MacRumors

Sprint has announced a new plan called Unlimited Freedom that offers unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data for $60 per month. A second line can be added for $40 per month, while up to eight more lines can be added for an additional $30 per month each. The total cost for a family of four, for example, would be $160 per month, the same price as T-Mobile's new ONE plan for that many lines.

Unlimited Freedom automatically optimizes select content, limiting video streams to up to 480p resolution, gaming up to 2 Mbps, and music streams up to 500 kbps. The carrier did not specify if tethering is included, or if customers will be able to upgrade to unlimited HD video and music for an additional monthly charge. T-Mobile ONE offers unlimited HD video for an additional $25 per month.

Sprint also announced that its prepaid subsidiary Boost Mobile is launching a new Unlimited Unhook'd plan featuring unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data, with the same content optimizations, for $50 per month. Up to four additional lines can be added for $30 per month each. The new plans from both Sprint and Boost Mobile are available for new and existing customers starting tomorrow.

After years of planning, and testing phases over the last few months, Uber this month will begin allowing customers in Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from within its ride-hailing app. As noted by Bloomberg, "no automotive or technology company has yet achieved" the public launch of a self-driving service, passing rivals Google, Tesla, and Ford, who have so far only performed tests in the field.

Uber's new program isn't entirely "driverless," however, since the company is still placing trained engineers in the driver's seat, "as common sense and the law dictate," to oversee each trip and ensure the passenger's safety. There will also be a co-pilot in the front passenger seat to take notes while the test trips take place, and everything will get recorded by cameras inside and outside the vehicle "so that any glitches can be ironed out."

On the passenger side of things, once users hail the specially modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles, they'll see a tablet computer in the backseat that comes stacked with information to tell them that they're in an autonomous vehicle and educate them on exactly what's happening. Although unspecified, it appears that riders won't know they're being paired with a driverless car while in the Uber app, but the ride will be free of charge "for the time being."

According to Uber's engineering director Raffi Krikorian, "the goal is to wean us off of having drivers in the car, so we don’t want the public talking to our safety drivers." The company also thinks the new technology could greatly cut down on the cost of trips for riders, which it sees as a major opportunity. Still, there are hiccups in the system the company has to fix before all of this progress can happen.

On a recent weekday test drive, the safety drivers were still an essential part of the experience, as Uber’s autonomous car briefly turned un-autonomous, while crossing the Allegheny River. A chime sounded, a signal to the driver to take the wheel. A second ding a few seconds later indicated that the car was back under computer control. “Bridges are really hard,” Krikorian says. “And there are like 500 bridges in Pittsburgh.”

Uber’s cars haven’t had any fender benders since they began road-testing in Pittsburgh in May, but at some point something will go wrong, according to Krikorian. “We’re interacting with reality every day,” he says. “It’s coming.”

Apple itself was the source of multiple self-driving automobile rumors, beginning last year, but ultimately it's believed that the company's first foray into the vehicle industry most likely won't be autonomous, with further generations down the line more likely to include the technology. All the same, over the summer it was reported that Apple is taking a "two-prong approach" to the Apple Car, focusing more heavily on creating its own autonomous driving system rather than the hardware manufacturing of the vehicle itself.

You can read Bloomberg's full report on Uber's autonomous vehicle launch in Pittsburgh right here.

Apple has added Apple Pay support for customers of Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank in the United Kingdom.

Apple's official list of participating banks in Europe has yet to updated, but the two banks independently confirmed news of the added support via Twitter and on their websites.

The support also covers the two banks' new co-operative digital banking service, called simply "B", which offers customers a current account, a savings account, and a mobile app featuring budgeting tools that enable customers to set saving goals as well as tag and categorize purchases.

The British banks join 18 others supporting Apple's mobile payment feature in the country, making the U.K. the second region behind the U.S. with the widest support for the service, ahead of China in third.

(Thanks, Leon!)

Instagram has introduced a new "Events" channel in the Explore section of its app that highlights user photos and video clips captured during specific events from around the world.

Currently only available in the U.S., the new channel implements an algorithm to curate media from events like sports games and concerts, based on a user's preferences and habits, according to a post on the company's site.

Snapchat users may be experiencing déjà vu all over again at this point, given that the new Instagram feature is extremely similar to the rival app's Discover channel "Live Stories", where reels of photos and videos are shared publicly by users at a particular event.

The addition of the new feature by Instagram certainly follows a trend. Earlier this month, the Facebook-owned photo and video sharing platform announced "Instagram Stories", which functions identically to Snapchat's Stories in that it lets users post customized images and videos on their profile, where they live for 24 hours before disappearing completely.

Surprisingly, Instagram has been upfront about its recent tendency to imitate Snapchat features. While demoing its new Stories feature for TechCrunch, Instagram CEO Kevin Systro admitted that Snapchat "deserve all the credit".

Starting on August 19, Apple Pay will be available in Chick-fil-A restaurants across the United States, allowing fast food buyers to make their purchases both in-store and at the drive thru using Apple's payment service.

