video on Facebook Live that showed the assault. The high school freshman had gone to the store and her mother became concerned when she did not return. The March incident was among several in recent months in Chicago in which the social media site has played a role in broadcasting apparent

HMD Global, the company that is making Nokia smartphones is planning to launch the flagship, Nokia 9 in coming months. According to a new tip reported by  Nokia Power User . the company may be planning to include Iris scanner to the upcoming flagship smartphone. The report hinted at an entire list of specifications that are rumoured to come with Nokia 9. This is in contrast to the lack of any official statements from HMD Global regarding the release of the smartphone. Nokia 9 is expected to sport a 5.5-inch QHD OLED display panel while running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 with Adreno 540 GPU. The quality German glass made by Carl-Zeiss used by original Nokia is expected to make a comeback with Nokia 9 where 22MP Dual-lens camera module will be equipped with Carl-Zeiss optics and a 12MP front camera. Nokia 9 will come with 6GB RAM and two storage variants of 64GB and 128GB internal storage. The smartphone will sport a 3,800 mAh battery along with Qualcomm Quick-Charge 4 support.

HTC was rumoured to be working on a new flagship smartphone code-named  HTC Ocean , which would be unlike any other handset that we have seen. Today, we have a  leaked press-render  of an HTC smartphone which seems to match the rumours. According the leak, the smartphone is HTC U. It will be a full metal smartphone and have slim bezels. As you can see there are no physical buttons, only a USB Type-C port at the bottom with a pair of speakers. This matches the previous rumours we have heard about the HTC Ocean, where it was speculated to have touch sensitive sensors on the edges for certain functionalities like volume control and power button. There is no fingerprint scanner either so it could very well be embedded under the display and it seems to lack a 3.5mm audio jack as well. There is also a leaked set of specifications for the handset which suggest a 5.5-inch display with quad HD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, a Snapdragon 835 chipset and two storage variants of 64GB a

Comcast Corp, Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc said Friday they would not sell customers’ individual internet browsing information, days after the US Congress approved legislation reversing Obama administration era internet privacy rules. The bill would repeal regulations adopted in October by the Federal Communications Commission under former President Barack Obama requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers’ privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc’s Google or Facebook Inc . The easing of restrictions has sparked growing anger on social media sites. “We do not sell our broadband customers’ individual web browsing history. We did not do it before the FCC’s rules were adopted, and we have no plans to do so,” said Gerard Lewis, Comcast’s chief privacy officer. He added Comcast is revising its privacy policy to make more clear that “we do not sell our customers’ individual web browsing information to third parties.” Verizon does not sell person

Google is now rolling out a new version of Android to Nexus and Pixel devices in the market. The new version of Android is  not Android O  as you may think but Android Nougat 7.1.2. The company initially released a beta version for Android 7.1.2 back in January along with the second beta back in March. The new update is nothing significant and does not add any additional functionality to the operating system except the fingerprint scanner gesture. The fingerprint scanner gesture is coming to Nexus 6P and 5X along with Pixel launcher for Pixel C tablet. The update also added the option to choose where you want to set the live wallpapers along with a new battery usage list as  detailed by  Android Police . The option to choose where you want to set the live wallpapers gives you the option to choose if you want to only apply the current live wallpaper to the homescreen or the lockscreen also. The new battery usage list presents a ‘Usage alerts’ list where Android can list that ap