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In the aftermath of Californian’s disastrous decision to avoid classifying gig workers as employees, the Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a rule change that would allow businesses focused on the gig economy to compensate workers with equity. In recent years, gig-focused tech companies have asked the SEC to tweak regulations that prevent them from…
After successfully hacking Nintendo’s Game & Watch revival a day before the handheld was officially released, it didn’t lake long for Twitter user ‘stacksmashing’ to figure out how to get alternate games running on the device. They started with Doom, but have since succeeded in getting other retro classics like The Legend of Zelda, Super…
Personally speaking, mustering the will to do pushups requires a lot of psyching myself up. A lot of walking around in circles, fiddling with my music, and wondering if maybe doing an extra few sets of overhead tricep extensions or holding a plank for two minutes would be a sufficient alternative to the dreaded pushup.…
Thanks to phones like the Galaxy S20 Ultra, a new segment of devices with flexible screens, and lite versions of the Note 10 and Note 20, Samsung’s flagship phone portfolio has sort of ballooned out of control over the last couple of years. So in an effort to streamline its offering, a new rumor is…
Do you remember the first electronic game you ever played? Maybe it was Super Mario Bros. on the NES? Pitfall on the Atari 2600? Pac-Man at the arcade? For me it was Tic-Tac-Toe played on what looked like a cordless phone called Merlin The Electronic Wizard featuring a ‘screen’ made up of just 11 glowing…
If you’re snapping a quick selfie for social media, the lower quality camera on the front of your smartphone is usually just fine. But what if you want to use the higher quality lenses and camera on the back to film yourself? It means you can’t see the screen and no longer have a live…
Unless you spend every year sheltering in place and worrying about a global pandemic, the upcoming holiday season is going to be different for a lot of us. Video calling apps like Zoom can keep us in touch with each other even while we’re apart, and these online and offline games will save you from…
Was it aliens or artists? Yesterday, the internet was enthralled by the discovery of an unexplained metallic monolith in the middle of nowhere by officers for Utah’s Department of Public Safety. Roughly 24 hours later, we have a lot more answers, all thanks to amateur sleuths online. And given the area’s long history with Hollywood,…
One of many things we’re missing during quarantine has been the kind high-profile, high-budget music video release we’ve come to expect from our pop stars in the 21st century. Sure, Cardi B brought out a live tiger and Kylie Jenner for her “WAP” music video in August, but social distancing requirements — and the threat…
An already cheap subscription just got cheaper. Say what you will about Hulu’s cable-rivaling, ever-spiking Live TV pricing, which saw another jump in cost just last week. But Hulu’s most basic plans are actually a pretty good deal for what you get. Its ad-supported tier costs $6 per month, or you can pay $12 per…
Have you heard of Amazon Sidewalk? Probably not. But there is a good chance that you or someone you know has an Amazon Echo or Ring camera. And if you own one of those devices and live in the U.S. (or know someone who does), you need to tell them to opt-out of the service…
As Trump’s symbiotic relationship with Fox News has lost its shine, the President has taken to directing his followers to One America News Network, a low-rent cable news upstart with non-existent editorial standards. But no one gets a free ride on the Trump gravy train and OANN just found out that loyalty bordering on lunacy…
Has Facebook learned jack shit from the past few nightmare years? Not really, per a report in the New York Times on Tuesday. Facebook only started giving more weight to reputable publishers in the News Feed days after the 2020 election and doesn’t plan on making that a long-term thing. Executives on its policy team…
Much of the news about the U.S.’s internet infrastructure is abysmal. Millions of urban and rural Americans either can’t afford or don’t have reliable access to high-speed internet. The financial reprieve so many ISPs offered customers at the start of the covid pandemic is long gone. A massive spike in covid cases is forcing businesses and schools…
If you’re one of the troves of people who—for some bizarre reason—wants to be among the blue-checked elite on Twitter, then good news: everyone’s favorite app for posting bad takes will be bringing back its verification process early next year. Twitter announced on Tuesday that it has formal plans to relaunch account verification—complete with a…
The Crock-Pot drama returns. More than two years after NBC drama This Is Us shook our faith in an otherwise innocuous kitchen appliance, it appears Crock-Pot is now the subject of a recall over a number of real-world incidents involving a defective model of one of its devices. An estimated 914,430 Crock-Pot 6-Quart Express Crock…
Since March, the longest I’ve gone without running is six days. As temperatures rose this summer, my pace slowed from an average of about 10 minutes per mile to 11-12 minutes a mile. It’s not because I became a worse runner overnight. You can actually calculate by how much heat and humidity slow you down.…
I know nothing about poetry, but I’m pretty sure Verse by Verse—Google’s new AI-powered poetry generator—is phoning it in. “Verse by Verse” is formatted like Smart Compose in Gmail, but for poetry: input the opening line, and the program generates a selection of often absurdist suggestions that rarely follow the previous thought. The program composes…
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder who later pivoted to a career in being the richest man in the world, is losing his touch. If any of us were as bad at our jobs as Gates, we’d be on the bread lines faster than you can say, “guillotines are the future.” And this week, the man’s…
Officers from the Utah Department of Public Safety discovered a shiny metallic monolith in rural Utah’s Red Rock Country on November 18 while surveying big horn sheep by helicopter. The monolith has drawn comparisons to the black monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the helicopter crew said there’s “no obvious…
