Hasta La Gadget!

Bad news, Pixel fans: Google has confirmed it’s pausing the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro December update over reports of call dropping and disconnecting. As Droid Life reports, the news explains why many Pixel 6 owners haven’t received the update over the past few weeks. For the lucky few who managed to snag it and aren’t having any issues, Google says you can sit tight. 

But for those those experiencing connectivity issues, your only fix is to flash your phone to an earlier version of Android and perform a factory reset. As always, be sure to backup your device before attempting such a massive undertaking. The December update was meant to add new features like ultra-wideband on the Pixel 6 Pro, and Quick Tap to Snap for easily accessing Snapchat from your lockscreen. Google says those features will make their way to the January fix. 

The delay is something of a debacle for the company, especially since the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro were meant to show off the combined power of Google’s custom processor and software. This probably isn’t the best way to prove it could build the Android equivalent of an iPhone.

Welcome back to io9’s the Nerd’s Watch, where we pare down the enormous lists of new films and television shows arriving on all your favorite streaming services into the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles we think you’ll like most.

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An investigation showed Black people make up about 22% of Windsor’s population but accounted for about 42% of the department’s traffic stops in a 15-month period.

Democratic lawmakers in California, Maryland and Washington passed far-reaching policing reforms this year in response to the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Telegram is squeezing in one last major update before 2021 wraps up. Among the new features is hidden text to mask spoilers. So, if you can’t wait to blab about what happens in Spider-Man: No Way Home before everyone in the chat has seen it, you can select any section of your text and use the Spoiler formatting. This will hide the text in the chat, notifications and chat list. When your friends are ready to read what you think about [redacted] showing up, they can tap the spoiler text to read it.

Also new are iMessage-style reactions. You can double tap any message to send a thumbs-up reaction. Tapping once (or tapping and holding on iOS) will let you select other emoji, such as a grin, fire, a shocked face or a thumbs down. You can change the default double-tap emoji in the Chat Settings on Android, and under the Stickers and Emoji section in iOS settings.

In private chats, reactions are always enabled. Channel and group admins can decide whether to switch them on and what reactions the other members can choose from.

Elsewhere, Telegram now has a useful translation option. Through the Language section in Settings, you can enable translation, which adds a Translate button to the context menu. You can nix languages you’re able to understand and the Translate button won’t be available on messages you receive in those languages. Translation is available on all Android devices, but iPhone and iPad users will need to be running iOS 15 or later. The number of languages Telegram supports depends on your operating system.

In addition, users can generate QR codes for anyone with a public username, as well as bots, groups and channels. You can tap the QR code icon next to their username and select the colors and pattern before sharing it elsewhere. You can find your own QR code in Settings.

The Telegram team redesigned the context menus on macOS with new shortcut hints and animated icons. The app will display a full-screen effect in one-on-one chats when you send certain emoji too.

Earlier this year, Telegram added group video calls and other features, including a way to block others in group chats from taking screenshots and saving shared media, as well as live streams with unlimited viewers. There’s been some blowback against Telegram this year, however, with reports suggesting there has been a significant uptick in the level of cybercriminal activity taking place on the encrypted messaging app.