Friday, May 13, 2022

Technology News and More-Friday Edition

Technology News and More...






38KGizmodo / 14h
The Legendary and Warner Bros. Dune franchise has found its Emperor Shaddam. Deadline reports that Christopher Walken has been cast in Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated sequel for the sci-fi series. Read more...



300+Mashable / 2h
South Korean dramas are growing increasingly popular, with people everywhere learning to love tropes such as amnesia, childhood best friends, and attractive young CEOs. Fortunately, Netflix has noticed this interest, and now offers a sizeable collection of some of the best K-dramas for you to peruse, featuring everything from romance, to action, to horror and political drama combined Netflix's se



Xbox Series X|S owners will no longer be forced to listen to their friends noisily chew down their microphones, as Microsoft rolls out a new update that'll shush environmental sounds in voice chats. Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip Ahead ring can now take advantage of a new party chat noise suppression feature for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S . It's being introduced in the latest Xbox Updat




Apple Wwdc 2022 Event•
Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference will still mostly be virtual this year, but it will hold an in-person event for a limited number of people at Apple Park. Now, the tech giant has started sending out invites for the one-day special on June 6th, where attendees will be able to watch the keynote and State of the Union videos on-site. While Apple's last two developer conferences were pure onlin
YESTERDAY



What's virtual reality without a little real-life sweat? Kat VR is releasing an omnidirectional gaming treadmill for people who want to play virtual reality games while also getting their cardio in for the day. The upcoming KAT Walk C 2 treadmill is a lot like the treadmill from the movie Ready Player One , which appears to have been a big influence. Like the movie version, the Walk C 2 has a har



US Create Oversee Tech•
US Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) wants to establish a federal watchdog that would focus on overseeing digital platforms and tech giants . The lawmaker has introduced the Digital Platform Commission Act (PDF) in Congress in hopes of establishing a five-person federal body appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. They would be experts in relevant fields, including computer science, so



Google Android 13 Picture•
In the aftermath of I/O 2022, Google is quietly rolling out Android 13 Beta 2 for TV which brings new features and quality-of-life (QoL) changes. Be aware that the new beta is currently available to Android developers only as a way to test apps on the OS and provide feedback on them. However, there is a good chance that most, if not all, of the features listed will be making their way to your sma



Ransomware Kaspersky•
Despite REvil and some of the other most notorious ransomware gangs being shut down this year, the cybercriminals behind them have continued to develop and succeed with new cross-platform capabilities, updated business processes and more. Over the past few years, ransomware operations have grown from their clandestine and amateur beginnings to become fully-fledged businesses with distinctive bran



Apple macOS Monterey 12.4•
Apple seeded its latest macOS Monterey 12.4 Release Candidate to the developers channel for testing purposes, likely the last release ahead of WWDC 2022 on June 6. Registered developers with Apple can download the new beta build from the Apple Developer Center or from the Software Update option in System Preferences on an existing beta build. The biggest feature change of note, according to MacRu



Orville New Horizons•
Seth MacFarlane’s epic space adventure series The Orville: New Horizons returns exclusively as a Hulu original series. We here at Ars have sorely missed the intrepid crew of the USS Orville . Production on the third season of The Orville abruptly halted in March 2020 due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the series is finally coming back with a new home on Hulu, a new name ( The Orville:



Twitter Agrawal Musk•
One of the senior executives was on parental leave when he learned he was out of a job.



Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is moving to put a stop to trading of Terraform Labs’ Terra (Luna) and TerraUSD (UST) tokens on its platform following one of the industry’s biggest meltdowns. The exchange indefinitely suspended the trading of Luna and UST across most of its spot pairs Thursday evening after the tokens lost nearly 100% of their value in a span of days. Additi



Rachel B. Goodman Contributor Rachel B. Goodman is a partner at Foley & Lardner and is a member of the firm’s national telemedicine and digital health industry team. Nathaniel M. Lacktman Contributor Nathaniel M. Lacktman is a partner at Foley & Lardner and chair of the law firm’s national Telemedicine & Digital Health Industry Team. More posts by this contributor Telemedicine startups can surviv



Anker is back with a docking station that packs just about every port you could want. Given the size of the market, however, is it worth its hefty price tag?



