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

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Mid-Week Technology News and More

 Technology News and More






Wired / 2min
Even as police and tech companies get better at shutting down illegal operations, cybercrime is worse than ever.



Engadget / 15min
Lenovo launched a new smart clock at CES earlier this year, and it improved upon its previous models by giving it a pogo docking pin at the bottom and support for Amazon's Alexa. If you've been thinking of picking it up but haven't gotten the chance to until now, you may want to head over to the device's listing at Best Buy. Lenovo's Smart Clock Essential with Alexa is currently on sale for $45 o



Although the Samsung Galaxy S23 series is still likely nine months away from being launched, we've already heard a (very) early report which suggests there might be trouble brewing in paradise. A Korean site called Business Post has written a report detailing delays in the mass production of Samsung's 3nm chipset, which suggests the company is struggling to make enough of this new, super-small ch




Wired / now
Online activists Gen-Z for Change targeted Starbucks and Kroger for anti-union firings. Now they plan to take aim at Amazon.



Wired / now
Rooftop solar panels are gaining popularity as the UK faces higher energy prices. But lower-income people are being left behind once again.



Wired / now
The connected-lighting company Insteon went dark without warning its users, throwing into question the concept of handing your house’s controls to an IoT firm.



Wired / now
From apps to websites, companies steer users into the preferences and account settings that serve them. You can do better.



Wired / now
Horror and boredom mingle in director Jane Schoenbrun’s new film about a girl obsessed with an online role-playing game.



Wired / now
In an influential report that comes out once a decade, researchers propose a space mission to Uranus and a lander to Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.



When your internet experience is lackluster, your impulse might be to upgrade your internet package to a faster speed. But here’s why you should consider upgrading your network gear, not your internet connection. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



When it comes to presentation creation, PowerPoint and Keynote remain the de facto tools by incumbent advantage. PowerPoint has over one billion installs and 500 million users alone, thanks to Microsoft’s longtime bundling of Office with certain Windows editions. But this hasn’t stopped startups from trying to disrupt the status quo. Besides Prezi, there’s Pitch , a deck creation suite from the f



Netflix is finally getting serious about offering customers a cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier. Speaking during a recent earnings call interview, company CEO Reed Hastings revealed that the streaming service is now “quite open” to shaking up its business model in an effort to both drive revenue and create the option of lower prices for new and existing subscribers. The admission comes afte



Moon Knight Episode 4•
Major spoilers follow for Moon Knight episode 4. Moon Knight episode 4 has landed on Disney Plus – and we suspect you have plenty of questions about what went down in those surreal last 15 minutes. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the Marvel Phase 4 project's latest episode, with numerous journalists and websites – ourselves included – hinting that something major would go down in Moon Knight epis



ARK Switch September•
Ark: Survival Evolved, one of the ugliest games on Nintendo Switch, is getting a comprehensive overhaul as part of the Ark: Ultimate Survivor Edition upgrade, which arrives this September. According to developer Studio Wildcard, the code for Ark: Survival Evolved on Switch is being completely rewritten from the ground up, and will utilize the latest version of Unreal Engine 4. While Studio Wildca



Xbox Game Pass April•
The next slate of Xbox Game Pass titles has been revealed, alongside the announcement that Microsoft will be adding plenty more Ubisoft games to the subscription service, starting with Assassin’s Creed Origins and For Honor: Marching Fire Edition. According to Microsoft, both games will be added to Xbox Game Pass over the next two months – so by the end of June. Assassin’s Creed Origins will be a



Web3, blockchains, crypto are undoubtedly set to form part, if not all of the future of the internet - but how do developers, the people actually building the tools, feel about these technological innovations? Stack Overflow polled 595 developers on their views on Web3 and blockchains, two areas that could form the heart of the next phase of the internet, and discovered some very differing though



It was meant to be a temporary side job—a way to earn some extra money. Oskarina Fuentes Anaya signed up for Appen, an AI data-labeling platform, when she was still in college studying to land a well-paid position in the oil industry. But then the economy tanked in Venezuela. Inflation skyrocketed, and a stable job, once guaranteed, was no longer an option. Her side gig was now full time; the tem



A store has accidentally leaked a long list of upcoming Garmin watches , including some names we've been expecting – and a few that we weren't. Gadgets and Wearables says it obtained the list from "an authorized Garmin dealer", and says it includes the names of all the devices the dealer will be selling over the next few months, together with their warranty periods. Most of the names are devices



