In the News

Both iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma bring new features to FaceTime and other video apps: 3D reactions. If you do a thumbs up or thumbs down, you will see a similar bubble on the screen. If you do a double thumbs up, fireworks appear behind your head. If you do a double thumbs down, rain appears. If you use two hands to make a heart, floating red hearts appear to come from the center of your hands. A peace sign from one hand results in balloons around you, and from both hands results in confetti. And finally, if you use both hands, palm forward, and fold down your third and fourth fingers to make the Sign of the Horns, lasers go off behind you. It’s cute, but you can turn it off if it is not for you. However, by default, it is turned on, and Jay Peters of The Verge reports that it is surprising some people. Sometimes that is a pleasant, amusing surprise. But in other situations, like a business meeting, you may be embarrassed if you create special effects by mistake. Even worse, some folks have reported being in a remote video therapy session when a hand gesture made during a difficult moment can result in special effects that are exactly the opposite of how you are feeling, interrupting the therapy. Yikes. Jason Snell of Six Colors suggests that Apple should provide more warnings to prevent this. If you want to turn these special effects off, you need to first be in a video call, then activate the Control Center, tap Video Effects, and tap Reactions to toggle the feature off. And now, the news of note from the past week:

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