Saturday, December 18, 2021

Early Saturday Technology News and More

Technology News and More




CCI Amazon 2019 Future•
22KTechCrunch / 21h
Indian antitrust watchdog has revoked the approval it had granted for Amazon’s 2019 investment in a Future Group unit and imposed a fine of about $26.3 million to the American e-commerce giant for concealing facts. The Competition Commission of India said Amazon, which invested in Future Coupons in 2019, “suppress[ed] the actual scope and purpose of the combination” and failed to notify some of i



YouTube TV ESPN Disney•
Engadget / 44min
Google has failed to strike a deal that would allow it to continue offering YouTube TV subscribers access to Disney's channels. The tech giant warned customers a few days ago that Disney channels, including ABC, ESPN and FX, might disappear before midnight of December 17th if they can't come to terms with carriage fees. Back then, it was optimistic that it could get the outcome it wanted. But now



Samsung’s best phone of early 2022 might be the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra , or it might be the Samsung Galaxy S22 Note , or it could even be the Samsung Galaxy Note 22 Ultra . These aren’t three different phones gunning it out for the crown, they’re all one handset, we’re just not entirely sure which name Samsung will use. All three possibilities have been rumored – though recently we’ve only hear




With the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic , Samsung launched two of the best and in some ways most disappointing wearables of 2021. These devices promised a whole new operating system, melding the best of Tizen with Wear OS, all powered by a speedy new chipset, and with a host of new health tracking skills. And they largely delivered on that, but with a number of caveats and issu
YESTERDAY



SAVE 49%: Annual ExpressVPN subscriptions come with a year of free unlimited cloud backup from Backblaze. A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for £5.19 per month, and includes an extra three months for free. Are you looking for the best VPN for streaming? Look no further than ExpressVPN. This streaming-friendly VPN offers fast connection speeds, powerful encryption, and reliable unbl



FREE £5 CREDIT: Get £5 in Kindle Book credit when you spend £15 on Kindle Books before midnight on Dec. 22. The Christmas holidays are fast approaching, and that means you'll need some entertainment lined up. You're going to need an escape plan for when family gatherings are becoming too much to handle, and that's exactly what Kindle Books is offering. Until midnight on Dec. 22, you can get £5 in



Machine Learning•
TL;DR: The Premium Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Super Bundle is on sale for £27.90, saving you 98% on list price. Understanding Python is the key to unlocking the fundamentals of machine learning, and if this career path has been calling to you, you don't have to go back to school and shell out thousands of pounds just to sharpen your skills. You just have to unlock lifetime access to



SAVE 50%: TunnelBear offers a completely free version with limitations on usage. For an unlimited plan, a two-year subscription to TunnelBear is on sale for £3.14 per month as of Dec. 18 — 58% off list price. Investing in a VPN can seem daunting, especially when there are so many services out there offering similar packages. Wouldn't it be nice if you could properly test out a VPN before fully co



Gizmodo / 4h
If you’re too lazy to make some of the drool worthy recipes featured on TikTok, like me, rest assured: Someone else will make the food for you and bring it to your door. Read more...



On the same day in 1996, Brewster Kahle founded two separate but closely connected organizations. The first went on to make him very wealthy, and the second has earned him not a single dime. Alexa Internet (often confused with Alexa, the voice assistant ) was a service that crawled the web for metadata and other information, which was then served up via the browser to help people make sense of th



36Gizmodo / 6h
Apple’s newest MacBook Pros made quite an entrance this year. While the machines were lauded for their performance and features , the small, black notch at the top of the devices received outsized attention and created waves of controversy . You may love it. You may hate it. Whatever your stance is, now you can decorate… Read more...



BusKill USB Kill Linux•
Although you can use antivirus software to protect against viruses and a VPN to protect your privacy online, protecting your devices against physical attacks can be much more challenging. For this reason, a project called BusKill has launched a custom USB magnetic breakaway cable that acts as a dead man's switch for your laptop . With BusKill's custom USB cable connected, your computer will be au



When South Park Commons (SPC), a community of tens of engineers in San Francisco’s South Park neighborhood, came together, it mostly flew under the radar, save for a New York Times profile in 2017, a year after it was formed. Founded by Facebook’s first female engineer, Ruchi Sanghvi, she explained at the time that her ambition with SPC was to create tech’s answer to the Bloomsbury Set or Benjami



Gizmodo / 8h
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the best toys of the week. This time, the Power Rangers combine for one of Hasbro’s most lavish Zords yet, Lego goes on the prowl for an alarmingly detailed tiger, and McFarlane’s Disney Mirrorverse figures summon a magical Mickey. Check it out! Read more...



