Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Humpday Wednesday Technology News...and More

 Technology News and More...





Michael Pearce’s Encounter, which arrives on Prime Video December 10, is a tricky film to describe. So genre-bending is its premise that the director himself has a hard time nailing down an appropriate elevator pitch. “I call it a coming-of-age film trapped within a psychological road thriller,” Pearce tells us over Zoom, “but I might change that description tomorrow.” In fairness to the British



500+SlashGear / 17h
Via NASA/JPL-Caltech One of the critical tasks that NASA handles for the entire world is tracking as many near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) as possible. So far, almost 28,000 NEAs have been discovered utilizing telescopes that scan the night sky. Those telescopes add about 3000 new near-Earth asteroids each year, but there are still more to discover. NASA says as it utilizes more advanced … Continue re



Amazon AWS Outage Alexa•
300+TechCrunch / 11h
Jess Conditt Contributor Jess Conditt is a senior editor at Engadget Users are reporting a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services, bringing down websites and backend services for organizations including the Associated Press, Disney+ and Vice. Details about the outage are scarce. The AWS status page reported increased error rates for its Management Console on Tuesday morning. “We are experiencin




Mashable / 4min
There was one thing on everybody's mind in 2021: Money. On Wednesday, Google released 2021's top trending searches in the United States. Top trending searches are the most popular searches unique to the past year, not generally popular topics that show up in search charts year after year. From the overall most popular searches of the year, to more specific queries like "how to pronounce" somethin



TechCrunch / 8min
A few years ago, at the start of the fintech services boom in Africa, Oliver Blantern got an opportunity to work in the continent offering advisory services to high-growth startups. For slightly over three years his company, Riverhouse Technology, helped the emerging tech firms in talent sourcing and acquisition. The trained lawyer did all this while running the Africa Payments Club, a platform t



TechCrunch / 15min
Jin Stedge studied aerospace engineering at MIT, but after she found herself at Scotty Labs, an SRI International spin-out focused on autonomous driving, she says she came to appreciate how far away the tech is from large-scale adoption. Indeed, when Scotty was acquired by DoorDash in the summer of 2019, she teamed up with Sanjaya Wijeratnebut, a colleague and senior software engineer at Scotty L
YESTERDAY



Just a few weeks after announcing stock and crypto trading , French fintech startup Lydia is announcing that it has raised a $100 million Series C round. With this funding round, the startup has reached a unicorn valuation, which means that it is currently valued at more than $1 billion. Dragoneer and Echo Street are investing in the startup for the first time, and many of Lydia’s existing invest



Fintech Flip Indonesia•
Flip , an Indonesia-based fintech startup, announced today it has raised $48 million in a Series B to accelerate its growth. The funding brings Flip’s total capital raised to $65million. Sequoia Capital India, Insight Partners and Insignia Ventures Partners co-led the Series B round. Flip is Insight Partners’ first investment in Indonesia. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate



Voice technology is one of the biggest trends in the healthcare space. We look at how it might help care providers and patients, from a woman who is losing her speech, to documenting healthcare records for doctors. But how do you teach AI to learn to communicate more like a human, and will it lead to more efficient machines? We meet: Kenneth Harper, VP & GM, Healthcare Virtual Assistants and Ambi



Verizon Browsing Data•
Engadget / 2h
The changes Verizon has made to its Selects program also changed at least some subscribers' privacy settings. Verizon ( Engadget's former parent company) collected users' location, web browsing and mobile application usage data to send them marketing messages or offers under Selects, though subscribers could opt out if they wanted to. As Ars Technica notes, the carrier recently replaced its Selec



Foldable smartphone devices took a huge step towards mainstream acceptance this year thanks to Samsung's excellent Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 , which have both received massive discounts today on Amazon AU. Both handsets managed to iron out their predecessors' kinks, delivering extremely polished devices with a number of improvements. For starters, the Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 are now both water r



Mashable / 3h
TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to a Fearless Unlimited Streaming Plan is on sale for £22.62 as of Dec. 7, saving you 97% on list price. Sometimes it just feels good to see people like you on TV. The Fearless streaming service definitely agrees, which is why it wants to make access to its streaming service easier than ever. Fearless is your go-to source for thought-provoking documentaries, hilario



