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The Future of Tech, News and making sense of it all!

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Thursday Technology News and More

Technology News and More...




22TechCrunch / 1h
Brazilian construction tech startup Ambar announced it has raised a large Series C round: R$204 million, approximately $36 million at today’s mid-market rate. The round was co-led by Brazil-based Echo Capital and Oria Capital , with participation from TPG Capital , Argonautic Ventures , and others. Ambar was created in 2013 with the ambition to leverage technology to make the civil construction p



US Water Pakistan Hawaii•
The Sulphur Springs Valley is a windswept desert in southeastern Arizona, bounded on three sides by forest-­topped mountain ranges known as the sky islands. It can take an hour or more to drive between inhabited places in the valley, but the community there is tight-knit—many of the farmers went to the same high school (as did their grandparents), and today they graze their cattle on the plains a



It's the festive time of year again, which, for many of us, means time with the family. Whatever form your family may take, small or large, consisting of friends or relatives, we're sure you'll be wanting to spend some quality time together this Christmas. If you're reading this article, however, chances are you'll spend the whole time itching to play video games. Well, why not do both? And what




Engadget / 7min
Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gat



Gizmodo / 10min
Eric Clapton, part-time guitar player and full-time asshole , will waive the legal fees he’s owed after a court in Germany found that a woman had tried to sell a bootleg Clapton CD on eBay. But it seems Slowhand’s hand has been forced, as it were. Clapton’s change of heart is all in response to the social media… Read more...



Fans eager for more details on Breath of the Wild 2 may be in luck, as a clue in regards to the long-awaited Nintendo Switch sequel's release date may have just dropped. Speaking on episode 591 of the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast , IGN co-founder Peer Schneider made an interesting comment about the highly anticipated Zelda title, that may have narrowed down the sequel's current 2022 release window



Engadget / 19min
Realme, the sister brand of Oppo and OnePlus, has revealed its new flagship GT 2 Pro , and the most notable feature may not be a tech spec, but literally how it feels. The body of the phone uses an eco-friendly bio-polymer material on its back cover. It’s made from paper pulp, and it has obtained International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (or ISCC in short) as proof of its environmenta



Looking for the best party games to play this Christmas? Then look no further. Christmas is a time to come together with the people you care most about, whether that’s your family, significant other or friends. So what better way to celebrate the holiday season, and embrace the most wonderful time of the year, than to whip your grandmother’s butt at a trivia challenge, wreck her at racing or out-



A flaw in Microsoft's Azure App Service has been exposing customer source code for years, security researchers have discovered. According to cloud security providers Wiz.io, Microsoft’s platform for building and hosting web apps has contained insecure default behavior in its Linux variant since 2017, and as a result, PHP, Node, Python, Ruby and Java customer source code had been exposed. The comp



Bloomberg has claimed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is going to move forward with the antitrust investigation on Amazon Web Services (AWS), citing anonymous people familiar with the matter. The sources, who remained anonymous as they’re unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter, say that the recent questionnaires the FTC has been sending out to Amazon’s partners and clients are



November 1960 From “Climate Control and the Oceans”: Without a clear picture of how the ocean overturns and with no accurate time scale for interaction with the atmosphere, oceanographers and meteorologists alike are at a loss to explain adequately the general mechanism of the earth’s climate. Now man, with his carbon-dioxide-producing industry, has become yet another unknown modifying factor. Th



From: Boreal, Emily To: Picual, Jim , Joss, Lillian , Gupta, Mohan Cc: Executive Committee You sent me to find the god of a dying world, and I found her, but it didn’t turn out the way you expected. I’m not sorry for what I did, but I do owe you an explanation. Those of you reading this know very well the problem we faced, but I assume this message will be forwarded to at least one board member,



It might sound strange to think of storytelling as a climate solution, but after spending five years documenting 1,001 voices on climate change in 20 countries, I believe one of the most powerful forms of climate action is to listen deeply to people already affected by the crisis. To ensure that solutions actually help communities most at risk, we must first hear their stories. Climate change is