Today Wordle May 13•
Mwahahahahahaha! It's Friday the 13th, and there's a spooky* new Wordle to solve. Creep your way down this page for today's Wordle answer, or hide from the scary spoiler at the end while you use our handy tips and today-specific clues to help you find the answer to #328. (*NB: Word may not actually be spooky in nature.) Wondering what all the fuss is about? Wordle was created by Josh Wardle , a f



Smart City Latin America•
Smart cities are slowly becoming more than just a futuristic concept, and one such location is already being built in Japan by none other than Toyota.



The road to commercializing autonomous vehicle technology for people has split into two paths. In one camp, AV developers like Argo AI, Aurora, Cruise, Motional, Waymo and Zoox are aiming straight for full autonomy — a system that can handle all driving within certain conditions and with no expectation for a human to take over. In other words, the passenger can fall asleep or play on their phone.



The wait is finally over and the US-startup Tachyum has now launched its Prodigy universal processor which combines the functionality of a CPU, GPU and TPU in a single processor. In order to develop its revolutionary new processor, the company first set out to conquer the processor performance plateau in nanometer-class chips and the systems they power. In addition to being Tachyum’s first commer



As wind energy gains ground in the U.S., SkySpecs is using drones and AI to detect future equipment failures before they grind those giant turbine blades to a halt. The company, which works with wind farms to monitor the health of turbine blades from above, has locked down a fresh $80 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs to expand its “geographic footprint” and software tools. SkySpecs bui



A steep sell-off that gained momentum this week starkly illustrated the risks of the experimental and unregulated digital currencies.



A steep sell-off that gained momentum this week starkly illustrated the risks of the experimental and unregulated digital currencies.



400+Gizmodo / 9h
Hey, they missed us too! After such a drought of new Orville content, things are finally heating up as the show’s long-awaited return (and debut on Hulu !) rapidly approaches . Today that means a brand-new trailer that gives a glimpse of what to expect from the series’ third season, The Orville: New Horizons . Read more...




Uber shareholders voted against a proposal that would have required the ride-hailing company to fully disclose its direct and indirect lobbying activities and expenditures, according to a regulatory filing released Thursday. The measure has been proposed and rejected by shareholders before. But this year’s results show a growing number of shareholders are keen to require full disclosure. About 45



From door frames to aircraft and food packaging - how soaring prices will impact the world economy.



When it comes to professional cameras, most people still immediately think of DSLRs. There's a new contender to consider, however: mirrorless cameras.



Read more...



Bill Simmons Spotify•
Spotify has promoted The Ringer ’s Bill Simmons to a new role as head of global sports strategy, reported Deadline . Simmons has worked under the streaming service’s umbrella since it bought his sports and culture podcast network The Ringer back in 2020. In his new role, we’ll likely see Simmons expand upon the current lineup of NBA, MLB and NFL-focused podcasts and dive into international territ



100+TechCrunch / 9h
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 . It’s Thursday, May 12, so Happy Friday Eve. Congrats to the “GoogleCrunch” team, which wrote something like 28 stories yesterday to cover Google I/O. You can catch all of the Googliness here . Haje is enjoying a couple of days off, and I fear you will now know who t



Lufthansa - Germany's national airline, the government is its largest shareholder - is continuing to do damage control after an incident where Jews were banned from travel on the carrier. Their first two statements on the issue were so bad they're now trying to fix things putting their CEO into play. Continue reading ...



41Gizmodo / 10h
There are lots of new things happening at Epcot as part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebrations at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and io9 was invited to preview the latest expansions. Read more...



Gusto , an HR technology unicorn worth nearly $10 billion, has raised an extension to its 2021-era Series E funding round . That funding event included $175 million in primary capital, a tranche of secondary shares and a tender offer. EquityZen first noted the new capital raise from Gusto based on its review of publicly available filings, which TechCrunch can confirm. Precisely how much capital G



REGENT Hawaiian Airlines•
The future of travel between the Hawaiian Islands could be moving from tens of thousands of feet in the air to just a few feet up. Boston-based electric “seaglider” maker REGENT (which stands for Regional Electric Ground Effect Nautical Transport) announced Wednesday that Hawaiian Airlines made a major investment in the company, in support of the development of a seaglider that would transport up



200+Futurism / 10h
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. And now, scientists say, it turns out they might also be windows to one of the world’s preeminent parasites. In an essay for The Conversation , researchers described how they were able to detect infection from the Toxoplasma gondii parasite by studying thousands of retinal photographs, searching for signs of the sometimes eye-attacking disease. Toxop



Read more...



