Friday, May 06, 2022

Technology News and More for a Saturday

Technology News and More...






Dragon NASA Crew-3 Earth•
500+Mashable / 21h
Last week, we watched NASA safely launch SpaceX's Crew-4 to the ISS — and now, Crew-3 is back on dry land. Earlier this morning NASA broadcast the return of astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, who landed safely off the coast of Florida in the early hours of Friday morning after spending six months carrying out research on



500+Gizmodo / 10h
As I walked home from a (more or less) midnight unlock showing of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness , I turned the last corner to get to my house, and I saw a flashing light. A group of them. There, on the corner, at a house I had walked by hundreds of times, the porch light was turning on and off, on and… Read more...



The Tor Project is about to get a whole lot faster thanks to a brand new system introduced in the latest version of the popular browser . Called Congestion Control, the new system promises “significant performance improvements in Tor, as well as increased utilization of our network capacity”, the announcement reads. Congestion Control is already available in version 0.4.7.7., albeit with a caveat




Spotify is shutting down Spotify Stations, its lightweight music streaming app, on May 16, according to emails being sent out to users. The email is being shared across Twitter which explains both the standalone app and web-based player will no longer function. In fact, Spotify isn’t even waiting until May 16 to begin shutting down Stations as the app has already been delisted from the Google Pla



TL;DR: The Premium Python Programming Certification Bundle is on sale for £23.93, saving you 98% on list price. Learning to code is becoming much more approachable for the everyday person. It’s not just an exclusive skill held by higher-ups in the IT industry anymore. Everyday computer users are coding their own video games. Kids are coding their own robots. And you can get in on the fun, too, wi



Tech is sexy, or at least it can be, and that's mostly thanks to Steve Jobs and the iMac, which was unveiled 24 years ago this week. Your options for home and office computing in 1998 were dull and duller. So-called white-box PCs dominated the personal computing landscape. They were invariably white or beige rectangles, featuring multiple removable storage slots, a grill to let some air move over



Chingona Ventures , a three-year-old, Chicago-based venture outfit that invests in pre-seed startups, primarily in the Midwest and primarily founded by overlooked individuals who are focused on massive markets, has closed a new fund with $52 million in capital commitments. Limited partners in the new fund include PayPal Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Melinda Gates’s Pivotal Ventures, Foundry



Trump Lawsuit Twitter•
A federal judge in California dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter Friday, dimming at least one avenue the former president and prolific tweeter might have used to get back to his platform of choice. Trump’s argument that the social media company and its then-chief executive Jack Dorsey violated his right to free speech failed to convince Judge James Donato of the Northern District of



Florida Musk Twitter•
Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout of Twitter is facing its first legal challenge . A Florida pension fund is suing Musk and Twitter, arguing that the deal can't legally close until 2025 due to the billionaire's stake in the platform. The proposed class-action lawsuit — filed today by the Orlando Police Pension Fund in the Delaware Chancery court— also declares that Twitter’s board of directors breac



Doctor Strange Madness•
34Mashable / 5h
Every good Marvel fan knows to stay in their seat after the credits roll on an MCU movie . Marvel has mastered the art of the next-movie tease, introducing characters as influential as Thanos in the post-credits of The Avengers and seeding plotlines like Nick Fury being in space in Spider-Man: Far From Home . Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness naturally maintains this pattern, with an ex



Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the most fun, and occasionally weirdest, way to spend your money on the internet. This week, Lego turns to Marvel for its cutest new set, Hasbro teases what’s coming from its Obi-Wan Kenobi merch, and... well, have you ever needed more encouragement for proper… Read more...



The event will be taking place on 1 August 2022 at the Royal Albert Hall in London.



Mining Capital Coin•
Mining Capital Coin CEO and founder Luiz Capuci Jr. was — in an indictment unsealed yesterday — accused by the DOJ of allegedly running a $62 million global investment fraud scheme. He's the latest of several crypto company heads who have recently been similarly charged. Through his company, Capuci convinced investors to purchase “Mining Packages," a global network of cryptocurrency mines that pr



Workers had accused the companies of unlawful behavior during recent union campaigns.



