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

Friday, August 5, 2022

Friday Morning Technology News and More...

 



Technology News and More...



It can be a great deal to strategically buy miles & points for luxury travel . Along those lines, the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program has just launched a promotion on purchased miles, which is in line with the offers we typically see from the program. Promotion on purchased Flying Blue miles Through Thursday, August 18, 2022, the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program is offering up to a 100% bonu



Newly coined entertainment behemoth Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has outlined its bold plans to merge HBO Max and Discovery Plus into a single streaming service. Speaking at the company’s latest earnings call , WBD executive JB Perrette announced ambitions to launch the still-unnamed platform by 2023 in the US. The service in question will bring the extensive portfolios of WarnerMedia and Discove



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .




YouTube has quietly introduced an experimental feature called pinch to zoom exclusively for Premium users, Android Police has reported. It lets you zoom into the video player and then pan around to look at different parts of the screen, both in portrait or full-screen landscape view, as shown below. If you're a Premium user, you can try it out by tapping your profile photo and hitting "Your Premi



Wired / 3min
The epidemiologist who helped quash smallpox talks about what we're doing wrong on monkeypox, vaccines, and antigen tests.



Amazon this morning announced plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion. “Since we started iRobot, our team has been on a mission to create innovative, practical products that make customers’ lives easier, leading to inventions like the Roomba and iRobot OS,” CEO Colin Angle said in a release. “Amazon shares our passion for building thoughtful innovations th



Man in a suit and tie with a cigar leans against a tent pole, two women are also in the shot, one looks directly at the camera, one is turned away. Recorded in glass negative ledger: “M/State fair.” Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library



Enlarge / An Atlas V rocket launches a Space Based Infrared System satellite on Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann) Welcome to Edition 5.05 of the Rocket Report! Don't look now, but we could be fewer than four weeks away from the launch of NASA's Space Launch System rocket. I have covered this booster for a dozen years and I'm so ready for this to fina



Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) In the first week of GameStop's recently launched NFT marketplace , the NiFTy Arcade collection stood out from the pack. Instead of offering basic JPEGs, the collection provided "interactive NFTs" linked to HTML5 games that were fully playable from an owner's crypto wallet (or from the GameStop Marketplace page itself ). There was only one problem: M



JetBlue plans to announce its second trans-Atlantic destination before the end of the year, with service expected to start in time for the 2023 summer travel season. CEO Robin Hayes confirmed the plans in an interview with TPG ahead of the airline’s inaugural flight from Boston Logan Airport (BOS) to London’s Gatwick Airport (LGW) . “It’ll be announced in the next couple of months,” he said, clar



A few months on from a tracking controversy hitting privacy-centric search veteran, DuckDuckGo, the company has announced it’s been able to amend terms with Microsoft, its search syndication partner, that had previously meant its mobile browsers and browser extensions were prevented from blocking advertising requests made by Microsoft scripts on third party sites. In a blog post pledging “more pr



A few days after news broke that Netflix had canceled teen drama First Kill, the show's showrunner has spoken out and has some choice words for the streaming giant. The teen drama , which debuted in the second week of June, was given the axe on Tuesday (August 2) when Netflix revealed that there would be no sophomore season of the show. That cancellation came off the back of some pretty scathing



Engadget / 35min
Yuri Borisov, the newly appointed chief of Roscosmos, recently announced that Russia is pulling out of the International Space Station after 2024. NASA and Russia's space agency work in tandem to keep the station running, and the latter's exit would change ISS operations tremendously. According to Reuters , though, NASA has actually been preparing for such a possibility way before Borisov made hi



Over the last few months, we've been covering the behind-the-scenes news in the TV industry that screen prices have been consistently dropping , which has the potential to mean big falls in TV prices later in the year. That's because TVs being produced around now, from components that have dropped in price, will be on shelves towards the end of the year – ready for the big sales events, including



Engadget / 46min
Are you ready for Samsung’s summer salvo of foldables, wearables and peripherals? Yes, it’s that time again, and the company’s Unpacked event is likely to share two foldable smartphones, a new Pro wearable and probably some new software tricks. Judging by the leaks, it won’t be a major shakeup, but the new Galaxy Z Fold may borrow design cues from the S22 Ultra, ensuring a more contemporary look.