Ukraine TikTok Russian•
Four U.S. representatives signed letters to the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter urging them to archive any content uploaded to their platforms that could be used as evidence of Russian war crimes. As TikTok booms in popularity and surpasses 1 billion users , the rise of short-form video has offered unprecedented access to live footage from war zones — not to mention that Meta, YouTube a



Google Android Auto•
Enlarge / The many sizes of Android Auto. (credit: Google / Ron Amadeo) Android Auto, Google's car interface app for Android, is getting a new, more flexible design at Google I/O. Android Auto previously demanded a pretty rigid screen aspect ratio. It could not handle things like large, vertically oriented car screens, and would often resort to pillar boxing or letterboxing the UI to keep a reaso



Enlarge (credit: R.Tsubin / Getty) The price of one Bitcoin briefly fell below $27,000 on Thursday morning, the lowest price for the cryptocurrency since 2020. The world's leading virtual currency bounced back later in the day and now trades at $28,600. But that's still 20 percent below the price one week ago and 57 percent below last November's peak. Bitcoin's fall is part of a broader cryptocur



Image Black Hole EHT•
As countless science and general news outlets have reported today, the image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, is a fabulous scientific achievement. But one aspect that hasn’t gotten quite as much attention is the central role played by simulations and synthetic data in the discovery. If you haven’t read about this awesome science news yet, the Event Hori



Google Stalkerware Ban•
29Gizmodo / 10h
If you’re concerned that somebody might be trying to track you through your phone, then just be aware they might be getting help from Google’s ad policies. Read more...



Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the latest information. American Express’ Pay Over Time program is the company’s extended-financing option, allowing eligible cardholders to pay eligible charges of $100 or more over time with interest. To get cardmembers to enroll in this program, Amex sometimes offers targeted promotions of up to 30,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for enrollin



200+Gizmodo / 11h
The fuzzy, bright-orange trappings of a cosmic beast that lurks in the heart of our galaxy made quite the impact today on scientists and space nerds alike. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration released its first image the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*, in another major… Read more...



North Korea Covid Kim•
Enlarge / People watch a television broadcast showing a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a military parade at the Seoul Railway Station on May 4, 2022 in Seoul, South Korea. (credit: Getty | Chung Sung-Jun ) North Korea instituted a nationwide lockdown Thursday after reporting an omicron coronavirus variant outbreak in its capital, Pyongyang. The report marks the first time du




You've probably heard about VR and AR, but what's the difference between the two? While similar, each technology works in its own unique way.



The MIRI instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope has delivered its first fully-focused image and the results are very exciting.



There's no reason to stick with Google's bland and basic color scheme and background when you have an entire library of memorable photos.



booktype : bob, the story of our mocking bird ~ sidney lanier, 1899



CVE-2022-30525•
Enlarge (credit: Zyxel) Hardware manufacturer Zyxel quietly released an update fixing a critical vulnerability that gives hackers the ability to control tens of thousands of firewall devices remotely. The vulnerability, which allows remote command injection with no authentication required, carries a severity rating of 9.8 out of a possible 10. It’s easy to exploit by sending simple HTTP or HTTPS



A variety of one-stop and nonstop flights to Hawaii are available for less than $500 round-trip. Travelers primarily from West Coast cities can visit Honolulu, Lihue, Kona and Kahului, with the lowest-priced fares starting at $230-$300. There are also some discounted flights from major East Coast hubs (New York City, Miami, etc.), as well as a few Midwestern cities (St. Louis, Chicago, etc.). For



New Zealand Ardern•
Editor’s note: This is post has been updated with new information. After spending the last two-plus years in virtual isolation from the rest of the world , New Zealand is once again open to travelers from the U.S. and numerous other countries. The country announced plans this week to reopen to the entire world earlier than expected — within the next couple of months. Get the latest points, miles



Discovery marks the main difference between black holes and wormholes, with the former being observed by scientists while the latter has yet to be found.



