Thursday, January 20, 2022

Thursday Technology News and More

Technology News and More





TechCrunch / 42min
By adding some electrodes and some electronics to your earbuds, Wisear can make your music experience a lot more hands-free than before. Bite down on your own teeth twice to pause a track, or three times to skip to the next tune — without making a noise, hand gesture or much visible movement at all, the technology enables you to interact with your music players or AR/VR headsets without needing t



Samsung Galaxy S22•
It looks like the Samsung Galaxy S22 range and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 range might both be announced on the same day, and that day is fast approaching, as it’s reportedly February 9. That’s according to Ice Universe (a leaker with a solid track record) who posted this claim on Weibo (a Chinese social network). They claim to be 100% sure of this and add that the unveiling will kick off at 11pm B



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .




AMD’s RX 6500 XT graphics card may be on sale now, but you’ll struggle to find the GPU at retailers, as stock seems very scarce indeed. Those hoping to be able to get hold of the new wallet-friendly option are going to be disappointed in most cases, by the look of things. And while there might be at least some more positive news on the pricing front in the US market – we’ll come back to that poin



Hot on the heels of Garmin and Polar , Coros has released a huge firmware update that adds a generous set of new training features to its running watches. If you own a supported device, you can upgrade it now via the Coros mobile app and start putting the new tools to the test. One of the new tools coming to the Coros Vertix 1 , Vertix 2 , Apex Pro, Apex 42, and Apex 46 is Adjusted Pace, which es



Multiple leaks had pointed to the iPhone SE 3 being unveiled in March or April, with at least one specifically saying it would land by March . So March was our best guess for the announcement date, but the latest leak points to April or May. Ross Young (a reputable leaker with particular insights into the display industry), claimed in a Tweet that the iPhone SE 3 (referred to by him as the ‘Apple



UK DCMS Broadband PG•
MPs are unconvinced that the UK government will achieve its watered-down targets for gigabit broadband coverage, suggesting there is no detailed plan on how to reach the most remote parts of the country and that ministers are too reliant on private companies. The Conservative manifesto ahead of the 2019 General Election promised nationwide fibre to the premise (FTTP) coverage by 2025 but the gove



Blizzard Kotick Microsoft•
In the wake of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard , it has transpired that the company was looking to sell itself to other companies, namely Facebook. Otherwise known by its new name of Meta Platforms Inc., anonymous sources told Bloomberg that CEO Bobby Kotick and the board pursued a deal with Mark Zuckerberg's company. Apparently, Activision wasn't completely on board with Microsoft



Everyone is talking about Bruno. The standout track from Disney’s latest animated adventure, Encanto, has taken the internet by storm – and it looks to have given the movie a second wind on Disney Plus . We Don’t Talk About Bruno shot to number four on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, surpassing Frozen’s Let It Go to become the highest-charting Disney song in 26 years. In the UK, the Lin-Manuel M



Crypto.com Com 400•
Engadget / 34min
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Crypto.com's Chief Executive Kris Marszalek has admitted that 400 customer accounts were compromised by hackers. He said his team detected unauthorized transactions made from the accounts, but that they'd fixed the issue immediately and fully reimbursed the affected users. Now, the company has published a report revealing details from its post mortem. Apparently



Wired / 37min
For a brief, weird moment in the Myspace-fueled early 2000s, dance music felt truly alternative.



CIA Havana Syndrome•
Gizmodo / 43min
Havana Syndrome, the name for a variety of illnesses reported by U.S. spies and diplomats working overseas, isn’t caused by Russia or any other foreign adversary, according to an interim report by the Central Intelligence Agency covered by multiple news agencies late Wednesday. But people who insist Havana Syndrome is… Read more...