Visa Crypto Advisory•
The world’s largest card company just doubled down on its bid to capture the crypto market. Visa announced today that it has launched a crypto advisory practice for its clients and partners under its Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) arm. The news comes just a few months after Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, declared the asset class had become “cool” at a fintech conference last month. Th



Hyundai India 2028•
The EV race in India is getting racier, as it were. Korean car-maker Hyundai, which is a well-established name in India with its own manufacturing facility in the country, is set to pump in Rs 4000 crore as part of its plan to introduce six electric vehicles (EVs) by 2028. Hyundai will unveil the first of the six vehicles next year, which is likely to be the electric SUV Ioniq 5 . It is said that



Deeproute.ai, an autonomous vehicle startup with offices in Shenzhen and Fremont, California, unveiled an ambitious self-driving solution on Wednesday. The package, named DeepRoute-Driver 2.0, is a production-ready Level 4 system that costs approximately $10,000. The price tag is incredible given the hardware used: five solid-state lidar sensors, eight cameras, a proprietary computing system, and



SlashGear / 5h
Image Credit: Google Unlike their simpler wired predecessors, wireless earbuds aren’t static accessories that you buy with a fixed set of features. At times, they aren’t even “perfect” when they launch, instead leaving plenty of room for improvements or new features. Like many smart devices today, Bluetooth earbuds can be updated to add those missing experiences, and Google is rolling out one suc



Chinese Weibo Hong Kong•
Last week, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi said it will move its listing to Hong Kong from the US.



Gizmodo / 5h
Police in Oregon are trying to solve some recent fatal poisonings among the already-fragile gray wolf population. Authorities believe that at least eight wolves have been killed by poison this year, including five from a single pack. They’re now calling for any potential tips from the public, while conservation groups… Read more...



Tesla Video Games Driving•
90Gizmodo / 6h
Tesla has gained its fair share of interest from regulators and safety advocates in recent months over the fraught deployment of its “Full Self Driving” beta system, but it has so far managed to largely avoid scrutiny over its decision to quietly add in the ability to play video games while driving. Read more...



Burnout Security Risk•
Perhaps the allure of working from home has worn off or employees are just finding themselves in a slump but across industries, workers are now reporting extraordinarily high burnout which puts them and the security of their organizations at risk. To better understand this burnout phenomenon, 1Password has released its first State of Access benchmark report titled “ The Burnout Breach ”. The comp



SlashGear / 6h
Image Credit: OPPO Camera bumps have become a point of distinction for smartphones these days rather than just a functional part of the design. A mobile camera’s design is defined and constrained by the sensors and lenses they hold inside, which often results in bulky constructions that jut out from a phone’s body. That, in turn, gives the phone an uneven back that … Continue reading



22Mashable / 7h
Twitter is testing the ability to add content warnings to individual tweets, meaning you might soon be able to post thirst traps without causing your more innocent followers undue shock. While Twitter's settings currently allow you to mark all media you tweet as containing sensitive material, this all or nothing approach doesn't allow for much nuance. It may be useful for sex workers or crime rep



Try Amazon Prime now To maximise your savings when shopping on Amazon, consider signing up for a Prime membership for AU$6.99/m. It gets you free shipping on millions of eligible items. Click on the link below so sign up now and you'll get a 30-day free trial, plus access to Prime Video too. Try Amazon Prime now 'Tis the season of giving and most of us are hard at work finding the perfect Christm




33TechCrunch / 7h
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg apparently realizes he’s done wrong. (As if the barrage of negative publicity wasn’t enough evidence of that.) Today, a letter to current employees was leaked on Blind by a verified Better employee. In the letter, Garg apologized for the way he (mis) handled the layoff news last week, writing: “I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the



Link: Apply now for the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (this is the best publicly available offer for the card, and we appreciate your support if you use our link) The Capital One Venture X Credit Card recently started accepting applications. This is Capital One’s new ultra-premium credit card, and I’d say it’s almost too good to be true. It’s not often I give advice this generalized,



SlashGear / 8h
Amazon has officially launched its Alexa Together service, a new subscription-based option for caregivers and anyone who wants to keep tabs on the vulnerable people in their life. The new service revolves around Amazon’s IoT devices and its Alexa voice assistant, enabling caregivers to see when their elderly parent, for example, gets up in the morning, pop in for quick … Continue reading



Gizmodo / 8h
After a recent screening of Don’t Look Up , the new Netflix original from writer/director Adam McKay , star Leonardo DiCaprio explained why he did this film. DiCaprio has long been an advocate for the environment and, for years, had been looking for a film to underline the message that climate change is killing this… Read more...