To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here . Friday, May 6, is here. The only thing important about that is the “Friday” part – and we are eager and curious to see what this weekend has in store for us, because this week had many of our colleagues using expletives in their reporting, case in point this report



Enlarge / Oscar Isaac is a tormented man with multiple personalities who becomes the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu in Moon Knight . (credit: YouTube/Marvel Studios) Can anything good ever come of gods interfering in the affairs of men? That's the underlying conundrum posed in Moon Knight , the latest spinoff series in the MCU's Phase Four, and in the case of the series, the answer is a



Read more...



99Gizmodo / 7h
If you’ve watched anime on Netflix recently, you might have been recommended a series called Thermae Romae Novae . You might have glanced at the picture, wondered, “Is this a series about a guy from ancient Rome taking a bath?” and immediately moved on. I’m here to tell you that’s almost exactly what this series is… Read more...



Editor’s note: Madison Blancaflor was a guest of Walt Disney World to preview Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind as part of the 50th anniversary celebration. Disney provided her travel to the event, her two-night stay and the experience itself. The opinions expressed below are entirely hers and weren’t subject to review by Disney or any other entity. I absolutely love roller coasters — have s



If noisy mechanical keyboards are the bane of your life at home or in the office then you may have just found the perfect excuse to stop your colleagues or loved one from smashing those keys so loudly - it turns out that hackers can tell almost exactly what you're writing just by listening to you type. Keytap3 is a software developed by Georgi Gerganov that can detect what keys are being pressed



Horror fans all know the trope: when tragedy strikes , evil spirits try to prey on the survivors left behind. (Bonus points if there’s a child involved .) The Twin —the English-language debut of Finnish writer-director Taneli Mustonen (2016's true crime-inspired Lake Bodom ), who co-wrote with producer Aleksi Hyvärinen,… Read more...



Musk Trump Twitter•
Here’s what Mr. Musk is projecting for Twitter’s finances over the next few years, according to a pitch deck he presented to investors.



World of Hyatt Business Credit Card overview The World of Hyatt Business Credit Card is a mid-tier hotel credit card that can provide serious value to Hyatt loyalists looking to spend their way toward status perks or unlock a 10% points rebate feature. However, there are trade-offs you should consider before putting that much spending on a credit card that doesn’t offer any free night certificate




Doctor Strange Madness•
The cast and crew of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness join us to talk about what we can expect from Marvel's latest journey into the multiverse.



In yet another indication that the U.S. is over the covid-19 pandemic—although health officials state it is by no means over yet—Lyft announced on Thursday that it was bringing back carpooling to five cities this month: San Francisco, San Jose, Denver, Las Vegas, and Atlanta. The ride hailing company plans to relaunch… Read more...



CDC 109 Cases Hepatitis•
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg | Getty Images ) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating 109 cases of unexplained liver inflammation—hepatitis—in young children from 25 states over the past seven months. Of the 109 affected children, five have died, and 15 (14 percent) required liver transplants. The children were all under the age of 10, and 90 percent were hospitalized. T



Hey everyone, and welcome back to Chain Reaction. In our Chain Reaction podcast this week, Anita and I chatted with Slow Ventures’ Jill Gunter on why there are so many dang blockchains out there and if we’re headed to a future where everything is built on a single ‘chain. More details below. Last week, we chatted a bit about the political isolation of Bitcoin that’s happening as a result of its e



Workers had accused the companies of unlawful behavior during recent union campaigns.



Consider that Airbnb no longer allows positive Covid test refunds, and United Airlines no longer runs APUs during boarding and deplaning. The travel industry is moving on from its pandemic policies. And that means travelers are increasingly on their own - especially if they test positive for the virus during travel and aren't allowed to fly home. Continue reading ...