Apple has regained top spot as the world's largest phone maker after the success of the iPhone 13 pushed shipments to a new high last quarter, new figures have shown. The latest shipment figures from Canalys found that Apple took a 22% market share in overall sales during Q4 2021, ahead of its great rival Samsung with 20%. This was despite of facing supply chain issues and chipset shortage that f



Oculus Magic Keyboard•
Despite reports that it's working on its own rival VR/AR headset , users will now be able to use their Apple Magic keyboard with the Quest 2. Much like the Logitech K830 , the real-world Magic Keyboard will now appear in VR thanks to the v37 update that perfectly maps a digital keyboard over the physical device. This will allow Oculus Quest 2 users to better interact with their Mac computers in V



Call of Duty Warzone•
The Call of Duty team has announced that there will be a delay to its upcoming Season 2. The content drop is now slated to land two weeks later. What was initially set to be an early February 2 launch is now a slightly more romantic affair with a February 14 release. Season 2 will go live across Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific and Call of Duty: Vanguard . The news of the delay was shared in a blog



Sony Microsoft PlayStation•
As PlayStation fans fear losing the Call of Duty franchise to Xbox, one analyst believes anti-trust regulations will prevent this from happening. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz , DFC Intelligence owner David Cole says that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard will allow it to compete against the likes of Google and Amazon in the wider interactive entertainment sector. However, he doesn



Sony’s PSVR 2 headset certainly sounds promising based on its impressive technical specifications, but PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi has dismissed the Japanese company’s second foray into virtual reality – and he doesn’t like the sound of the metaverse either. In an interview with Bloomberg , 71-year-old Kutaragi said that the biggest issue with virtual reality headsets is the fact the devices



Red Cross Data People•
A supply chain attack has resulted in the data of more than half a million “highly vulnerable people” stolen from Red Cross systems. A contractor for the Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) fell victim to a cyberattack recently, with unknown malicious actors making away with sensitive data on more than 515,000 individuals. And not just any individuals - people who got sepa



Denon has announced its latest soundbar , which offers Dolby Atmos immersive audio and comes with a wireless subwoofer included - and it's much cheaper than the leading model, the Sonos Arc . The Sonos Arc is our pick for the best soundbar you can buy today, but its $899 / £899 / AU$1,499 price tag makes it a very expensive way to boost your home cinema setup . Meanwhile, the Denon DHT-S517 costs



Amazon is opening its first-ever Amazon Style physical clothing store with the promise of a high-tech shopping experience, confirming a rumor from last year . It will offer brands consumers "know and love," according to Amazon, and an app will let you choose an item, size and color and send it directly to a fitting room or pickup counter. The first store is coming to The Americana at Brand in Los



Amazon has slashed 17% off the price of the Nescafé Dolce Gusto Infinissima pod coffee machine , reducing it from £41.00 to just £34.00 - a record low for the coffee maker, which is made by De’Longhi. (Not in the UK? Scroll down for the best coffee maker deals in your region.) The best coffee makers let you indulge in barista-worthy hot drinks without having to step foot outside. However, they ca




The internet can feel like a bottomless pit of the worst aspects of humanity. So far, there’s little indication that the metaverse—an envisioned virtual digital world where we work, play, and live—will be much better. As I reported last month , a beta tester in Meta’s virtual social platform, Horizon Worlds, has already complained of being groped. Tiffany Xingyu Wang feels she has a solution. In



TL;DR: As of Jan. 20, the VentiFresh ECO: Next Generation Odor Eliminator is on sale for $42.99 instead of $72 — that's savings of 42%. You may have become nose blind to your cat’s litter box , but we can assure you, your guests have not. And spritzing a little Febreze isn’t really helping matters. Cat parents need something that works to purify and freshen the air around the litter box, not just



TL;DR: The Complete Limited Edition Mac Bundle , worth $1,040, is just $17.99 with the code MACBUNDLE40 as of Jan. 20. That saves you 98%. From improving your productivity to keeping your personal information under lock and key , there’s a Mac app for virtually everything. And each one can take your Mac’s performance to new heights. But before you go searching the App Store and breaking the bank



TL;DR: The Sky Lite Laser Galaxy Projector is on sale for $52.99 with the code ARKLIGHT as of Jan. 20 — that's a discount of 11%. You’ve certainly seen them all over TikTok and wondered what the big fuss is about. The truth is a galaxy projector just makes your space a bit more magical. And kids and adults alike can definitely appreciate that. The Sky Lite Laser Galaxy Projector , an internet fav