During its Q2 2022 earnings report presentation, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) – the recently merged entertainment corporation – revealed its plans to build a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style franchise for its own superhero film series. That being, the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), which is subsequently set to undergo a significant reboot. Wait, didn't Warner Bros. already attempt this? Yes, with a



Microsoft has revealed a new Xbox Game Pass tier that will allow families and groups to subscribe at a hefty discount. An Xbox Game Pass family plan has been rumored for several months , with Microsoft finally confirming the news in a test launch. Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland will be the first to try it out. It allows up to five people to share the benefits of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate , p



Machine-learning researchers make many decisions when designing new models. They decide how many layers to include in neural networks and what weights to give inputs at each node. The result of all this human decision-making is that complex models end up being “designed by intuition” rather than systematically, says Frank Hutter , head of the machine-learning lab at the University of Freiburg in



A viral TikTok with millions views about how tampons that contain titanium dioxide can cause cancer and other health problems has spurred calls on the platform to throw away all products that match that description. Before you start gathering all your tampons and scouring their ingredient lists, you should know that… Read more...



Tens of thousands of tech employees in jobs previously thought to be secure and high-paying have had to pack their bags in recent months. They’re seeking out new positions as a downturn in the wider economy hits the tech industry especially hard. SoundCloud, one of the leading music streaming platforms favored by… Read more...




26Wired / 1h
Turns out muting other people's impulsive sharing can do wonders for your mental health.



28Wired / 1h
Alternative proteins were meant to reduce the carbon footprint of our diets. But it doesn’t look like people are switching ... yet.



Director Halina Reijn says she “tried to really swim in the ocean of that whole generation.”



21Wired / 1h
The popular security devices are tracking (and sharing) more than you might think.



Time is of the essence for doctors handling ectopic pregnancies or incomplete miscarriages. But the Dobbs decision has created dangerous delays in care.



So, what's everyone been watching this week? Hmmmm? Each week, the most streamed TV shows and movies come down to a few things — sheer buzz, a big finale, smart marketing, star power, critical acclaim , or being a word-of-mouth phenomenon that leads uninterested people to finally watch it out of spite. Just to get a sense of what everyone's streaming, we've used data from streaming aggregator Ree



In the UK, facial recognition smartwatches could be used to monitor migrants who have been convicted of a crime, according to a scoop obtained by the Guardian . Under new plans from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, seen by the news outlet, foreign offenders would reportedly have to scan their faces up to five times a day using devices equipped with the technology. According to contrac



An old, infamous trojan has been forked, with the new variant being used to attack Linux SSH servers , experts have warned. However, unlike the original malware , whose purpose was quite clear, researchers are not yet sure what the operators are up to this time around. Cybersecurity researchers from Fortinet detected IoT malware with unusual SSH-related strings, and after digging a bit deeper, di



If you’re struggling to get good Wi-Fi coverage in your home, it would seem intuitive to turn up the transmit power of your Wi-Fi router. Before you do, read this. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



A Ritz-Carlton property in North America will no longer be branded as a Marriott starting in a few weeks. Ritz-Carlton Cancun leaves Marriott as of September 2022 The Ritz-Carlton Cancun is no longer accepting reservations as a Marriott as of September 1, 2022. It has been confirmed that the hotel won’t be affiliated with Marriott as of that date, though it remains to be seen what happens to the



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



Startups processing personal data in Kenya are among the entities required to register with the Office of the Data Commissioner (ODPC), as the East African country implements a law protecting the right to privacy of persons within its borders. The registration, which has kicked off after the coming into effect of the data protection regulations, is mandatory for any company acting as a data contr



Samsung’s second big launch of 2022 is just around the corner, with the company holding an event on August 10 at which we’re expecting to see the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 , the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 , and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 line – and those watches are shaping up to be real highlights of the show. At this point there’s not much we don’t know about the wearables, assuming the recent leaks