It’s Friday, which means it’s time to celebrate a deal! Round-trip flights to Vancouver , British Columbia, on a variety of carriers are starting at just $200. This deal is especially good for our West Coast flyers, but there’s also availability out of New York City. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . Burrard Bridge in Vancouver, British Col



Editor’s note : This post has been updated with the latest information. United has launched a new round of Mile Play promotions , which awards bonus miles to targeted members after flying a set number of flights. Now’s a good time to check to see if you are eligible and then register — even if you aren’t sure of your upcoming travel plans quite yet. Several TPG staff members have received targete



100+Gizmodo / 8h
The U.S. Department of Justice is stepping up for environmental justice efforts. Attorney General Merrick Garland just announced a new office of the department that will exclusively focus on the human impacts of pollution and climate changed-fueled disasters. Read more...



Reddit users have been clamoring for the ability to search comments for years, and now the social media website has rolled out the feature site-wide. Filtering searches by comment means less time scrolling results and more efficient searches. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



The classic Peanuts characters are back with a new Mother’s Day special. Called Snoopy Presents: To Mom (and Dad) With Love, this special focuses on Peppermint Patty, who lives with a father but not a mother. But where can you watch the new Peanuts special? Read This Article on Review Geek ›



If you’re like many people in the world, you spend at least part of every day typing on a keyboard. Chances are, you use whatever cheap keyboard you got on sale, and it’s the classic single strip QWERTY layout affair. But I’m here to say: it’s time to switch to a fully split keyboard. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



There's no reason to stick with the default apps on your Android phone when there very well be many that better suit you. Here's how to optimize.



24Gizmodo / 8h
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds heads to the franchise’s past to tell adventure stories for a bright, optimistic future —but its very first episode has looked to our own recent history to provide a proxy that has some very unfortunate connotations. Read more...



OpenSea Discord NFT•
The official Discord channel of the NFT marketplace OpenSea was recently infiltrated by cybercriminals who used it to distribute a phishing link. According to The Verge , a bot in the channel made a fake announcement that the NFT marketplace was partnering with YouTube and that users should click on a “YouTube Genesis Mint Pass” in order to get one of 100 free NFTs before they’re gone forever. Sh



Our relationships with our mothers can be complicated. Even if you have a close relationship with your mom, you might have had thoughts like, “I wish she wouldn’t call everyday,” “I don’t like it when she makes me feel guilty for my choices,” or “I don’t like it when my mom meddles in my personal life.” Read more...



US Treasury North Korea•
Cryptocurrency mixers are sometimes used to help online criminals launder their stolen money by hiding its true origins, and the US Treasury is now ready to clamp down on them when hostile governments are involved. The department has issued its first sanctions against a Bitcoin mixer, Blender.io, for allegedly and "indiscriminately" helping North Korea launder over $20.5 million in crypto from th



Certain Apple products appear to have estimated shipping times that are far longer than they've been in the past. User-configured models seem to be the focus.



Stratolaunch Roc Test•
100+Gizmodo / 9h
The biggest airplane ever built just flew over the Mojave desert for its fifth test flight, inching closer to fulfilling its role of carrying and releasing hypersonic vehicles. Read more...



Xbox Streaming Samsung•
It's been 11 months since Microsoft confirmed it's making a dedicated game-streaming device and a smart TV app for the Xbox ecosystem. The company hasn't announced many more details about either since then, but a new report suggests they could arrive in the coming months. The streaming device, which can be plugged into a TV or monitor, will have either a stick or a puck design, according to Games




The Porsche 959 is not seen on the streets in the United States for quite some time -- and the reason why is both interesting and quite surprising.



Denver 16 Southwest•
Southwest Airlines is gearing up to grow in Denver with the opening of a big concourse expansion. Local politicians, along with Denver International Airport (DEN) authorities, celebrated the completion of 16 new gates at the airport’s Concourse C, which is home to Southwest’s operation in the Mile High City, on Thursday. The new gates, which are all leased by Southwest, will provide plenty of spa



Whether you’re in an unfamiliar place or broadening your horizons in your hometown, there are plenty of tools online to customize different walk, run, and bike routes wherever you are. The online tools we’ll highlight here are not all created equal, so let’s take a look at the best free options depending on what… Read more...



biblioklept : Reading, Whale Point — Stephen Scott Young Reading, Whale Point, 2000 by Stephen Scott Young (b. 1957)



In mid-April, we saw a fantastic limited time welcome bonus rolled out on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card , which anyone who is eligible should consider. I wanted to recap this offer, since it has been a few weeks, and it’s anyone’s guess how much longer this will be around. Chase Sapphire Preferred offering 80,000 points The Chase Sapphire Preferred has a limited time welcome offer of 80,000



Google Sheets lets you sort your spreadsheets as well as the contents within those spreadsheets by date. You can use Sheets’ built-in functions to do that, and we’ll show you how. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



While Amazon's Alexa is considered the high water mark for digital assistants, the company's smartphone predecessor could have caused a ton of damage.



