Saturday, January 22, 2022

Technology News and More-Saturday Edition

Technology News and More...





1KLifehacker / 15h
Apple is good at what they do. They make products that are easy to set up and use, but, before you know it, you feel entirely trapped in their ecosystem. Now, for many of us, that’s not so bad; the ecosystem has a lot of perks, and life seems pretty good here. But for those of us looking for another tech opportunity,… Read more...



United Newark Tel Aviv•
Yesterday I wrote about how an American Airlines transatlantic flight returned to its origin because of a passenger who refused to wear a mask. Well, now a United Airlines transatlantic flight returned to its origin, but this time it was because of self-upgraders. United flight to Tel Aviv returns to Newark This incident involves United Airlines flight UA90 from Newark (EWR) to Tel Aviv (TLV) yes



Facebook Amazon Xbox•
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has said huge tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are the brand’s main competitors in the gaming industry, as opposed to its traditional rivals. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal about Microsoft’s recently agreed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Spencer described Xbox’s current competitors - including Sony, Nintendo, and Valve - as unlikely to disrupt t




TL;DR: The Cloud Computing Architect Certification Bundle is on sale for £21.96, saving you 98% on list price. If you’re interested in learning the essentials of cloud computing — and if you've got about £20 and 21 hours to spare — you can get started today. With the help of this cloud computing training led by Idan Gabrieli, you’ll become a savant in solving latency issues and improving overall



TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to TextSniper for Mac is on sale for £2.92, saving you 42% off list price. TextSniper is a Mac app that lets you extract text from sources like images, YouTube videos, PDFs, screenshots, or presentations. Thanks to advanced OCR (optical character recognition) technology, TextSniper can scan and recognise the text within any digital image, video, or document. It will



Living with pets is pretty great. Whether you have a cat or a dog, your life is probably better with them in it. But there’s one big downside: pet hair — on everything, all the time. It’s in your car, on your clothes, on your sofa, and collecting as little dust bunnies on your wood floor. There’s probably even a pet hair circle on your bed, a lasting reminder of their favourite sleeping spot. Of



SAVE 86%: ZenMate VPN offers streaming servers for bypassing the geo-restrictions of leading sites like Netflix. A three-year subscription to ZenMate VPN is on sale for £1.33 per month, and includes an extra three months for free. ZenMate VPN is proof that you don't always need to splash out on the most expensive service to get the best set of features. It is absolutely loaded with advanced secur



SAVE 83%: Private Internet Access offers fast connection speeds, powerful levels of encryption, and much more. A three-year subscription to Private Internet Access is on sale for £1.67 per month, and includes an extra three months for free. VPNs are popular with a lot of users for their ability to unlock top streaming sites from around the world. These services are primarily designed to boost onl



100+Gizmodo / 6h
Zara Rutherford always dreamed of flying solo around the world, but she never thought it would actually happen. It was “expensive, dangerous, complicated, a logistical nightmare,” Rutherford told herself . However, as she was finishing school, she decided to do something crazy: try to make her dream come true. She… Read more...



21TechCrunch / 6h
You have to begin somewhere. So when Jayce Hafner and Sami Tellatin bonded as Stanford MBA classmates over their shared belief that helping U.S. farms run more efficiently would be good for farmers, good for the country, and a great business, they decided to start with grants. For her part, Hafner grew up on a cattle ranch in Virginia and knew firsthand that applying for grants — even to improve



Apple SharePlay is a fun new feature that enables people on FaceTime to watch videos or listen to music together. With synced playback and shared controls, it really feels like you're experiencing it at the same time. SharePlay, which is currently only available for iPhone/iPad, was released with iOS 15.1 and iPadOS 15.1 so make sure your device is up to date. It's not yet available for Mac devic



Stream Premier League•
Big names have been falling at an alarming rate this week, and another will bite the dust as No.20 seed Taylor Fritz, the US' best remaining hope in Melbourne, faces veteran Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut, seeded at No.15. Both men are in excellent form, and today's match is expected on Kia Arena at 3.30am GMT / 10.30pm ET. Here's how to watch a Bautista-Agut vs Fritz live stream wherever you are



