Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
In what has become a yearly tradition in early December, Qualcomm has announced its next flagship mobile chip designed for use in high-end phones and tablets. This is the chip that will be found in the biggest phones from Android makers, and plenty of tablets too. So here’s a rundown of all the new specs…
There are a handful of gadget-related sounds that fill my heart with dread, but few are more fear-inducing than the repeated tick-tick-tick of a dying hard disk drive. I’ve been hurt by that sound more than a few times in my life. So this year I finally tasked myself with a quest to get rid…
Congratulations on getting yourself a brand-new PlayStation 5! After making all of your friends incredibly jealous, it’s time to dive into everything this next-gen console has to offer. Here are 10 tips and tricks for making the most of your PS5. 1. Avoid screenshot spoilers The PS5 can hide screenshots sent your way if they…
Each December, Apple picks the best App Store games and apps that debuted or rose to popularity in the preceding year. It’s usually a hodge-podge of social apps, wellness services, and addictive games with a few under-the-radar surprises for good measure. But in the year 2020, which forced us all to stay at home in…
Massachusetts lawmakers voted on Monday to pass a police reform bill that would outlaw the use of facial recognition technology by police departments and other public agencies in the state. The bill now heads to Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker for his signature. Also banning the use of chokeholds and rubber bullets and limiting the use…
After Microsoft caused an uproar with its very weird, very invasive “Productivity Score” tool, which essentially spied on Microsoft 365 users’ activity and reported it back to their employers, the company has walked back the creepiest part of that feature. The Productivity Score is a new tool turned on by default for businesses that use…
If you’ve ever tried in vain to figure out whether or not a local restaurant takes reservations, or spent hours researching the perfect hiking trail only to arrive and find it closed for maintenance, you understand the unique hassle of living in a society. Things are always changing! It’s all terribly confusing and inconvenient —…
As much as I love technology, there’s still a lot about it that I don’t trust. Driverless cars are one of them. One horror story about an autopilot malfunction is enough to scare most people away from the tech, and that’s definitely the case for me. I’ve spent 15 years learning how to dodge a…
While reports of Xbox Series X fires seem to have amounted to nothing after it turned out people were blowing vape smoke through the cases, reports of NZXT’s H1 PC cases catching on fire—the ones that kind of look like an Xbox Series X—are real. As reported by TechSpot, the company is advising H1 owners…
We can’t blame you if you forgot about Facebook’s Libra project. The blockchain-based ZuckBuck scheme is the basis for a future payment/scam gateway, but not much has come out of the platform in the past few years… until now. In fact, the fintech giant is proud to announce that the platform has taken the bold…
Well, it looks like YouTube TV is losing another sports channel. YouTube’s live TV service for cord-cutters informed subscribers by email this week that they will no longer have access to the Tennis Channel, a Sinclair-owned media property. The company told users that beginning Monday, they won’t be able to stream the channel live “or…
If you’re anything at all like me—and God, I hope you’re not—you never throw anything that uses electricity out, and have developed an elaborate series of dubious justifications to explain why it is actually perfectly rational. Maybe, after all, you’ll need that USB-A to RCA converter cable in the future, or you’ll use that five…
While the Nintendo Switch is undoubtedly a great little game console, but more than three years after its launch, some of its software still feels a bit clunky. Now Nintendo is officially joining the year 2020 (just as it’s about to end, but that’s fine!) with a Switch upgrade that adds some much-needed features. This…
Following a months-long staffing spree, Facebook’s Independent Oversight Board announced the first six cases it’s taking on to deliberate Facebook’s sprawling policies surrounding content moderation. Just to recap, the self-declared purposeof this Oversight Board is to act essentially as an unbiased panel meant to review some of Facebook’s more contentious content moderation decisions. As we’ve previously…
Uber claims more turf in the pandemic food delivery conquest: the company has finally acquired the grocery delivery service Postmates because, in Uber’s masterful doublespeak, “combination of platforms provides more choice.” They actually said that. Postmates will retain its logo and app but will merge its delivery network with Uber. And, Christ—Uber is also announcing…
Showtime’s got some good shows, but streaming them requires yet another subscription. However, according to Variety, the premium channel is now adding a smattering of its original programming to a free channel on Pluto TV. If you don’t already know what Pluto TV is, it’s a free streaming service owned by ViacomCBS that gives you…
Robots might have already taken over industries like manufacturing, but when it comes to more creative endeavors, like the arts, humans still hold a strong lead. But for how long? Disney’s researchers have created a system that allows human artists to teach aspiring robotic Michelangelos how to sculpt clay using tools to mimic various artistic…
Consumer mixed-reality headsets have come a long way since the first Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, thanks to higher-resolution displays, faster refresh rates, improved motion-tracking, and more. However, enterprise-level headsets have arguably made even bigger strides, and with its new third-gen VR and XR HMDs, Varjo could be giving us regular folks a peek at…
One of President Donald Trump’s remaining election lawyers, Joe diGenova, declared on Monday that former DHS cybersecurity official Chris Krebs should be executed. Krebs was fired from the Trump administration in mid-November after releasing a statement that the 2020 election had been the most secure in American history, a message that angered Trump immensely. President…
After a three-month stint on the White House’s coronavirus task force during which he advocated for “herd immunity,” lambasted mask-wearing and generally acted like a contrarian, anti-science douche, Dr. Scott Atlas tendered his resignation on Monday night. In a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, Atlas wrote that he had “always relied on the latest…