500+Futurism / 11h
Elephant Case A New York elephant named Happy is getting her day in court, after activists filed to establish her as a legal person in the eyes of the law. As the Wall Street Journal reports , lawyers from the Nonhuman Rights Project have filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Happy to establish her legal personhood — and thusly free her from captivity at the Bronx Zoo, where she’s lived and



Ezra Miller NFT Hawaii•
100+Futurism / 11h
Gone in a Flash Actor Ezra Miller, famed for their role in “The Flash,” was apparently having a very normal one during their recent arrest in Hawaii, when they claimed they filmed an altercation to turn it into NFTs. As TMZ reports , Miller — with whom, full disclosure, this reporter smoked weed with at a house party in 2013, during which they seemed pretty chill — claimed during their March 29 a



Android devices are packed with features that make your digital life easier to navigate, and one of the most helpful is the password manager. Read more...



Section4 , an upskilling startup launched by prominent NYU professor Scott Galloway , has laid off a quarter of staff sources say. The layoffs, which occurred last week, affected employees across all levels of seniority and teams, but specifically targeted a majority of the product team. The startup first splashed onto the scene in 2019 with a goal to scale business school-quality courses in a mo



In February 2019, Reggie Fils-Aimé announced that he would be leaving Nintendo after 16 years — 13 of which were spent as the president and COO of the company’s North American division. It was a fruitful run, filled with more ups (Wii, Switch) than downs (Wii U) during a time of tremendous growth for the gaming industry. A lifelong serial executive, Fils-Aimé has retired from that aspect of the i



Twitter Kayvon Beykpour•
500+Gizmodo / 11h
Twitter is reducing its number of characters: the social media company fired two executives Thursday, one while he was on paternity leave. Read more...



There's no need to download clipboard apps that don't make copy-and-paste across devices any easier. Here's the only solution you need.



AMD Meta Evenstar RAN•
Facebook’s parent company Meta and AMD have announced that they are working together on a mobile internet infrastructure program designed to bring down the costs of base stations for mobile networks. Launched by Meta back in the beginning of 2020, the Evenstar program is focused on building general-purpose radio access network (RAN) reference designs for both 4G and 5G networks in the Open RAN ec



OnePlus Nord India•
The next OnePlus Nord smartphone appears to have nearly the entirety of its details leaked, including a proposed date for its initial reveal in May.



the March Steam Deck•
Valve makes it possible to install Windows on the Steam Deck console, but there are some good reasons you may want to think twice before doing so.



Apple often issues firmware updates for its entire AirPods line, including AirPods Pro, AirPods 2, AirPods 3, and AirPods Max. However, the company doesn’t make it clear how to actually update your AirPods, nor do they share what each firmware update does . So here’s how to do it, whatever model of AirPods you use. But… Read more...



82Gizmodo / 11h
On Thursday, the chair of an international financial watchdog said that he expects there will be a global cryptocurrency regulatory body within the next year. In light of recent panicked freefall of multiple “stable” coins, we probably need one . Read more...




500+Gizmodo / 11h
Thanks to a recent re-release , James Cameron’s 2009 CG megahit Avatar has toppled Avengers: Endgame to regain the #1 spot as the highest-grossing movie of all time . Chances are Endgame will get a revival eventually, and then Avatar will have another, and the two films will trade places back and forth for years, all… Read more...



Star Alliance, the largest of the three international partnership groups which includes United and Air Canada, plans to launch a credit card that’s separate from the co-brand cards issued by its individual member airlines. It’s expected to become available later this year. They'll also add a non-airline partner and are looking to bulk purchase sustainable fuel. Continue reading ...



Gaming on Linux has always been a bit more complicated than on Windows (or game consoles), and one reason for that is Nvidia’s poor driver support on Linux. That’s now changing, though it’s unclear how much the situation will improve. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Gardening is a satisfying hobby for so many reasons—your outdoor space looks great, you’ve helped cultivate new life, and you even get some crops or flowers in return. We’ve checked out the best subscription boxes for gardeners so that your green finger endeavors are even more successful. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



36SlashGear / 12h
The Anglo American nuGen Hydrogen Mining Truck is an absolute monster of a dump truck made to haul gigantic loads in open-pit mines while running on hydrogen.



