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The UK-based budget airliner EasyJet told investors earlier today that it’d suffered a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack that compromised the credit card details of more than two thousand customers—not to mention the itinerary info for millions more. In a statement posted to the company’s corporate site by the EasyJet board, they describe how the staff “[takes]…
Bad news, Strava fans. According to the company’s website, the popular cycling and running app is moving a few of its previously free features behind a paywall. Namely, the free version of Strava is now limited to activity tracking, support for devices like the Apple Watch, and the app’s community features. Features like route planning,…
After some users expressed concerns that the OnePlus 8 Pro’s Photochrom camera filter could pose privacy issues, OnePlus announced that it will temporarily disable the filter while it figures out a way to address the situation. The latest announcement from OnePlus was posted on Weibo following last week’s discovery that in somewhat specific circumstances, because…
People living in the year 2020 have plenty of options for talking over video chat: Skype, FaceTime, Facebook Portal, and perhaps the most popular video app of our pandemic era, Zoom. But none of them look nearly as cool as this idea published in a tech magazine from 1918, a time when radio broadcasting was…
Now that we know the full specs of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, there’s not much to differentiate them at the hardware level. Both sport custom AMD GPUs based on its RDNA2 architecture. Both are ray tracing capable. Both have roughly the same amount of TFLOPS, and the amount of CU graphic cores and…
Another sign of how fundamentally screwed the economics underlying the app economy are: It is possible to take advantage of exploitative food delivery platform DoorDash’s efforts to sign up restaurants without their consent to engage de facto “pizza arbitrage,” according to a report by Margins. Arbitrage is, simply put, purchasing an asset of some kind…
A new Facebook survey of small- and medium-sized businesses has found that, among those who have shut down amid the global covid-19 health crisis, only 45 percent plan to rehire the same employees when they reopen. Facebook’s State of Small Business Report, released Monday, was published as part of the company’s collaborative effort with the…
With most of the U.S. quarantined and many people working at home, Verizon has officially finalized its acquisition of video conferencing platform BlueJeans. For anyone who’s lost track of the myriad of video communication apps such as Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Lifesize, and others, Bluejeans is yet another teleconferencing service designed to help people and…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is facing a lawsuit over its alleged mishandling of records requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Plaintiffs accuse the agency of “systematically obstruct[ing]” attempts by the public to acquire details about the government’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak. A watchdog group, American Oversight, announced…
Alibaba founder and Michael Jackson enthusiast, Jack Ma, is stepping down from his role on Softbank’s board just as the company is reporting the biggest losses in its history. The company announced that Ma is set to resign June 25, a departure that comes as Softbank continues to reel from its no good, very bad…
Unemployment claims are reaching record highs, taxing each state’s digital systems like never before. But in at least one state, a laggy site or unreachable offices aren’t the only issues that resident are facing while trying to file for benefits. As first reported by the Illinois news affiliate WREX, the state’s new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance…
Even under normal economic conditions, labor arbitrage racket and venture capitalist money pit Uber barely made sense; during an economically devastating global pandemic, the company looks to be flailing. With 3,000 additional layoffs today, on top of the 3,700-person culling that took place May 6, Uber has now cut a quarter of its staff in…
After closing all of its U.S. retail stores on March 13 due to covid-19, Apple will begin reopening Apple stores in North America this week, starting with four dozen locations in the U.S. in Canada. But for those who have been waiting to get their Apple device serviced or pick up something new to bolster…
Courts have been embracingvideo conferencing since the pandemic began, but in what’s likely a pandemic first, the Collin County District Court in Texas will be the first to hold a jury trial over Zoom. The one-day insurance dispute trial will be held today and streamed over YouTube via 470th District Court Judge Emily Miskel’s channel.…
What makes smartwatches so useful—quick access to info through a small device always on your wrist—also makes them challenging for other uses. To overcome the limitations of such a small screen, researchers from Leibniz University Hannover created a special stylus that turns the back of a wearer’s hand into a larger area for doodling. With…
Hypothetically, if you, a criminal, wanted to steal millions of dollars from a corporation, one place to start might be figuring out who it owes money to. Does it pay rent on any of its offices? How often does it make payments on the expensive software or equipment it leases? Which overworked account executive handles…
In the before times, one question would invariably arise in the office kitchen as my coworkers poured kombucha into a coffee mug while eyeing my undiluted cold brew: “What projector should I get?” Now, amidst the global pandemic, it comes via text, DM, and Slack message, with more urgency. My answer to these colleagues of…
Reality has plenty of exit-hatches: strong drugs, streamed television, certain corners of social media. But the most immersive reality-dissolver might be lucid dreaming, wherein the dreamer recognizes they’re dreaming and proceeds to reshape their dreamscape per their own specifications. A slight disreputableness clings to the phenomenon—it sounds like a schoolyard fiction, the kind of thing…
The Chinese province of Jilin has placed about 108 million people into lockdown on Monday after roughly 34 new cases of coronavirus and one death were identified in the region over the past few weeks, according to a new report from Bloomberg News. The new lockdown demonstrates widespread fear in China of witnessing another uncontrollable…
As we all try to adjust to our current new reality, I have some thoughts to share with you all. I have come to realize that it is likely that for the next few months, or year, we will have to learn to live with dry, papery hands. At least, that’s what my hands feel…
