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

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Tuesday Technology News and More

Technology News and More




Fauci US Air Travel•
2KThe Points Guy / 23min
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with new information. Late Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the President, clarified statements he made earlier in the day that a vaccine requirement for passengers on domestic flights should be considered as COVID-19 cases continue to surge around the country. “I don’t think people should expect that we’re going to have a requirement i



Mashable / 35min
Remember the idea of Hot Girl Summer? The notion that, come the dog days of 2021, we'd all get scantily clad, or sauced up, or crowded among friends, or make out with strangers, or whatever else floated our respective boats? So much for that. Summer came and, with it, lots of disappointment. People all over the internet lamented their Hot Girl Summer that wasn't. COVID didn't magically disappear.



SlashGear / 15min
Via Thundertruck With electric vehicle mandates in place in countries worldwide, new automotive manufacturers are seemingly popping up left and right in an attempt to bring new electric vehicles to market. While most electric vehicles out there look like traditional cars and trucks, some are entirely deviating from typical vehicle design trends and going for something completely different. Tesla



Lifehacker / 23min
Every January, I pledge to improve my flexibility by stretching consistently. And yet, when it comes to my stretching routine, I’m guilty of cutting some corners. And by “cutting some corners,” I do mean that I’ll go months without properly tending to my sore muscles. Oops. Read more...



TechCrunch / 23min
If you’ve visited a crypto company’s website recently, you’ve probably visited a URL ending in “.xyz” instead of its cheugier counterpart, .com. From fintech Block, formerly known as Square, to venture firm Paradigm, to blockchain startups like Mirror, .xyz has become the go-to URL ending for many web3 companies. But what does it mean, and why has it caught on in the web3 space? .xyz, released to



Engadget / 23min
When Apple announced the upgraded MacBook Pro earlier this fall, the common refrain was that the company was finally giving its customers what they asked for . But while the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro updates represent the most obvious case of Apple owning up to (and rectifying) past mistakes, the company has actually been on this course for the last few years. And at the end of 2021, Apple has



Gizmodo / 26min
New Rise of the Beasts merchandise could hint at which Beast Wars stars are coming to the new Transformers movie. Peter Dinklage discusses his choice to join the new Toxic Avenger . Plus, Doctor Who gets in a time loop for New Years, and a tiny sliver of new The Book of Boba Fett footage. Spoilers away! Read more...



Starboard 6.5% GoDaddy•
American hedge fund Starboard Value acquired a 6.5% stake in GoDaddy , a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has shown. The deal had cost the fund approximately $800 million, according to the Wall Street Journal . According to the filing, the fund believed shares in the web hosting group were "undervalued" and represented "an attractive investment opportunity". Fall and ri



Mashable / 35min
The stars of Cobra Kai go head-to-head in '80s movie trivia.



Mashable / 35min
The robotic exosuit uses real-time calf measurement to assist walking across different terrains and inclines.



SlashGear / 36min
A few years ago, you probably wouldn’t have expected Samsung to be at the forefront of Android updates. Today, however, it is almost the poster child for speedy, regular, and long-term updates, both the monthly security ones as well as major version upgrades. It’s still not perfect, of course, and there are still some kinks in the process to be … Continue reading



2021 is the kind of year that feels like two. So much happened in the world and, naturally, the tech space, that it seems impossible it all occurred in just a 12-month period. As I reflect on the year gone by, I think about what I experienced, witnessed, and learned. These were my core tech lessons of 2021. Nothing lasts forever or even 15 minutes Remember white-hot Clubhouse , the audio meetup a



2021 Years the Fall VR•
VR headsets are becoming more widely available, previously having been a product acquired by only the most dedicated of gaming geeks and tech enthusiasts. While they’ve actually existed since the early 90’s, the first successful consumer VR headset was the Oculus Rift – a crowdfunded project from back in 2012 – which brought virtual reality into our homes for the first time. Almost 10 years on an



Several weeks ago we saw the introduction of the $199 annual fee World of Hyatt Business Credit Card ( review ), which is Hyatt’s first business credit card. Okay, in fairness, I’d argue that the World of Hyatt Credit Card ( review ) is all-around more lucrative, though that’s a card that many of us Hyatt loyalists already have, and there’s value to be had in picking up the business version of th



Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information and offers. TPG staffers are nothing if not frequent travelers and we travel to review hotels, we’re of course working, which involves testing out everything a property has to offer, including the pool. A hotel’s pool is often the most standout aspect of many properties we come across. While we’ve already written abou



Engadget / 53min
If you bought an Xbox Series X or S a year ago, your selection of accessories mostly came down to aging gear designed for last-gen systems. Now, you've got plenty more ways to upgrade your Xbox experience. Maybe you need a better controller to optimize your Psychonauts 2 runs, a clearer headset to chat with teammates in Apex Legends , or perhaps your storage is just running low. Here are a few of



Lifehacker / 59min
Holiday gifts mean new tech for all, and new tech for all means fresh “tech support” headaches for you! You know your friends and family are going to have issues with their devices and gadgets; it’s one thing to be able to help them in person, but if you live far away, servicing these issues remotely can be a… Read more...