US Water Pakistan Hawaii•
In the world of water, 2021 was yet another year for the record books. Parts of Western Europe reeled from deadly floods that sent rivers surging to levels not seen in 500 to 1,000 years. Destructive floods hit central China as well, displacing more than a quarter of a million people from their homes. Meanwhile, a large swath of the southwestern United States remained locked in a megadrought—the



The comings and goings of water define Mexico City, a mile-high metropolis sprawled across three dry lake beds. The city floods in the wet season and thirsts during regular droughts. CDMX, as the city of 21 million styles itself, pumps more water from the aquifer below it than it replenishes: the city sank some 12 meters in the last century and may sink another 30 meters before hitting rock botto



US Water Pakistan Hawaii•
When Ahsan Rehman graduated from one of Pakistan’s top engineering universities in 2016, he knew he wanted a job that would help people. He did not have to look far for ideas. At his home in Karachi, his family often went days without getting any water from the city’s pipes. Initially, they had dug a well, boring into the aquifer that runs beneath the city. When that began drying up, they turned



In the waning weeks of 2017, many residents of Cape Town, South Africa, lined up day and night to fill old jugs with water from the city’s few natural springs. Palpable angst hung in the air. After months of warnings through an anomalously long drought, Cape Town was on the verge of becoming the world’s first major city to run out of water. Freshwater dams had dipped below 25% of capacity, and le



US Water Pakistan Hawaii•
Every day, the Linggiu Reservoir does quiet battle with the ocean, feeding rainwater into the Johor River in southern Malaysia to keep its salt levels low enough to treat. Singapore, which built the reservoir in 1995, had been entitled to extract some 250 million gallons per day from the 123-kilometer-­long river, meeting more than half its national needs. But a prolonged dry spell in 2016 saw re



As we were closing this issue, I came across a video on Twitter of a highway just outside Vancouver, submerged in water. It wasn’t the only one. The densely populated urban heart of British Columbia was cut off from the rest of Canada by flooding and mudslides after an atmospheric river barreled through. The country’s busiest port lost access to rail service, stranding containers. Hundreds of mot



J. W. S. Telescope•
Wired / 40min
After decades of hard work and controversies, NASA scientists ready Hubble’s massive successor for its mission to probe the distant universe.



Wired / 40min
New advances in stem cell science could alleviate devastating early-life conditions. But this comes with a moral conundrum.



Wired / 40min
Researchers are encouraging those who work in AI to explicitly consider racism, gender, and other structural inequalities.




Wired / 40min
Take a cruise with scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, as they pilot an SUV-sized robot to collect delicate specimens 1,600 feet down.



Wired / 40min
If vinyl is for hipsters and streaming is for everyone else, maybe the forgotten format is for you.



How-To Geek / 43min
Used iPhones are always in hot demand, and they’re a good option if you’re looking to save some money on an Apple smartphone. Like any second-hand purchase, there are some things you should check before you hand over your money. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



There are lots of great business credit cards , but I’d argue that Chase’s portfolio of Ink business credit cards are among the best out there. They have just about everything I look for in credit cards — great welcome bonuses, big category bonuses, and useful perks. In this post I wanted to specifically focus on the exceptional rental car coverage offered by these cards. Rental car coverage can



SK Hynix Intel NAND•
China's State Administration for Market Regulation has given SK Hynix, the South Korean memory and chipmaking giant, approval to acquire Intel's NAND storage unit for $9 billion. The deal, which sees Hynix pay $7 billion in the first phase (with the other $2 billion coming by March 2025), has also received approval from US and EU regulators and China's approval means Hynix's largest-ever deal can



Samsung Galaxy S21•
We’re used to phones leaking, but it’s rare for them to be leaked quite as comprehensively as the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE has been, and a full 167-page user manual for the device has now been shared. This comes from Evan Blass , a leaker with a superb track record, so it’s probably accurate - and it certainly looks it. However, thanks to extensive previous leaks we actually had a good idea of all t