There's that famous meme from Arrested Development, where Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) opens a paper bag that reads "Dead Dove Do Not Eat." Bateman opens the bag, looks in, and makes an incredulous face. "I don't know what I expected," he deadpans. When I asked Buffalo Wild Wings to send me a sample of its new Doritos Flamin' Hot Nacho Wings, I was super curious to give them a try. I mean what i



Though the creator economy is rapidly growing and changing, there isn’t much existing research about the space, making it difficult for stakeholders to understand what’s going on behind the ring light. So Linktree , the link-in-bio unicorn , is releasing a report today with findings from a survey of 9,500 creators, which helps illuminate some overarching trends about how creators are trying to ma




Elon Musk might not identify as a Republican, but new data reaffirms the billionaire’s proclaimed “ absolutist ” views on free speech put him at home amongst the elephants. Read more...



Okta January Lapsus$ Two•
Following a breach of its systems in January, Okta has released a forensic report finding that the threat group Lapsus$ accessed just two active customers via a third-party company. Lapsus$ "actively controlled" a workstation belong to an engineer at support firm Sitel for 25 minutes on January 21st, the company said. "The threat actor actively controlled a single workstation, used by a Sitel sup



No need to overthink it — sometimes, in order to start the day off right, you might just want to watch Oscar Isaac cuddling puppies. In the clip above from The Late Show , Stephen Colbert enlists the actor's help in trying to get some rescue dogs adopted on behalf of North Shore Animal League . This involves staring at the camera, introducing the pup, and then telling an adorable lie about it — e



PlayStation DualSense•
If you use a PS5 DualSense controller on a PC , you can now update Sony’s clever pad even if you don’t own a PlayStation 5 console. Sony has released a new firmware updater for the DualSense controller, which works on Windows 10 (64-bit) or Windows 11 PCs. You’ll need 10 MB or more of space, and a display resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher to use the application. As the DualSense controller can’t



ETH Zürich's ANYmal has made major strides since it first burst onto the scene. Most recently, depth sensor "eyes" are upping its game.



Last week, TikTok's first commissioned musical opened in New York. The musical was performed live, but also streamed live on TikTok itself. The musical was truly for, and by, TikTok: the work of many TikTok creatives and artists (plus Andy Cohen!), coming together to bring the project to life online and IRL. But this isn't the only selling point of the musical. For You, Paige , a cheeky nod to th



Every day, a repurposed garbage truck ferries visitors up El Salvador’s Conchagua Volcano to an ecotourism retreat. The vehicle thunders along a cratered road, tossing passengers from side to side. At the summit, they spill out into the sun-dappled forest and are rewarded with sweeping vistas of the deep blue Gulf of Fonseca. The retreat is named El Espíritu de la Montaña (Mountain Spirit) to ref



Samsung EV Batteries•
While Samsung phones don't have terrible battery lives, they don't have great ones either - in our reviews of the Galaxy S22 , S22 Plus and S22 Ultra , the company's three latest flagships, we mentioned that the battery lasted a day but generally not more. That might change soon though. One of the many arms of the company is Samsung SDI, which makes batteries for many things including electric ve



Brave Google AMP De-AMP•
Brave is putting Google's Accelerate Mobile Pages (AMP) on blast with a new feature called De-AMP, The Verge reported. It's designed to bypass any pages rendered with AMP and take users directly to the original website. "Where possible, De-AMP will rewrite links and URLs to prevent users from visiting AMP pages altogether,” the company wrote in a blog post . If that's not possible, then "Brave wi



A brutal hockey-like sport played to the death. Berzerkers dancing and screaming 'til dawn pre-raid. Shallow, stealthy longboats. Though the narrative may be the stuff of legend, the Viking Age detail in The Northman is rooted in history, and writer-director Robert Eggers took pains to get it as close to the real deal as possible. The Northman is the bloody Nordic tale of Prince Amleth (Alexander



Bears. Beets. Bringing you fresh coverage of The Office nearly two decades after the show premiered. That's basically Mashable's motto, and in the spirit of upholding that motto, we've compiled a handy list of some of our best articles on The Office. You can binge-read them or bookmark and scroll through at your leisure. But we highly recommend you check them all out ASAP. From exclusive intervie



With the ubiquity of the iPhone , you might be wondering why the iPod isn't obsolete . Why would you want a device that plays music when you could have a device that plays music and is also, you know, a phone? Even though iPhone technology has far surpassed the iPod (which was revolutionary for its time), Apple still has the iPod touch in its product lineup . For keeping kids occupied or for peop