Samsung Galaxy tGS•
Potentially malicious smartphone tools are being distributed through Samsung’s mobile app store, researchers have warned. At least five apps, clones of the deceased Showbox app, have popped up in the Galaxy Store, Max Weinbach of Android Police reported via Twitter. The apps themselves don’t directly contain malicious code, but they could be used as a stepping stone. In fact, their design implies



Enlarge / Capturing carbon, as this algae-growing plant does, may not be the most economical way to reach our climate targets. (credit: Santiago Urquijo / Getty Images ) What will it cost if the climate exceeds the Paris Agreement temperature goals this century—even if we later remove carbon dioxide from the air and manage to bring temperatures back down to meet those targets by 2100? And how doe



2021 was a big year for the Mac. First, Apple gave us macOS Monterey, which included a treasure trove of publicized features (and a handful of hidden gems ). After this update, the company dropped new MacBook Pros with the improved M1 Pro and M1 Max chipsets. All that news meant plenty of tips and hacks for us to sink… Read more...




Intel’s Arc Battlemage GPUs, the second-gen products which will be the successor to its incoming Arc Alchemist graphics cards , will take on AMD and Nvidia at the high-end around mid-2023, according to the rumor mill. This comes from YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID) whose sources (apparently with good track records – but take all this with lots of skepticism as ever) claim that Intel is becomi



Riot Discrimination•
The League of Legends maker agrees to settle a 2018 gender discrimination class-action lawsuit



One of the best ways to maximize your credit card rewards is to pick a card that offers bonus points in the categories that you spend the most in, whether that’s supermarkets , gas stations , or non-bonused categories . In this post I wanted to look at the best credit cards for dining & restaurant purchases . While everyone has to eat, admittedly not everyone dines out a lot. Nonetheless, odds ar



View of a row of snow-covered pine trees during winter in Houghton County, Michigan. Typed on back: “Winter scene, Houghton County.” Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library



Wired / 1h
The pandemic has drastically changed how LGBTQ organizations work to meet the needs of socially connected youth.



Wired / 1h
Whether it’s from a laptop gathering dust or the desktop you’re upgrading, these tips will keep your precious memories nearby and easy to share.



I don’t have great posture – perhaps because I’m tall, perhaps because I’m lazy, or perhaps a combination of both. It’s something that’s only been made worse by working from home, without the watchful eyes of my colleagues to keep me from slouching over my keyboard. That, combined with extra time spent indoors generally, has meant a reappearance of some shoulder pain that first emerged when I was



Emirates Dubai Washington•
Last week Emirates flight EK-231 from Dubai to Washington Dulles “was accelerating for takeoff from Dubai’s runway 30R when the aircraft rotated for takeoff past the end of the runway” and the Boeing 777-300 (registration A6-EQI) continued anyway – all the way to DC. It even flew back to Dubai as scheduled, but the aircraft was then grounded for four days after it returned. The FAA is investigati



Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. Even if you’ve never set foot on a Singapore Airlines plane (or visited Singapore , for that matter), you probably have access to plenty of the carrier’s KrisFlyer miles . That’s because Singapore is one of the only airlines that partners with all of the major transferable point programs: American Express Membership



Carisa Nietsche Contributor Carisa Nietsche is an associate fellow for the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. The TechCrunch Global Affairs Project examines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics. Europe has a well-earned reputation for regulating Big Tech, taking the lead on privacy, data protection and especia



The i3 window tiling manager is a Linux desktop environment that’s stripped down to its absolute minimum. That might sound limited and restrictive, but for the right workflow, it’s a form of freedom. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



If you've been the lucky recipient of a new drone recently, it can be tempting to seek out some spectacular subjects for your first aerial videos – but a reminder of the latest drone laws has been issued in the UK after a recent incident involving some resting seals. As reported by the BBC , the Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust has underlined that drone users "should always keep a 100m distance



Back when I was the mild-mannered tech support in a store, I got to try out some of the smartphones that would be available for sale in the coming days. One that still sticks out to me the most, apart from the iPhone 4, is the Palm Pre. Headed up by a group of ex-Apple engineers, it was an attempt to give the market something else, even in 2009. While iOS and Android were in their early forms, wi



Nuclear Fusion Power•
Gizmodo / 2h
Only an unusually naive child, or a fossil fuel executive, could sincerely argue that our current energy situation is sustainable. For over 50 years now, well before the scope of the climate crisis was clear, scientists have been working toward an alternative: fusion power (i.e., using the heat from nuclear fusion… Read more...



Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images ) In the world of tech policy news, 2021 began with Twitter and other social networks banning then-President Donald Trump after the January 6 insurrection. Many other noteworthy stories followed in the ensuing months. The Elizabeth Holmes trial featured fascinating revelations about Theranos, while the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial didn't let th



You want your laptop to be fast, light, and reliable, but while you’re focused on the behind-the-scenes specs you may be overlooking one of the most important features staring you right in the face: the display. Even though many of us spend a huge chunk of our day typing away at a laptop — or streaming movies and playing games — it’s the one screen we haven’t been paying nearly enough attention t



Are you feeling extra stressed out or anxious these days? Who isn’t? The last year (and change) was enough to rattle the physical and mental well-being of all of us. The good news is Noom has a new wellness program that can help you worry less, sleep better, and feel happier. The program comes packaged as a four-month plan for $149, and right now, you can give it a free 14-day trial run, so why n



I’m not a fan of “just going out for a walk”. It’s obviously good to go outside, get some fresh air, and touch some grass now and then. But that’s usually not enough to convince me to get off the couch. I need a purpose or, as it turns out, a gamification-style app like Pikmin Bloom to make things a little sweeter. As luck would have it, last Christmas I bought something that means I always have



41Wired / 2h
Despite rampant misinformation, Covid-19 has pushed science into the zeitgeist, as people have absorbed new words and how scientific discovery actually works.



25Wired / 2h
New technology promises to forecast the length of your life. But for disabled people, measuring mortality can prove fatal.




Wired / 2h
Working conditions at top studios have been criticized before, but this year saw a significant increase in protests and organizing by employees.



Wired / 2h
They are the most popular type of timepiece by far, and this year many new models were launched. We’ve picked four favorites.



Amazon Alexa Girl Plug•
Amazon has fixed its voice assistant so that it will not suggest the dangerous “challenge” again.



If you’re looking for a tempered glass screen protector, you’ve almost certainly seen some of them advertise “9H hardness.” What does hardness mean? Is 9H good? It’s time for a closer look at what this rating means. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



AMD Radeon RX GPU XT•
AMD’s purportedly incoming Navi 24 GPU, which is supposedly set to power the Radeon RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 desktop graphics cards , has been spotted. The image of the Navi 24 chip (see below) was published by VideoCardz , and theoretically tells us a number of things about the spec, including that it has 16 GPU clusters with each having 64 stream processors, for a total of 1,024 shading units as



College is synonymous with being on a tight budget, and when it comes to the best computers for college students, you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a good PC . Nor do you need to make too many compromises. It doesn’t always make sense to get the cheapest desktop PC you could find just because you have tuition, food, housing, and books to pay for, especially if you need more power than what



Microsoft Surface Three•
A newly-awarded Microsoft patent suggests it's looking into a making a new tri-folding Surface device, in a similar vein to a Samsung concept we saw just a few days ago. Microsoft launched its latest dual-screen phone, the Surface Duo 2 , in September, but a patent picked up by Patently Apple suggests that it's looking to go beyond that design and create a device with two hinges, which would conn



38Mashable / 3h
Seven months ago, engineers stowed the James Webb Space Telescope's tennis-court-sized sunshield for the last time before it unfurls a million miles from Earth. They had rehearsed deploying it from soup to nuts three times. The first time they opened it, a cable ended up in the wrong place. The second time, some of the glue they used to keep the cable in line caused a mechanical clog. The third a



52Gizmodo / 3h
Workers dismantling the pedestal of a Robert E. Lee statue that’s currently being removed in Virginia discovered a second time capsule on Monday, raising hopes that the box from 1887 could contain something interesting. The discovery comes after a different time capsule was opened at the site last week but was filled… Read more...



One of the best vacuum cleaners makes keeping your floors free from dust and dander a breeze. The powerful suction, large dust canisters, and array of tools and attachments ensure you can zip through your home collecting dirt and debris as quickly as possible. Dyson and Miele are two of the biggest names dominating the vacuum market right now, and if you’re considering kitting your home out with



Carbon Capture Climate•
40Wired / 3h
On a barren lava plateau in Iceland, a new facility is sucking in air and stashing the carbon dioxide in rock. The next step: Build 10,000 more.