If you’re thinking about buying your kid their very first tablet (or tech of any sort), you’ve probably got two key concerns: durability and parental controls. I was really nervous to buy my son his first tablet for these two reasons specifically, but I eventually settled on an Amazon Fire tablet (and this was long before I started reviewing them). I’ve been really impressed by Amazon’s offerings



Amazon Driver Tornado•
1KEngadget / 8h
An Amazon dispatcher in Illinois told a driver to continue delivering packages even after tornado sirens warned of incoming danger. That’s according to screenshots shared this week by Bloomberg that document an exchange that reportedly happened last Friday shortly before a tornado hit an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, leading to a structural collapse and six deaths . “Just keep drivi



A critical exploit in widespread Java library has been found, disrupting much of the internet as server admins scramble to fix it. The vulnerable component, log4j, is used everywhere as an included library, so you will need to check your servers and make sure they’re updated. Read This Article on CloudSavvy IT ›



Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly tested positive for Covid-19 “after returning home” from testifying in front of the Senate Commerce Committee with the CEOs of United Airlines and American Airlines, and an Executive Vice President of Delta. Flight attendants union head Sara Nelson was also there, and she reports speaking directly with Kelly after the hearing. Continue reading ...



Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, Google has highlighted several new features in Chrome designed to make your last minute holiday shopping easier. According to a new blog post , these features will make it easier to keep track of price drops, search for deals, manage items in your shopping cart and simplify the checkout process when using the search giant's browser on you



Witcher Season 2 Netflix•
After a two-year wait, Geralt of Rivia welcomes The Witche r fans back to the Continent for the second season of Netflix's hit fantasy series. Season 2 of The Witcher is a continuation of Season 1's ambitious adaptation that will inevitably draw watchers further into the magical, monstrous intrigue that hooked them all the way back in 2019 . The Witcher picks up in the immediate aftermath of last



Whether you're a musician, a DJ, a venue owner, or an event organizer, you need a good sound system. Otherwise, your performances and presentations, no matter how compelling, will fall on deaf ears. To put it another way, if people can't hear you properly, they'll get bored. And the moment they get bored, you've already lost them. JBL is a brand established with this in mind. With a well-deserved




100+Gizmodo / 9h
After 30 years of making films, you’d think every director would have a misstep. We’re all human, right? Everyone deserves a swing and a miss once in a while. But that’s not been the case for Guillermo del Toro . Staring with his feature debut, Cronos , in 1993 all the way to this week’s release of Nightmare Alley , we… Read more...



2KEngadget / 9h
Amazon has addressed the issue that had left those with Android 12 phones unable to use apps they had downloaded from the company's Appstore. “We have released a fix for an issue impacting app launches for Amazon Appstore customers that have upgraded to Android 12 on their mobile devices," a spokesperson for the company told Engadget on Friday. "We are contacting customers with steps to update th



Gizmodo / 10h
Those who were brave enough to download Windows 11 might have noticed that, while the new OS is more attractive than those before it, some interfaces are stuck in the stone age. Read more...



To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . Hiiii and welcome to Daily Crunch for December 17, 2021! As Alex noted in yesterday’s newsletter, I’m handling the daily recap today while he takes a much-deserved vacation/personal day. Alex is one of the most hardworking and efficient humans I’ve ever met, so I l



Mashable / 10h
Looking for that perfect gift for a kid who loves to read? This one will definitely win you some brownie points. The Kindle Paperwhite Kids Edition is a simple e-reader made with kids in mind. It’s durable and water resistant, with a glare-free screen that makes it easy to read anytime, anywhere. With Amazon Kids+, it comes preloaded with a full library of age-appropriate books too. Specs E-reade



Want to trade in your winter boots for flip-flops or hiking shoes? From surfing, sailing or simply relaxing on beaches to exploring the jungle landscape, the riches of Costa Rica are plentiful. Airlines such as Alaska , American , Delta , United and JetBlue will get you there throughout much of 2022 for under $300 round-trip. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our



Gizmodo / 10h
The Russo Brothers brought Black Panther and Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time , killed them along with half the galaxy , then brought them back in one of the most epic battles in cinematic history . Now, if you can imagine it, they’re going bigger, with a 10-part docuseries about the biggest… Read more...