The market for startup investment has changed. From the hottest year in startup venture capital history to a period of pessimism, how did we get to where we are today? The following digest of TechCrunch coverage looks to answer that question. We start with a historical run of stories beginning last December, threading through the start of the year until we reach the latest data from the VC ecosys



OK, maybe it is a reckoning . Over the past week, we’ve witnessed an alarming amount of layoffs across the startup ecosystem, from buzzy, big names like Cameo, On Deck and Robinhood, to B2B platforms like Workrise and Thrasio. The common thread between most of these layoffs, according to founders, is that there’s been a shift in the market and a serious pivot in business is required. A pivot, tha



The airline route-map adjustments may have slowed down in recent months, but Delta just made some notable network cuts. The Atlanta-based carrier trimmed three domestic routes during its latest schedule update, as first seen in Cirium timetables and later confirmed by an airline spokesperson. Delta is ending nonstop flights between the following three city pairs: Boston (BOS) and Toronto (YYZ). D



1KFuturism / 9h
The Liver King comes by at least one thing honestly: his name. Born Brian Johnson, the 45-year-old influencer is famous for eating large amounts of raw meat — including a morbid pound of liver every day — as well as lifting big weights and showing off his lifestyle on TikTok and Instagram. The star of the show are his comically gigantic muscles, bigger even than the ones our most beloved superher



The best GPS trackers for cars are the ideal way to keep tabs on a driver’s location, making them an invaluable tool for parents who want to keep track of their teen driver or business owners who have a fleet to manage. These trackers are small enough to hide undetected inside a car. Some even have powerful magnets that allow you to attach them to a vehicle’s underside. In addition to broadcastin



Amazon Staten Island•
Amazon fired a number of senior managers from its JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island on Thursday, only a month after workers voted to unionize . The New York Times reported that the company axed more than half a dozen senior-level workers on Thursday, many of who were involved in union organizing. A number of anonymous employees told the NYT that they believed the firings were retaliatory. JFK8 is t



A glass recycling and shoreline restoration project in New Orleans was inspired by a bottle of wine. Cofounders Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz met as students at Tulane University. One night, over drinks, they lamented about how their wine bottle would just end up in the trash, because New Orleans does not recycle… Read more...



Read more...



Raimi Strange Madness•
44Mashable / 10h
"Are our littlest kids going to be OK at Doctor Strange ? Seeing it described as a horror movie." I hadn't given too much thought to the family-friendliness of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness until a friend messaged me with that question. As the parent of a toddler myself, I'm surprised at how heavily director Sam Raimi swerved away from Marvel's typically all-ages fare. But I'm not c



Gucci announces the adoption of cryptocurrency -- such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and a few shockers, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu -- for use in stores.



the Supreme Court Roe•
42Wired / 10h
The CEO of digital abortion clinic Hey Jane discusses the grim future of reproductive rights in the US and the clinic’s plans to keep providing access.



SAVE 39%: If your home has hard flooring, check out the Shark S3501 Steam Pocket Mop , a handy stick mop that does't require buckets of water. It's on sale at Amazon for just $54.99, which is down 39% from its regular price of $89.99. If you've been feeling congested but testing negative on those rapid antigen tests, it might be pollen allergies — now that we're in the midst of spring, pollen is



Everyone has old cell phones sitting in their cabinet. Fortunately, there actually are a number of quite useful purposes for them.




