Thursday, June 02, 2022

Thursday Technology News and More

Technology News and More...





100+Wired / 1h
In a one-on-one interview with WIRED, the embattled president expresses clarity amidst the chaos.



Less than a year after taking its first funding , Latin American local on-demand delivery and transportation super app Yummy is back with an upsized round of $47 million. The round was led by Anthos Capital, with the participation of JAM Fund, Soma Capital, WIND Ventures, Ethos Capital and YC Continuity. The new investment gives Yummy a total of $69 million in funding to date. Yummy was founded i



Phishing Australia Post•
Phishing attacks are on the rise, and they’re increasingly costly for businesses. PhishLabs reported that in 2021, attacks increased 28% over the previous year . Today, a large number of cyberattacks begin with phishing emails. That means malicious emails should be top of mind for businesses. However, many companies still don’t quite understand the breadth and scope of the phishing problem, the p




Ubisoft is usually a major name for each E3 season, but if you're hoping it'll bring a similar showcase this month, we've got bad news. While Ubisoft's name was absent from the Summer Games Fest attendance list, it previously wasn't clear if it would host an individual gaming showcase. Now, a company spokesperson has confirmed to Axios there's no plans for a June presentation and won't host anoth



SlashGear / 19min
Swedish brand Polestar is back with a limited-edition Polestar 2 variant that has been equipped with some key enhancements for an overall improved experience.



Global digital payments giant, Visa, and East Africa’s biggest telecom Safaricom, the operator of the M-Pesa mobile money product, have today launched a virtual card, enabling millions of M-Pesa users to make digital payments globally, and giving Visa extended reach across Africa. The launch of the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa virtual card follows a partnership between the two companies forged in 2020 t



Engadget / 28min
As long as you don’t live in certain countries, you’ll be able to play Blizzard’s latest Diablo game across mobile, console and PC starting today. Diablo Immortal actually snuck on to smartphone a day early and offers the waves of monsters and skill refinements fans will love. However, this is tempered by loot box mechanics, which means you’ll probably have to pay up to ensure your barbarian or m



SteelSeries Arctis•
26Wired / 36min
This do-everything gaming headset has a price tag to match. Just make sure you get the right model, and that you don't need a high-end mic.



30Wired / 36min
A repeat encounter with Covid used to be a rarity. But now that Omicron has changed the game, expect reinfections to be the new normal.



25Wired / 36min
Making whole shows like Obi-Wan Kenobi just to fill in plot holes is wildly unnecessary.



23Wired / 36min
It might be years before flying cars take to the skies, but designers and engineers are already testing the infrastructure they’ll need to operate.



If you’re looking to broaden your gaming horizons, you might be tempted to invest in a virtual reality headset. But VR isn’t simply an extension of the games you may already enjoy, it’s a whole new medium that comes with its own pros and cons. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Mashable / 40min
Your teeth might not be the first thing you think about when it comes to a beauty routine. But you, like most of us, are probably in constant pursuit of a healthy and pearly white smile. Enter: the Oral-B iO Series 9 toothbrush , complete with AI technology. This fancy schmancy toothbrush claims to do a lot more than your regular electric toothbrush. The iO Series 9 packs in seven different "smar



Sanlo , a San Francisco-based fintech startup that offers small to medium-sized game and app companies access to tools to manage their finances and capital to fuel their growth, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Konvoy. The startup was founded in 2020 by CEO Olya Caliujnaia and CTO William Liu, who both have backgrounds in fintech and gaming. Sanlo offers businesses access to tech



Apple iPhone 14 A16•
What treats will the iPhone 14 series have for us when it launches later in the year? Those of you hoping for a major performance upgrade from the iPhone 13 may end up being disappointed, if newly leaked information is to be believed. According to Taiwanese research firm TrendForce (via MacRumors ), only the Pro and Pro Max models of the iPhone 14 are actually going to get a brand new A16 chip –



Qatar Airways Privilege Club has just launched an awesome transfer bonus, which could also be useful for collecting other “flavors” of Avios (including with British Airways Executive Club). Transfer bank points to Privilege Club with 40% bonus Between June 1 and June 30, 2022, Qatar Airways is offering a bonus when you convert bank points into Privilege Club Avios: Convert the equivalent of up to



Toshiba has announced its latest HDD offering, the 3.5-inch P300 Desktop PC Hard Drive. The new release is aimed at graphic designers and creative professionals looking for high performance and is available in storage capacities of up to 6TB. Toshiba says the new HDD is suitable for use with workstations as well as for gaming PCs as it looks to make hard drives an appealing alternative to SSDs .



