GM recalls 800,000 pickup trucks globally for loss of power steering

General Motors is recalling 800,000 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 pickup trucks worldwide that could lose power steering, according to documents made public Friday.

"The 2014 model year trucks could apparently suffer a temporary loss of electric power steering, especially during low-speed turning maneuvers, according to documents disclosed Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," said a report from Automotive News.

The recall includes about 690,000 vehicles in the U.S., 80,000 in Canada and around 25,000 in other markets. GM dealers will reflash the vehicle's software to address the defect. No crashes or injuries have been reported as part of the recall. 

Source:Automotive News

Facebook tries bringing Stories feature to desktop users

While Instagram Stories has helped significantly boost daily users on its platform (it’s now at 250 million daily users compared to the 166 million users of Snapchat), the same can’t be said for Facebook’s own take/blatant rip-off of the Snapchat feature. And perhaps that’s what pushing them to bring the feature to the desktop. Facebook is rolling out its Stories feature to desktop users. The feature, which was popularized by Snapchat, lets you take photos and videos that stay on the service for 24 hours. It’s already available for mobile app users because you do use your smartphone to take these clips. But now Facebook wants desktop users to be able to see what mobile users are sharing. The feature shows up at the top right corner of the browser, on top of your pages and the other tabs on the right side of the browser. When you pull up a story, it’ll black out the screen and show the clip or photo at the center. Much like what happens when you watch a video. It’s currently being tested on users so it may or not show up on your browser yet but Facebook plans to have a wider rollout for it in the future.

Source: TechCrunch

Lenovo lets go of Vibe Pure UI for stock Android

Users who want a pure Android experience are going to love Lenovo’s latest announcement. According to Anuj Sharma, the company’s head of product marketing in India, Lenovo is letting go of its Vibe Pure user interface to offer a bloatware-free, stock Android experience. The company is starting off with the K8 Note and then bringing the change to future Lenovo smartphones. This’ll mean we can expect a similar user experience with Lenovo phones as we do in bloatware-free Motorola devices, which as you may know is owned by Lenovo.

According to Sharma, the change was brought about as users want a clean Android experience. Having stock Android also improves the how quickly their devices can get operating system updates. Sharma denies that Lenovo is cutting costs with this new update.

Source: The Verge

Apple is reportedly working on a ‘non-iPhone Apple Watch’

A new Apple Watch might be popping up on our horizon and it’ll have one big advantage over its predecessors: it won’t need an iPhone to work. Bloomberg reports that Apple is reportedly working on a version of its smartwatch that will connect to LTE mobile networks. They have supposedly started talking to providers in the US and Europe to launch this device later this year. And Intel will supposedly be supplying the LTE modems for the new Apple Watch.

If there is some truth to the report, this will help boost Apple’s recent focus on the fitness benefits/credentials of the Apple Watch. Being able to untether the Apple Watch from the iPhone can bring with it the capabilities to let users bring songs with them to listen to when they’re running or are at the gym. Direct connection might even let them reply to messages and calls right from the wearable device. One of the biggest concerns will be battery life, though. With the iPhone augmenting some of the computational strain on the Apple Watch, making the wearable a standalone device would need a better battery.