Google is working on a new update for its office software that will make formatting documents in Google Docs even easier on mobile. Last year the search giant added the ability to add a page break before paragraphs in Google Docs on the web and according to a new post in the Google Workspace blog, this same functionality is now rolling out to smartphones. This feature is particularly useful for j



On January 7 a passenger on board Delta flight 45 from Dublin to New York JFK reportedly refused to wear a mask. According to an indictment he also "threw an empty beverage can, which hit the head of" another passenger. While the captain was out of the cockpit he took off his cap and placed it on the captain's head twice, and put his fist up to the captain's face. The man left economy for busines



Amazon Store Los Angeles•
From the bitchy shop girls in Pretty Woman to the bitchy shop girls in Legally Blonde , the retail workers tasked with helping you shop for clothes get a bad rap. But even Elle Woods — who knows the value of talking someone out of a truly heinous angora sweater — might not be stoked about Amazon's latest retail concept that minimizes the role of human shopping associates in a big way. On Friday,



I've never thought mollusks were particularly erotic. Tiny, moist, mucusy…these qualities don't exactly evoke sexiness. SnailVibe , though, begs you to reconsider. A spin on the classic rabbit vibrator, SnailVibe offers both clitoral and vaginal stimulation with its slug-like body. The unique toy is available on the SnailVibe website or the sex toy shop Lovers . While I commend SnailVibe for bein



Slow-motion video of boiling ice, a research project of the Nature-Inspired Fluids and Interfaces Lab at Virginia Tech. Dash a few drops of water onto a very hot, sizzling skillet and they'll levitate, sliding around the pan with wild abandon. Physicists at Virginia Tech have discovered that this can also be achieved by placing a thin, flat disk of ice on a heated aluminum surface, according to a



Biden Intel Ohio China•
The president said passage of a China competition bill was needed “for the sake of our economic competitiveness and our national security.”



Although Cortana may be dead on mobile , Microsoft's digital assistant is alive and well on Windows 11 and will soon be making an appearance in Microsoft Teams . While Cortana was first introduced in 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox, the smart artificial intelligence construct eventually came to Windows Phone and Windows 10 PCs in 2014 as a digital assistant. Just like with Google



Editor’s note: This post has been updated with new information. If you’re ready to get back to earning travel rewards, now is the time to do it thanks to some tremendous sign-up bonuses. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card , for instance, will net you more than $1,100 in travel (per TPG valuations ) after hitting a very manageable spending requirement — on top of a solid return on everyda



20Gizmodo / 9h
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the latest and greatest in merchandise from across the internet. This week, Bandai’s Gundam Universe figures go beyond the time, Aliens gets an unconventional model kit, and making the perfect Death Star shot might be harder than hitting an exhaust port with an… Read more...



Bank Checking One Savings•
Bask Bank is known for its Mileage Savings Account which awards American AAdvantage miles rather than interest – the math on this works out especially well in a low-interest rate environment. They’ve now launched a new Bask Interest Savings Account, which is no longer restricted to Bask Mileage Savings Account holders. Continue reading ...



Google Texas Facebook•
39TechCrunch / 9h
Google filed a motion Friday asking a federal court to dismiss most of the counts in an antitrust lawsuit led by the state of Texas. In the filing, the company argued that the Texas lawsuit isn’t “credible” and that the state failed to establish that the company’s ad business has run afoul of antitrust laws. “AG Paxton’s allegations are more heat than light, and we don’t believe they meet the leg




Mark Zuckerberg's vision of a sanitized, hypercapitalist metaverse will likely never be as compelling or idiosyncratic as VRChat, the virtual reality community that's been home to anime fans, Furries and a slew of other sub-cultures since 2014. That's my main takeaway from We Met in Virtual Reality , the first documentary filmed entirely in VRChat, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to