Chipotle Crypto Flexa US•
Customers at Chipotle will now be able to pay for their burritos with cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether, and dogecoin, in a move that could help crypto become more mainstream, according to trade publication Restaurant Business . But there’s just one important caveat: Chipotle will accept the crypto through a… Read more...



Google Set Location•
For people who know it exists, the ability to set location-based reminders is one of Google Assistant's most useful features. It lets them specify a location, so that they can get an alert when they arrive wherever it is — for instance, a user can say "Remind me to call [name of their friend] in NYC," and Assistant will send them a notification when they step foot in the city. The bad news for th



Surfshark has grown in popularity following its acquisition by NordVPN and then with its announcement of the Nexus VPN standard. Product announcements aside, though, how good is Surfshark really, and are there noticeable traces of the takeover by NordVPN? I’ll take a look in this full review. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›




After setting out to examine digital healthcare from the inside by launching its own women’s health clinic as an app last year , French startup Nabla is executing the next step in a planned pivot to b2b — announcing today that it’s opened its machine learning tech stack to other digital health businesses and healthcare providers so they can offer what it bills as “personalized medicine”. Nabla’s



Avianca has been trying to transform its business since the start of the pandemic, including becoming a more efficient airline. The next step in that process has just been announced . Avianca cuts business class on all non-Europe routes As of October 1, 2022, Avianca will cut business class on all routes within the Americas, meaning the airline will only offer business class on flights to Europe.



HCotM HC Horizon State•
We're not far off Sony's latest State of Play presentation and while the wider line-up remains a mystery, Horizon Call of the Mountain will make an appearance. Following last week's State of Play announcement, Sony confirmed Horizon's appearance yesterday via Twitter . That's not especially surprising, since we already knew PSVR 2 forms a major part of today's broadcast. In a previous PlayStation



God War AMD FSR 2.0•
God of War has become the latest PC game to get the benefit of AMD’s FSR 2.0 tech . The hit PlayStation port just got support for FSR 2.0 with a fresh patch (v1.0.12), which means those going the FSR route for frame rate boosting will get much better results. As the patch notes state : “FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 has been implemented and is now available as a resolution-scaling option within



The Podcast Show London•
Jessica Cordova Kramer is the CEO and co-founder of award-winning podcast network Lemonada Media . She is also the executive producer of one Lemonada's new shows Being Trans , a podcast that uses a bold new reality-style format to follow the lives of four trans people in Los Angeles. "We started Being Trans , because it's one of the most misunderstood and complex issues of our time and there was



It has come to my attention that some Star Wars fans do not like Obi-Wan Kenobi 's antagonist Inquisitor Reva, played by Moses Ingram. And to that I say: Are we watching the same show? Because Reva absolutely rules. The backlash against Reva has less to do with her character's actions than the fact that she is a Black woman in the Star Wars universe. Following the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi 's fir



TL;DR: As of June 2, a lifetime subscription to the Degoo Premium Mega Backup Plan (50TB) , worth $14,400, is on sale for just $299.99. That's savings of 97%. The more devices we add to our tech arsenals, the more storage space we need to accommodate the files, photos, videos, and documents from those devices. But constantly adding more gigabytes to your cloud storage account for the rest of time



TL;DR: As of June 2, Phigolf's Mobile & Home Smart Golf Simulator with Swing Stick is on sale for $179. It normally costs $249.99, so that's 28% off. Dads and golfing often go together like peanut butter and jelly. But when the weather is bad, funds are low, or there’s not enough time in the day to get to the course, they need an alternative. That’s where Phigolf steps in to save the day. It’s a