74Mashable / 8h
For some, holiday travel is a nightmare of logistical snarls and social minefields that leaves them stressed out and desperate for a little release. For others, it's an escape from the grind of the rest of the year, which may give their libido a little boost . In either case, sex toys can offer some assistance. Natasha Marie of the sex tech company MysteryVibe refers to them as "a lifeline to san



Olivia Rodrigo DMV•
Mashable / 8h
Fuzzy '90s sweaters, lots of guitars, and big teenage feelings are not the vibe you usually associate with a visit to the DMV. But singer-songwriter and breakout star of 2021, Olivia Rodrigo made obtaining a government-issued permit to operate a motor vehicle a symbol of freedom and heartbreak back in January. So, this feels like a fitting bookend to her huge year. Rodrigo debuted her first-ever



33Ars Technica / 8h
Enlarge / Costumed attendees take a break during Anime NYC at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City on November 20, 2021. Anime NYC is an annual three-day anime convention held in New York City. (credit: Getty | Ken Betancur ) An anime convention held in New York City last month may inadvertently offer the US its first case study on the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant,



500+Gizmodo / 8h
As first reported by Axios , a collective of some 200 newspapers are currently suing Google and Facebook, alleging that the tech giants have unfairly manipulated the advertising market in ways that directly damage their publications. Read more...



It’s been five years since the founding of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Science program (not CZI itself, which is a year older), which has proven to be quite a generous patron of cutting-edge biotech science and research, and far from winding down, the organization is stepping on the gas as good outcomes from its grants and internal work pile up. “Working as partners with scientists, patients



Amazon Outage Warehouse•
Amazon Web Services began reporting increased “error rates” in its cloud operations on Tuesday morning.



500+Futurism / 8h
Elon Musk apparently doesn’t think drugs are cool anymore. In his, uh, wide-ranging appearance at the Wall Street Journal ‘s very cool-sounding CEO Summit, the SpaceX founder said, among other things, that “drugs probably make you age more.” “I don’t think dropping acid makes you age less,” Musk said in reply to an apparently off-handed question on psychedelics and aging. Back in reality, of cour



Champ Suthipongchai Contributor Champ Suthipongchai is a co-founder and general partner at Creative Ventures , a method-driven deep tech VC firm investing in startups that address the impact of increasing labor shortages, rising healthcare costs and the climate crisis. More posts by this contributor Investment in construction automation is essential to rebuilding US infrastructure Whether you cal



Apple Tim Cook China•
100+Ars Technica / 9h
Apple CEO Tim Cook announcing new products in the company's April 20, 2021, livestream. (credit: Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica ) Today, The Information published a lengthy report detailing Apple CEO Tim Cook's efforts to establish strong relationships between Apple and Chinese government officials and agencies. Citing both interviews and direct access to internal Apple documents about repeated vi



Apple Voice Plan 15.2•
Engadget / 9h
Apple Music's recently announced Voice Plan will launch alongside iOS 15.2 , according to the patch notes the company shared for the update's release candidate. The changelog was first spotted by MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci . When Apple first announced the more affordable tier at its fall Mac event in October , the company said it would become available "later this fall" in 17 cou



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 . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for December 7, 2021! It’s nearly time to reflect on the year, a period in which so very much changed for the global startup world. One of the most interesting themes? Rising venture investment for African startups. Long ignored by



Shifting a long-standing religious observance policy common among Islamic nations, weekends in the United Arab Emirates will begin Friday afternoon come next year, the UAE government announced on Twitter on Dec. 7. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . Dubai. (Photo by Buena Vista Images/Getty Images) The UAE will ring in the new year by transi



Sonic The Game Awards•
SlashGear / 9h
Image: Nintendo Sonic the Hedgehog fans might have reason to tune into The Game Awards later this week because it looks like a new Sonic game will be revealed during the show. Sega has been dropping hints that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game will be revealed during The Game Awards, which host Geoff Keighley has been building up to be a … Continue reading