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



The headline of Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings call was something a lot of people dreaded : HBO Max and Discovery+ are merging into a new service. The company will roll out this new offering — which doesn’t have a name yet — for U.S.-based consumers in the summer of 2023, with LatAm expansion later that year, and the European market launch in 2024. The firm aims to merge different offerings li



Last year, NASA launched the Lucy spacecraft designed to explore the Trojan asteroids trapped near Jupiter's Lagrange points. However, a problem arose just 12 hours after launch — one of the large solar arrays designed to generate power from an increasingly distant Sun had failed to fully deploy and latch. Now, NASA has announced that a team was able to troubleshoot the problem sufficiently for t



As someone who writes about air frying a lot , I've noticed a few general categories of recipes you'll find online. You've got your hacks , your ( often gross ) stunt food, your diet versions of calorie-heavy favorites, and recipes for what'd I'd call actual, good food. This week's AirFryDay recipe, based on this TikTok from @everything_delish , is most certainly actual, good food. The recipe for



Delta Air Lines has made a subtle change to its boarding process, which top-tier SkyMiles elite members probably won’t be happy about. Delta Diamond members now board after first class With Delta’s updated boarding process , Diamond Medallion members will be invited to board after the forward-most cabin (Delta One or first class, depending on the route). As a point of comparison, previously Diamo



India is a key overseas market for several global tech giants including Meta and Google. Now the South Asian nation is gearing up to have its voice heard for global M&A deals. New Delhi has proposed amendments to its Competition Act, 2002, to introduce a number of changes including requiring the permission of local watchdog (Competition Commission of India) for all overseas deals exceeding $252 m




The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



Queer horror is having a moment. Well, technically, queer horror has been having its moment for 150 years. The lesbian vampire urtext Carmilla pre-dates Dracula by a quarter of a century, after all. But that wink-wink nudge-nudge version of queerness that we’ve become so used to — think of those lingering glances between Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas' under-eyeliner in Interview with a Vampire —



We killed Instagram. And we'll kill the next social media beast, too. In 2010, we were given a platform that did relatively few things: You could edit photos and post them on a grid, and your friends could comment on them. Even then we wanted it to change. We wanted DMs and Instagram Stories and more editing options and better search and an explore page. Tech executives wanted us addicted to it,



TL;DR: As of August 5, you can get the TEFL Certification Bundle for just $39.99 instead of $252 — that's an 84% discount. There’s a lot of world to see, but actually seeing it can cost quite a lot. However, there might be a way for you to get an incredible, long-term experience in another country, and you may actually be able to earn a paycheck while you do it. Getting certified to teach English



TL;DR: As of August 5, you can get the Cool Stool Backpack for just $39.99 instead of $118.99 — that's a 66% discount. Most backpacks probably can’t fit a full chair in them, and most chairs likely can’t safely carry food, drinks, camping supplies, or other necessities while in motion. The Cool Stool Backpack is part chair, and part bag , and it could be one of your go-to supplies for outdoor act



TL;DR: As of August 5, you can get the Charge and Fold 3-in-1 Docking Station for just $35.99 instead of $119.99 — that's a 70% discount. If you’re using multiple chargers to power three devices , you might have space to save and outlets to liberate. The Charge & Fold 3-in-1 Docking Station from Tech Zebra can charge your smartphone, smartwatch , and wireless earbuds at the same time, and it’s cu



TL;DR: As of August 5, you can get the AirOsage™ Cordless and Portable Air Leg-Arm Massager for just $64.99 instead of $79.99 — that's an 18% discount. If you’re sore from a long day on your feet or a lot of physical activity, you might not even have the energy to use a massage gun, let alone go about the rest of your day. The AirOsage™ Cordless & Portable Air Leg-Arm Massager is a cordless, wear



A classic Agatha Christie setup pitches an unwelcome detective into the midst of a murder spree, calamitous as it is confined. For Rian Johnson, this meant an eccentric Southerner irking a wealthy family full of snakes in Knives Out . For director Halina Reijn, the fingerprints of Christie can be found all over her tantalizing tale of a hurricane party gone deadly wrong. With a claustrophobic set



"I think this is going to be a piece of fucking cake...so try me." It's fair to say that Lizzo starts off First We Feast's Hot Ones full of confidence, and as the challenge progresses — despite the heat of the 10 wings escalating rapidly, and the spice levels building — that confidence remains mostly intact. Over the course of the 25 minute episode, Lizzo (between occasional deep breaths) talks a



A team of biologists and mathematicians studied hours of video to learn how insects take shape in the egg. The secret is geometry.



