AfterDawn: Tech news

News written by Petteri Pyyny (September, 2025)

AfterDawn: News

Ruuvi Air sensor keeps track of indoor air quality with ease

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 25 Sep 2025 1:56

Ruuvi Air sensor keeps track of indoor air quality with ease Ruuvi Innovations has for years been a favorite among hobbyists experimenting with small-scale home automation.

The company's affordable and straightforward RuuviTag sensors have been so easy to use that even everyday consumers have swapped out their home thermometers for them.

Now, the company is expanding into indoor air monitoring. The new Ruuvi Air station includes the familiar temperature, air pressure, and humidity measurements found in its earlier small sensor tags.

But the standout new feature in Ruuvi Air is its comprehensive air quality tracking. The device measures carbon dioxide levels, airborne particulate matter, and the so-called VOC index. The VOC index reflects how the human sense of smell perceives the intensity of odors compared to earlier conditions.

The best part of Ruuvi Air (as with other Ruuvi products) is that the data is available free of charge - and forever. The clean mobile app is also free and presents even the new metrics in a simple, easy-to-understand format.

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AfterDawn: News

WhatsApp can now translate messages

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 23 Sep 2025 1:57

WhatsApp can now translate messages WhatsApp has gained yet another AI-powered feature.

The latest version, now rolling out to users as an update, introduces support for message translation between different languages.

Using it is simple: press and hold on a message, then select Translate from the menu that appears.

Unfortunately, language support is still limited, and many smaller languages aren't available on either iPhone or Android. On Android, translations are supported between six languages: English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic.

On iPhone, the feature works with a wider range of languages, since WhatsApp taps into Apple's built-in translation tool. On Android, the first time you use the feature, WhatsApp will prompt you to download the required language packs locally.

Translations are processed directly on the user's device, meaning messages aren't sent over the internet to third-party servers as they are with many other translation services.

According to WhatsApp's support page, the translation feature is not yet available in the web version of WhatsApp on computers or tablets.





AfterDawn: News

Garmin refreshes its hit smartwatch line: Venu 4 introduces new wellness tools

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 17 Sep 2025 10:33

Garmin refreshes its hit smartwatch line: Venu 4 introduces new wellness tools The Venu line has long been one of Garmin's best-sellers, praised as an all-rounder smartwatch that blends fitness smarts with an everyday-friendly design. We highlighted that balance in our review of last year's Garmin Venu 3, which earned strong marks as a versatile watch that didn't lean too heavily into the "sport watch" aesthetic.

With the Garmin Venu 4, Garmin is doubling down on wellness tracking. The biggest upgrade comes on the software side: users can now log lifestyle details directly into the watch, such as coffee consumption or alcohol intake. These records feed into Garmin's health metrics, allowing the device to provide more nuanced insights into how daily habits influence factors like stress levels and heart rate variability.

Garmin Venu 4, 45 mm
Garmin Venu 4, 45 mm version


Sleep tracking has also been refined. The Venu 4 can now better assess how closely a user's sleep schedule aligns with their natural circadian rhythm - and suggest adjustments if necessary.

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AfterDawn: News

Video service Vimeo has been sold to a controversial tech firm

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 11 Sep 2025 2:39

Video service Vimeo has been sold to a controversial tech firm One of the most controversial – and also most disliked – companies in the tech world is undoubtedly the Italian firm Bending Spoons.

The name might not mean much to the average consumer, but over the years the company has adopted a very particular growth strategy.

Bending Spoons buys well-known, often older, consumer-focused tech companies built around a single product. Typically, its shopping cart has included beloved mobile apps that the original owners failed to effectively monetize.

Its past acquisitions include the note-taking app Evernote, the digital publishing platform Issuu – used by newspapers in Finland as well - and the file-sharing service WeTransfer.

What has fueled user anger is the company's strategy of squeezing as much profit as possible out of these acquisitions. In the case of Evernote, for instance, it dramatically raised subscription prices, cut features for free users, and laid off most of the development team.

That same playbook has been repeated across several of its other deals.

Now the company has snapped up a small piece of internet history: Vimeo is now owned by Bending Spoons.

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AfterDawn: News

A site that sold Nintendo Switch "mods" for playing pirated games ordered to pay millions in damages

Written by Petteri Pyyny @ 08 Sep 2025 3:45

A site that sold Nintendo Switch "mods" for playing pirated games ordered to pay millions in damages Nintendo has zero tolerance for piracy on its consoles, and the Japanese giant is well known for relentlessly taking piracy-enabling sites and companies to court.

And with rather good results.

Now, Nintendo has scored another win in its battle against piracy: a U.S. court has ruled (PDF) that a well-known site selling so-called mods must pay millions in damages.

Modded Hardware sold physical devices - "mods" - that allowed the Nintendo Switch to run games other than Nintendo's originals. The most infamous product on the site was the MIG Switch, which let users dump full images of Switch games onto a memory card and play them directly from it.

While the MIG Switch and similar products could technically be used for backing up and playing legally owned games, the court sided with Nintendo, concluding that the main audience for such devices are those who use them to play pirated titles.

The court stated, in essence:

Defendant's conduct has caused NOA significant and irreparable harm. For example, the MIG Devices, Mod Chips, Hacked Consoles, and Circumvention Services allow members of the public to create, distribute, and play pirated Nintendo games on a massive scale. Thus, the MIG devices, Mod Chips, Hacked Consoles, and Circumvention Services harm NOA's goodwill, detract from NOA's consumer base, and enable widespread illegal and difficult to detect copying.

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