It’s travel season, y’all. From luxury beach vacations to foreign romps to camping excursions across the national parks, it’s the perfect time to start booking those trips you’ve been planning in your head. But don’t break the bank doing it — grab one of these deals and keep more money in your pocket as you book your flights, hotels, and more. TravelHacker Premium: One-Year Subscription See the w



TL;DR: As of April 20, this renewed Apple MacBook Air 13.3" Core i5, 1.4GHz 4GB RAM 128GB is available for just $295.99, which is a whole 75% off how much it would cost new ($1,199). When shopping for a new laptop, buying brand new isn't always the best option. There are tons of high-quality refurbished laptops available that hold their own against the latest and greatest models — and they'll sav



TL;DR: As of April 20, the DoggieSak Dog Walking Bag is on sale for $59.99. That means you can save 32% on its usual price of $89. When you have a baby, a diaper bag becomes glued to your hip everywhere you go — to the store, out to dinner, over to your friend’s house, to the babysitter, etc. When it comes to your fur child, on the other hand, you have toys, water bowls, leashes, and other access



TL;DR: As of April 20, you can sign up for a Sam's Club membership for just $19.99 (it's usually $58, so you're saving 66%) and get an eight-pack of gourmet cupcakes and an 18-pack of chocolate chunk cookies for free. Sam’s Club memberships are on sale again. That means members-only exclusivity, unbeatable prices, the ability to buy in bulk, and a bunch of free stuff could be in your future. And



Moon Knight Episode 4•
This post contains spoilers for episode 4 of Marvel's Moon Knight. To say things get weird in episode 4 of Moon Knight would be an understatement. Sure, seeing Steven Grant/Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) reach into the mouth of Alexander the Great's corpse is bizarre, but it doesn't hold a candle to the sheer strangeness of the episode's final act. To recap: Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) catches up to



Looking to clean up your Instagram timeline to see more posts you actually want to see? We've got you covered. Maybe the group chat is going off in the DMs but you stopped caring an hour ago. Is there someone you really don't want to see on your feed for a bit? Or are there Instagram Stories you just don't want appearing at the top of your feed? Instagram gives you a way to mute people in each si



Google Android App•
Recently we learned that Google was working on an app to make it easy to switch from iPhone to Android, and now that app has launched, so you no longer have to back everything up to Google Drive or fiddle around with cables. The app, dubbed Switch To Android , lets you choose what data to bring across, with options including contacts, calendar events, photos, and videos. It also provides tips, su



25% British Airways•
We sometimes see airlines offer a bonus when you convert hotel rewards into airline points, and British Airways has just launched the latest such promotion. Transfer hotel points to British Airways with 25% bonus Between April 19 and April 25, 2022, British Airways Executive Club is offering a 25% bonus when you convert select hotel points into Avios. Specifically, this is valid for transfers fro




The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



Like many stoners, I don't discriminate against any method of getting high. Whether I smoke or vape or eat weed , I know the result is going to be the same: getting hella blazed. This 420, however, I want to spark up conversation — which is why I ranked 10 ways to smoke/ingest cannabis. Have at it, stoneys: 10. One-hitter Credit: Bob Berg/Getty Images The one-hitter is last because it's just that



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



Delta Elon Musk Starlink•
Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian has revealed in an interview that the airline held talks with SpaceX and conducted "exploratory tests" of Starlink's internet technology for its planes. According to The Wall Street Journal , Bastian declined to divulge specifics about the test, but SpaceX exec Jonathan Hofeller talked about the company's discussion with several airlines back in mid-2021. Hofeller



Netflix Hastings Supported•
Netflix is about to cave in when it comes to ad. The company's CEO Reed Hastings, a long-time opponent of ad-supported content on Netflix, said he is willing to reconsider his stance. “Those who have followed Netflix know that I have been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription. But as much as I am a fan of that, I am a bigger fan of consumer choice.