The same day in February 2020 that Credit Karma planned to announce that it had been acquired by Intuit for more than $7 billion, the stock market tanked, spooked by news that a novel virus had the potential to start a pandemic. “I’m up at 5 o’clock in the morning, the Dow is flashing red … and we’re all like, ‘Are we going to do this?’” said Credit Karma CEO Ken Lin . That deal eventually closed



Discord P. Memberships•
Mashable / 9h
Discord, the popular chat platform that's growing well-beyond the gamer niche it initially served, is foraying further into the creator economy. On Tuesday, Discord announced that it was launching a test run of a brand new feature which will allow creators that run servers on its platform to charge a monthly subscription for access to the creators' channel. Creators who run servers on Discord can



Razer MagSafe iPhone•
Engadget / 9h
Do you play enough mobile games that your phone gets hot to the touch? Probably not, but Razer has you covered regardless. According to iMore , Razer has released a $60 Phone Cooler Chroma that promises to keep your handset cool. There's a version with a clamp for Android phones and older iPhones, but the star of the show is the MagSafe model — you won't completely sully the design of your iPhone




On October 22nd American Airlines CEO Doug Parker received the Wings Club's Lifetime Achievement Award. I shared the video American prepared for the event, and Parker's acceptance speech, earlier today in my coverage of his retirement announcement . Parker will stay as CEO through March 31 when he becomes Chairman and current airline President Robert Isom becomes CEO. The real star of the Wings C



Band Coast Fast Charger•
31Ars Technica / 9h
Enlarge (credit: Chevrolet ) It took an act of Congress and $7.5 billion in federal funding, but more than 50 of the nation’s power companies are ready to build a coast-to-coast fast-charging network for electric vehicles. The proposal so far is light on details. Members of the National Electric Highway Coalition say they serve nearly 120 million customers across 47 states and the District of Col



Verizon Browsing Data•
100+Ars Technica / 9h
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Scott Olson ) Verizon is automatically enrolling customers in a new version of a program that scans mobile users' browser histories—even when those same users previously opted out of the program when it had a different name. The carrier announced changes to its "Verizon Selects" program along with a new name a few days ago. "Verizon Custom Experience Plus is the ne



AWS Secret US Region•
“Amazon’s cloud arm, AWS, announced a new ‘top secret’ region this week, designed specifically for the U.S. government. It is Amazon’s second such region. The company now boasts “top secret” regions on the east and west coasts of the U.S. “AWS Top Secret-West is accredited to operate workloads at the Top Secret U.S. security classification level. The new Region adds multiple Availability Zones ge



Maezawa ISS Russia•
Engadget / 9h
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is set to go on a test run for his future trip around the Moon . He's set to spend 12 days on the International Space Station alongside his assistant, Yozo Hirano, who will document the trip. Along with cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, the pair will travel to the ISS on a Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft operated by Russia's space agency, Roscosmos. The launch is scheduled



56Futurism / 9h
Move over, “The Day After Tomorrow” — New Yorkers now have a new worst nightmare. As The New York Post reported , a woman was forced to give birth inside a luxury Tesla that was stuck in standstill traffic, as her husband tried to drive her to the hospital for the delivery. This wasn’t any old traffic, either: they were on 5th Avenue in Manhattan’s Midtown neighborhood, home to the uberbusy Times



Instagram Mosseri TB•
Mashable / 9h
Meta , Facebook's recently rebranded parent company, has created new tools and features designed to keep young people safe on Instagram — again. The announcement comes just one day before the app's head testifies to Congress about the platform's potential risks to kids and teens. Among the tools includes the platform nudging teens towards different topics if they've been dwelling for too long, a



Nvidia GPU Graphics 2022•
Nvidia believes that supply of its hard to find graphics cards will improve by the second half of 2022, yet another glimmer of hope in a year full of false starts on the graphics card front. The prediction comes courtesy of Nvidia's chief financial officer, Colette Kress, who spoke at the UBS Global TMT Virtual Conference on December 6. During the 45 minute event, Kress addressed Nvidia's attempt



Engadget / 9h
Twitter is testing a feature that allows people to append one-time content warnings to images and videos they share through the platform. The company announced the test on Tuesday, noting it’s available to “some of you.” If you have access to the feature, you’ll see a new flag icon in the image editing interface, which you can access by tapping on the three dots icon that appears at the bottom ri



Lifehacker / 10h
With the new year comes a slew of freshly signed leases. No matter the market conditions, there’s always a risk that the person selling and maintaining your apartment is, to use an industry term, a “total skeeve ball.” (Some of us would argue that the phrase “shady landlord” is redundant.) The reality of being a… Read more...



