Digital Trends Live: Conspiracy theories, iPhone 12 leak, and more

By Todd Werkhoven Published April 25, 2023

On this episode of Digital Trends Live, host Greg Nibler discusses the top tech stories of the day, including 5G and Bill Gates conspiracies, Google scams, an iPhone 12 Pro Max leak, Microsoft and NBA team up, and more.

Sarah Evans

Sarah Evans, founder of Sevans Strategy and Sevans Digital PR, joins the show to discuss drones that disinfect using UV light.

We’ve seen deepfake video, but now there is A.I. that can deepfake your voice. Luke Dormehl takes a look at LOVO Studio’s new technology.

Cedar Anderson

Nibler then speaks with Cedar Anderson, co-founder of Flow Hive, Indiegogo’s most successful campaign and the most successful campaign ever launched on any platform outside the United States, about how they’ve taken 95% of the labor out of beekeeping and getting honey.

Finally, we have Tech Briefs with Ken Yeung, editor at Flipboard, who wraps up this week’s biggest tech news, including the iPhone SE, the Google/Apple team up, and the successful release of Trolls World Tour.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Todd Werkhoven's work can be read at numerous publications and he co-authored a personal finance book called "Zombie…

Mobile

Apple will now let you fix your own iPhone in win for right-to-repair campaigners

iPhone 13 Pro style shot.

Apple will finally let iPhone users repair their own iPhones, the company announced this week. It will start this effort with the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series, with an expansion to older iPhones and more of its product lines in the near future. Dubbed Self Service Repair, it is aimed at those customers who have the experience, skills, and willingness to get hands-on with product repairs. The company will send (or rather, sell) people parts, tools, and a manual in what is a huge win for right-to-repair campaigners.

The new Apple Self Service Repair Online Store will offer more than 200 individual parts and tools for sale. Apple also noted that these customers who get access to the parts, tools, and manuals join a club of more than 5,000 Apple Authorized Service Providers and 2,800 Independent Repair Providers.

Mobile

Google One subscribers now have enhanced photo-editing tools on iPhones

Pixel 6 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro in hand.

Google One subscribers on iPhones can now tweak portrait photos and HDR levels in the Google Photos app as part of a new subscription perk. The change was spotted by 9to5Google and follows a broader rollout to Android phones that started in February.

If you're running iOS 14.0 and have an iPhone with 3GB of RAM -- essentially the iPhone 7 Plus, 8 Plus, X, and above -- you'll be able to make use of these new tools. The first of these features is portrait lighting, which lets you change the position of light sources in portrait photos. There's also a "blur" a tool that allows for the addition of retroactive software blur on images captured without portrait mode.

Mobile

Apple yields to demands to make iPhone 13 display repairs easier

The iPhone 13 Pro's lock screen.

When Apple launched the iPhone 13 in September, it soon became apparent that display replacements performed by anyone other than Apple or an authorized service would disable Face ID, leaving owners with the message: "Unable to activate Face ID on this ‌iPhone‌."

This was bad news for anyone who'd just bought an iPhone 13 and needed a new display but had no idea Face ID would stop working if they took the device to a third-party repair shop. The shops, too, were none too pleased as they quickly realized they could no longer replace iPhone 13 displays, cutting off an important revenue source.