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .
YESTERDAY



For gamers, the LG C2 OLED is currently one of the best TVs you can buy, but that could change later this year when TV chip maker MediaTek releases its Pentonic series chips. According to MediaTek, its new chips will enable 4K@120Hz, ALLM, VRR, and reduced latency in Dolby Vision mode - a marked improvement from what we have now - and should be available to distribute starting in the second half



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



Everstage founders Vivek Suriyamoorthy and Siva Rajamani For sales reps, commission plans are often complicated and lack transparency, leading to accounting errors and frustration. Everstage , a sales commission platform, solves that, letting sales rep see exactly how much they earned. It also has features to estimate how much commissions they can potentially make from their deals pipeline. Today



Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola has, for the first time, addressed financial and personal misconduct claims leveled against him and the company this month, according to an email to employees obtained by TechCrunch. “I’m writing today because I want you to know how concerned I am about the impact that reading the false allegations against our company has had on you all,” he wrote. The fact that



Several new Intel Arc Alchemist laptops have been listed on retailer sites in the US and UK, signaling that Intel's long-awaited discrete GPU might finally make it into consumers' hands after months if not years of waiting. The listings are limited to a few Lenovo and HP laptops on a smattering of websites, and only feature the Intel Arc A370M mobile GPU, which is a fairly entry-level GPU compare



Hastings Netflix Supported•
100+Engadget / 6h
Netflix might offer cheaper ad-supported plans in the coming years. In the company's most recent earnings call , co-CEO Reed Hastings has revealed that the streaming giant is currently working on the offering and that it will be finalizing details for those plans "over the next year or two." Hastings said he finds ads complex and he's a huge fan of the simplicity of subscriptions, but giving cons



TL;DR: The Business Writing for Beginners Course is on sale for £9.97, saving you 93% on list price. In a world where the majority of business interactions happen online, writing skills are a necessity. And yet, most people don’t give them proper attention — which leads to miscommunication, conflict, and wasted time and energy. If you’ve ever wondered how to approach a written business situation



New details have emerged regarding Intel’s upcoming Sapphire Rapids-SP 56 core processor which is intended for use in data centers. According to a new report from Tom’s Hardware , hardware leaker YuuKi_AnS has once again provided more information on the chip giant’s Sapphire Rapids processors after benchmarking them back in February of this year. Just like its Alder Lake processors, Sapphire Rapi



NOICE , an Indonesia audio content startup, has raised $22 million in Series A funding led by Northstar, with participation from returning investors Alpha JWC Go-Ventures and Kinesys. NOICE is different from other audio streaming startups because its focus isn’t on music. Instead, NOICE, which has 2 million users, focuses on podcasts, radio, audiobooks, and live audio. For example, it hosts drama



Folding smartphone fans are eagerly awaiting the Galaxy Z Fold 4 smartphone, but a new leak claims its improved design may come with an unfortunate compromise.



Google is preparing to update its Nearby Share feature. Users will soon be able to easily share files between their own devices using the same Google account.



In the same way that parents have a hard time keeping up with the latest internet slang , so too does the FBI which is why the government agency put together its own guide on the latest terms and abbreviations. As reported by Input , the FBI actually has its own 83-page guide on internet slang that you can read for yourself on the Internet Archive . Share your thoughts on Cybersecurity and get a



Nvidia GPU GeForce•
There have been plenty of rumors surrounding the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and this new batch allegedly reveals that Nvidia has begun testing its next-gen AD102 GPU, which is expected to power the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. The flagship AD102 GPU, which is built on Nvidia’s Lovelace architecture, will be used to power cards such as the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080. According to reliable Twitter leak



NASA's Perseverance rover has arrived at its next destination: a special delta region near a Martian crater that may harbor evidence of past life.




The smart political move is to let the CDC say they've examined hospitalization data and the state of new variants and the mask rule can expire, subject to new developments that might warrant its reinstatement. And the people in charge at the White House aren't dumb. Continue reading ...



59Gizmodo / 11h
Everyone can now experience The Batman from home and with that comes access to loads of behind-the-scenes clips and of course the director’s commentary. The Wrap reported on highlights from Apple’s exclusive Matt Reeves commentary track, which has given more context as to why the film closed on the Riddler (Paul Dano)… Read more...



Netflix Subscribers•
The firm needs to sign up new members after losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of the year.



US Airport CDC Mask•
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information. The Justice Department will appeal a Florida federal judge’s order voiding the federal government’s mask mandate — but only if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intends to extend the order past the May 3 deadline. In a statement on Tuesday, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said that the government disagrees wi



Motorola Padres MLB•
99Engadget / 11h
The San Diego Padres will start wearing a Motorola logo on their sleeves, beginning with the 2023 Major League Baseball regular season. While corporate partnerships are nothing new in baseball, it’s the first time we’re seeing an MLB team with a sponsored patch. The league earlier this month said MLB teams could feature the logos of corporate sponsors on their uniforms, similar to what both the N



You're probably familiar with Second Life and more modern alternatives like VRChat, but what about Lively? Google's experiment didn't last long.