TL;DR: As of Jan. 20, the Fremont Wood Fire Pizza Oven is just $227 with the code PIZZA27 , which gives you 38% off its regular price of $368. Pizza is one of those things that even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. So, you might have grown accustomed to the taste of those frozen pies you pop in the oven for a few minutes. But let us tell you, home-cooked pizza can — and should — be much mor



Greenlabs Series C•
Greenlabs , a South Korean agtech startup, announced this week it has closed a $140 million Series C led by BlueRun Ventures , with participation from Skylake Incuvest and SK Square . The startup plans to use the Series C, which brings its total raised to $170 million to date, to expedite its global expansion, make acquisitions and increase its headcount, Charlie Sanghoon Shin, co-founder and CEO



The best vacuum cleaner will make cleaning carpet and hard floors a breeze, offering powerful suction, large dust canisters, and in the case of cordless vacuums , long-lasting batteries so you can wh However, unlike many of the best robot vacuums , which are self-emptying and eject dirt and debris into a base station that only needs to be emptied around every 30 days or so, cordless vacuums requi



Batman Two New Posters•
A new poster for The Batman has been released online – and the superhero movie's latest piece of promotional art appears to turn the tables on the costumed vigilante. Posted on the official DC Comics Twitter account, the one sheet shows Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight – in his superhero get-up, no less – staring directly at whoever is looking at the poster. The Batman 's official logo is also pres



OnePlus 10 March India•
The OnePlus 10 Pro launched at an event in China in early January, but we're still waiting on a global equivalent so we can find out how much it'll cost and when it'll go on sale everywhere else. The company hasn't said anything yet, but a leaker thinks the new OnePlus phone will arrive in March 2022. The source is a relatively new leaker called Yogesh Brar , who tweeted about upcoming smartphone



22TechCrunch / 2h
Moroccan B2B e-commerce and retail startup Chari confirmed to TechCrunch that it has secured a bridge round at a $100 million valuation. The bridge round welcomed new investors Khwarizmi Ventures, Air Angels and Afri Mobility, the venture capital arm of AKWA Group. They join existing investors (Y Combinator, Rocket Internet, Global Founders Capital, Plug n Play, Orange Ventures, Harvard Universit



Horizon Forbidden West•
Horizon Forbidden West will star Carrie-Anne Moss, best known for her role as Trinity in the Matrix franchise, as the voice of a new character. Developer Guerrilla Games released a story trailer for the upcoming title earlier today, detailing many of its new factions, antagonists, and narrative threads. One such character revealed in the new trailer is Tilda, who narrative director Ben McCaw and



Google Play Games Windows•
Google Play Games, a PC app that lets you play Android games on a Windows PC, has finally launched – but there's a catch. The app is only available as a beta, and only in three countries: Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. If you visit the Google Play Games site from any other country, you'll get a "beta isn’t available in your region yet" message. Furthermore, the catalog of games currently on o



Canon Eos R5 Cinema•
Canon has revealed the EOS R5C, a new member of its cinema camera line that looks like a good choice for photos, too. It strongly resembles Canon's EOS R5 mirrorless camera, but has a big hump in back to accommodate an active cooling system. As such, it offers most of the benefits of the EOS R5 with none of the overheating issues when shooting 8K or high frame rate 4K video. On the video side, th



Microsoft Surface 8•
Microsoft India today announced that the new Surface Pro 8 and the Surface Pro 7+ will be available in the country from February 15. The pre-orders for the new Surface Pro 8 commenced today via select retail and online partners. The devices will be available via commercial authorized resellers and authorized retail and online partners like Amazon and Reliance Digital. Microsoft had launched Surfa



Metaverse Microsoft•
Dressing for a virtual world is going to be both enormously liberating and potentially very, very messy.