Star Trek Picard Goldberg•
The second season of Star Trek: Picard premieres March 3, 2022 on Paramount+. It has been a long, pandemic-fueled wait, but the second season of Star Trek: Picard is almost here, and we now have an official trailer. In addition to seeing Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) encounter his mischievous former frenemy, Q (John de Lancie), fans' hearts will warm to see the retired Starfleet captain reuni



90% COVID Omicron CDC•
Enlarge / A tray of prepared syringes for booster vaccinations with Moderna's vaccine. (credit: Getty | Picture alliance ) Amid the stratospheric rise of the omicron variant, real-world data on the effectiveness of COVID-19 booster doses is now rolling in—and it is only looking up for boosters. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported three studies Friday, two published in the CDC'



26TechCrunch / 9h
Rodrigo Vicuna Contributor Rodrigo Vicuna is chief financial officer at Prime Trust . Cryptocurrency and blockchain had a breakout year in 2021. ust look at the numbers: 80 million unique crypto wallets; Bitcoin and Ether grew 60% and 407%, respectively; El Salvador adopted bitcoin as official currency; the NFT market generated $2.5 billion in trades. Even Burger King announced a whopper when the



Bubble Created 465 Days•
1KFuturism / 9h
We’re willing to bet that as a kid, most of us blew bubbles and tried to see which ones lasted the longest. We’re also willing to bet that none of them lasted more than a few fleeting moments. Now, scientists have pulled off the seemingly impossible, leaving our childhood attempts in the dust. In a new study , researchers from the University of Lille in France created bubbles that can live as lon



Google Pixel Watch•
Gizmodo / 9h
Rumors surrounding Google’s forthcoming Pixel smartwatch have been circulating for more than a year, and while we know some details about the product, a specific release date hasn’t even been speculated. 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 . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for January 21, 2022! I normally try to bring some pep to my little intros in this missive. But today I am going to avoid astroturfing my own mood to simply say, hey, what’s up with the stock market? After a period of time when thi



These days, it takes more than being attractive, chic or well connected to get into a bar or restaurant in Paris. It also takes a booster shot, and there are still many unanswered questions about that. The “pass vaccinal,” or vaccine pass, which was supposed to take effect Jan. 21 will now take effect on Monday, Jan. 24, per my sources at Atout France, the country’s official tourism agency. And m



CBD COVID 19 Infection Two•
Enlarge / Don't try this at home. Seriously. We mean it. (credit: Anna Efetova ) Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have tested a wide range of drugs to see if they inhibit the virus. Most of these tests didn't end up going anywhere; even the few drugs that did work typically required concentrations that would be impossible to achieve inside human cells. And a few (looking at y



1KGizmodo / 10h
When Ahsoka Tano appeared on The Mandalorian , fans went nuts. When it was announced the Jedi apprentice to Anakin Skywalker was getting her own Disney+ Star Wars show, they got even more excited. And now that show is gearing up for production and is continuing to add to its awesome cast. Read more...



Robinhood Crypto 1000•
Engadget / 10h
Back in September , Robinhood announced plans to test a cryptocurrency wallet within its app. At the time, the company said it would open the beta to a small number of people before expanding availability ahead of a full-scale release. If you joined the waiting list Robinhood create, you can now test the wallet for yourself – provided you were one of the first 1,000 people to sign up for the beta



If you’re in the mood for authentic fish and chips, a smooth Guinness, rich risotto or buttery croissants, then a trip to Europe could be just what you need. American Airlines is offering discounted fares from various U.S. cities including New York , Chicago , Los Angeles and Miami to major European destinations in the U.K. , Spain , Italy and France for under $500 round-trip. Sign up for our dai



Joe Tiger King Carole•
Mashable / 10h
Hey, all you cool cats and kittens. Did you know there's a new Tiger King in town? No, it's not the original Netflix documentary. Or the Nic Cage series . Or the sequel to the original documentary. It's Peacock's Joe vs. Carole , and it's almost here. Joe vs. Carole revisits the infamous rivalry between two big cat owners, this time with some added star power. In one corner we have Saturday Night



100+Gizmodo / 10h
For the second time in as many years, American fascist organization Patriot Front is facing a humiliating leak of internal communications, messages revealing a trove of evidence pointing to coordinated criminal activities in multiple states, including New York, Washington, Indiana, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Read more...