There has been a surge in the sales of cars that can travel short distances on just electricity and have a gasoline engine for longer trips.



Virgin Galactic has announced that its commercial space tourism service has been delayed yet again, from the end of this year until Q2 2023. During its earnings report, the company said that the delay is "due to the extended completion dates [i.e., delays] within the mothership enhancement program." The mothership VMS Eve is a crucial part of its launch system, carrying the VSS Unity spacecraft t



For the last half-century, smoke alarms have toed the line between “essential life-saving product” and “shockingly outdated annoyance.” But if you’re willing to spend some extra cash, you can now buy a smart smoke detector. These internet-connected alarms can send remote alerts to your phone, integrate with other smart products, and turn off using simple voice commands. Read This Article on Revie



Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of the global population without access to electricity stood at 77% in 2020, according to reports . Also, the average daily electricity supply in some of Africa’s largest cities is less than 12 hours. As a result, individuals and businesses find other options and substitutes, such as generators, to deal with their power issues; however, these solutions can either be cos



Elon Musk is accusing Twitter of fraud for hiding the real number of bots on its platform, according to The New York Times . In the latest installment of the Twitter-vs-Musk saga, the Tesla chief's team claimed in a legal filing that 10 percent of the social network's daily active users who see ads are inauthentic accounts. If you'll recall, Twitter has long maintained that bots represent less th



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



If you've been dreaming of a perfect onscreen version of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman , you're going to have to dream a bit longer, and a bit harder. Netflix's take on the brilliant comic book series has its moments of excellence, but it also suffers from uneven pacing and mountains of exposition. The result isn't a snooze by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately, it isn't a masterpiece on t
YESTERDAY



When it comes to geospatial and mapping data and how they are leveraged by organizations, satellites continue to play a critical role when it comes to sourcing raw information. Getting that raw data into a state that can be usable by enterprises, however, is a different story. Today, a Berlin-based startup called LiveEO , which has built a satellite analytics platform to do just that, has raised



Canon's recent launch of the mid-range EOS R7 and EOS R10 was great news for those of us who can't afford to splash out on full-frame flagships – and it seems the camera giant could be following them up with another temptingly affordable model. The reliable Canon Rumors has claimed that "Canon's next RF-mount camera is in the field" and will be announced "before November 2022". Like Canon's two m



South Korea is headed to the Moon, having successfully launched its first lunar mission on Thursday. Loaded aboard SpaceX 's Falcon 9 rocket, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) began its four and a half month-long trip to the Moon at 7:08 p.m. EDT, taking off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The KPLO was developed through a collaboration between NASA and the Korea Aerospace Research Institu




Nintendo looks unlikely to release a new console this year, as ongoing supply issues disrupt the production of its current hardware. Following the launch of the Nintendo Switch and its follow-up Nintendo Switch OLED , fans have been eager to see an enhanced version of the console hit shelves. But the likelihood that the speculated Nintendo Switch Pro will release in the next few months appears sl



Meta is shutting down yet another service. This time, Facebook Live Shopping will go offline on October 1, 2022. Starting on that date , no one will be able to host any new or scheduled shopping live streams. Facebook Live will remain, but you won’t be able to tag products in those videos nor create product playlists, according to the announcement. The social media platform encourages people to s



Faster and more performant than just about any hard drive on the market, finding a great solid-state drive or SSD is vital if you want a highly functioning laptop or computer for gaming or editing. Whether you’re hoping to improve the speed of your computer or you just want something that’ll ensure your documents and data are as secure as possible, a solid-state drive will do the trick. What do y