Fintech has been so disruptive that it forced UK banks to start closing their high street branches at a rapid rate, new research has found. According to a Which? report for PA media, almost half of all UK banks branches have been shut, or are planned for closure, since 2015. That’s a total of 4,735 branches in the past six years - and of that number, more than 15% (736 branches) have closed in 20



Windows 11 is receiving further attention in terms of ironing out bugs with the taskbar, and there’s been some fresh buzz from the grapevine suggesting that a major change to drag and drop functionality won’t appear until late in 2022. Windows Latest pointed out that the major development in the works requested by many – the ability to drag and drop apps onto the taskbar, to swiftly and easily cr



TL;DR: The InCharge Charging Cable normally costs $29, but as of Dec. 28, it's just $17.59 when you enter code CYBER20 at checkout, which means you're getting 39% off. Chargers are seriously getting ridiculous these days. Any time you buy a new phone, tablet, or even a toothbrush, you're automatically gifted with another wire. It may be a replica of one you have already, but sometimes you just ca



TL;DR: This 4K Action Pro Waterproof All Digital UHD WiFi Camera is on sale for just $39.99 with the code CYBER20 as of Dec. 28 — that's over 73% off its regular price of $149. Don't be that person who's too afraid to take their camera out while white water rafting or scuba diving. You're always jealous of the person who has the underwater camera the second you paddle out in crystal clear waters



TL;DR: As of Dec. 28, get the ICECO JP 50L Portable Fridge Freezer with SECOP Compressor for just $423.20 using the code CYBER20 and take 24% off its original price of $559. No matter how you like to get away, you'll need food and beverages to keep you going. Whether you're into camping, hiking, or just road tripping, this portable fridge and freezer will help you save money by keeping your favor



TL;DR: As of Dec. 28, save on several versions of the Autonomous Smartdesk . Admit it. When you think of “the average gamer,” what vision pops into your head? It’s likely a kid, probably a teenager, blasting away in their mom’s basement for hours on end. Well, the reality is you’re partially right. The dedicated gamer probably tries to get in at least a few hours each week. But that gamer isn’t a



A shock has reverberated inside Israel in the last few months. NSO Group, the billion-dollar Israeli company that has sold hacking tools to governments around the world for more than a decade, has drawn intense scrutiny after a series of public scandals. The company is in crisis. Its future is in doubt. But while NSO Group’s future is uncertain, governments are more likely than ever to buy cyber



Riot Gender Discrimination•
Riot Games has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in November 2018 by former employees alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation. The League of Legends publisher was only going to pay $10 million per the preliminary settlement in 2019, but the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing went to court to block the agreement. $10 milli



Xiaomi 12 Pro 8 Launch•
There’s now only a few hours until the Xiaomi 12 launch event, which takes place at 3:30am PT / 6:30am ET / 11:30am GMT and 7:30pm ACT. This is a China-only launch, and we’d expect the mobile to get unveiled for global markets in early 2022. This is exactly what happened for the Mi 11 a year ago, as that was shown off for China on December 26, and then rolled out globally in February. Despite thi




The world of photography is changing so quickly that even the fastest telephoto lenses can't keep up. But it's also an exciting time for anyone with a penchant for snapping – and it's about to get even more fascinating in 2022. Whether you shoot with a smartphone, film camera or a mirrorless powerhouse, this year has brought some ground-breaking tech that continues to redefine both cameras and ph



Namibia wants to use its abundance of sunshine and wind power to make and export hydrogen.



It was the year that life was supposed to start getting back to some kind of normal following a pretty horrendous 2020. But it’s fair to say that it hasn’t quite worked out like that in 2021, although normal service largely resumed in the world of wearables as new smartwatch and fitness trackers were fired out onto the market in regular fashion from the biggest names in the business. There's defi




20Gizmodo / 9h
The mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I has been undisturbed for thousands of years, but now scientists have used non-invasive imaging to see inside the burial wrappings. Their research has revealed some new details about a life cut short—though it’s still a mystery why this ruler died around age 35. Read more...



China Chinese Musk•
The SpaceX boss is attacked on Chinese social media after the complaint was made public.



100+Gizmodo / 11h
Citing increased scientific knowledge of covid-19 and the raging omicron variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modified its isolation and quarantine guidelines for people who test positive for the virus and those who are in contact with someone confirmed to be infected. Read more...



SlashGear / 12h
Image credit: Google All things considered, 2021 was a pretty miserable year in general. The COVID-19 pandemic carried on throughout the year, making things like smartphones, GPUs, and game consoles difficult to find, thanks to global shortages. Beyond that, the fact that the pandemic persists is undoubtedly wearing on many emotionally and mentally, making for a crummy year overall. Despite that,



28Mashable / 12h
Tech executives are typically known for their work ethic , bank accounts , ability to imagine a different world in the future, and, on occasion, some very weird hobbies . What they are not known for, though, is their ability to communicate in a way that is calm, c


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