“Choice benefits” in the past have included things like bonus miles or confirmed international upgrades though require crediting at least 30 flights to an AAdvantage account. These benefits are earned at the 125,000 point level and above: American has announced what these choice benefits are for status levels earned in 2022. Continue reading ...



Intel US Two Ohio Chip•
SlashGear / 10h
Image: Intel Intel announced it is spending an initial $20 billion on a semiconductor “mega-site” in Ohio, the company’s latest bid to recapture its place as the world’s top semiconductor manufacturer and prove Apple wrong. Apple and Intel went through a very public breakup, beginning with WWDC 2020, when Apple announced it was switching to its own M1 chips. The M1 is … Continue reading



Steven Soderbergh is even worse at retiring than Hayao Miyazaki . Despite his stated intent to stop making films and try his hand at painting way back in 2013 (when he said “movies don’t matter anymore” ) he’s about to drop his third film in two years (after Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move ), direct to HBO Max. Read more...



Let’s get into it! Software consulting (TechCrunch+) How should non technical founders collaborate with software developers? Miranda Halpern continues the TechCrunch Experts project by interviewing CEO of Wolfpack Digital, Georgina ‘Gina’ Lupu Florian. What percentage of your clients are non-technical people who have an idea, but no coding experience? How much of a limitation is that for launchin



Rewards Credit Capital•
100+The Points Guy / 11h
Editor’s note : This post has been updated with the latest information. This page includes information about the Discover It Miles that is not currently available on The Points Guy and was not provided by the issuer. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” His words are as true today as when he wrote them over 200 years ago — and as we head full



Valve Steam Deck One•
26Ars Technica / 11h
Enlarge / The Steam Deck, from Valve. (credit: Valve ) Back in October, Valve laid out the specific review guidelines that a Steam game would have to follow to earn an optional "Deck Verified" badge on its Steam Store page. Now, the results of the first of those verification reviews are starting to leak out, and they're showing some minor input and interface issues across a handful of games runni




Few among us are excited to see an envelope in the mail that reads “summons.” Since the jury summons process is designed to be as random as possible, you never know when that dreaded letter may arrive in the mail. Luckily, you might not need to rearrange your schedule just yet. There are practical tools at your… Read more...



Gizmodo / 11h
Every time Marvel Studios makes an announcement about its upcoming Moon Knight show , social media is typically blanketed with one of the most famous panels featuring Khonshu’s fist : the hero hunting down Dracula, to get his goddamn money . But, as beloved as it is, it’s not actually a real panel from the pages of… Read more...



Strange Switch LS Delayed•
Engadget / 11h
Nintendo Switch owners will have to wait or look elsewhere if they want to play two of February’s more notable new releases. In separate announcements, Square Enix and Techland shared they’re delaying the Switch versions of Life is Strange: Remastered Collection and Dying Light 2 to beyond next month. Both games will arrive on time on other platforms as previously planned, with the former slated



Mashable / 11h
In an effort to explore the relationship between humans and robots, researchers at Columbia University have developed a robot that can mirror human facial expressions. EVA has a 3D-printed skull and over 20 "muscles" it can use to display looks of anger, fear, joy and sadness.



Twitter NFT Profile•
31Mashable / 11h
Twitter's new hexagonal NFT profile pics were supposed to put right-click savers in their place. The feature, announced Thursday, gives Twitter Blue subscribers the ability to designate their profile pictures as official NFTs — thus, in theory, irrefutably "proving" their JPEGs are authentic pieces like CryptoPunks or Bored Apes at a glance. It's the ultimate online flex in our status-obsessed di



