Photography has become a staple use of the modern iPhone, and Apple isn't resting on its laurels in its efforts to advance what you can do with a photo in iOS 17. Below we've listed eight new photo-related features and improvements coming with Apple's latest mobile operating system, which is expected to get its official release in the fall. Can't wait until then? The iOS 17 beta is available now. 1. Pet Recognition In ‌iOS 17‌, Apple has improved the image recognition capabilities of the Photos app, which can now recognize not only your family and friends, but also your beloved pets. The ‌‌Photos‌‌ app's ability to detect animals isn't new, but now it can identify animals that are important…

Apple this month introduced the 15-inch MacBook Air, the world’s best 15-inch laptop. With an expansive 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, the incredible performance of M2, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a silent, fanless design, the new MacBook Air brings power and portability — all in the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop. Only possible with Apple silicon, the 15-inch MacBook Air is the world’s best 15-inch laptop. It comes in four gorgeous finishes, including starlight, space gray, silver, and midnight. With an all-new six-speaker sound system, the 15-inch MacBook Air delivers immersive Spatial Audio, along with a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, MagSafe charging, and the power and ease of macOS Ventura for an unrivaled experience. Scott Stein for CNET:…

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge My smart home journey began, like so many others, with a poorly placed light switch. My partner and I had just bought our first house, and the switch that illuminated the kitchen was in the laundry room all the way on the other side, meaning we had to wander through darkness to get to it. I hated that light switch. So what to do? Well, I could spend a bunch of money I didn’t have to hire someone to move it, try to do it myself and accidentally burn my house down with a bad wiring job, or take the plunge on a smart home. I took the path of least resistance (that’s…

The iOS Camera app offers a few optional settings to help you line up your shots, most notably a Grid that can be overlaid on the screen to help apply the rule of thirds. And for the last few years, the Grid mode has included a somewhat-hidden leveling feature for top-down photos, popping up a floating crosshair to help make sure you're lined up properly above your subject. With iOS 17, Apple is enhancing the camera leveling functionality, separating it out from the Grid mode to its own option and expanding it to include a horizontal level for more traditional straight-on photos. Turning the Level option on will pop up a broken horizontal line on the screen when your iPhone…

The competitive, high-stakes bidding war is just beginning over who will televise National Basketball Association (NBA) games into the next decade. The price tag is expected to be over $5 billion a year. Gerry Smith for Bloomberg: Currently, Walt Disney Co., home of ABC and ESPN, and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., owner of TNT, are in an exclusive negotiating window to renew their contracts with the NBA. The current deals expire in 2025, and executives at the two companies are waiting for the league to decide what packages of games it will sell. Meanwhile, just about every other major media company — and some technology giants — have expressed interest in making bids once the exclusive window ends next spring.…

Macworld Macs may be a far less tempting target for malware and viruses, but they’re not immune from attack. Even if you don’t care about adware or being used as means to infect users on other platforms, it’s still possible to fall victim to ransomware, or password theft. Accordingly, good antivirus for Mac software will protect your Mac on all of these fronts. It’ll catch malware that’s still spreading or in circulation; block ransomware; protect older systems with out-of-date software from security vulnerabilities; prevent your Mac from acting as a carrier for malware aimed at other operating systems; and keep infected files off of any virtual machines you’re running. As to the question of which Mac antivirus software you should choose,…