Octopus Ventures London•
Mention Me , a platform to generate customer referrals, has raised a $25m Series B round, led by London’s Octopus Ventures. Eight Roads Ventures, the lead investor from the prior round, a $7 million Series A in a 2018, also participated. The London-based startup helps businesses turn referrals into a channel for acquiring customers, while also gathering data for other marketing activities. Mentio



Pasqal Qu&Co Quantum•
Terra Quantum , a Zurich, Switzerland-based startup that aims to build a Quantum-as-a-Service platform (including, eventually, its own proprietary quantum hardware), today announced that it has raised a $60 million Series A round led by Lakestar , which also backed the company’s 2019 seed round. The additional investors in this round prefer to remain anonymous. According to Terra, they include tw



Vienna PlanRadar Raises•
Back in March Vienna-based PlanRadar snapped up a €30 million Series A to digitize construction and real estate. The Austrian startup – a platform for documentation and communication in construction and real estate projects – is continuing its funding roll with a $70 million fundraising round co-led by Insight Partners and Quadrille Capital. The round also drew participation from existing investo
YESTERDAY



Shenmue Crunchyroll•
The Shenmue anime series is almost here, over a year after it was announced at the Virtual Crunchyroll Expo. It will premiere on February 5th 9:30PM PST/February 6th 12:30AM EST, with Crunchyroll offering its subscribers the Japanese subbed version outside of Japan and China. Meanwhile, the English dubbed version will air via Adult Swim's Toonami anime block. Shenmue tells the story of Ryo Hazuki




M2P Fintech Tiger Global•
23TechCrunch / 4h
M2P Fintech, a payments infrastructure startup that has established market dominance in India, has raised $56 million in a new financing round, less than three months after closing its previous funding, as it works to deepen its footprints in several international geographies. Insight Partners, the New York-based private equity and venture capital firm, led the Chennai-headquartered startup’s Ser



Wandercraft Exoskeleton•
Wandercraft was founded in 2012, with the vision of improving mobility of wheelchair users. The company’s solution comes by way of exoskeletons, which can offer wearers the ability to walk with robotic assistance. In 2019, the Parisian firm launched Atalante, a self-balancing exoskeleton with 12 degrees of freedom that relies on walking on algorithms to determine a user’s gait. Today, the firm an



Paris-based Wandercraft has announced that it's latest " Atalante " exoskeleton has been updated to give paraplegic and other patients a more natural gait during rehabilitation exercises. It also received a Medical Device Regulation (MDR) certificate in Europe, allowing patients and medical staff to use the device more widely. Finally, it's taken a step closer to personal exoskeletons with additi



Murray Daniel Australian•
World No.2 Daniil Medvedev may be the favourite for the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, but he's been handed the second round draw from hell with the Melbourne crowd eating out of Nick Kyrgios' hands. The biggest personality in tennis has already provided an entire highlights reel of entertainment and will doubtless fire up the home crowd when the match gets underway at 8am this morning. Read on as



Murray Daniel Australian•
Emma Raducanu faces her Australian Open second round opponent, Danka Kovinic, this morning with the match scheduled for an 8am start. Such is grand slam tournament tennis that even a world no.98 could well be banana skin for the Brit. Those in the UK will be able to tune in with their breakfast. Read on as we explain how to watch Australian Open tennis online and get a Raducanu vs Kovinic live st



Yellowstone is undoubtedly one of the biggest shows in the world right now, with the cowboy drama reaching Game of Thrones-style viewership numbers during its recent season 4 finale , as reported by Forbes . In an era where television is dominated by superhero shows, science fiction sagas and fantasy epics, Yellowstone has resonated with viewers by bringing the focus back down to Earth and tellin



Looking to watch something new this week in the UAE or Saudi Arabia? See For Me is a thriller that introduces a blind protagonist looking to survive a house invasion. Potterheads can also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter movie with a special screening of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone coming back to cinemas. If you prefer staying at home, you can start binge-watc



French startup Luko is acquiring German startup Coya in order to grow its European presence and get an insurance license from German regulator. While Luko isn’t disclosing terms of the deal, the company says it’s a 100% share deal, which means that Coya investors are now Luko investors. Those investors include Valar Ventures, Headline and Roland Berger’s family office. Luko started as a home insu