AT&T FAA Verizon US•
200+Ars Technica / 11h
Enlarge / Airbus 320 cockpit. (credit: Getty Images | Skyhobo) The Federal Aviation Administration's fight against AT&T's and Verizon's new 5G deployment appears to be coming to a temporary close, with the FAA having cleared about 78 percent of US planes for landing in low-visibility conditions. Airline CEOs are striking an upbeat tone, with one saying the process of ensuring that airplane altime



Engadget / 11h
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741 (US), 686868 (Canada), or 85258 (UK). Wikipedia maintains a list of crisis lines for people outside of those countries. A Connecticut mother has brought a lawsuit against Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, as well as Snap, claiming the platforms to cause the so



NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ethereum•
Recently leaked Ethereum mining performance from China spells out some promising news for gamers looking to net the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card . It seems that the card will most likely ship with the Lite Hash Rate algorithm, as the hash rate goes from about 20 to 12.5 MH/s almost immediately while only using 73W in this benchmark. Leaker @wxnod further confirms this, as with d



90Futurism / 11h
Ejecting Pebbles NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has successfully ejected several pebbles that were obstructing its sample collection system since taking its sixth sample in late December. Images taken by the rover’s WATSON camera earlier this month showed Martian detritus accumulating on the rover’s “bit carousel,” a crucial apparatus that transfers the samples from the rover’s drill arm to stora



1KFuturism / 11h
London Bridge Bitcoin continues to tumble down, down, down. As The Wall Street Journal notes , Bitcoin has shown a tight correlation between the rise and the fall of the stock market, which is part of the story of its meteoric fall this week. But there are other factors at play as well, from Russia’s proposed crypto mining ban to the US Federal Reserve’s hesitation on creating a digital currency



Twitter Rinki Sethi•
Engadget / 11h
New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is continuing to revamp the company's leadership. After removing the chiefs of engineering and design last month, Agrawal is bringing in new leaders for the security team. The company confirmed to The New York Times that former head of security Peiter Zatko has departed, while chief information security officer Rinki Sethi will leave Twitter in the coming weeks. Agra



Chinese Russia China•
Gizmodo / 11h
A Chinese satellite almost bit the dust on Tuesday when debris produced by Russia’s 2021 anti-satellite test zipped past at an uncomfortably close distance. Read more...



We've all been there, but until this month, we've never had a flight delayed due to inclement weather on another planet. NASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter, slated for flight 19 on the red planet, had to delay its anticipated January 5, 2022, take off after an unexpected dust storm swept through the region. The flight has been rescheduled for January 23. Obviously, predicting the weather is hard ev



Supply Chain WordPress•
28Ars Technica / 12h
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Dozens of legitimate WordPress add-ons downloaded from their original sources have been found backdoored through a supply chain attack, researchers said. The backdoor has been found on “quite a few” sites running the open source content management system. The backdoor gave the attackers full administrative control of websites that used at least 93 WordPress plugins



I’ve worked at early-stage startups where we relied on our best guesses to shape product pipelines and develop marketing strategies. I have also held jobs at companies where we engaged directly with current and past customers to ask them what they wanted. You can probably guess which approach generated more favorable outcomes. Whether it’s done informally via a Reddit AMA or a Twitter Space, it’s



Gary York Contributor Gary York is the CEO of Help Lightning . He is a serial entrepreneur with four successful software and services exits: three private sales and one IPO. Business leaders are responsible for examining and implementing technologies that are proven, cost-effective and easy to use while also offering long-term solutions that reimagine workflows, speed up processes and increase pr



Picture this. You’ve spent months planning the perfect Walt Disney World vacation . You were up pre-dawn 60 days out and now have reservations at your family’s favorite restaurants, have mapped out your Lightning Lane strategy and know exactly which rides are at the top of everyone’s must-do lists. When the big day finally arrives, you walk through the front gates and stride quite briskly ( Disne



Mashable / 12h
Keeping coral reefs healthy is extremely important as climate change encroaches on our most valuable habitats. Stanford scientists have developed a low-cost measuring technique to assess the health of an entire reef from just a few small measurements.