If I had to sum up Spider-Man: No Way Home in one word, it would be: Boys. Villainous boys, spidery boys — boys, boys, boys! The boys are, in fact, back in town, but there was one who made me gasp out loud in the theater, of whom there was scarcely enough in the film. Spoilers ahead, naturally. I am talking, of course, about Matt Murdock a.k.a. Daredevil as played by Charlie Cox. I feel like it’s



Google Pixel 6 December•
Last year, Google introduced an exclusive feature for Pixel devices called " Hold for Me " that can alert you when a business finally picks up your call. However, that function has been temporarily disabled on the Pixel 6 due to a bug in the December update, XDA Developers has reported. Pixel 6 owners may also lose the Call Screening tool that stops robocallers from ringing your phone, Google sai



We get more excited for CES 2022 the closer we get to the event. The annual Las Vegas-based venue, kicking off on January 5, 2022, will play host to swathes of promising new tech products – and one we have a keen eye on is the Kura Gallium AR headset . The Kura Gallium's specs are a cut above most other augmented reality headsets on the market, and it has an impressive glasses-style design that's



Wired / 1h
Treated as an outcast in Maui’s cool-kid surf culture, he went on to master nearly every extreme water sport. No wonder the tech elite has a crush on him.



Who's the next Doctor going to be? Is there anyone that really annoys you on the set? Have you ever stolen anything? These are the questions – all posed by children – that Doctor Who stars Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill laugh their way through in the BBC Radio 1 interview above. For what it's worth, a) they genuinely don't know, b) anyone in Whittaker's eye-line, and c) YES, and they were litera



Lei Jun Xiaomi 12 Pro•
Generally speaking, most new top-end smartphones are huge - small phones largely aren't as popular as big ones, as evidenced by the iPhone 12 mini's poor sales and the lack of options for smaller mobiles on the market. One of the outliers in this trend is the lowest-end Samsung Galaxy S phone each year, but official Xiaomi 12 news suggests the upcoming Galaxy S22 could have a close rival. Ahead o



Gizmodo / 1h
Carex brand bed rails, which are designed to keep people from rolling out of bed and assist them in getting up, have been recalled after three elderly people became trapped between the product and their mattress and subsequently died, according to a new report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Read more...



The Apple AirPods Max have plummeted to their lowest-ever price thanks to a fantastic deal on the noise-cancelling headphones. Amazon has slashed the price of Apple's over-ear headphones from £549 to just £399 , saving you £150 and bringing the AirPods Max to under £400 for the first time. (Not in the UK? Scroll down for the best deals in your region.) This price only applies to the silver versio



Fitbit could be working on a new way to analyze your mental health, according to a recently registered patent. The document , filed earlier this month, describes how a future Fitbit device could run a quick check on your mental wellbeing by combining physiological stats (such as heart rate, sleep patterns and activity levels) with data collected using simple games. The Fitbit Sense and Fitbit Cha



AMD Zen 4 CES 2022•
AMD is set to share more details on its future Zen 4 processors, which are expected to arrive later next year, at CES 2022 , alongside all the other stuff Team Red will have at the show. This comes from AMD’s Chief Technology Officer, Mark Papermaster, who gave an interview to Forbes and explained that the next-gen Zen 4 CPUs will indeed get some kind of an airing at CES. Papermaster said: “With



With features like a bigger screen and faster charging, Apple's Watch Series 7 is a great gift idea — but the $399 price tag could be hard to swallow. However, you can now pick up the 41mm model (in green only) at a new all-time low of $339 at Amazon, for a savings of $60 or 15 percent off. Buy Apple Watch Series 7 at Amazon - $339 The Watch Series 7 brings a subtle new design with a larger scree



TL;DR: The iSpyPen Pro is just $159.99 at the Mashable Shop as of Dec. 23. Harriet the Spy has nothing on you when it comes to this high-tech spy pen . During her time, Harriet only had her composition notebook to spy with — can you imagine if she had the technology that's available today? This spy pen works wonders because it's so discreet; it actually has a built-in camera and microphone that's