Dutch Anti Radioactive•
2KFuturism / 10h
Nuclear experts in the Netherlands are warning against “anti-5G” pendants that some are wearing with the ridiculous idea that they’ll ward off harmful frequencies. The problem? These products emit potentially harmful ionizing radiation — they’re literally radioactive, in other words — and could could cause negative health effects in the long run. In short, the irony is palpable. “Exposure to ioni



One of Black Friday's best gaming laptop deals is back again this weekend thanks to a quick-fire 72-hour sale from Best Buy - this MSI GF65 for $899.99 (was $1,099) . A huge $200 price cut makes this one of the cheapest machines we've ever seen to feature the mid-range RTX 3060 graphics card - a powerful component that's rarely if almost never, seen under $1,000 gaming laptops. This one was $50 c



23TechCrunch / 10h
John Callery Contributor John Callery is the senior vice president of technology at The Trevor Project . The debate around social media’s impact on mental health is hardly new, but the conversation has recaptured the world’s attention in light of reports this fall that suggest Facebook has been well aware of the toxic mental health consequences of its platforms for teens. While this data — and th



SlashGear / 10h
Image credit: Banana Phone We’re in the midst of a smart gadget revolution. Anything that can be given wireless connectivity is getting it, from refrigerators and home lighting to smoke detectors and doorbells. While many smart gadgets have broad usage and many more solve specific, niche problems, there are a lot of weird devices out there that leave us scratching our heads. Today we’re … Continu



2 NFT GSC Game NPC World•
35Engadget / 10h
Following backlash from fans, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 developer GSC Game World has walked back on plans it had to include non-fungible tokens in its new game. The announcement came a day after the studio said S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 would include NFTs. pic.twitter.com/mffnmpiQiw — S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL (@stalker_thegame) December 16, 2021 On Thursday, GSC Game World posted and then deleted an explanation for t



500+Gizmodo / 10h
5G conspiracy theorists obsessed with the idea that the next-generation wireless technology will bombard them with deadly radiation have settled on a brilliant plan: wearing necklaces that... also bombard them with radiation. Read more...



The fees investment banks charge to underwrite IPOs can gobble several points from a public company’s gross proceeds, but new competition is giving some firms a chance to hold on to more of that sweet debut money. This week, Nubank paid just 1.6% of the $2.6 billion it raised to its underwriters. As Bloomberg reported, “among 490 IPOs in the U.S. so far this year, only three paid a smaller percen



LG Soundbar CES D. Atmos•
LG has unveiled another early CES 2022 product – the LG S95QR Dolby Atmos Soundbar – two weeks ahead of the big technology event. What sets next year’s flagship soundbar apart from this year’s models is a new center-channel upfiring speaker that will bounce sound off the ceiling that should make dialogue sound like it’s coming from the center of the screen. In terms of specs, LG says the soundbar



Lenovo ThinkVision•
Ahead of CES 2022 , Lenovo has announced a new line-up of ThinkVision large format displays (LFDs) aimed at fostering further collaboration in meetings rooms and education spaces. The company's new ThinkVision T86, T75 and T65 allow both in-person and remote users to collaborate with one another thanks to their bright 4K displays, built-in speakers, microphones, modular webcams and integrated whi



28Gizmodo / 11h
Did log4j, the buggy software utility from hell, get NASA’s experimental Mars helicopter hacked? The answer is: Nope—according to NASA, it doesn’t even use the doomed tool. Read more...



A security researcher says an internet gateway used by hundreds of hotels to offer and manage their guest Wi-Fi networks has vulnerabilities that could put the personal information of their guests at risk. Etizaz Mohsin told TechCrunch that the Airangel HSMX Gateway contains hardcoded passwords that are “extremely easy to guess.” With those passwords, which we are not publishing, an attacker coul



The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S have been out in the world for over a year, meaning we’re firmly inside the next-gen gaming era, and if you don’t have one of these systems yet, it can feel like you’re missing out. But are you, really? It has me wondering, when is the best time to buy the latest gaming console? Read more...



SlashGear / 11h
Android offers a great user experience for many users with one of the key reasons being its ability to finely tailor its phone to your personal preferences. This includes being able to control how your device consumes its battery charge — which can help a lot when it seems like your Android phone is using more power than it should. … Continue reading




1KEngadget / 11h
Adobe is testing out a new web-based tool that uses AI to simplify audio recording. The software is called Project Shasta , and it could make recording and editing podcasts and other projects a lot easier and more approachable. The project started off in Adobe Labs as an experiment to find "new ways to help people edit audio on the web,” Mark Webster, Adobe’s head of audio products, wrote in a po



