Technologies

T-Mobile Says It’s Not Spying on You. What the New Screen Recording Tool Actually Does

A new setting that looks like a privacy risk is popping up for some customers. T-Mobile explains what’s really going on.

Some T-Mobile customers during the past week have been surprised to discover a new — and enabled by default — feature in the T-Life app called «Screen recording tool.» In light of recent iffy recording tools such as Microsoft’s Recall AI feature in Windows, seeing a feature that records the contents of your screen is bound to raise privacy concerns.

Screen Recording in T-life
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u/Ok_Theory5606 in
tmobile

How to disable Screen recording tool if you see it

If you’re a T-Mobile subscriber, you can check if this new option has been turned on by opening the T-Life app, tapping Manage and then tapping Settings (the gear icon). The Screen recording tool option shows up under the Preferences heading.

If the option is there, tap it to reveal a description and a toggle switch. The description reads: «We use a tool to record how customers use the app to analyze and improve your experience. Only T-Mobile will review and analyze your info. If you turn this toggle on or magenta, we will record your screen while you use the app. If you turn this toggle off or gray, we will not record your screen.»

To disable the feature, tap the switch so it becomes gray. (The «magenta» and «gray» in the text refer to the color of the toggle switch to indicate whether it’s active or not, respectively.)

Why T-Mobile stands behind the new feature

When I reached out to the company for more information, a T-Mobile spokesperson defended the feature, saying it was designed to improve the user experience.

«To help us give customers who use T-Life a smoother experience, we are rolling out a new tool in the app that will help us quickly troubleshoot reported or detected issues,» the spokesperson said. «This tool records activities within the app only and does not see or access any personal information. If a customer’s T-Life app currently supports the new functionality, it can be turned off in the settings under preferences.»

According to a post on droidlife, which earlier referenced the issue, the new option shows up on both iPhone and Android phones.

Why opt-in is so important

On the face of it, the Screen recording tool appears to do what it says, and the fact that it’s limited to just the T-Life app is a reasonable, and expected, limitation.

But as with all potential privacy issues, the fact that T-Mobile is enabling the feature by default has rightly made customers suspicious. It should be off initially, and if an issue arises that would require screen recording, then the company could get permission from the phone owner to turn it on.

T-Mobile in fact has a similar setup within the T-Life app. There’s another screen recording feature that is completely separate from this new Screen recording tool. In the app’s settings, under Help & support, is Screen Share, which can be used during a support call. It allows a T-Mobile expert to view your phone’s screen while troubleshooting an issue. It requires several steps and requires you to consent to having your screen recorded before allowing a support expert to connect to the app.

If you’ve ever tried to help a friend or family member over the phone and asked them to describe what’s on the screen, you’ll appreciate how helpful it can be to view what they’re seeing directly.

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Technologies

Taylor Swift Is Engaged. Her Post Smashed an Instagram Record

The post broke Instagram’s record for most reposts, but reposts are new to the site. Plus: Memes, and details on her dress, his sweater and that ring.

Nobody is shaking this off: Pop superstar Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce announced their engagement on Instagram on Tuesday, and the likes exploded like pyrotechnics at a concert. The post broke Instagram’s record for reposts, even though, to be fair, reposting just started on Instagram in August. Still, the post hit 1 million reposts in less than 6 hours and earned 14 million likes in just the first hour. By Tuesday evening, it had topped 21.2 million likes.

«Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,» Swift and Kelce wrote on an Instagram post showing multiple photos of the proposal. In the first photo, Kelce is kneeling in front of Swift in a breathtaking floral garden. The second photo shows them standing and holding one another. The next is her hand with an enormous diamond engagement ring, followed by two more of the couple embracing.

The post also features a dynamite emoji and the audio of Swift’s 2024 song So High School. The snippet cuts off with the lyrics, «Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me?» (Let’s hope it’s the first or second option.)

Instagram post is already climbing into the millions

As you might expect, the Instagram post delivering the engagement news shot into the stratosphere as soon as it was posted on Tuesday. A representative for Instagram confirmed to CNET that Swift and Kelce’s engagement announcement earned over 14 million likes and 452,000 reposts in just over an hour, reaching 21.2 million by 5 p.m. PT Tuesday.

That’s a huge audience, but it will be interesting to see how high up Swift and Kelce’s engagement news post lands on Instagram’s all-time most popular list.

Right now, the most popular post ever on Instagram is from 2022, when soccer star Lionel Messi posted an image of himself hoisting the just-won World Cup. That post has more than 74 million likes. (Swifties, keep it going if you want to send that post to the top.)

The Instagram representative didn’t immediately comment on whether Swift and Kelce’s post is climbing at the same pace as Messi’s. Messi also has the third-most popular post, again showing him and the World Cup trophy, this time snuggled up in bed together.

