Technology

The disinformation wars are heating up as the U.S. barrels toward the 2020 presidential election, leaving tech companies again uncomfortable in the role of referee.

On Monday, Facebook joined Twitter in flagging a video shared by White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, marking it as &partly false& and limiting its ability to spread on the platform. In the video, presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden warns about the potential of reelecting Trump, but the viral clip is edited down to a portion that misleadingly makes it sound as though Biden is endorsing Trump.

&Fact-checkers rated this video as partly false, so we are reducing its distribution and showing warning labels with more context for people who see it, try to share it, or already have,& a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch. &As we announced last year, the same applies if a politician shares the video, if it was otherwise fact checked when shared by others on Facebook.&

Over the weekend, President Trump retweeted the video to his 73.5 million Twitter followers, stating &I agree with Joe!&

On Twitter, Scavino insisted &The video was NOT manipulated,& agreeing with a tweet that argued all clips on Facebook would meet the same criteria.

Flagging the video sets an interesting precedent, particularly given that last month both platforms declined to act on a deceptively edited video depicting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up President Trumpstate of the union address. While Pelosi did in fact rip up the address, the video misrepresented the order of events, misleadingly showing Pelosi shredding the speech as Trump honored members of the military.

At the time, Facebook Policy Communications lead Andy Stone aggressively defended Facebookdecision to let the video spread in a testy exchange with Pelosi Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Hammill, who argued that every day Facebook declined to remove the video &is another reminder that they care more about their shareholders& interests than the publicinterests.& Stoneresponse at the time was combative.

TechCrunch has reached out to both platforms to clarify how the Biden video violates their policies while the Pelosi video did not.

As Bidencampaign ramps after a much-needed shot in the arm from Super Tuesday, the internet is rife with videos of the former vice presidentmany gaffes. While critics leverage Bidenstumbles as evidence that he is unfit for the presidency, an interview earlier this year revealed that at least some of his occasionally faltering speech is likely a result of a lifelong stutter, a disorder characterized by disruptions to the flow of speech.

In a statement prior to Facebookdecision to label the video on Monday, Biden Campaign Manager Greg Schultz slammed Facebook&malfeasance& around disinformation. &Facebook won&t say it, but it is apparent to all who have examined their conduct and policies: they care first and foremost about money and, to that end, are willing to serve as one of the worldmost effective mediums for the spread of vile lies.&

Sony has launched a new camera, the FDR-AX43, in India, with features and capabilities tailored for vloggers and production teams.

The compact video camera market has been growing rapidly over the past few years, as more people want to continue capturing without being bogged down by their equipment. Sony is a household name in this segment with its

According to a report from 9to5mac, Apple could be working on full cursor support for the next major version of iOS and iPadOS. The report is based on code of an early version of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.

If Apple ships that new feature, it means that you&ll be able to use a Bluetooth mouse or trackpad with your iPad to move a cursor around the screen. It would work pretty much like a mouse on a desktop computer.

Apple has already added basic support for an external mouse in the current version of iPadOS. It can be enabled in the Accessibility settings. But it basically mimics a finger on the screen.

With full cursor support, you can expect your cursor to change when you hover over a link, for instance. You could right click on some elements, as well.

According to this early version of iOS 14, the cursor will disappear after a few seconds if you don&t move the mouse. It reappears when you move the mouse again. On a Mac, the cursor disappears when you start typing text.

There are also multiple signs that seem to indicate that Apple is working on a new Smart Keyboard for the iPad and trackpad shortcuts — tap to click, tap with two fingers to right click, etc. It could mean that the next Smart Keyboard will feature a trackpad below the keyboard.

Although iOS and iPadOS share the same code base, I wouldn&t expect cursor support on the iPhone. Cursor support seems to be particularly useful on a bigger screen, such as the iPad. You can also connect the most recent iPad Pro models to an external monitor thanks to its USB-C port.

In 2017, with iOS 11, Apple brought many design metaphors from the Mac to the iPad. The company introduced a Dock at the bottom of the screen as well as a new Files app. iOS still feels like a completely different operating system from macOS. But it is interesting to see that some important desktop features also work quite well on an iPad.

We bought the cheapest smartwatch we could find from Aliexpress - the the M4 (which looks a lot like the Xiaomi Mi Band 4).

At the time of ordering, the device cost us a little less than $3, but unfortunately it now costs a staggering 36% more at $4.09 (roughly £3.00/AU$5.90). That includes free shipping to the UK and likely to most other countries

Infinix is no stranger to bringing various elements to the budget segment. The new Infinix S5 Pro does that with the pop-up selfie camera.

The phone was originally teased a month ago, which confirmed that we will be getting a display with no notch. The other specifications have also been revealed now. We’re looking at a 6.53-inch LCD panel with no n