Mashable / 11h
Bradley Cooper is a dashing and talented man, who has wielded his unique charisma into a string of terrific movie performances in everything from Silver Linings Playbook to A Star Is Born to The Hangover and Guardians of the Galaxy . What the 46-year-old Hollywood hunk cannot do; however, is convincingly play a young man. Yet over the course of Nightmare Alley' s first act, Cooper's anti-hero Sta



2021 Space Two Satellite•
31TechCrunch / 11h
The rapid expansion of the commercial space industry over the last couple of years has led early-stage investors to consider very different types of companies than they did when space startups were a novelty. The availability of more affordable rides to space, the maturity of ground infrastructure and improvements to accessibility and usability of earth observation data have combined to position



Pfizer 5 Years Two•
20SlashGear / 11h
Seda Yalova/Shutterstock Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies behind one of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States, have announced plans to expand their trial involving kids in the youngest age groups. Going forward, the clinical study will add a third dose to the vaccine regimen for babies and young kids ages 6 months to 4 years of age. The … Continue reading



There’s a positive update regarding the SimplyMiles promotion that I first wrote about over the weekend, which caused me to (attempt to?) purchase millions of miles . This was an opportunity to buy AAdvantage miles for as little as 0.42 cents each, which is an astonishingly good value, all while donating to a great cause. American Airlines has confirmed that the SimplyMiles promotion will be hono



Dutch Anti Radioactive•
300+Ars Technica / 11h
Enlarge / This "quantum pendant" purports to protect the wearer from 5G signals. The anti-5G hysteria is a groundless conspiracy theory, but the pendants aren't just useless trinkets. They emit low levels of ionizing radiation that can cause adverse health effects over time. (credit: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu) Worried that 5G cell phone towers are beaming dangerous levels of r



Spider-Man: No Way Home is finally here, and of course I had to go see it immediately. Mostly because I am not-so-patiently waiting for a post-credits scene to hint at the X-Men finally making their way into the MCU, but also because I just kind of love Spider-Man? Either way, the new movie was pretty incredible, with a ton of far-out science fiction and fantasy elements that, while incredibly fu



100+The Points Guy / 11h
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with the latest promotions. The travel industry was hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, but fortunately, travel is starting to look brighter with vaccines and border reopenings. While the recovery is ongoing, airlines and hotel groups are still scrambling to find new or increased income streams to secure fast cash. One of these ways is



Foursquare’s heyday is long over, but the problem of finding cool local stuff to do lives on. Most people seem to make it work through a sometimes reluctant combination of Facebook or Instagram and word of mouth, but the reality is that there aren’t many good apps that help us get off of apps and out into the world. For Go Disco, that’s the priority. “On the simplest level, it’s an app to get you



Few shows have blown a lead quite like How I Met Your Mother . For a few years there in the mid-aughts, it looked the the most natural successor to Friends : An NYC-set, relationship-focused group hang filled with memes and moments that entered the pop culture lexicon. Read more...



Congratulations to everyone who got in on this deal. It's hard to overstate just how incredible this offer was. And kudos to American Airlines and Mastercard for honoring the offer made to customers even if it might have been considered "too good to be true." Continue reading ...



24TechCrunch / 11h
Ian Trider Contributor Ian Trider is VP of RTB Platform Operations at Basis Technologies , a leading comprehensive, automated and intelligent SaaS platform for marketers. Advertising tends to work in hype cycles. Native ads, mobile targeting, social media — over the past decade, all of these channels have been touted as the long-sought miracle for marketers and advertisers to break through the no



Gizmodo / 12h
We’ve spent a lot of 2021 spending ; our wallets cried out in agony with every cool new announcement of a shiny action figures or a silly collectible . But there was also plenty of absolutely bananas bits of merchandising that were totally out there... and not always for the best reasons. Here’s our look back at some of… Read more...



Gizmodo / 12h
It’s only been five or six years since the smartwatch evolved into a device that truly delivers what most of us expect from a smart wearable, including features like texting, calling, fitness-tracking, and viewing news alerts and other notifications. But it was a long, long road to get here. Read more...



Donating a gift to a total stranger is a great way to celebrate the holiday spirit, but you have to know where and how to give first. Handing something to a random person on the street isn’t the most effective method, and some giving organizations don’t make it clear where your donations are actually going.… Read more...