Consumer Reports Ford GM•
With more automakers including driver assistance systems in their cars, Consumer Reports is changing how it grades those vehicles. Starting this year, the outlet will add an additional two points to a car’s overall score if its included driver assistance system encourages safe driving. Moving forward, it will also deduct points from a vehicle’s total score if it finds the opposite is true, starti



TL;DR: The 2022 All-in-One Adobe Creative Cloud Suite Certification Course Bundle is on sale for £36.73, saving you 97% on list price. Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps are notoriously complicated for new users. The learning curve is steep, even if you fancy yourself as a tech-savvy person. It’s OK to admit you need some help. After all, YouTube can only take you so far. Fortunately, this All-in-One Ad



2022 U.S. News Hybrid•
When you want an electric car, but price is a dealbreaker, U.S. News & World Report only recommends hybrids. Late Wednesday night, U.S. News released its 2022 list and for the two categories, "Best hybrid and electric car and SUV for the money," Hyundai Elantra Hybrid and Hyundai Tucson Hybrid, respectively, were revealed as the winners. Those were the only EV-eligible categories. Hyundai secured



TL;DR: The 2022 Premium School of Digital Art Bundle is on sale for £25.71, saving you 98% on list price. You don't have to monetise all of your hobbies, but if you can, it's even better. If you've always dreamed about a career in art, whether that's in comic book drawing, graphic design, or anything you can think of, you can sharpen your skills for £25 with this bundle deal. The 2022 Premium Sch



TL;DR: ProtonVPN offers one of the best free services for protecting your online data and identity. A free subscription to ProtonVPN provides access to 24 servers in three countries. Subscribing to a VPN is a big deal. You're signing up to a service that should protect your most important information, possibly for years. Most people aren't prepared to commit without testing out a service. This is



100+Mashable / 7h
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has already come and gone this year, but the issues this national holiday highlights remain relevant all year round. On the latest episode of The Daily Show , host Trevor Noah spoke to minister Bernice King about her parents' legacy, and how her father's principles are so often misrepresented. "In your lifetime you saw your father go from being one of the most hated men



Murray Daniel Australian•
Five-time Aussie Open finalist Andy Murray has won his first AO match in five years, and he now comes face to face with qualifier Taro Daniel in the second round this morning at Melbourne Park. Murray took five sets to get past No.21 seed Nikoloz Basilashvili. Taro Daniel has won his four matches in Melbourne, so far, with maximum efficiency. Read on as we explain how to watch Australian Open ten



Singapore StaffAny•
A SaladStop worker uses StaffAny to clock in StaffAny , a management platform for SMEs with shift workers, has raised a $3.4 million Series A led by GGV Capital. The round included participation from East Ventures, FreakOut Shinsei Fund, Far East Ventures, Farquhar Venture Capital and angel investors including Allen Shim, former CFO of Slack. The round will be used to expand into more markets and



It was only last week that the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE finally became available, so you might be surprised to hear that this new device is already on sale. For one day only, Telstra has discounted the S21 FE down to AU$899, which is AU$100 off its retail price. The S21 FE is a more affordable version of the standard Samsung Galaxy S21 , and it still comes with a vibrant screen, a powerful processor



Best App 2021 Crypto•
You've heard friends brag about their cryptocurrency winnings. You've seen prices go up (and down) by hundreds of percent. You're genuinely interested in the crypto space. No matter what your reason is, if you're thinking about getting into crypto, the first thing you have to do is buy some. And the easiest way to do that is through an app...but how do you choose the right one? Before we reveal o



Natee Meepian/Shutterstock Once a major manufacturer of Android smartphones, LG disappointed fans when it announced it would exit the smartphone business, effective July 31, 2021. The announcement followed months of speculation that LG was looking to sell or offload its smartphone division. While many LG fans were shocked by the announcement, the news did not come as a surprise to industry watche



Saas Labs Raises CallPage•
21TechCrunch / 9h
SaaS Labs has raised $42 million in a new financing round, less than three months after closing its previous funding, and acquired two startups as it looks to aggressively grow its automation platform that serves sales and support teams at small and medium-sized businesses. Sequoia Capital India led SaaS Labs’ Series B round. Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures, two existing backers, as wel