As of Dec. 23, get the Scenes One Camera Kit , which includes 4 cameras and a gateway, for $369 instead of $399. You might hear about violent crimes more often on the news, but property crime is much more prevalent in the U.S — with theft and burglary topping the list. If you want to make sure your home isn’t victimized, a security system is a great investment, especially in 2021. Home security f




TL;DR: As of Dec. 23, the Govee Flow Pro LED Smart Light Bars are on sale at a discounted price on Amazon. Playing video games or watching TV or movies in a darkly lit room probably won't do any real damage to your eyes. But if you often find yourself rubbing your eyes or feeling irritated after viewing a screen and sitting in the dark for a while, there's a reason for that. The imbalance between



TL;DR: The Dumpsty Jr: Mini Desktop Bin is just $74.99 at the Mashable Shop as of Dec. 23. We never thought dumpsters could be cute, but here we are. The quirkiest desktop accessory around, Dumpsty Jr. , is on sale just in time to commemorate another dumpster fire of a year . Cheers. Dumpsty Jr. is, quite literally, a dumpster for your desk. It’s a teeny tiny replica of an actual dumpster, standi



LG OLED CES Media Chair•
When it comes to trade shows such as CES, LG is typically the king of curvy displays. The company always brings some cool concepts to these shows, and next year's CES 2022, which kicks off on Jan. 5, is no exception. LG Display has announced it will bring two concepts to the show. One is called Virtual Ride, and it consists of three vertical, 55-inch OLED displays placed in front and above a stat



A large array of consoles has just been made available with a last-minute pre-Christmas PS5 restock at Game, starting at £449 for a standalone disk console. Also available are a number of bundles - including games like Spider-Man and FIFA, controllers and accessories, and T-Shirts. Simply click through to the bundle or console of your choice and place your order. If you're looking at a more popul



Samsung Galaxy S22•
Leaks of the Samsung Galaxy S22 are now coming thick and fast, and the latest shows us dummy units of all three devices, so it also gives us an idea of how these phones will likely compare. The below images are of dummy units supplied by UK accessory retailer Mobile Fun to GSMArena . Each shows a very similar design to what we're expecting based on other leaks, with the Galaxy S22 sporting a 6.06



Huawei P50 Pocket Foldable•
Following recent teasers , the Huawei P50 Pocket has now been fully unveiled, and it’s a clamshell foldable phone that does things a bit differently from its main rival – the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 . It packs a 6.9-inch 1,188 x 2,790 foldable OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 21:9 aspect ratio, with a hinge that supposedly offers a zero-gap design when folded shut. At those times you’l



Creating delicious fresh fruit and vegetable juices at home is a great way to increase your intake of these vital healthy foods. One of the best juicers allows you to experiment with flavor combinations and develop custom juices that are bursting with freshness. In fact, more and more of us are jumping on the juicing trend. In the US, sales increased during the pandemic seemingly driven by a desi



Climate 2021 Years•
The deadly consequences of climate change only grew clearer this year, as record-shattering heat waves , floods , and wildfires killed thousands and strained the limits of our disaster responders. In the closing days of 2021, scientists warned that the eastern ledge of a Florida-size glacier is about to snap off of Antarctica and US legislators found they may have flubbed their best chance in a d



This year, the app’s biggest stars — Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Noah Beck, Addison Rae and others — leapt from the phone screen to other platforms in the pop culture universe, with mixed results.



Instagram accounts featuring photos of students slouching, nodding off and parking badly took off this past semester at schools around the country.



