Airbnb is cracking down on fake listings, and says it will now verify all listings in its top 5 countries…the US, Canada, Australia, UK, and France. Going forward, the platform will require hosts to submit information like photos with GPS data. It will start the first batch of top countries later this year, and expand to another 30 countries by next fall. Besides properties that don’t exist, Airbnb is trying to weed out listings that have false information, or owned by someone besides the mentioned host. the platform claims it will give hosts sufficient time to get the information to them for existing properties. If hosts ultimately don’t comply, the company says they will limit their accounts…but hasn’t said they will outright ban them. 

Just over a week since Apple grabbed the smartphone limelight with the new iPhone 15’s. Now, Some rumors are emerging about next year’s Samsung Galaxy 24 Ultra. First off, Mashable.com says that Samsung will follow Apple in using titanium in their top smartphone. It is also expected to have sides that are curved, but the screen will be completely flat. An optimized version of the Ultra’s 200 MP primary lens is expected. One rumor has the Ultra getting a beefed up 50MP lens with 3X optical zoom…replacing the present 10MP telephoto. Hopefully, that won’t happen. The Ultra will have a brighter screen…2500 nits to the iPhone’s 2000, and will get a fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. One rumor we never like to hear…pricing will apparently match the new iPhone 15 Pro Max…so start putting away some coin now.

A new study by Recurrent…which has access to data from some 12,500 Tesla cars via its software service…shows how climate can have an impact on battery life. According to electrek.co, it has already been found that frequent Supercharging doesn’t hurt battery life…but how about the climate? We already know that extreme cold hurts battery life due to the need to heat the battery pack. By the same token, the packs need to be cooled in hotter climates. Recurrent found in their study that Tesla vehicles in colder and coastal climates have, on average, a better Range Score than Tesla vehicles in hotter climates in the US: the ones in the colder and  coastal areas got a range score of 95, while cars in the hotter areas had a score of 92. In really hot climates, you may see a 20% battery degradation, so plan accordingly. New battery tech is on the horizon, and it’s expected that we will see less climate impact on battery longevity in the future. 

Yelp has been catching businesses…over 5,000 so far since 2012…engaging in shady tactics, like paying customers for favorable ratings or hiring people to write phony reviews. Now, the company has a new tool to help people — and maybe the feds — track businesses that have tried to manipulate their standing on the review platform. Techcrunch.com reports that Yelp is releasing a new index that tracks every U.S establishment it’s ever caught engaging in “suspicious” activity to influence its reviews. Are you listening, Amazon and others?

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.