Honor Magic 4 Pro May•
The Honor Magic 4 Pro is the latest and hopefully greatest Honor flagship, and it’s now been launched in the UK. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because it had previously been unveiled at MWC 2022 in early March, but without a confirmed UK launch date. Now though, it’s here. If you haven’t already been swayed by the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S22 series or the OnePlus 10 Pro then perhaps the



heaveninawildflower : Illustrations from the series ‘Bairei kachō gafu’ by Kōno Bairei (1844-1895). 1) Plum blossom and jays 2) Drooping cherry tree and woodpecker 3) Cherry blossoms and gulls 4) Akebia quinata and azure-winged magpies 5) Japanese wisteria and white-bellied green pigeons 6) Peach blossom and green pheasants 7) Japanese magnolia and skylarks 8) Corn poppy and pigeons 9) Chinese pe



Your computer stores low-level settings like the system time and hardware settings in its CMOS. These settings are configured in the BIOS or UEFI setup menu. If you’re experiencing a hardware compatibility issue or another problem, you may want to try clearing the CMOS. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Space Mysterious Invisible•
1KFuturism / 12h
Scientists’ current best theories about the arrangement of the cosmos suggest that small galaxies should be distributed around their host galaxies in seemingly random orbits. But observations have found that these smaller galaxies arrange themselves in thin disks around their hosts, Vice reports , not unlike Saturn’s rings. Needless to say, that represents a puzzling gap between knowledge and the



If you spend lots of time in your car, a good set of speakers is a worthwhile investment. A great-sounding car stereo system makes a long commute, or a drive across the country, a more enjoyable experience. The best place to start is by replacing your stock speakers. Most standard car speakers are about 6.5 inches in diameter, so finding a good set of speakers in that size range means you can ins



With speeds topping 300 miles per hour, the world's best supercar manufacturers continue to push the boundaries of what is possible.



Smartphones give us the ability to lock and unlock our cars with digital keys through UWB, BLE, and NFC, but how secure are these digital car keys?



Teenage Engineering is back with a new synthesizer for music creators called the OP-1 field. The new features are great, but they don't come cheap.



Long waits and guest grumbling due to understaffing go hand in hand with hotel stays these days. However, there might be a light at the end of this hospitality worker shortage tunnel. Like anything these days, blame it (or bless it, if it eases the labor crisis) on inflation . Hotels in the U.S. added 22,000 jobs last month, while bars and restaurants added 44,000. It may not sound like much, but



24Gizmodo / 12h
Oil and gas companies are gearing up to invest in so many new projects that they’ll blow away potential progress to mitigate emissions and stop worst-case climate scenarios, says a new investigation from the Guardian. Read more...



In cooking, as in life, a bit of healthy competition can motivate people to show up, show out, and shine. Cook-offs, bake-offs, any kind of food-related “off”—framing a food-focused get together as a contest will get guests excited about contributing to the party. Read more...



Court Texas Social•
The law, prompted by complaints from conservatives, allows people to sue large online platforms that remove posts expressing a particular viewpoint.



Alan Wake Remastered•
60Engadget / 12h
Fans of Alan Wake aren’t getting an update on the sequel this summer — but can look forward to a new TV series and a remastered version of the original game for the Switch. Remedy Entertainment’s creative director Sam Lake today revealed what’s in store for the franchise during the game’s 12th-anniversary celebration video . Switch owners can anticipate Alan Wake Remastered to be available on Nin



44Gizmodo / 12h
A brand-new take on Stephen King’s 1980 novel Firestarter , previously adapted as a Drew Barrymore film in 1984, arrives in theaters and on Peacock this week , and it struck us just how many TV and movie versions of the prolific author’s popular works have been made... and then re- made. Read more...



German carrier Lufthansa has apologized for blocking a large number of Jewish passengers from a connecting flight from Frankfurt. The apology stems from a May 4 incident in which some Orthodox Jewish travelers on an inbound flight from New York allegedly refused cr

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