TL;DR: As of June 2, you can get this Magsafe Apple Charger for just $16.99. That's a discount of 57% from its usual price of $39.99. There’s something so oddly satisfying about magnetic charging. Rather than searching for the perfect spot to set your gadget down or fumbling with fitting a cable into the appropriate slot, magnetic chargers briskly snap into place. It’s a pretty simple lifestyle c



TL;DR: As of June 2, the VentiFresh ECO PLUS: Next-Gen Odor Eliminator is on sale for $74.99, or down 14% from its regular price of $88. Life stinks. From your cat’s litter box to your gym bag to that mildew scent in your car — it’s time to invest in an air-purifying solution. The NASA-inspired VentiFresh Eco Plus is a next-gen air purifier and freshener you can use for all of life’s smelly situa



Thanks to new panel developments from E Ink – the manufacturer behind the Kindle’s current displays – we could soon see an Amazon ereader with a color ink screen. A color E Ink screen is exactly what it sounds like, a full-color version of the screens Amazon’s Kindles use to create book-like visuals on their displays. This would provide some major upgrades to the ereader line, and chief among the



Tensor Google Pixel 7 6•
Google gave us all quite a surprise when it decided to announce the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro ahead of time last month, and it seems that at least one prototype version of the Pro model is already out in the wild. A user posting on Reddit (via 9to5Google ) claims to have bought a prototype version of the Pixel 7 Pro over Facebook Marketplace three weeks ago. The handset was advertised as a Pixel 6



3DBio Therapeutics, a biotech company in Queens, said it had for the first time used 3-D printing to make a body part with a patient’s own cells.
YESTERDAY



Today Wordle Answer June•
Every day there's a new Wordle , and every day, we'll be here to help! If you prefer to cut to the chase, you can check back in later and scroll to the end of this article for the solution to Wordle #349 for June 3. In the meantime, keep reading for some subtle clues to nudge you towards the answer, and strategies to help you every day. Some background: Wordle was originally created by engineer J



Amazon Employees Pride•
In 2021, a handful of Amazon employees quit the company over its decision to sell books that suggest kids who identify as transgender are mentally ill. Now, a group of employees is protesting its continued sale of those books by disrupting a Pride event at its headquarters in Seattle. According to The Washington Post , around 30 members of the organization No Hate at Amazon laid on the ground wra



Super , the Indonesian social commerce startup focused on small towns and rural areas, announced today it has raised an oversubscribed $70 million Series C. The round was led by NEA with participation from Insignia Ventures Partners, SoftBank Ventures Asia, DST Global Partners, Amasia, B Capital, TNB Aura, Bain Capital chairman Stephen Pagliuca, Goldhouse, and Xendit CEO Moses Lo. This brings Sup



The Summer I Turned Pretty 's official trailer has arrived, and it looks like a fun, lighthearted summer romance. The question is: with which boy? The series follows Belly (Lola Tung), a 15-year-old girl staying at her family's beach house for their annual summer trip. Reunited with her longtime friends Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christopher Briney), Belly's ready to relax and enjoy h



Microsoft Surface 2•
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 was announced this week, and the new laptop is sure to excite fans of the original Surface Laptop Go , but some might be surprised that a new laptop released this late into 2022 isn't upgrading to Intel's latest Alder Lake processor. Intel Alder Lake is definitely an impressive release and has totally shaken up the AMD vs Intel rivalry, one where Intel had been s



Focusrite Vocaster•
Managing a podcast could get a lot simpler thanks to Focusrite and its soon-to-be-released Vocaster series. The Vocaster One and Vocaster Two are both audio interfaces with features that specifically help podcast hosts with their audio setup. By and large, the devices share the same software and have similar hardware with the Vocaster Two offering double the inputs. Hardware differences On the Vo



TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to OnlineCourseHost (Pro Plan) is on sale for £158.06, saving you 94% on list price. There’s never been a better time to teach online. Even if you have no formal teaching background, there are plenty of opportunities to share your specific knowledge with an audience. You could sign up to be an instructor on an online course platform like Udemy or Coursera. Or you co




