Month: January 2020

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  The Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G. We're getting pretty wordy with these 5G phone names again. [credit: XDA Developers ]

XDA Developer's Max Weinbach has scored the first in-person photos of Samsung's next flagship smartphone. We previously only saw the phone in renders, so there are a few things to go over.

Since the Galaxy S10 came out last year, we've been calling Samsung's next phone the "Galaxy S11" because we're great at math. But this year, it seems the S series is getting a new numbering scheme, and, according to the boot screen, this device is the "Galaxy S20+." With the S20 in 2020, apparently Samsung has decided to number these things like they're the latest installment in an EA Sports video game franchise.

The front is right in line with Samsung's last phone, the Galaxy Note 10, with a centered cutout for the front camera. XDA says the display sides are "much less curved than before. Our source said [the display] felt flat." Samsung has been pushing curved display sides for years, but the feature has never offered any usability benefits—it just distorts the sides of the screen and makes it easier to accidentally touch the sides of the display. Seeing a sensible return to flat displays would be great.

Enlarge / Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in 2013. (credit: MEHDI GHASEMI/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Instagram has been removing posts supporting Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian military leader who was killed by an American strike on January 3, CNN reports. Instagram's actions were first spotted by the nonprofit news organization Coda. In statements to both news organizations, Facebook-owned Instagram said it was taking down the posts to comply with US sanctions laws.

Soleimani was a leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military that the US has accused of training and funding groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The Trump administration designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization in April 2019.

“We review content against our policies and our obligations to US sanctions laws, and specifically those related to the US government’s designation of the IRGC and its leadership as a terrorist organization,” Facebook said in a statement to Ars Technica.

Enlarge (credit: Ahold Delhaize)

This is a silly story about the most stupid interaction I have had with a piece of technology that's supposed to make life easier, and it all starts at the grocery store.

The closest supermarket to my house is a Giant (ironically, a medium-sized one). It's nearby, well-stocked, price-competitive, and generally well-run, so my family does most of our grocery shopping there. One major feature for us is the chain's SCAN-IT service: a handheld scanner, or an app you can put on your phone, that allows you to check out and bag your own items as you go. Pretty convenient, as far as it goes, except for one major flaw: the system apparently cannot do basic arithmetic, such as determining that two is in fact less than seven.

Scan-It and the honor system

The Scan-It app is straightforward to use. You load it up on your phone while on the store's Wi-Fi network and point your phone camera at the barcodes on the things you want to buy. The store has scales throughout the produce section where you can weigh your fruit and vegetables and print a label to scan. For loose items such as bagels or muffins, the bakery has centralized barcodes hanging on signs.