Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Elon Musk wasn’t asking for permission. Quite the opposite, in fact. On Monday afternoon, the Tesla CEO told the California government to eat shit. He was reopening his factory and they could come cuff him if they wanted. That didn’t happen, of course. Instead, on late Tuesday evening, the Alameda County Public Health Department claimed…
The notification popped up without warning just as I was syncing the Whoop tracker I was testing: The tracker had a new metric, respiratory rate. Truthfully, I almost ignored it. But the notification used the phrase covid-19, and my eyes widened. At 7 a.m., I was bleary-eyed, under-caffeinated, and still adjusting to my new reality…
Earlier this year, Dell refreshed the XPS 13 to great results, and now Dell is coming back to revamp the rest of its best line of laptops with the new XPS 15 and XPS 17. For its new 15-inch thin-and-light, Dell says the XPS 15 has gotten its first full redesign in five years, with…
Apple is bucking the trend set by rival tech giants Facebook and Google during the coronavirus pandemic and is planning to have staff return to its offices this year, according to a Tuesday report by Bloomberg. Facebook and Google have both informed employees that they will be extending work from home policies until at least…
If Lyft and Uber had classified their drivers as employees rather than independent contractors as the companies currently do (and would very much like to continue doing), what would they have hypothetically owed to California in unemployment insurance tax? According to an estimate from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the two companies would have had…
Tesla informed workers that if they did not show up for work at a Fremont, California, production facility CEO Elon Musk has reopened in violation of a county health order that they may be ineligible for unemployment, emails obtained by the Guardian show. On Monday, Musk tweeted that Tesla’s car factory in Fremont had reopened…
Finally, some good news for Facebook’s beleaguered moderator community. According to preliminary settlement records first uncovered by The Verge earlier today, the tech giant has agreed to pay a total of $52 million to its current and former content moderators to compensate them for the massive mental strain that comes with reviewing some of the…
They’re better for the environment than a gas-guzzling car, but the other big advantage of commuting every day on an electric bike is that they’re easier to park. With Poimo, a prototype inflatable e-bike created at the University of Tokyo, you don’t even need to find a bike rack when you get to work, just…
As part of its fight against online bullying, Instagram is rolling out new features designed to make it easier for users to control who interacts with them on the platform. A major change to Instagram’s comment controls allows users to delete up to 25 comments at once, as well as block or restrict users in…
A Manhattan law firm frequented by some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry has been hit with a hack compromising over 750 gigabytes of intel on its famous clientele. Now, the hackers are threatening to go public with the resulting database unless the company pays up. As first reported by Variety, the attack…
Uber, a furnace people can’t stop shoveling money into, is looking to buy up its main restaurant delivery competitor, Grubhub, in an all-stock deal. I think we’re all wondering the same thing: What the fuck? Yes, this is the same Uber that just laid off 14 percent of its staff on a Zoom call last…
Three Democratic senators have launched an effort to keep Americans connected to the internet throughout the novel coronavirus pandemic and amid one of the most devastating economic downturns in nearly a century. Legislation introduced on Tuesday seeks a national “moratorium” on phone and internet shutoffs until the crisis fully abates. More than 33 million Americans…
While Samsung has already released a pair of foldable phones, its biggest rival, LG, still hasn’t thrown its hat in the game. However, instead of exploring foldable tech, based on a new report, it seems LG may be taking some cues from the past for its next wacky handset. According to a new report from…
In a new study, researchers from the UK and U.S. have found that crowdsourcing symptoms via an app may actually be useful in predicting covid-19 cases—and that the most reliable indicator was a loss of taste and smell, followed by fatigue and acute muscle pain. The app, called COVID Symptom Study, was developed for iOS…
After reversing its stubborn insistence on making Quibi a mobile-exclusive streaming service, the company will finally begin rolling out casting support to its, uh, relatively small group of subscribers. Speaking to founder Jeffrey Katzenberg for an interview, the New York Times reported that Quibi’s iOS users will get casting support “this week,” while Android users…
It’s not often that a paper attempts to take down an entire field. Yet, this past January, that’s precisely what University of New Hampshire assistant philosophy professor Subrena Smith’s paper tried to do. “Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?” describes a major issue with evolutionary psychology, called the matching problem. The field of evolutionary psychology is no stranger to…
Dr. Anthony Fauci and three other top health experts from the federal government will testify today to the Senate Health Committee about the coronavirus pandemic and what the future of the country might look like. And there are plenty of ways to watch the hearing on YouTube, Facebook, and more with the links below. The…
The CEO of surveillance firm Banjo, one of the many firms pitching law enforcement agencies across the country on artificial intelligence and big data-backed predictive policing, is leaving the company after an April report outed him as a former neo-Nazi skinhead who was involved in a 1990 Ku Klux Klan drive-by shooting on a synagogue.…
The network that supports the Texas court system was targeted by a ransomware attack late last week, the Office of Court Administration said Monday. The security breach impacting bodies within the Texas Judicial Branch, including appellate courts and state judicial agencies, was discovered early Friday after it began overnight, the agency said. The agency added that…
Even as President Donald Trump continues his push to “reopen” the country, arguing last week that “more death” is a small price to pay to halt the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, employees in the country’s most secure building reportedly say they now dread showing up to work. News of that the coronavirus has…