Dropee Malaysia Series•
100+TechCrunch / 9h
Another startup focused on SMEs in Southeast Asia has announced a funding round. Dropee , a Malaysia-based B2B wholesale platform that also offers financial services, like working capital loans, to SMEs, said today it has closed a Series A round totaling $7 million. The Y Combinator alum raised $3 million in equity and $4 million in debt, led by returning investor Vynn Capital. Other participants



Gizmodo / 9h
The Department of Defense will spend tens of millions of dollars this year on a number of “surveillance blimps”—high-tech balloons that will be sent to the U.S. border with Mexico for the purposes of ferreting out drug smugglers. Read more...



Red Cross Data People•
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) The Red Cross on Wednesday pleaded with the threat actors behind a cyberattack that stole the personal data of about 515,000 people who used a program that works to reunite family members separated by conflict, disaster or migration. "While we don't know who is responsible for this attack, or why they carried it out, we do have this appeal to make to them," Robert M



Rhys Darby Taika Waititi•
33Ars Technica / 10h
Enlarge / Rhys Darby stars as gentleman pirate Stede Bennett in the upcoming HBO Max comedy series Our Flag Means Death . (credit: YouTube/HBO Max ) It's no secret that Ars staffers are big Taika Waititi fans. He always brings his distinctly quirky sensibility to his projects, from What We Do in the Shadows , Wellington Paranormal, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, to JoJo Rabbit , Reservation Dogs,



YouTube Susanne Daniels•
Mashable / 10h
YouTube is reducing its original programming division following the departure of Global Head of Originals Susanne Daniels. Launched in 2016, YouTube Originals began life as a subscription service streaming ad-free series and films. However, faced with an already-crowded video-on-demand field, the Google-owned video platform soon changed tack. In 2019, YouTube all but wiped its $12-per-month Premi



30Mashable / 10h
BeReal takes casual posting to the next level. Founded in 2020 by French entrepreneur Alexis Barreyat, BeReal was made in response to the current social media landscape. It's not like Instagram, where users can curate their feeds and edit their images. BeReal doesn't allow you to curate. There are no filters. It simply gives users a random two-minute window each day to post one photo. When you po



YouTube Susanne Daniels•
SlashGear / 10h
Chubo – my masterpiece/Shutterstock YouTube has effectively brought its Originals to an end, the company has announced. Though YouTube Originals won’t be entirely eliminated, the company has revealed that it’ll reduce its funding for this kind of programming to only two categories: YouTube Kids and Black Voices. That may not be a big deal going forward, however, as YouTube Shorts has ushered in a



American Airlines has been clamping down on websites that work with AAdvantage member data for their customers. They made Award Wallet stop tracking member accounts and they sent a cease and desist letter to Red Ventures, which owns The Points Guy , over its TPG app which - among other things - lets customers track their frequent flyer program balances. American sought to stop the practice, and s



43Mashable / 11h
We knew those Build-A-Bear people had to be freaks. The mall and children's birthday party mainstay has launched a new product line with a description that frankly just sounds kind of dirty. "HeartBox" is a series of gift boxes that contain tchotchkes and, duh, a bear, that aren't meant for Build-A-Bear's usual customers — which, please God, are usually kids. Instead, Build-A-Bear describes the l



500+Gizmodo / 11h
Star Wars shows are generally very secretive about what’s coming in the future. However, the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett gave its audience as clear a clue as one can hear. It happened at the end of the fourth episode, “ The Gathering Storm ,” which means we’re going to have to talk spoilers. Read more...



Google Play Windows•
During the 2021 Game Awards, the Google Play team wandered on stage to announce Google Play Games for Windows PCs. The standalone application, which is separate from the Microsoft app store, will let you download Android games from Google Play and share purchased games between all your devices. Now, Google Play Games for Windows is entering an extremely limited beta. Read This Article on Review G



Tracking the virus in wastewater is helping some cities and hospitals respond to the most recent wave of the coronavirus, but a more coordinated national effort is needed, experts say.



