Just stop using FB's WhatsApp, if you care about privacy Signal announces new face-blurring tool for Android and iOS Encrypted messaging app Signal has announced a new face-blurring tool that will be incorporated into the latest Android and iOS versions of the software. Users sharing pictures through the app will be able to quickly blur faces, adding another layer of privacy to pictures, though not necessarily hiding the subject’s identity completely. In a blog post announcing the update, Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike linked the update to the worldwide protests against racism and police violence sparked by the killing of George Floyd by law enforcement. These protests have led to record downloads for Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption to make messages harder to intercept. “We’ve also been working to figure out additional ways we can support everyone in the street right now,” writes Marlinspike. “One immediate thing seems clear: 2020 is a pretty good year to cover your face.” When you take a picture through Signal and select the Blur option in the toolbar, the app will automatically detect any faces it spots in your image. If it misses any, users can simply blur out faces by hand, or blur any other features they want to hide. All processing is done on-device, meaning uncensored images never leave the user’s phone. Although blurring faces in photographs certainly makes pictures more private, it’s by no means a foolproof way of anonymizing images and hiding someone’s identity. Some blurring and pixellation methods can be reversed with the right tools, for example. And anyone seeking to identify someone in a picture can work from other information, such as clothing and tattoos, which can be compared with other, un-blurred images. Even if attendees at a protest, for example, hide the identity of fellow protestors, that doesn’t mean other groups and individuals will do the same. Surveillance cameras, police body cameras, and press photographers are all capturing images. Ultimately, the best way to obscure your identity is to take matters into your own hands and wear a mask.

Hottest new tech brand in India: Realme announces its first smartwatch and TVs! Realme’s explosive performance in India has made it one of the fastest growing smartphone brands in the world, and today the company is expanding into the nebulous “lifestyle tech” market with products in new categories. First up is Realme’s first smartwatch, imaginatively called the Realme Watch. It has a square design with a 1.4-inch 320x320 LCD display and runs what appears to be a custom version of Android. It can display notifications, control music, hang up phone calls, and do other typical smartwatch things. Realme is claiming 7 to 9 days of battery life from the watch, or 20 days in its power-saving mode. After my experience with the new watch from technological stablemate Oppo, though, I’d want to check that claim for myself. Realme’s watch has much of the same functionality as the fitness band that the brand launched in March, including a heart rate sensor, sleep monitoring, and the India-targeted cricket-tracking mode. The larger screen makes this look more like a Fitbit-style watch, though, and the bands are easily removable if you want to switch up the style. The Realme Watch will cost Rs. 3,999 (~$50) and will be available from Flipkart and Realme.com on June 5th. Next is the Realme Smart TV, a pair of Android TV sets that sees Realme follow smartphone makers like OnePlus and Xiaomi by moving into the TV market in India. There’s a 32-inch 720p option and a 43-inch 1080p model — no 4K option here, though Realme claims the sets support HDR10 and HLG, reaching up to 400 nits of brightness. They use a quad-core MediaTek processor and have Dolby Audio-certified 24W quad speakers. The TVs will go on sale on Realme’s website and on Flipkart on June 2nd. The 43-inch set will sell for Rs. 21,999 ($290) while the 32-inch model is Rs. 12,999 ($170). Other products announced today include the Rs. 2,999 ($40) Realme Buds Air Neo, a better-sounding pair of truly wireless earbuds, along with a new 10,000mAh power bank for Rs. 999 ($13). They’ll both be available today.

New macOS update time! macOS 10.15.5 is out now with a new battery health feature Apple released macOS Catalina 10.15.5 today, adding a new battery health feature and new FaceTime options. That battery health feature could extend the life of your MacBook’s battery. Lithium-ion batteries, like the ones in a MacBook, slowly age over time, which means they typically begin to hold less of a charge as the computer gets older. Apple’s new battery health feature in macOS is designed to slow that aging process so that your battery will hold more charge over a longer period of time. Here’s how the feature works behind the scenes, as described by my colleagues Dieter Bohn and Jacob Kastrenakes last month: ...in certain cases, seeing 100 percent battery life in your menu bar may not necessarily mean it’s the maximum your battery could charge to. Instead of meaning that it’s charged to 100 percent of what the battery could take, it will now mean it’s charged to 100 percent of what the battery should take to maximize its lifespan. The new battery health feature will be turned on by default for new MacBooks that ship with macOS 10.15.5 or after you upgrade to macOS 10.15.5 if you’re using a MacBook that supports Thunderbolt 3 (which is any MacBook Pro released in 2016 or later or any MacBook Air released in 2018 or later). macOS 10.15.5 will also let you turn off the feature in group FaceTime calls that changes the size of the portrait of the current speaker, adds controls to let you better calibrate the Pro Display XDR, and has other bug fixes and improvements.