Tim Hardwick
Tim is a Senior Editor at MacRumors and has been writing for the site since 2016. Formerly a magazine journalist, his work has appeared in over 30 newsstand print publications and online brands covering a range of topics, from the latest trends in technology to the mysteries of ancient history.
Based in the UK, Tim's current role at MacRumors involves editorial oversight and how tos, in addition to covering daily news and contributing occasional reviews. Tim can be reached at tim@macrumors.com, Telegram (@waxeditorial) or Twitter.
Based in the UK, Tim's current role at MacRumors involves editorial oversight and how tos, in addition to covering daily news and contributing occasional reviews. Tim can be reached at tim@macrumors.com, Telegram (@waxeditorial) or Twitter.
Tim Hardwick's Articles
MasterCard Reveals Credit Card With Built-In Fingerprint Sensor
MasterCard today unveiled a biometric chip-and-pin credit card featuring a built-in fingerprint sensor that takes cues from mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay.
The card can be used to make purchases like any other, except rather than keying in a PIN number, card holders can choose to place their finger over the square sensor to approve the transaction.
Alternatively, users can take a ...
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Amazon Opens Alexa's Deep Learning and Voice Recognition Smarts to Chatbot Developers
Amazon on Wednesday made the AI and voice-recognition software that powers the company's Alexa virtual assistant available to all its cloud-computing customers.
Called Amazon Lex, the service will allow developers to make chat bot applications using Alexa's voice recognition technology and leverage the AI's deep learning abilities to enable their apps to understand more text and speech...
MasterCard Shopping Chatbots Now Taking Orders on Facebook Messenger
MasterCard added its digital wallet Masterpass to Facebook Messenger this week, enabling consumers to place online orders via the chat platform with just a few clicks. The rollout is still in the initial stages but the payment system is already available for some food merchants, including Subway, The Cheesecake Factory, and FreshDirect.
The transaction process involves searching for and...
Bose Wireless Headphones Spy on Listeners, Lawsuit Alleges
Bose has been hit by a lawsuit that accuses the company of spying on its wireless headphone customers through its Bose Connect mobile app and violating consumer privacy rights (via Reuters).
The complaint was filed on Tuesday in a Chicago federal court by Kyle Zak, who is seeking an injunction to stop Bose's "wholesale disregard" for the privacy of customers who download the app to their...
Google Could Include Ad-Blocker in Future Versions of Chrome Browser
Google is planning to introduce an ad-blocking feature in both the mobile and desktop versions of its Chrome web browser, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.
The feature could be turned on by default within Chrome and would be designed to filter out certain online ad types that result in poor user experiences on the web, as defined by industry group the Coalition for...
Apple May Cut Imagination Tech Royalties By Two Thirds as it Winds Down Chip Deal
Apple is likely to pay out just one third of its current royalty rate to Imagination Technologies as it begins winding down its supply deal with the chipmaker over the next two years, according to analysts at UBS financial services (via Reuters).
The prediction includes the expectation that British-based Imagination will become loss-making by 2019 without any Apple royalties to fall back on,...
Internet Archive Offers In-Browser Emulation of Classic Macintosh Software, Circa 1984-1989
This week the Internet Archive website announced it has curated a range of classic Macintosh software for interested users to download and emulate in their browser, allowing them to get a feel for Apple days of yesteryear.
The selection spans the period 1984-1989 in Macintosh history, and features classic applications like MacPaint and MacDraft, System Software 6, and games including Dark...
Xiaomi Unveils $360 Mi 6 Phone With Dual-Lens Camera, 'Four-Sided 3D Glass' Casing, No Headphone Jack
Chinese mobile maker Xiaomi unveiled the Mi 6, its latest flagship smartphone, at a packed-out event in Beijing on Wednesday.
The Mi 5's successor features curved "four-sided 3D glass" and a front that isn't bezel-free like the company's Mi MIX, but the phone does boast a lot of tech for a device that starts at 2499 RMB, or $360 – about half of what a base iPhone 7 goes for in China....
Real-Time Strategy Classic 'StarCraft' Becomes a Free Download for Mac
Blizzard Entertainment today made wildly popular real-time strategy game StarCraft a free download for Mac and PC, nearly two decades after its original release.
The RTS hit was universally acclaimed when it launched in 1998, and went on to become an e-sport phenomenon in South Korea, where big-prize tournaments and TV channels drew legions of fans to the game.