Hilton has been making waves on the shores of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with the addition of a handful of new resorts in some of the area’s most popular destinations . Now, one of the most luxurious properties in the bunch, The Conrad Tulum Riviera Maya , is officially open. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . Not too long ago, this sleepy t



Google Play Games Windows•
20Ars Technica / 11h
Enlarge / Google's Windows Android app store. (credit: Google) As it announced in December , Google is bringing Android games to Windows. The project is simply called "Google Play Games," and the Windows version is now open for beta sign-ups. The catch is that Google Play Games is getting a very limited distribution: you'll need to be in Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong to sign up. If you manage to ge



Opera Crypto Browser•
In addition to its existing browser , Opera has unveiled a new Web3 browser which is now in beta on Windows, Mac and Android as part of its “Crypto Browser Project”. The company's new browser is based around cryptocurrency and will provide users with an easier way to browse decentralized apps, games and metaverse platforms for a more seamless cross-platform experience. Opera's Web3 browser also c



Google Play Games Windows•
Back in December, it was revealed that Google had plans to bring Android games to Windows 11 and Windows 10 systems in 2022. The company is ready to show more of its hand, with a small beta release of the Google Play Games service. This means that eager gamers in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan have the chance to sign up and play their favorite Android games on Windows. It's a move that sees G



Microsoft Blizzard•
Activision has a lot of popular games that fit into Microsoft’s plans to build a vast library of titles that can be played on all sorts of devices. The metaverse can wait.



Watching Hours Risk•
100+Gizmodo / 11h
Binge-watching your favorite series isn’t so good for your circulation, a new review of the research suggests. The study found that people who regularly watched TV four or more hours a day were more likely to develop a blood clotting condition that can lead to serious health problems and even death. What’s more, this… Read more...



Google Play Games Windows•
Gizmodo / 11h
Google on Wednesday took the next steps in its plan to bring Android games to PCs , opening sign-ups in select regions to beta test the feature a year after it was first announced. Read more...



Google Play Games Windows•
200+Engadget / 11h
You can now play Google Play Games on Windows — if you live in the right country. Google has launched a registration-based beta offering access to "popular" Play Games titles on Windows PCs in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. If you get in, you can hop into titles like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Summoners War without reaching for an Android phone or Chromebook . You can take advantage of the




Google Play Games Windows•
52TechCrunch / 11h
Google today will begin rolling out a limited beta test of its newly announced Google Play Games for PC product in three overseas markets: Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. The Google Play Games PC application, which was announced last month during The Game Awards event , allows people to play Google Play games on Windows PCs, in addition to currently supported platforms like mobile, tablet and



Google Play Games Windows•
Back in December, Google announced that it was bringing Android games to Windows through its own app, and now the company has provided some additional details, including a batch of Android games that’ll be playable on Windows. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



It’s been nearly six years since Nanoleaf launched its first product, the Rhythm Light Panels. That’s a long time for any smart lighting product, and as Nanoleaf advances its devices with technologies like Thread, it’s time to send the old Light Panels off for retirement. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



SlashGear / 11h
Image: Wachiwit/Shutterstock Siri’s voice is probably one many of us are familiar with. Many iPhone users speak to Siri on a daily basis, but have you ever wondered where Siri’s voice comes from? While these days Apple uses fancy machine learning and computer speech to generate Siri’s tone and inflection, back in the virtual assistant’s early days, her voice was based on … Continue reading



Final FF Italian Senate•
40Futurism / 11h
Mamma Mia In the era of COVID-19, governments conducting their business over Zoom is par for the course — and, naturally, so is Zoom-bombing porn into them. As Kotaku and others reported , the Italian Senate was holding a meeting in which experts were presenting data on transparency in civil service — the kind of boring, everyday video meeting that’s practically begging to be spiced up with a bit



Elon Musk Tesla AI AGI•
500+Futurism / 11h
Listen up, folks: Elon Musk is going to build the world’s first sentient robots — but don’t worry, he has a workaround to avoid a “Terminator”-esque catastrophe. It may sound like a bit of a stretch, but that doesn’t mean the Tesla and SpaceX CEO doesn’t believe it will happen. In a recent tweet, he claimed out of nowhere that his car company’s recently-teased humanoid robot , Optimus, “might pla



