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Amazon says its Prime deliveries are getting even faster

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Amazon says its Prime deliveries are getting even faster

To me, Prime’s promise of two-day shipping is more of an added bonus to Prime Video and stuff like Fallout. But it’s become an expectation, leading other retailers like Walmart and Target to roll out faster shipping options of their own.

Now, Amazon says its deliveries are getting even faster, announcing that it delivered over 2 billion items the same or next day to Prime members during the first three months of 2024, breaking its record for 2023. The company says it delivered almost 60 percent of Prime orders the same or next day in 60 of the biggest metropolitan areas in the US.

If you buy from Amazon, have you noticed any differences lately? Same-day and next-day options seem to be more widely available, but it’s hard to tell how that applies to different items in different places or whether the associated costs are worth it based on reports of warehouse injuries and workers organizing for better conditions.

The control Amazon has over shipping and fulfillment has helped make it the target of a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by unfairly limiting which sellers are eligible for Prime shipping and coercing companies into using its fulfillment services. Amazon claims that the FTC’s efforts could result in “slower or less reliable” Prime shipping for customers.

In 2019, Amazon said it was spending billions to build up an in-house fulfillment operation covering planes, trucks, drones, and robots to rival FedEx and UPS and enable these one-day-or-less deliveries. And last year, it introduced a program that allows sellers to ship their products directly from factories — regardless of whether they’re going to one of Amazon’s many warehouses.

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Samsung mocks Apple’s crushing iPad Pro ad with its own ‘UnCrush’ pitch

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Samsung mocks Apple’s crushing iPad Pro ad with its own ‘UnCrush’ pitch

On one side, responses included creatives like Hugh Grant and anyone who spotted a slightly-too-on-the-nose representation of Big Tech’s steamroller approach to art, copyright, and the past, powered by the might of generative AI tools. On the other there were the people ticked off by the knowledge that there was any backlash at all.

In response, the Samsung Mobile account on X posted this video with the hashtag “UnCrush,” which Ad Age reports was created by BBH USA and directed by Zen Pace. It shows a woman stepping over debris and spilled paint reminiscent of the end of Apple’s big hydraulic press incident and taking a seat to hum and play notes on a guitar assisted somehow by notes displayed on her Galaxy Tab S9 and the power of Galaxy AI.

A still from Samsung’s 2017 Galaxy S8 ad mocking the notch on the iPhone X.
Image: Samsung

No matter which side you’re on when it comes to the great iPad ad political divide, it’s a little fun to see Samsung trying to find a weak point in Apple’s armor again. Samsung’s marketing department used to practically specialize in this stuff, which the company’s lawyers’ argued: “drove Apple crazy,” but it seemed to run out of gas after deleting ads about iPhones dropping the in-box charging adapted. More recent attempts, like a browser-based Galaxy test drive for iPhone owners, just haven’t had the same punch as mocking that distinctive notch.

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How to change camera zoom levels on your iPhone

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How to change camera zoom levels on your iPhone

Have you ever gone to take a photo and wished you could capture it with just the right amount of zoom on your iPhone? Well, if you’re the proud owner of an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, you’re in luck because these devices have an amazing camera setup.

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iPhone 15 Pro (Apple) (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

iOS17 and later allows you to change camera zoom levels

Let’s talk about the main camera first. It offers a standard 1x zoom, perfect for crisp, clear shots that capture life as it happens. But wait, there’s more. The ultrawide camera brings a whole new perspective with a 0.5x zoom, allowing you to soak in more of the scene in a single frame. Now, here’s where it gets exciting: with iOS 17 and later, you can tweak your zoom levels directly from the menu. That’s right, no more fiddling around.

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MORE: THE HIDDEN CAMERA APP ON YOUR PHONE UNLOCKING AN AMAZING PERK

How to set up default zoom for main camera

Want to jump straight to your preferred zoom level every time you open the camera? It’s a breeze. Just follow these steps:

  • Open your Settings app
  • Tap on Camera
  • Then scroll down to Main Camera and tap it.
How to change camera zoom levels on your iPhone

Steps to set up default zoom for main camera (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

  • Here, you’ll find options to adjust your camera zoom. You can set it to Default to 24 mm – 1x, Default to 28 mm – 1.2x, or Default to 35 mm – 1.5x.
How to change camera zoom levels on your iPhone

Steps to set up default zoom for main camera (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

MORE: HOW TO SNAP PERFECT SHOT TAKING PHOTOS WITH YOUR CAMERA’S BURST MODE

How to adjust the zoom on the camera app for a specific moment

For those times when you need to quickly adjust the zoom for a specific moment, the Camera app makes it a breeze.

  • Open the Camera app
  • Press and hold down the 1x button
  • A wheel will appear, allowing you to dial in the zoom level for that specific moment.
  • Spin it to your desired magnification and snap away with precision from ultrawide to telephoto.
How to change camera zoom levels on your iPhone

Steps to adjust the zoom on the camera app (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

With these simple steps, you’ve just unlocked the secrets to becoming a zoom master on your iPhone 15 or later. So go ahead, give it a spin and capture those perfect shots that’ll make your friends go, “Wow.”

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MORE: THE AI CAMERA STRIPPING AWAY PRIVACY IN BLINK OF AN EYE

Kurt’s key takeaways

So, whether you’re looking to capture sweeping landscapes or get up close with your subject, the zoom features on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max make it easy to frame the perfect shot every time.

How has the evolution of smartphone cameras, particularly with the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, changed how you capture and share your life’s moments? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter.

Ask Kurt a question or let us know what stories you’d like us to cover.

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Microsoft’s AI obsession is jeopardizing its climate ambitions

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Microsoft’s AI obsession is jeopardizing its climate ambitions

Microsoft’s producing a lot more planet-heating pollution now than it did when it made a bold climate pledge back in 2020. Its greenhouse gas emissions were actually around 30 percent higher in fiscal year 2023, showing how hard it could be for the company to meet climate goals as it simultaneously races to be a leader in AI.

“In many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020”

Back in 2020, Microsoft set a target of becoming carbon negative by the end of the decade. To translate the jargon, it pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than half and then capture a greater amount of carbon dioxide emissions than it would produce. It was an audacious commitment to make at the time, considering carbon capture technologies were barely coming into existence. The company would also have to spur the deployment of way more renewable energy onto power grids where it operates.

“In 2020, we unveiled what we called our carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion in artificial intelligence,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said in an interview with Bloomberg. “So in many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020, if you just think of our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electrical needs.”

Diving into the data in Microsoft’s sustainability report, you can see just how far it’s gone in the wrong direction. It pumped out 15.357 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the last fiscal year, comparable to the annual carbon pollution of Haiti or Brunei.

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Data centers used to train AI are even more energy-intensive than traditional data centers that already gobble up a lot of electricity to run servers and cooling systems to prevent overheating. And Microsoft has plans to build a whole lot more of those data centers now that it’s all in on AI. The company planned to spend $50 billion over the past fiscal year in order to meet its AI ambitions — a figure it’s expected to surpass in the following year, Bloomberg reports.

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