Since the pandemic began, the percentage of American workers who have quit their jobs has reached a 20-year high. A Pew Research poll gathered their top three reasons: Not making enough money No opportunities for advancement Tired of unfair/disrespectful treatment Companies no longer compete on the basis of salary and benefits. Prospective hires are explicitly looking for environments where they



Facebook feature Nearby Friends will shutter its service doors soon. Now is as good a time as any to take a look at your privacy settings in the Facebook app.



An online phishing attack typically involves a scammer attempting to impersonate a service you use in a bid to get credentials or money out of you. Another more targeted and potentially more lucrative version of this scam is called whaling or whale phishing. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



No app is truly “finished”—even if you love it inside and out, it could always be just a little better. WhatsApp is the world’s most popular chat app, but it isn’t without room for improvement. And improve it will with these three new features, rolling out to WhatsApp users everywhere now. Read more...



25Gizmodo / 10h
If you’ve recently unwrapped a brand new Windows 11 computer or perhaps built one yourself , then you’re going to have to go through the setup process for Microsoft’s newest operating system—and while Cortana may have been dropped, there are still plenty of screens to work through and plenty of options to choose from. Read more...



US Travel End Testing•
The U.S. Travel Association sent an open letter to the Biden administration yesterday urging an end to the COVID-19 testing requirement for inbound vaccinated air travelers. For more news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for TPG’s daily newsletter . USTA — a lobbying group made up of 1,100 travel industry members, including airlines, airports, hotels, theme parks and tourism groups —



Apple TV, Apple Watch, iPhone, iPod touch, and macOS devices can all cancel App Store subscriptions if one follows the right set of steps.



Daniel Ek $50M Spotify•
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek said on Friday that he’s pouring $50 million into the music streaming service, driving its stock price up by more than 3% to a high of $108.98 per share during regular trading hours. The momentary rise, however, is a blip on the radar for Spotify, which has taken a beating this year — in part over its recent, weaker-than-expected growth forecasts (just like plenty of



NGAD the Air Force•
The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



MIT scientists created a new tool that provides a pipeline for digitally designing a crucial component of robotic wearables.



Mystery Science Theater 3000 creator Joel Hodgson and Emily Marsh go head-to-head drafting the best riff squads ever assembled.



Spotify Stations May 16•
Spotify's experimental Stations app is soon to be no more. The company says it will shut down the app on May 16th. It took a leaf out of the Pandora playbook with Stations, as the app and web player offered a way to listen to curated playlists in a radio-style format. Stations debuted in Australia in 2018 and arrived in the US the following year. The app has now been removed from the App Store an



When we last checked in with AI-powered captioning service Ava , they had just raised a seed round and it was six months into a pandemic that would reshape how we all work together. Eighteen months later they have investors banging on their door following huge growth, and aim to keep showing the tech industry how deaf and hard of hearing people ought to be included in the hybrid workplace. The co



Insurance InsurTech Africa•
Jason Paau Contributor Jason Paau is senior director of program management at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient . He has extensive experience in the telecom, financial and energy services domains. The demand for more and enhanced automated experiences in our daily lives is growing, and the insurance sector is no exception. In recent years, a new crop of insurtech startups has embraced this app



Apple Google Microsoft•
100+Ars Technica / 10h
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) For more than a decade, we’ve been promised that a world without passwords is just around the corner, and yet year after year, this security nirvana proves out of reach. Now, for the first time, a workable form of passwordless authentication is about to become available to the masses in the form of a standard adopted by Apple, Google, and Microsoft that allows for c



The Apple 1 (sometimes spelled as Apple-1 or Apple I) was the first computer built by the company know best known for the Mac and iPhone. There aren’t many Apple 1 boards left in existence, but one has now gone up for auction. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



We all know about “red flags,” or the signs that someone is not going to be a great partner. From someone not being able to admit when they’re wrong to being too quick to shit-talk an ex, the list of potential red flags is long and often-discussed . But you may have never heard about “pink flags”—something that could … Read more...



Southwest Free Flights•
Passengers on certain Southwest Airlines flights could be treated to free internet browsing. The Dallas-based carrier is providing free access to full Wi-Fi on 40 aircraft as it tests out a new internet service. Currently, Southwest — like many airlines — gives passengers free internet access on their devices for the purposes of watching inflight entertainment. If you want to be able to check you



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 ...