The free download is the...
Apple CEO Tim Cook Accepts 2017 Free Expression Award in Washington, D.C.
Apple CEO Tim Cook attended the Newseum's Free Expression Awards in Washington, D.C., last night to accept the institution's 2017 Free Expression Award.
Cook was named in February as the recipient of the award in the Free Speech category, which recognized the Apple CEO for having a "profound impact" on communication and for using his position to "take a public stand" on issues like racial...
Spotify Half-Price Student Subscription Plan Rolls Out to 31 More Countries
Spotify today expanded its half-price student subscription plan to 31 more countries around the world.
The music streaming service has offered the discounted premium subscriptions to students based in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany for some time, but starting today Spotify is adding several more countries to the list of eligible nations.
The list now includes Austria, Australia, Belgium, ...
May Cover of Food Magazine 'Bon Appétit' Shot on an iPhone 7
Food magazine Bon Appétit has used an iPhone to shoot the cover photography for its latest travel issue. The Condé Nast-owned publication follows in the footsteps of magazines like Billboard and Condé Nast Traveler, both of which have recently run covers shot on iPhones.
Bon Appètit has used iPhone-shot photos in the past – including in last year's Culture issue – but this is the first...
Ecobee4 Thermostat to Come With Built-In Alexa Voice Assistant
The Ecobee4 will come with a built-in microphone for issuing Alexa-based voice commands, according to leaked marketing materials for the upcoming smart wireless thermostat (via The Verge).
Ecobee3 owners with supporting Amazon hardware have been able to use Alexa to control their devices since the thermostat maker added support in December, but it looks as if the next iteration of the product...
Logitech Announces HomeKit-Compatible POP Smart Button For Controlling Smart Devices
Logitech today announced a new POP Smart Button, its first Apple HomeKit compatible programmable smart button for controlling connected devices around the home.
The idea behind the original POP is to free up control of smart devices so that anyone in the home can operate them regardless of whether they have a smartphone and the associated app for each device. The latest POP builds on that...
New 'Server-Grade' iMac With Next-Gen Xeon Processor Coming End of 2017
Apple's new range of iMacs will launch in the second half of 2017 and will include a "server-grade" model to cater for the high end creative professional market, according to Taiwan-based supply chain sources.
Apple has already confirmed it is working on new iMac models for release later this year, but today's report offers another hint at what could be in store for creative pros and puts a...
YouTube Dark Mode Surfaces in Latest Desktop Chrome Browser Update
Google appears to be testing a Dark Mode feature for YouTube in the latest version of its Chrome 57 desktop browser.
The built-in mode was discovered on Thursday and shared in a Reddit post, and while the setting doesn't appear by default, a quick command in the developer console is all that's required to enable it.
YouTube Dark Mode in Chrome with black theme enabled
Follow these steps...
Slack Chat Platform Finally Gets Custom Status Message Feature
Team chat platform Slack got a long-awaited feature on Thursday with the addition of status updates, finally allowing users to customize their status message beyond the default "away" setting.
The new "set a status" feature includes five Suggested statuses including In a meeting, Commuting, Out sick, Vacationing, and Working remotely, as well as an input field for typing a custom message –...
Amazon Offers Echo's Far-Field Voice Recognition Tech to Third Parties
Amazon has fired another salvo in the virtual assistant wars by opening up access to the far-field voice recognition technology found in its Echo smart speakers so that third-party manufacturers can make their own versions (via BBC).
The move comes as Amazon attempts to spread the use of its Alexa virtual assistant across a wide range of connected products and take ownership of a larger...
Apple Music Debuts Toronto's 'House of Strombo' Concert Series
Top music interviewer and CBC Radio 2 host George Stroumboulopoulos debuted his new House of Strombo music series on Apple Music on Thursday (via Billboard).
The 10-episode show is a spin-off of the Canadian host's radio series The Strombo Show, which is filmed at his Toronto home in front of a live audience. The show is set to feature video segments, artist interviews, and exclusive...
First Course Launches to Develop Apps For Android in Apple's Swift Language
An Italian school has launched the first Android-specific course in Apple's increasingly popular open source Swift programming language.
The Swift University based in Reggio Emilia claims to be the first, globally, to offer the course for Android, and aims to show students how to use the programming language across both platforms while avoiding the limitations associated with cross-platform...