200+The Points Guy / 12h
New York City is a popular Christmas and New Year’s destination for people worldwide. But it isn’t holiday cheer that is spreading – it’s COVID-19 . And while the Rockefeller tree is still as brightly lit as ever, omicron is having an impact on NYC at a rate that may surprise anyone who thought their holiday plans were good to go even just a few days ago. Whether you had planned to see a Broadway



26TechCrunch / 12h
Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide! Need help with gift ideas? We’ve got lots of them. We’re just starting to roll out this year’s gift guides, so check back from now until the end of December for more ! If you can’t read a good book without stopping every few pages to tweet about it, you might be what we call Extremely Online. You unabashedly distinguish between real life and digita



21Gizmodo / 12h
Amazon delivery drivers across the Midwest were faced with horrifying choices last week: Keep driving and delivering packages amid blaring tornado warnings or risk being fired. Read more...



23Mashable / 12h
The top-rated luxury EV goes to Porsche for its new Taycan Cross Turismo. That's according to auto research firm Edmunds with its Top Rated awards for 2022. This year's top list includes three battery-powered cars: the electric Porsche, the Tesla Model 3, and Rivian R1T. The Taycan Cross Turismo is the newest EV from Porsche. It's part of the growing Taycan lineup, but with more of a station wago



Chipotle Chipotlane•
40Engadget / 12h
Chipotle will open its first " digital kitchen " later this month in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio , the company announced on Friday. The "Chipotlane" location will be smaller than a traditional Chipotle restaurant. It won't have a dining room (though there will still be patio seating) and will only serve digital orders made through the restaurant's website, mobile app and platforms like DoorDash. You can




Pfizer Vaccine 5 Three•
Gizmodo / 12h
Today has brought some disheartening news for parents in the U.S. hoping to soon vaccinate their young children against covid-19. Based on clinical trial data, Pfizer and BioNTech announced Friday that children ages 2 to under 5 did not produce a sufficient immune response to two shots of their low-dose covid-19… Read more...



This is frustrating, and quite a short-sighted and customer unfriendly move on the part of American AAdvantage. AAdvantage cuts ties with AwardWallet AwardWallet is a useful site for tracking your points balances with various airline, credit card, and hotel loyalty programs. The idea is that you can store your loyalty program account info, and then you can update your AwardWallet account to see h



89Futurism / 12h
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president for global affairs and communications, isn’t impressed with the design of the company’s Quest virtual reality headset. In a recent interview with the Financial Times , Clegg had a hard time drinking his coffee while wearing the headset — with hilarious consequences, as a clip shared by the publication’s Henry Mance shows. The head of Clegg’s VR avatar snapped



Some movies live on forever. But some movies, like old toys, are loved passionately—and then abandoned entirely. Sometimes that’s by design; movies made to catch hold of a cultural moment aren’t likely to endure. A star or a style that’s big today isn’t necessarily going to make money tomorrow. Sometimes we were… Read more...



There’s a browser war raging right now, and Microsoft has a clear advantage over the competition that it’s not afraid to exploit. This leaves tools like MSEdgeRedirect to try to fight Microsoft’s questionable tactics, but in the case of this tool, we don’t recommend using it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Common wisdom says that you should rent a car for super long trips and leave your EV at home. But let’s be real, you love your electric car and want to take it across the country, even if that means hunting for charging stations. Thankfully, Waze is adding EV charging station support to its app just in time for the holidays. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



65Gizmodo / 12h
Rejoice! The time has come for us to all finally discuss and dissect spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home . Not just speculation, either. Actual, real things that happen in the movie . And while it may seem like No Way Home is a film fans figured out long before a single frame was released, we now know that’s partially… Read more...



Enlarge / Just some of the prizes available in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive Sweepstakes. If you've been too busy playing Halo Infinite to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes , don't worry. You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $1,600 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win). So far this year, after just o



As the COVID pandemic hits a new winter surge, the country’s biggest consumer electronics show is going on the offensive: All attendees of CES 2022 are being asked to take a COVID-19 PCR test before they enter any of the venues. The nail biter of “will they or won’t they” forge ahead with the eagerly anticipated Las Vegas trade show entered a new phase today as the Consumer Technology Association



200+The Points Guy / 12h
So long to the friendly skies; now it’s time to keep climbing. After almost 40 years of flying United Airlines, the U.S. Olympics team passed the torch to Delta Air Lines for at least the next eight years , a deal reportedly worth $400 million. Want more airline-specific news? Sign up for TPG’s free new biweekly Aviation newsletter! With fewer than 50 days until the 2022 Olympics begin in Beijing



Ransomware 2021 Year•
47SlashGear / 12h
aslysun/Shutterstock Ransomware has emerged as one of the biggest cybersecurity threats in modern times. Government agencies, universities, and corporations alike have fallen victim, crippling infrastructure and costing billions. Coloni

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