500+Gizmodo / 11h
Free speech is great and all, unless what they’re saying about you is false. Read more...



300+Futurism / 11h
It’s well documented that, in some ways, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk had a tough childhood and adolescence. Though he’s declined to elaborate publicly, he’s now estranged from his father and implied that it was a difficult, if not abusive , relationship. He was also severely bullied by peers, at one point being beaten so badly that he remained in the hospital for two weeks. Simultaneously, his



“I’m happy to not be royalty,” Simone Giertz laughs. “I’m happy to be a woman who does things.” YouTube’s one-time Queen of Shitty Robots didn’t renounce her crown so much as outgrow it. A few years back, the time came to put away the breakfast machine , the lipstick robot and the Styrofoam mannequin head that slams into a keyboard and kind of rolls back and forth in a rough approximation of inte



We’re less than two weeks away from kicking off TC Sessions: Mobility 2022 . Our first in-person mobility event since 2019 — holy cats! — takes place on May 18-19 in San Mateo, California, followed by an online event on May 20. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with hundreds of your peers and hear about, see and test drive the latest mobility tech. Buy your pass by May 15, and you’ll save $2



Meta announced today that it’s integrating its Horizon Venues event experience into its social virtual reality Horizon Worlds platform. Horizon Venues is currently a separate app dedicated to attending live events in VR that uses the same avatars as Horizon Worlds. On June 6, users will be able to attend these live events directly within Horizon Worlds and the standalone Venues app will be discon



Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Duncan Hull / Getty) Elon Musk's $44 billion purchase of Twitter could face a probe into potential national security risks posed by Musk's foreign investors, according to a Reuters report on Friday. The foreign investment could invite "the kind of regulatory scrutiny over US national security that social media peer TikTok faced ," the report said. Musk's investors



FDA J&J Vaccine COVID-19•
Enlarge / Boxes of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Florida. (credit: Getty | Paul Hennessy ) The US Food and Drug Administration limited the use of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine late Thursday, citing the risk of a very rare but severe clotting disorder called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS). From now on, the J&J vaccine is o



United Airlines kicked off its bold international strategy for summer 2022 on Thursday with the inaugural flight to the first of five new international destinations : Amman, Jordan. The flight marked the start of the airline’s first major international expansion , aside from network restoration, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With service thrice weekly from Dulles International Airport



Bethesda Studios, the publisher behind many popular series like The Elder Scrolls , Doom , and Fallout , is closing down its PC launcher on May 11. That means you will no longer be able to buy, download, or play Bethesda games through the app. However, the company is letting players port their purchased… Read more...



ymutate : Frank Bramley (1857-1915) Delicious solitude, 1909



Windows 11 allows you to hide the taskbar on your additional monitors while keeping it enabled on the primary monitor. You’ll have to tweak the settings to do that, and we’ll show you how. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Lucid just published its first financial report of 2022, and the details are a bit disappointing. The company says it’s only delivered 360 vehicles this year, and more importantly, it’s cranking up the prices on all of its cars (minus the newly announced Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance). Read This Article on Review Geek ›



200+Gizmodo / 11h
The arrival of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is giving us our latest imagining of the iconic original series uniform —but Star Trek is home to so many wonderful uniforms that it’s time to go where no runway has gone before, and shine a light on which ones make the cut... and which ones are best used as phaser-fodder. Read more...



A large explosion, likely triggered by gas, caused significant damage at a five-star, centuries-old hotel in Old Havana, killing multiple victims and injuring dozens, Cuban officials say. The blast, midday Friday, turned portions of the Hotel Saratoga to rubble. Get news delivered to your inbox by signing up for TPG’s daily newsletter . (Photo by ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images) Friday afternoon



Google Web3 Team Crypto•
Google is putting together a team to build backend services for blockchain developers. The company is hoping to make Google Cloud Platform the primary destination for those who want to run Web3 apps. “We’re not trying to be part of that cryptocurrency wave directly,” Google Cloud vice president Amit Zavery told CNBC . “We’re providing technologies for companies to use and take advantage of the di



100+Gizmodo / 11h
Evidence of a virus that infects pigs was found in the body of David Bennet Sr., the recipient of a genetically modified pig heart in an experimental transplant surgery. Bennet died in March at 57 years old, two months after undergoing the last-resort operation, which was the first of its kind ever performed. Read more...