SCUF Reflex PlayStation 5•
Engadget / 10h
Scuf Gaming is finally diving into PS5 controllers, and its first offerings might be noteworthy if you thrive on titles like Call of Duty . The Corsair brand has launched its first PS5 gamepad line, Reflex, with a variant specifically tuned for first-person shooters. The appropriately named Reflex FPS adds instant bumpers and triggers, includes grippier surfaces and even ditches haptic feedback —



Instagram Teens Drugs•
Engadget / 10h
Instagram makes it trivial for teens as young as 13 to find and buy drugs like MDMA and Xanax, according to a newly published report from the Tech Transparency Project . The organization recently conducted an investigation where it created a series of fake accounts to test the safeguards Instagram has in place to protect young people from potentially deadly pharmaceuticals. While hashtags like #m



Kenya CBK Digital Lenders•
Engadget / 10h
Lending apps have shaken up Kenya’s financial landscape , but they’ve largely gone unregulated — until now. TechCrunch reports President Kenyatta has signed an amended law that gives the country’s Central Bank the power to license and regulate digital lenders. Companies have six months to apply for a license. Lenders will also have to honor existing consumer and data protection laws. Firms will h



Google Glupteba Russian•
Engadget / 10h
On Tuesday, Google disclosed it recently disrupted a massive network of computers infected by Glupteba. The company estimates the malware has infected approximately one million Windows PCs globally, which would make it one of the largest known botnets to date. A botnet is a network of computers or internet-connected devices all infected by malware that is under the control of a single party. In t



Apple Jennifer Lawrence•
Engadget / 10h
Apple will fund and distribute a long-in-the-works movie about embattled Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes . Bad Blood will star Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes, while Adam McKay will write and direct . Both are producers on the project, which is a coproduction between Apple Studios and Legendary. The movie, which is based on the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start Up by former



Twitter New Tweets•
Engadget / 10h
Twitter is testing a new process for reporting tweets in what it says is a major overhaul intended to make it easier to flag harmful behavior on its platform. With the change, the company is changing how it allows users to flag tweets and significantly expanding the criteria that can be included in reports. In a blog post, Twitter says it’s revamping the process to take a “people first” approach,



Senate Rosenworcel FCC•
Engadget / 10h
The Federal Communications Commission now has its first permanent chairwoman. The Senate voted 68 to 31 to confirm President Biden’s nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel , converting her acting chair role into an official (and additional) five-year term. Her temporary position was due to expire within weeks. Not surprisingly, Rosenworcel signalled plans to maintain her existing policies of making co



Engadget / 10h
Ashun Sound Machines, or ASM, came virtually out of nowhere to deliver one of the most hyped synths of 2020. The Hydrasynth is an unabashedly digital instrument with an impressive collection of sound design tools and a proprietary keyboard that has polyphonic aftertouch. For those looking to leave behind the warm but staid world of analog for the complex frontiers of digital, it’s pretty alluring



Blizzard QA Raven RS•
Engadget / 10h
Employees and contractors at Activision Blizzard are walking out of work today in support of their colleagues at Raven Software. The protest, the third such work stoppage to hit the company since it was sued by California over sexual harassment allegations in July, comes after Raven, one of the studios that supports Activision’s incredibly popular Call of Duty franchise, laid off 12 quality assur



Amazon AWS Outage Alexa•
Engadget / 10h
Users are reporting a widespread outage at Amazon Web Services, bringing down websites and backend services for organizations including the Associated Press, Disney+ and Vice. Details about the outage are scarce. The AWS status page reported increased error rates for its Management Console on Tuesday morning. "We are experiencing API and console issues in the US-EAST-1 Region," the page said. "We




Many of us in the points and miles world love the thrill of earning and burning our rewards. However, our partners and spouses may not share the same thrill of the hunt as we do. While our “player twos” probably won’t get as involved as we are, there are still plenty of simple ways to get them involved to maximize your rewards. Let’s take a look at a handful of ways you and your partner can make