Gizmodo / 12h
With master of disaster Roland Emmerich ’s Moonfall arriving Febuary 4, we’ve got the moon on the brain. Not the semi-plausible or at least seriously considered depictions seen in movies like Moon , 2001: A Space Odyssey , or Ad Astra , but the full-on goofy treatments that put the “fiction” in “science fiction.” In other… Read more...



Gizmodo / 12h
You can add pet hamsters to the long list of animals known to carry the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Officials in Hong Kong say they’ve confirmed an outbreak involving hamsters and humans that was traced back to a pet shop, though it’s not clear whether these hamsters transmitted the virus to people. With much controversy,… Read more...




SlashGear / 12h
Image: Neuralink Thinking of Elon Musk usually produces an image of a Tesla or simply a mountain of money, but soon enough, this might change. Musk is the co-founder of Neuralink, a company that produces microchips meant to one day help paralyzed people navigate the world with their brain. The development of the microchips is well underway, and the company has just … Continue reading



Star Trek Picard Goldberg•
Engadget / 12h
The wait is over. Following a first-look trailer back in June of last year , ViacomCBS has finally released a new clip from Star Trek: Picard . And there’s a lot to unpack here. Through the machinations of Q, Picard and the crew of the La Sirena find themselves in 2024. Setting season two of the series in the near future may seem like lazy writing, but if you’ve seen Deep Space Nine , you know th



Google Texas Facebook•
Gizmodo / 12h
Google’s week of combative antitrust pushback came to a fitting conclusion on Friday with the company filing a motion to dismiss large parts of an antitrust case filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a coalition of other states. Among other things, the new complaint filed last week accused Google of colluding… Read more...



Google Labs Blockchain•
23Ars Technica / 12h
Enlarge (credit: Sean Gallup | Getty Images ) Here's a fun new report from Bloomberg : Google is forming a blockchain division. The news comes hot on the heels of a Bloomberg report from yesterday that quoted Google's president of commerce as saying, "Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to." Web3 is apparently becoming a thing at Google. Shivakumar Venkataraman, a longtime Googler from



Shell CCS Plant Carbon•
Gizmodo / 12h
Oil companies love to tell the world about the super cool technologies that have that will allow us to keep burning fossil fuels without cooking the climate. But those technologies are largely bullshit. Read more...



100+The Points Guy / 12h
Growing up, I was lucky. I spent my childhood years crisscrossing the country in the back of a handful of pickup trucks — a white Ford F-150, a two-door Dodge and a massive blue/green Chevy dually that felt more like a tank — on work road trips with my parents. Over the years, I saw a lot of the country as they took their furniture and clothing business to rodeos, Junior League holiday markets an



FCC Rosenworcel Apartment•
28TechCrunch / 12h
Most anyone who’s moved to a new apartment has had the same experience: Whatever broadband provider everyone else in the building has, you have. This kind of lock-in could become less common if a new proposal from the FCC is adopted, preventing revenue-sharing between providers and building owners and opening the door to competitors. It’s largely because of the cost of wiring a building that an a



Stamps from the Post Office are among the most popular collectible items, and the USPS is taking that idea to the next level with its own NFTs. It brings that same level of collectability from the world of physical stamps to digital ones. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



26Gizmodo / 12h
Apparently releasing a movie is turning into its own impossible mission. Paramount has just announced that the next two installments in its popular Tom Cruise-led Mission: Impossible franchise have been delayed once again. Mission: Impossible 7 , originally scheduled for release in 2021 and most recently scheduled for… Read more...



Solar Panels Years 2022•
Futurism / 12h
Solar panels have been a hot topic of conversation for sustainably minded people for decades, but it’s taken a long time for them to become a viable option for the average person. Government subsidies have made it less expensive to outfit the roof of your home with solar panels, while tech companies have sprung up to develop smaller-scale options. In 2022, it’s possible to get solar panels design



32Futurism / 12h
Archaeologists Alice Gorman from Flinders University and Justin Walsh of Chapman University in California launched the first off-world archeological “dig” studying human culture aboard the International Space Station this week. We just want to know if they’ll find anything useful up the


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