Amazon has just launched a fresh Xbox Series X restock this morning - just two days before Christmas and the second we've seen just this past week. Retailing for the usual £449.99 , we wouldn't hang around if you're interested here. Last time stock stayed around for a few hours but did eventually sell out as you'd expect. Amazon remains the most popular retailer for all consoles (probably because



Google Pixel 6 December•
It's been a long few months for Google Pixel 6 users with a myriad of problems and bugs affecting the phone and Pixel 6 Pro since they launched in October. Just because 2021 is almost over doesn't mean the issues are, and there's time for more smartphone shenanigans. Case in point, the Hold for Me and Call Screening features have been temporarily disabled, as confirmed by a post on the Google sup



Samsung 2022 HDR Gaming•
Samsung's 2022 televisions and monitors will support its recently unveiled HDR10+ Gaming standard, the company announced . That means they'll deliver a variety of features for gamers like variable refresh rates (VRR) at up to 120Hz and automatic HDR color correction on a game-by-game basis. The standard will be used by Samsung's 2022 Neo QLED lineup with the Q70 TV series and above, along with ga



Even after 20 months of the pandemic, the way businesses interact with their customers continues to evolve and change. Many of the trends that emerged out of necessity at the start of lockdown, such as a wholesale shift to digital, are now well-worn features of businesses’ approach to customer experience. Yet many of the trends that are building on this digital baseline could have been written 10



Apple Seven Stores Covid•
A bunch of Apple Stores across the US and Canada won't be able to cater to customers' last-minute holiday shopping. According to Bloomberg , the tech giant temporarily shut down eight locations due to a surge in COVID-19 cases both among the public and among its employees. Apple typically shutters a retail store if around 10 percent of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19, the news agen



Sony today announced the availability of its latest WF-C500 earbuds in the region – the newest addition to its truly wireless segment . Priced at AE 349, the budget-friendly earbuds feature Bluetooth pairing, long lasting battery life and unique sound customization features. The Sony WF-C500 earbuds feature a small and lightweight design with 10 hours continuous battery life, with the charging ca
YESTERDAY



If deliberations do not conclude on Thursday, they will resume at a date to be determined by the judge.



Samsung Adata 5.0 SSD•
Samsung has teased a PCIe 5.0 SSD showing that storage products should keep doubling in speed every few years, even while Moore's Law is decelerating. Designed for enterprise servers, the PM1743 SSD can hit read speeds of up to 13,000 MB/s and handle 2,500K input/output operations per second (IOPS) — nearly double what the best PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives can do. PCIe 5.0 supports up to 32 gigatransfers



Intel NAND South Korean•
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix said on Wednesday it has received merger clearance from the Chinese antitrust authority for its $9 billion acquisition of Intel Corp’s NAND and SSD (solid-state drive) business, clearing the final hurdle to completion of securing regulatory approval in eight jurisdictions. Last October, the U.S. chip giant and SK Hynix reached the acquisition deal . Following the a




SAVE 58%: NordVPN is tough on cyber threats like viruses and surveillance software. A one-year subscription to NordVPN is on sale for £43.66, saving you 58% on list price. Cybersecurity is absolutely essential nowadays, because the online world is full of threats like hackers, viruses, and surveillance software. To fight back against these threats, you need a tough VPN. NordVPN offers a wide rang



TL;DR: PDF Expert Mac Software is on sale for £22.49, saving you 62% on list price. You know what sucks? Working with PDFs. In theory, they’re awesome and incredibly convenient, but when you need to make edits or notes or highlight important parts, it’s often more trouble than it’s worth. That frustration alone makes PDF Expert’s £60 price tag well worth it. But for a limited time, you can get 62



SAVE UP TO 60%: Lovehoney hosts a massive range of deals for couples, singles, and everything in between. Lovehoney's Christmas and New Year sale has launched, with up to 60% off sex toys and lingerie until Jan. 4. We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and deals on sex toys. Lovehoney is spreading Christmas cheer with up to 60% off sex toys a



Fitbits came onto the scene when the company was founded in 2007, and today the much-loved device has become so ubiquitous the company name has become pretty much a common noun for any kind of step-counter . At least, that’s what they started out as. Today, Fitbits come in a lot of shapes, sizes, and functional purposes, whether you’re looking for something that truly just measures your steps or