Ladies and gentlemen (and everyone else), the weekend ... is nearly here. While you wait, there's a fresh Wordle to solve. If you get stuck, that's where our daily Wordle help can come in handy. The answer to the August 5 Wordle, puzzle #412, can be found at the end of this article. Before you get there, though, there are a couple of subtle clues to help you narrow it down, and as you scroll down



TL;DR: A one-year Swish Live Streaming basic plan is on sale for £81.16, saving you 70% on list price. It may feel like the World Cup when you’re watching your kid or local club play, but they more than likely aren’t treated to even a fraction of the attention. That may be frustrating, but now you can stream sports events yourself. You can broadcast them live in HD to your family and friends by u



SAVE 63%: NordVPN is a powerful service that can reliably unblock BBC iPlayer from anywhere in the world. A two-year subscription to NordVPN Complete is on sale for £105.36, saving you 63% on list price for a limited time. Sure, you can download all your favourite BBC iPlayer content before you travel abroad, but what if the next episode of your favourite shows hasn't dropped yet. In this situati



A new Motorola teaser indicates the company has already rescheduled its recently canceled Razr event, and it may put it close to Samsung Unpacked.



You may have stumbled across Android's audio equalizer settings on occasion, but have you ever tried adjusting them? Here's everything you need to know.



Enlarge / Obstruction light with bokeh city background The US Department of Homeland Security is warning of vulnerabilities in the nation’s emergency broadcast network that makes it possible for hackers to issue bogus warnings over radio and TV stations. “We recently became aware of certain vulnerabilities in EAS encoder/decoder devices that, if not updated to most recent software versions, could



Demand for tech products was high in the early months of the pandemic, but things have changed and that has led to warehouses packed with unsold inventory.



Verizon has long been the top carrier in the U.S., but T-Mobile is no doubt a force to be reckoned with and it's impossible to ignore these surprising numbers.



It's not unusual for an Android phone to feel a bit warm at times, but if it feels hot and you suspect there's a problem, there are a few things you can do.



HBO Max as we know it will soon be no more. At its first earnings call since the two media properties merged earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it is planning on combining HBOMax and Discovery+ into a single streaming service — set to debut in the summer of 2023. It's unclear whether the new streamer will reference HBO at all — the company’s head of global streaming JB Perrette s



Tesla held its annual shareholder meeting, which the company now refers to as its Cyber Roundup, Thursday at the Tesla Gigafactory Texas. The Cyber Roundup comes just a couple of weeks after Tesla reported its Q2 earnings , which showed quarterly revenue declines caused by production challenges, even as the company grew year-over-year. The agenda had 13 shareholder proposals , including one for a



Wired / 12h
After news of a “pointless” pay increase spread, workers at three warehouses stopped work to demand higher wages as inflation and interest rates surge.



The Biden administration has officially declared monkeypox a national health emergency, nearly three months since the first outbreak of the case was detected on American soil back in May. The decision, made by the Department of Health and Human Services, comes after growing pressure from health officials and the World Health Organization declaring the outbreaks a world health emergency over a wee



Wordle has returned with a relatively simple puzzle to ease players into the end of the week, as you've no doubt used this word many times in conversations.



A Swiss company is making the most of hydroelectric power with a storage equivalent of over 400,000 EV batteries in a reservoir deep in the Swiss Alps.



Smart clothing is a concept that goes back many years, but its applications are growing with newer technologies.



Justin Bieber earned three strikes while still in possession of a Ferrari, and while the blacklist isn't offical, it's likely he's on it.




Enlarge / The crowds this year will be smaller, and masked, but offline is back in Vegas (credit: Evo) After a two-year pandemic-induced break the Evolution Championship Series (better known as just Evo), the annual celebration of all things fighting games, is back in Las Vegas this weekend. Thousands of fighting game players and fans will fill the halls and arena at the Mandalay Bay casino to ma



Companies are having to work extra hard to make their staff feel connected to their organisation.



21Engadget / 12h
More than 700 warehouse workers at an Amazon warehouse in England walked out this week in a dispute over a pay increase, reported Reuters . Amazon did not agree to the hourly rate increase of £2 (or $2.44) requested by the trade union representing the employees, instead offering a


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