Neewday 365

For more than a decade, smartphone users everywhere have faced a major problem in how we communicate: the “green versus blue bubble” disparity.When iPhone users send texts to other iPhones, the messages appear blue and can tap into exclusive perks like fun emojis and animations. But if an iPhone user texts an Android user, the bubble turns green, many features break, and photos and videos deteriorate in quality.Over time, the annoyance and frustration that built up between blue and green bubbles evolved into more than a tech problem. It created a deeper sociological divide between people who judged one another by their phones. The color of a bubble became a symbol that some believe reflects status and wealth, given a perception that only wealthy people buy iPhones.Now part of this problem ...

The Biden administration has been trying to jump-start the domestic supply chain for electric vehicles so cleaner cars can be made in the United States. But the experience of one Texas company, whose plans to help make an all-American electric vehicle were upended by China, highlights the stakes involved as the administration finalizes rules governing the industry.Huntsman Corporation started construction two years ago on a $50 million plant in Texas to make ethylene carbonate, a chemical that is used in electric vehicle batteries. It would have been the only site in North America making the product, with the goal of feeding battery factories that would crop up to serve the electric vehicle market.But as new facilities in China came online and flooded the market, the price of the chemical ...

If you have not used one of your Google accounts for a long time, you might want to this week. Inactive accounts will start vanishing on Dec. 1.Google announced in May that it would start deleting accounts that had been idle for two years and said the policy would begin in December.That means that anything stored in Gmail or other Google products like YouTube, Photos, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar could be deleted.Accounts are considered active if a user signs in and performs any one of a number of actions, including reading or sending an email, watching a YouTube video or using Google’s search. The user must be logged in to the account for the action to count.The company said when it announced the policy that it was for security reasons: Accounts that have not been used for a long time a...