But it’s not just soccer photos that top the Instagram most-viewed-ever list. The second most-liked post of all time is a photo of a plain, ordinary egg, posted to the social network back in 2019 as part of someone’s experiment to see if such a mundane image could go hugely viral. I interviewed the person behind Eugene the Egg back in 2019 and am shocked to see it’s still in the No. 2 spot six years later, with more than 60 million likes.

As of Tuesday evening, the post’s 21.2 million likes put it just outside the top 20 list of most-liked, non-soccer posts, just behind post No. 20, singer Billie Eilish’s 2021 reveal of her then-new blond hair. Eilish’s post is at 21.9 million likes and could easily fall off the list and be replaced by Swift and Kelce.

Details on the ring and outfits

According to The New York Post, Swift is wearing a blue silk-blend Polo Ralph Lauren dress in the photo, and Kelce is wearing a navy cable-knit Polo Ralph Lauren sweater. The Post also reports that Swift’s new engagement ring is «an old mine brilliant-cut diamond in a gold bezel setting, which was designed by Kelce himself with the help of Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry.»

Old mine refers to a historic diamond cut popular from the early 18th century to the late 19th century. Such diamonds are square with rounded corners and have 58 facets, making them anything but a «paper ring.»

The Post delved into everything else Swift had on, including her cognac-colored Louis Vuitton sandals, $18,000 diamond-studded Cartier Santos Demoiselle watch and her «TNT» friendship bracelet by Wove, which was a Christmas gift from her new fiancé.

To no one’s shock, the $400 dress Swift is wearing is selling out fast. Just imagine the excitement when the wedding details start trickling out, and Swift begins to «pick out a white dress,» as Juliet does in Swift’s hit song Love Story.

Memeing the marriage proposal

Until we have more information about the upcoming wedding, fans will have to content themselves by creating and sharing memes because, well, it’s 2025, and that’s part of how we communicate these days.

The Instagram account belonging to the Prince and Princess of Wales even liked the post. (No surprise, really, they hung out when Swift played London.)

Even coffee giant Starbucks got into the act, making a joke about pumpkin spice lattes and posting, «Are we supposed to keep posting about PSL like nothing happened?» The company also noted in the post’s comments that «the long list of Starbucks lovers just got a +1.» («Starbucks lovers» is a sly reference to a lyric in Swift’s 2014 song Blank Space. Swift actually sings, «got a long list of ex-lovers,» but almost anyone with working ears mishears it as something like, «all the lonely Starbucks lovers.»

One meme post on X showed Paul Revere’s famed ride, captioned «me telling everyone I know that Taylor Swift got engaged.»

me telling everyone I know that Taylor Swift got engaged pic.twitter.com/MpS8BLPOZj

— Siobhan ✨ (@Siobachka) August 26, 2025

One Bluesky user wrote, «Very interesting that Taylor Swift got engaged mere months after I did. Get your own thing.»

Another joked, «Can’t believe that on July 8th, 2023, @likethe309, Travis Kelce and I all walked into Arrowhead Stadium to attend the Eras Tour and now one of us is marrying Taylor Swift.»

Matt Ufford warned the billionaire bride-to-be and her NFL star husband to count their pennies, writing, «a word of warning to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: weddings can get EXPENSIVE, fast, be sure to leave enough in the account for your monthly expenses.»

There were football jokes, of course.

The Detroit Free Press sought a local connection, using the headline, «Tight end for Detroit Lions’ Week 6 opponent gets engaged to Taylor Swift.»

One person questioned the caption about an English teacher marrying a gym teacher, asking, «Why does Taylor Swift think she’s an English teacher and not a music teacher?»

We’re pretty sure this person really does know who Swift is, but their post was funny anyway. It reads, «Okay, I’ll bite: who’s Taylor Swift? What’s so great about him?»

The two 35-year-old celebrities have been dating for two years. It’s a love story, and Taylor just said yes.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Aug. 27, #338

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Aug. 27, No. 338

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a lot of names, and I tend to do terribly on those puzzles. I do even worse when the puzzle editors change a letter in a bunch of names, as they did today. So I did terribly. But you can still solve the puzzle! Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Call a nurse.

Green group hint: Sports shirt.

Blue group hint: Hoops heroes.

Purple group hint: Signal callers, with a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Get better.

Green group: Found on a soccer jersey.

Blue group: 2025 Naismith basketball HOF class.

Purple group: Hall of Fame QBs, with the last letter changed.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is get better. The four answers are heal, mend, recover and recuperate.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is found on a soccer jersey. The four answers are crest, name, number and sponsor.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is 2025 Naismith basketball HOF class. The four answers are Anthony, Bird, Fowles and Moore.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Hall of Fame QBs, with the last letter changed. The four answers are Marine (Dan Marino), Moor (Warren Moon), Stables (Ken Stabler) and Warned (Kurt Warner).

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Aug. 27

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 27.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword might be the toughest one I’ve ever done! Hint: There’s a trick to it. Not all the words are spelled quite as they seem. Try solving the Down clues first if you get stuck on the Across ones. Need answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.