Nitecore Sony Battery•
I have 600 hundred USB-C chargers everywhere; in my car, next to my bed, in my bathroom, in the garage, in my camera bag. Do you know what I never remember to pack? The battery charger for my camera. Yes, you can charge the battery with the camera itself for most of Sony’s Alpha line of cameras, but no self-respecting photographer has time for that — you’re too busy shooting! Nitecore to the resc



Self Driving UK DfT•
Mobile phone use while driving will remain illegal, as changes to the Highway Code are announced.



1KFuturism / 11h
Stock Drop The stocks of cryptocurrency-focused companies are in a nose dive, falling as much as 60 percent this year alone, The Wall Street Journal reports , signaling a significant drop-off in interest — and a divergence between crypto companies’ stocks and the values of actual blockchain products, which are also down but not as much. The scandal-plagued Coinbase is down a whopping 42 percent s



20Engadget / 12h
Cre8Audio made a splash a few years ago when it launched the NiftyCase in 2019, a Eurorack case that featured a surprising amount of convenient features for a stunningly low price. Seriously, $200 for an 84hp Eurorack case with a power supply, MIDI to CV converter, MIDI over USB capabilities and audio connections is kind of bonkers. Now the company is going a little more upmarket, targeting a nic



27Gizmodo / 12h
Peter Parker’s poor luck always seems to strike in the weirdest places. Like, his face apparently . From the put-upon Spider-hero that gave us a truly distressing video game makeover , now comes this. Read more...



Ukrainian Find My Russian•
500+Gizmodo / 12h
A Ukrainian man who learned his Apple AirPods Pro had been pilfered by invading Russians soon realized he could turn the theft to his advantage. Using the “Find My” feature, he could see how far the Russian retreat was taking the invaders from his home. Read more...



Are you looking to buy a folding smart phone? Do you want it to be Pokémon-themed? And do you live in South Korea? If all those stars are aligned just right, do we have some good news for you: Samsung is making a Pokémon Edition of the Galaxy Z Flip 3. They somehow decided to not make this folding phone look like a Pokédex… a device that is wildly important within the Pokémon universe and, which,



The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating more than three decades of work. Highlighting its latest birthday is one of the many stunning images it has captured



200+TechCrunch / 12h
In light of Netflix’s concerning subscriber losses , the company announced today during its first-quarter earnings call that it will expand its test that charges members a higher price if they’re engaged in account sharing with people outside their household. The company first began testing the feature in March in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, but now says it plans to implement the solution in glob



Netflix Hastings Years•
Netflix plans to offer a cheaper and ad-supported plan to consumers within a year or two, the world’s largest on-demand video streaming service said, as it pushes to tap a wider set of potential customers amid stiffer competition from rival firms. The firm, which reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, will introduce the ad-supported plan to give customers more choice, compan



To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here . Hello and welcome to this 109th day of 2022 – April 19 – which celebrates, among other things, National Garlic Day (nice try, Big Allium) and Bicycle Day , the anniversary of the discovery of LSD. Speaking of blasting off into space, check out Aria ’s awesome Max Q



Netflix Password Sharing•
400+Gizmodo / 12h
Netflix may finally, actually, for real this time, have to crack down on password sharing. Read more...



Elon Musk Twitter Bid•
The world’s richest man is trying to shore up debt financing, including potentially taking out a loan against his shares of Tesla, so he can buy Twitter for $43 billion.



It’s the perfect time in between the two Easter holidays (Orthodox Easter is this Sunday!) to announce that Google Wallet has (probably) risen. According to noted code-sniffer Mishaal Rahman, Google Wallet is (probably) returning to Android. But you never know with this company. Read more...




68Gizmodo / 12h
As a Star Wars fan, beginning Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga feels like a huge responsibility. You’re about to play through all nine films in the Skywalker Saga in a single game for the first time —and right off the bat, you’re forced to make the decision of all decisions: which movie do you start with? Read more...



There's a lot to like about electric vehicles, but they're not perfect. Here's what you should know about extreme temperatures and EV range.



Uber Lyft Mask US Drivers•
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, face masks are no longer required for Lyft riders and drivers. Yesterday, Florida federal judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle voided a federal mask mandate on transportation, affecting airplanes, taxis, buses and other forms of m


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