TechCrunch / 10h
Better.com continues to find new ways to make itself look bad. This week, sources familiar with internal happenings within the company told TechCrunch the company’s VP of communications, Patrick Lenihan; head of public relations, Tanya Gillogley; and head of marketing, Melanie Hahn, have all submitted their resignations. Insider also reported the news earlier today. The fallout from the way CEO a



Twitter Slack Quill•
Twitter has announced that it has acquired the business messaging service Quill in a move that could enable it to take on Slack. After raising around $16m in funding, Quill exited beta earlier this year as an alternative to Slack available on Windows, macOS, Linus, Android and iOS. In a new report , TechCrunch points out that the company was founded by the former creative director of Stripe , Lud



Editor’s note: Welcome to our new TPG hotel reviews! We’re trying out some novel formats as we rate hotels around the globe, aiming to help readers decide where to stay and where to skip. We’ll still do some of our signature in-depth versions, as well as longer-form pieces for hotels we think readers will be the most curious about. For now, though, we’re going to keep things snappy and give you a



A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips. Continue reading ...



Facebook Stars Store•
TechCrunch / 10h
Meta (formerly Facebook) has found a new way to avoid the app stores’ commissions on in-app purchases with the launch of a new website where people can buy “ Stars ” — the virtual items that allow fans to express their support for favorite creators during Facebook videos and livestreams. Typically, Stars are bought as in-app purchases on mobile devices where they’re subject to a revenue share wit



Thermo Fisher FDA Omicron•
30SlashGear / 10h
Cryptographer/Shutterstock We’re two years into the COVID-19 pandemic and the original virus strain is old news. Delta remains the most common variant fueling infections around the world, but another variety of SARS-CoV-2 called omicron is raising alarm bells. Amid the potential for another wave of cases fueled by this new variant, the FDA has published an extensive analysis of COVID-19 tests … C



NASA Hubble Telescope•
1KFuturism / 10h
Back in Action Good news! NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope is back to full science operations, according to a new update . All four of its scientific instruments are live again after a software glitch forced the telescope into safe mode early last month — a testament to weeks of hard work to ensuring the continued existence of one of the most important space observatories in history. The t



Maezawa ISS Russia•
100+Futurism / 10h
A Japanese billionaire is becoming the first space tourist to go to the International Space Station in more than 10 years, and boy does his excitement show. “I’m excited. I feel like an elementary school student about to go on [an] outing,” Yusaku Maezawa told reporters at a pre-launch news conference. “I didn’t think I would be able to go to space. I used to like the starry sky and heavenly bodi



Rohingya Facebook Myanmar•
100+Gizmodo / 11h
For years now, reports have emerged of Myanmar’s military using Facebook as a key tool in its ongoing slaughter of the country’s Muslim Rohingya population. Investigations have found the platform’s been openly used to incite vicious rumors and organize planned attacks on the Rohingya, whose lives have been thrown into … Read more...



100+Lifehacker / 11h
The U.S. Captioning Company and the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters (BIVR) recently released reports on the most mispronounced words of the year—that is, the most challenging words for newsreaders and television hosts to say correctly the first time. We can only infer if these words are tough for people whose… Read more...



200+The Points Guy / 11h
Would you believe me if I told you there was an epic sale on flights to Hawaii right now from five different airlines? Well, drop whatever it is you are doing (sorry employer) and scan these flights immediately because these wide-ranging deals to places like Honolulu, Kauai, Kona and Maui are short but sweet for certain. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our dail



SlashGear / 11h
Steam / Valve It’s not a controversial thing to say that gaming is an expensive hobby. Even with the deep discounts we often see in Steam sales, PC games can still cost a lot of money over time. One way to ease the burden of buying new games is by sharing your Steam library with others through a feature called Steam Family Sharing. … Continue reading



Gigabyte RTX GB XT•
It seems a GeForce RTX 3080 12GB and an RTX 3070 Ti 16GB may have been confirmed by Gigabyte, bringing versions of the graphics cards with more VRAM to market. According to a recent SKU list filing to the Eurasian Economic Commission , at least ten GeForce RTX 3080 12GB cards from the AORUS Xtreme to Mini-ITX form factor have been submitted. Six GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 16GB models may have also been



67Lifehacker / 11h
Whether you’re huddling around a roaring campfire, grilling a sumptuous piece of meat, or brûlée-ing a custardy crème, fire is sexy. Maybe it’s the element of danger involved in the exothermic process of combustion, or maybe it’s just because it looks cool, but breaking out a kitchen torch tells me we are about to… Read more...