Opera Crypto Browser•
Mashable / 12h
Opera just installed guard rails on the NFT on-ramp. The company behind the little - used Chromium-based browser released the beta version of its "crypto browser" Wednesday, and the all-in-one web browser, cryptocurrency wallet, and portal to fiat-to-ethereum exchange makes buying, selling, and holding non-fungible tokens surprisingly easy. In its announcement , Opera (likely correctly) implies t



SlashGear / 12h
Kamil Urban/Shutterstock Getting new internet service can be a bit of a hassle. Not only do you have to schedule tech support appointments to install your service, but you also have to figure out where you’re going to put your modem and possibly a router if the modem doesn’t have one in it. Of course, there are other things to worry about, … Continue reading



28TechCrunch / 12h
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 19, 2022! What a news roundup we have for you today: China’s changing venture landscape, the power of passwords, no-code startups, and why women are still raising paltry sums compared to men. Please enjoy! – Alex The Te



AT&T Verizon C-Band•
Gizmodo / 12h
AT&T and Verizon activated their C-band 5G spectrum today, a move that marks the long-awaited arrival of true 5G speeds for hundreds of millions of customers. Read more...



Crypto.com Com 400•
200+TechCrunch / 12h
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said around 400 customer accounts have been compromised in a hack in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. His confirmation of the breach comes after multiple Crypto.com users alleged their funds had been stolen – complaints that had until now been met with vague responses from the company. While Marszalek did not provide details as to how the hack occurred, h



Editor’s note: This post has been updated with the latest IHG Rewards promotions. This morning, IHG Rewards announced changes to its elite status tiers . And now, IHG Rewards is opening registration for a new bonus points promotion. In particular, IHG members can earn double base points on stays with IHG between Feb. 1, 2022, and March 31, 2022. You must register for this promotion before the end



Google G Suite Workspace•
100+Ars Technica / 12h
Enlarge / An artist's rendering of Google's current reputation. (credit: Aurich Lawson ) Google says the free ride is over for early users of the company's custom domain G Suite service. Google has long offered a service that lets you use Google apps on a custom domain, allowing you to have a Google email address that ends in your domain instead of "gmail.com." For the first six years of the serv



Enlarge (credit: Western Digital ) Western Digital has patched three critical vulnerabilities—one with a severity rating of 9.8 and another with a 9.0—that make it possible for hackers to steal data or remotely hijack storage devices running version 3 of the company’s My Cloud OS. CVE-2021-40438 , as one of the vulnerabilities is tracked, allows remote attackers with no authentication to make dev



Gizmodo / 12h
The 33rd annual GLAAD Media Award nominations are here, and— as is often the case —sci-fi and fantasy projects are well-represented on the list. Dubbed by the organization as “the most visible annual LGBTQ awards show in the world,” the event honors fair representations of LGBTQ issues and people in settings both… Read more...



SlashGear / 12h
Image: Eric Broder Van Dyke/Shutterstock It’s been a big Tuesday for the game industry. This morning, Microsoft announced that it has entered a deal to purchase Activision Blizzard, the largest third-party games publisher in the world. Microsoft is paying nearly $70 billion for Activision Blizzard, making the $7.5 billion it paid for ZeniMax Media and its subsidiaries a year ago look like a paltr



Air India US•
Ten leading US airlines are warning that the expansion of 5G services could be disastrous.



Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer for Google and parent company Alphabet, wrote a long blog post this week that argues that the "anti-tech" bills the US Congress is considering threaten to break important Google services and literally threaten the health of the public. I'm not kidding. There's a lot to unpack in the post, but Google's argument boils down to three es



1KFuturism / 12h
In a medical story pulled straight from the nightmares of every penis-haver, a man accidentally got his genitalia injected with insulation foam in an attempt to cure his erectile dysfunction. Researchers published the sordid case study in the journal Urology Case Reports. It details


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