23TechCrunch / 7h
Berlin-based language learning service Babbel was supposed to IPO on the Frankfurt stock exchange in late September. But only a few days before the initial listing the company pulled the plug with an eye on the developing Evergrande debt crisis that made the global stock markets very nervous. It has yet to announce a new date, but as Babbel CEO Arne Schepker told me, the company continues to moni



While Boxing Day is only a few days away, eBay Australia hasn’t revealed too much about its plans for the last major sale event of the year. We don’t yet have the full details for eBay’s Boxing Day sales , but we do know some eBay stores that’ll be participating, including Big W, Dyson and Microsoft. Dell eBay’s current 20% storewide sale will also be on past Boxing Day. While it might not be the



Security researchers have discovered four separate vulnerabilities in Microsoft Teams that could be exploited by an attacker to spoof link previews, leak IP addresses and even access the software giant's internal services. These discoveries were made by researchers at Positive Security who “stumbled upon” them while looking for a way to bypass the the Same-Origin Policy (SOP) in Teams and Electro



Amazon Two Chicago•
500+Mashable / 10h
Two Amazon workers from its Bessemer, Alabama facility died last month, one of them suffering a stroke not long after his request to go home was denied, said two of their co-workers. Speaking to workers' rights organisation More Perfect Union, they claim that work continued as normal despite the deaths. The Amazon workers reportedly died within hours of each other on Nov. 28 and 29, one at the fa



LG OLED CES Media Chair•
The future of display technologies is not just giant TVs, it’s South Korea tech giant LG’s almost infinitely mutable OLED technology, which is now migrating to furniture and exercise apparatus. At CES 2022 , LG Display is announcing a handful of oddball and exciting flexible and semi-transparent display innovations, including a giant semi-circle chair home entertainment system and a new way to sp



LG OLED CES Media Chair•
Engadget / 11h
LG Display will showcase two flexible OLED concepts at CES 2022 – assuming the pandemic doesn’t claim the annual trade show as its latest victim. The first one is the “Virtual Ride” stationary bike. It features three vertical 55-inch OLED displays that form one continuous screen in front and above the rider. The topmost panel has a 500R curvature radius. According to LG Display, that’s the most e



Andrew Bosworth, who will become Meta’s chief technology officer next year, laid out a vision for the social network to adopt and work with various blockchain or crypto technologies that have collectively become known as web3.



Apple is breaking with holiday tradition: The company announced early last month that its App Store will continue to review developer submissions over the holidays, welcome news for app developers facing their busiest season. Previously, an app that needed to release a bug fix or a critical update on Black Friday or during the final hours of Christmas shopping couldn’t push a fix for days. This y



FAA Unruly TSA PreCheck•
SlashGear / 12h
David Tran Photo/Shutterstock Though travel has largely resumed despite the ongoing pandemic, there are a number of rules in place for those who wish to board a plane — including, chiefly, the need to wear a mask. This simple requirement has resulted in a number of altercations, including some mid-flight, and now the TSA is warning such behaviors will come with additional consequences. … Continue



Gizmodo / 12h
What started in WandaVision , got bigger in Loki , and really exploded in Spider-Man is now ready for its biggest big-screen moment. The Multiverse is on full display in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , the next Marvel Studios film scheduled for release May 6, 2022. Legendary director Sam Raimi is at the… Read more...



Gizmodo / 12h
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the biggest entertainment franchises of all time. So of course parent company Disney is cranking out as much new content as humanly (or Inhumans -ly) possible. There are at least a dozen new movies in various stages of development, and just as many Disney+ streaming TV shows on… Read more...



PlayStation 5 Xbox•
Mashable / 12h
Hard to believe it's been an entire year since a whole new hardware generation for video game consoles got its proper kickoff. But here we are. Microsoft's Xbox Series X (and its cheaper, storage-deprived Series S sibling) launched on Nov. 10, 2020. Sony w

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