300+The Points Guy / 11h
E ditor’s note: This is The Points Guy’s permanent page about food delivery promotions, so you can bookmark it and check back regularly for the latest codes. Some offers mentioned may no longer be available. There are lots of ways to save money on food delivery and takeout orders . One of the most conventional (but effective) methods is by using promotional codes. DoorDash , Grubhub and Uber Eats



Rohingya Facebook Myanmar•
Enlarge / A young Rohingya man carries an older Rohingya woman in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Some 750,000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar as a result of the genocide. (credit: Michał Fiałkowski/iStock Editorial ) Rohingya refugees have filed a lawsuit against Meta, formerly known as Facebook, for its alleged role in the ethnic cleansing currently underway in Myanmar, sometimes known as Burma



Equinix Africa MainOne•
29TechCrunch / 11h
The African tech scene woke up today to exciting news about the landmark acquisition of MainOne, one of the region’s most important and pivotal tech companies in the past decade, by Equinix, a U.S. multinational specializing in internet connection data centers . The story of MainOne starts with founder and CEO Funke Opeke moving back to Nigeria after working as an executive at Verizon. When she n



TechCrunch / 11h
Chris Watson Contributor Chris Watson is the director of the International Development Division at Premise and an evangelist for using data to improve the impact of development programs. In 2019, the U.S. Agency for International Development developed the “ New Partnerships Initiative ” (NPI) to build a “safer, healthier and more prosperous” world for people everywhere. NPI simplifies access to U




2KFuturism / 11h
Do the Sperm Because we live in a nightmare of our own making, a group of ardent morons have created a new cryptocurrency based on the idea that vaccines lower your sperm count. The cryptocurrency, dubbed “Unvaxxed Sperm,” launched earlier this month, Vice reports . Its developers wrongly claim that most people don’t need the COVID vaccine, and are fierce advocates of quack treatments such as ive



2021 Google Play tAS•
TechCrunch / 12h
The app economy will again set new records in 2021. According to a review of the global app ecosystem in 2021 by Sensor Tower, released today , first-time app installs grew to 143.6 billion during the year, a half percentage point higher than 2020, but consumer spending in apps is up a much larger 19.7% year over year to reach $133 billion. This includes spending on in-app purchases, premium apps



TechCrunch / 12h
After a year away, we’re less than a month out from the next CES. Seeing as how it’s a hybrid event (as, we assume, most events will be, going forward), TechCrunch is taking a hybrid approach to the Consumer Electronics Show. We’ll be tackling the event both in person and remotely, and — as usual — we’re on the hunt for the most fascinating startups. Work for a startup showing off a cool new prod



Lifehacker / 12h
It’s time for a Feature Drop! Google hit us with the news on Monday, Dec. 6, announcing a handful of fun new features for the Pixel lineup of devices. While not all features are available on all Pixels, there is something new for everyone, so long as you have a Pixel 3 or newer. That said, the update isn’t here yet on… Read more...



Just weeks before the start of the busy December holiday season, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added a handful of popular European countries to its highest advisory. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . The CDC on Monday, Dec. 6 added Portugal , Liechtenstein, France , Cyprus and Andorra to its highest designation, “CDC L



Halo Infinite Enlarge / Get ready for choppy frame rates on this bad guy's animations, even on your most powerful PC, thanks to certain missing optimizations on Halo Infinite 's upcoming PC version. (credit: Xbox Game Studios / 343 Industries) Ars Technica will eventually go hands-on with Halo Infinite 's campaign on PC, but as I noted in my feature-length review , our repeated requests to test t



If you click an email link in Windows 11 and the wrong email client pops up, you can easily change the default email app. All it takes is a quick trip to Windows Settings. Here’s how to do it. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Notepad is one of those Windows apps that just stays ugly. But it’s also one of Microsoft’s most useful and well-known hunks of software, and as such, it deserves a lot better. That’s why Microsoft is finally pushing a redesigned version of Notepad for Windows 11—it’s got a dark mode, it’s got a new multi-level undo feature, and man, the whole thing’s a breath of fresh air. Read This Article on R