The PS5 might be Sony’s shiny new console, but plenty of us are still happily playing our PS4s. That is, unless the system can’t read our discs. It’s a little more than frustrating when the PS4 refuses to play the $60 game you just popped in the disc drive. If you’re experiencing this issue, these tricks can help. Read more...



48Futurism / 11h
Bottoms Up The NFT market may be in for a scary price bubble busting Last week’s Otherdeed metaverse land sale enjoyed a solid boom, with so many users rushing to buy the virtual metaverse real estate plots that Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs was minting that the entire Ethereum blockchain became temporarily unusable . The network charges “gas” fees, or service fees, based on how many users are acti



Just in time for National Small Business Week, Barclays has elevated welcome offers on all four of its business cobranded credit cards right now. Some of these rival the best offer we’ve ever seen, and two of the offers are worth over $1,000 each. Here’s a look at the current offers on Barclays’ small business credit cards and the benefits offered by the cards. For more TPG news and deals deliver



Company officials said the terminations were the result of an internal review, while the fired managers saw it as a response to the recent union victory.




Nvidia $5.5M SEC Crypto•
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Nvidia has agreed to pay $5.5 million in fines to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it failed to disclose how many of its GPUs were being sold for cryptocurrency mining, the agency announced today . These charges are unrelated to the current ( slowly ebbing ) crypto-driven GPU shortage. Rather, they deal with a similar but s



Enlarge / Amazon's new purchase explainer and the "learn more" link. Following up on its earlier move to pull Audible audiobook purchases from its Play Store app, Amazon is also turning off Kindle digital book purchases on Android. The Google Play purchasing crackdown is to blame, of course. Starting on June 1, Google will require all Play Store apps to use Google Play billing for digital purchas



Breeze Utah Provo LV•
Breeze Airways is coming home. The startup airline announced Provo, Utah, as its newest destination Friday with nonstop flights to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. That will give the carrier its first service from Utah, where its headquarters are located in the suburbs south of Salt Lake City. David Neeleman, Breeze’s colorful founder and CEO, wasted little time in playing up the connect



300+Gizmodo / 12h
Five GOP senators are trying to create a new rating for television shows that feature LGBTQ+ characters and topics. The group outlined their reasoning in a letter to the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board. For a party so hellbent on complaining about cancel culture, the Grand Old Party seems to be really obsessed… Read more...



Coinbase NFT 150 Day•
It’s been a little over two weeks since Coinbase launched its highly anticipated NFT marketplace for select waitlisted beta users. Earlier this week, the company opened the service up to the public – and digital collectibles trading has been sluggish. Coinbase’s exchange has 24-hour volume of $3.2 billion and almost 2.5 million weekly visits , according to CoinMarketCap. Since launching on April



Company officials said the terminations in Staten Island were the result of an internal review while the fired managers saw it as a response to the recent union victory.



There have been plenty of Rolls-Royce one-offs throughout the years, but this custom Phantom I variant might just be the rarest one of all.



Company officials said the terminations were the result of an internal review while the fired managers saw it as a response to the recent union victory.



Editor’s note: This is The Points Guy’s permanent page about IHG One Rewards elite status, so you can bookmark it and check back regularly for the latest information. In January, IHG Hotels and Resorts announced changes to its elite status tiers , including requirements and bonus earnings. Last month, those changes went live, with IHG also unveiling its new IHG One Rewards program . I’ve written



Nvidia $5.5M SEC Crypto•
It's no secret these days that GPU makers profited from the early cryptocurrency mining boom , but NVIDIA is now facing some repercussions as a result. The company is paying $5.5 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission charges it failed to disclose that crypto mining played a "significant" role in its surging revenue from GPU sales throughout fiscal 2018. NVIDIA allegedly violated



Twitter Android Features•
With Elon Musk’s takeover of the company looming in the distance, Twitter apparently isn’t slowing down when it comes to updates, as the company is reportedly working on a new way to "award" tweets, as well as new options for multimedia tweets and new features to easily display status’ and pronouns on your profile. Discovered by 9to5Google contributor Dylan Roussel , Twitter’s in-progress status



61Gizmodo / 12h
There was a short time in 2021 when Facebook blocked all Australian users from sharing news across their feeds. The drastic change came in response to a proposed law from the country’s authorities that would strongarm the social media company into paying for news content. Even at the time, people in Australia and… Read more...