The news was shared by the Chick-fil-A Twitter account following an inquiry by AppleInsider writer Roger Fingas, who had heard a tip that support was already rolling out at some Chick-fil-A locations.

Chick-fil-A was first announced as an Apple Pay partner in February of 2016, and support was supposed to roll out shortly after, but it has taken several months for the restaurant to implement Apple Pay. Chick-fil-A will also be accepting Android Pay starting on August 19.

Apple Pay is now officially accepted by more than 100 retailers in the United States, along with all locations that allow contactless payments.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

AT&T has announced that it is working with several global tech leaders to enable faster 5G deployment once 3GPP completes the first release of the official specifications, which will form the basis of the global standards for the next-generation wireless technology.

Specifically, the carrier has entered preliminary discussions with Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, LG, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK Telecom, Telstra, Vodafone, and others to find and resolve key standards issues early and bring 5G to market sooner.

“We’re joining other tech leaders to find and resolve key standards issues early and bring 5G to market sooner,” said Tom Keathley, senior vice president- wireless network architecture and design, AT&T. “Interim and fragmented pre-standard specifications can distract from the ultimate goal. Linking trials to the standards process is the fastest path to large-scale global 5G deployment.”

AT&T began trialing 5G wireless technologies this year, including lab tests in the second quarter and outdoor tests in Middletown, New Jersey and Austin, Texas over the summer. The carrier anticipated 5G speeds to be 10 to 100 times faster than today's average 4G LTE connections, with reduced latency, and it achieved that goal in June when its 5G data speeds hit up to 10 Gbps in the lab.

As it stands, 5G is still a ways off. The 3GPP group aims to complete the first phase of the worldwide standards process by 2018, but AT&T's own 5G network rollout is not expected until a few years later in 2020. It also remains too soon to determine Apple's roadmap for 5G in terms of future iPhones. But, given AT&T's efforts, 5G deployment could take place at least somewhat sooner than anticipated.

The SnapPower Charger, designed to make it easy to add USB ports to a wall outlet with no complicated wiring, originated on Kickstarter in 2015. It's basically an outlet replacement that features two standard sockets and an additional USB port, and it's meant to be simple enough to install in just a couple of minutes.

SnapPower is available in three colors (white, light almond, and ivory) to match different home decor. Design wise, it looks identical to a standard outlet cover, but it features a hump at the bottom that houses a USB port for charging iOS devices. There are two versions of the SnapPower, designed to fit square or round outlets, which make up most of the types of modern outlet plates in the United States.

The SnapPower works by connecting the two metal tabs at the sides of the outlet cover to the screws of the outlet, allowing for a small amount of power to be drawn into the USB port of the device.

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The "mega cycle" iPhone 8 and, presumably, iPhone 8 Plus, might have different displays according to new speculation from Gabelli & Co. research analyst Hendi Susanto (via Barrons). In a discussion with Universal Display executive Darice Liu, Apple's potential use of OLED displays in an upcoming iPhone model surfaced, leading to the talk about overall display technology for the iPhone 8.

Susanto agreed that 2017 is likely the year that Apple will introduce OLED displays into the iPhone, with the caveat that it may go for a "partial adoption" of OLED because the company's suppliers might not be able to meet its needs for a full rollout.

This suggests that a higher-tier version of the smartphone -- perhaps the iPhone 8 Plus, or equivalent model -- will be this "specialized edition" of the 2017 iPhone, incorporating an OLED display as its distinguishing factor against other versions.

Speculation regarding the potential adoption of OLED displays by Apple continues to dominate major discussions with investors. The current speculation anticipates Apple’s adoption of OLED displays in its iPhone in 2017 or 2018. We believe that Apple can adopt OLED displays sooner rather than later by pursuing a partial adoption and incorporating it in a specialized edition of a new iPhone version.

This will alleviate the needs of huge supply capacity and accelerate OLED display adoption. Alternatively, Apple could choose to wait and finally adopt OLED displays for all new iPhone versions. We remain cautiously opportunistic. We believe it’s a matter of when, not if.

This would leave the remaining models of the iPhone 8 with the traditional LCD screen technology currently used in the iPhone 6s, and coming in the iPhone 7. Apple has introduced slight variations in same-generation iPhone models since the launch of the iPhone 6 in 2014. Subtle differences have included battery life, camera performance, and a landscape mode for the 5.5-inch iPhones. A major difference in the upcoming iPhone 7 Plus is expected to revolve around a feature-packed, dual-lens camera.

The alternative option exists that Apple could also simply wait and adopt OLED displays when the technology and supply chain is ready to produce them "for all new iPhone versions," which could mean 2018 or even later. Both pieces of information are pure speculation, so should be treated tentatively, but they do add to the early reports of the tenth-anniversary iPhone's drastic changes, including the introduction of an OLED display and its potential for slimming down the iPhone, the removal of the home button, and possible support for wireless charging.