37TechCrunch / 12h
“We’re not making fucking glamping tents for bros at Coachella,” Jeff Wilson, co-founder and CEO at Jupe is eager to reassure me, as he outlines his vision for the company. “At this point, food is a distribution problem, clothing is largely solved. There are about 1.5 billion people in the world that still don’t have adequate shelter. If you’re going to work on big problems here on earth, that’s



TechCrunch / 12h
Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide! Need help with gift ideas? We’ve got lots of them. Looking for our other guides? Find them here! Buying camping gear is all about making tradeoffs. Lightweight backpacking gear may be perfect for trips where you carry everything with you but might not be quite as sturdy as the (generally cheaper) heavier options. Little luxury items can make a trip



Amazon has officially introduced Alexa to the Middle East starting with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The virtual assistant can now speak in Arabic and understands local dialects from the region. Work started almost two years back to develop the personality and Arabic language with Alexa. Local customers volunteered to help Alexa learn the language through an app by going through scripted event. Foll



100+NYT > Technology / 12h
As the clean energy revolution upends the centuries-long lock of fossil fuels on the global economy, dealmakers and hustlers converge on the Fleuve Congo Hotel.



Omicron US Universities•
University students are being targeted in a series of new credential phishing campaigns that leverages Covid-19 and now the new Omicron variant as lures. Throughout the pandemic, the cybersecurity firm Proofpoint has observed Covid-19 being used as a lure in phishing emails. However, beginning in October, it identified email-based threats specifically targeting university students in an attempt t



300+The Points Guy / 12h
If you missed out on it last year, Frontier Airlines is offering up its status match opportunity again — and it’s now available to even more travelers. With this promotion, you can match status from 30 total programs — 15 airlines and 15 hotels — to earn up to top-tier status with Frontier for the small price of $49. Unfortunately, the airline has added new restrictions that apply to hotel progra



Tesla Video Games Car•
500+Futurism / 12h
Gaming While Driving Tesla is allowing drivers — yes, the person behind the wheel who is ideally preoccupied with tasks such as “steering” — to play video games on its vehicles’ massive console touchscreens while driving. “I only did it for like five seconds and then turned it off,” Tesla owner Vince Patton told The New York Times . “I’m astonished. To me, it just seems inherently dangerous.” The



Elon Musk Crumble People•
2KFuturism / 12h
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is no stranger to ringing the alarm bells. When he’s not warning of an imminent nuclear Armageddon , the eccentric billionaire has often brought up another one of his favorite talking points: declining birthrates. “I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate,” he said at The Wall Street Journa l’s CEO Council Monda



Menon NASA 10 2021•
84Ars Technica / 12h
Enlarge / Meet the new astronaut-candidates: US Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers, Christopher Williams, US Marine Corps Maj. (retired) Luke Delaney, US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Wittner, US Air Force Lt. Col. Anil Menon, US Air Force Maj. Marcos Berríos, US Navy Cmdr. Jack Hathaway, Christina Birch, US Navy Lt. Deniz Burnham, and Andre Douglas. (credit: NASA) This week, NASA announced its first class of



Meta Messenger Chudnovsky•
TechCrunch / 12h
As Facebook transitions its corporate branding and organizes around a “metaverse” future, a number of high-profile execs have been leaving the company. Last week, former Messenger boss and current crypto czar David Marcus announced he was leaving at the end of the year. Today, Meta’s current chief of the Messenger division Stan Chudnovsky announced he will be leaving Meta “at some point in Q2 of



Night Study Cannabis Sleep•
200+Gizmodo / 12h
People who regularly use cannabis may be more prone to sleep problems, new research suggests. The observational study found that self-described cannabis users were more likely to report trouble getting the optimal amount of sleep, both in not getting enough rest or too much. This link was more pronounced for heavy… Read more...



upennmanuscripts : Today’s #ManuscriptOfTheDay is Ms. Codex 1264, a 16th c. manual on talismans or seals, thought to help manifest the powers of the planets when created in metal or on parchment. The 5 seal faces for Mercury, including a magic square, is on f. 4r #renaissance #earlymodern #manuscript #astrology #magic #historyofscience #fortunetelling #german #germany #bookhistory #bookstagram #l




NVIDIA Rtx 2060 12 GB•
After months of rumors and a whole graphics card generation since it first came out, there's a new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 on the block, and this time it has 12GB of GDDR6 memory. Wccftech has spotted three tweets by manufacturers pointing to ne


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