You rarely, if ever, need to remove earwax on your own. Earwax is good! I know this. I really do. And yet— even though I know better —sometimes I cannot resist the urge to use a cotton swab and clean my ears myself. Here’s what to know if you’re like me and occasionally go too far trying to clean your ears manually. Read more...



200+Gizmodo / 12h
Your Friday just got a whole lot more gruesome, for the red-band trailer for David Cronenberg ’s much-anticipated return to full-on body horror has arrived. Behold, a fresh glimpse at Crimes of the Future to make your stomach (and other internal organs) lurch with cinematic glee. Read more...



The word puzzle game Wordle might not be as popular now as it was a mere few months ago, but there are still countless clones and ports showing up. Perhaps one of the most unusual ports is a version for the Commodore 64, which just received an update. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Microsoft’s Antivirus software has come a long way since the days of Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft Defender goes toe to toe with the best third-party antivirus available. Here’s how you can use it to scan your PC. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Looking for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift? Best Buy is running a huge sale on phones, smart home devices, headphones, and more until May 8th. You could save $25 on a new Nintendo Switch game or go all-out on a discounted KitchenAid stand mixer. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



SAVE $20 : The Beats Fit Pro wireless earbuds are on sale for $179.95 at Walmart and Amazon as of May 6. The buds are better than AirPods in every way but one — the price — so this deal practically kicks them to the curb. From AirPods to Beats, Apple pretty much owns the market when it comes to wireless earbuds. But as Mashable tech reporter Alex Perry discovered , only one pair of buds reigns su



Wi-Fi Windows Bluetooth•
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty) It's looking increasingly likely that Wi-Fi 7 will be an option next year. This week, Qualcomm joined the list of chipmakers detailing Wi-Fi 7 products they expect to be available to homes and businesses soon. The Wi-Fi Alliance, which makes Wi-Fi standards and includes Qualcomm as a member, has said that Wi-Fi 7 will offer a max throughput of " at least 30



Mother's Day in 2022 is on Sunday, May 8, and retailers are celebrating the only way they know how: by running a bunch of sales. Whether you're still searching for the perfect gift for your mom and/or other mother figures in your life ( there's still time! ) or just sniffing around for deals for yourself (no shame), the sheer amount of offers out there can be overwhelming to sift through. Fortuna




Microsoft Windows Xbox•
PC gamers often cite the precision of a mouse and keyboard as an advantage over playing on a console. While a valid argument, there is something familiar about gaming with a controller. I do it when I play Halo Infinite on my desktop, and though I could probably score a slightly better kill-to-death ratio with a mouse… Read more...



EVE Microsoft Excel•
100+Ars Technica / 12h
real Yeah, yeah, this looks exciting and all, but the spreadsheets are where the real action happens. There aren't many games for which built-in integration with Microsoft Excel would be a major feature whose announcement would draw literal cheers from fans. But Eve Online showed itself to be the exception when developer CCP announced coming Excel integration during its Eve Fanfest keynote this m



National Train Day is fast approaching in the U.S., and The Points Guy U.K. team has found the perfect way to celebrate. Thanks to the likes of Francis Bourgeois’ viral TikTok videos as well as the environmental benefits that train transport offers, riding a train has never been so popular. To celebrate National Train Day across the pond, The Points Guy U.K. is putting trains and planes to the ul



Roe US post-Roe Abortion•
76Wired / 12h
Alphabet, Meta, and others collect heaps of user data that could be exploited by law enforcement—and create legal hazards.


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