The foldable phone market used to be a small niche for just the richest buyers, but it's rapidly getting bigger, and new stats illustrate just the scale of that growth. Display experts DSCC have published a report on the foldable phone market, looking at 'Q1 2022' or January to March this year. It's been the third-best quarter ever for this kind of mobile, though it struggled behind the Christmas



Fable 4 Senior Producer•
Following claims that the next Fable game is facing development trouble, a senior producer's stepped in to assure fans all's currently well. First revealed in June 2020, we've seen nothing beyond a short cinematic reveal trailer for the upcoming Fable reboot. But earlier this week, a host from the XNC Podcast claimed development was being downscaled. They claimed Playground Games was struggling t



Today Wordle Answer June•
Thursday! What a concept! And what a day to solve an all-new Wordle . It's a bit of a cheeky one today, so we're here to help with some clues before we get to today's answer. If you prefer to cut to the chase, you can skip to the end of this article for the solution to Wordle #348. But for those of you who'd rather work out the answer yourself, keep reading for some subtle clues to nudge you towa



A new leak claims to reveal some key specs for the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 4, the smaller and cheaper version of Samsung's foldable smartphones.



Sandberg Zuckerberg•
57Wired / 10h
Meta's famous COO is leaving after 14 years at the company—and so goes a partnership that shaped our world.



Google has announced plans to shuffle around its products yet again, this time focusing on Duo and Meet. The two products will soon be merged into one...mostly.



While the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi and its new roster of characters within the Star Wars universe was for most fans an exciting occasion, the show also supplied a new target for the fandom’s racist and misogynistic trolls : Moses Ingram, who stars as Third Sister Reva Sevander. Read more...



OpenSea NFT Chastain•
Watch out intrepid web3 entrepreneurs, the feds are cracking down on insider trading. Former OpenSea product manager Nate Chastain was arrested by the FBI early Wednesday morning in New York City and charged with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with an elaborate NFT insider trading scheme. In a press… Read more...



Meta’s Messenger app has become an incredibly popular way to make free voice and video calls. Now, a new design tweak will make the call button (slightly) easier to find. Meta is adding a dedicated tab for audio and video calls to the function bar at the bottom of the app. The new tab will appear alongside “Chats”, “Stories” and “People”, and open up to a list of the user’s contacts, along with s



If you lost a loved one but had a chance to bring them back, wouldn’t you risk everything to try and do that? Sci-fi short Red String of Fate —directed by Lance Fernandes and Lovina Yavari, and written by Onna Chan—manages to create a surprisingly gripping sci-fi tale in fewer than 10 minutes. Read more...



Elon Musk Tesla Office•
Staff unwilling to abide by new rules can "pretend to work somewhere else", says boss.



Enlarge / Given an actual beam of light, a beamsplitter divides it in two. Given individual photons, the behavior becomes more complicated. (credit: Wikipedia ) Ars Technica's Chris Lee has spent a good portion of his adult life playing with lasers, so he's a big fan of photon-based quantum computing. Even as various forms of physical hardware like superconducting wires and trapped ions made prog



This is not entirely surprising news considering he’s one of the creative forces behind the project, but Will Arnett ( Lego Masters , The Lego Batman Movie ) will voice one of the main characters in Peacock’s action-comedy series adaptation of PlayStation game Twisted Metal . Read more...



NFT OpenSea Chastain•
23Mashable / 12h
NFTs just made history, although perhaps not in the way their advocates would have liked. Disgraced former OpenSea product manager Nathaniel Chastain was arrested in New York City on Wednesday for insider trading of NFTs. In its statement, the Department of Justice called it the "first ever digital asset insider trading scheme." Chastain has been charged with one count of wire fraud and one count



Loom , an enterprise collaboration video messaging service, has laid off 34 employees, or 14% of its total staff, sources say. Employees across product and people operations were impacted. The venture-backed company confirmed the layoff and number of people impacted, and provided the following statement from founder and CEO Joe Thomas: We’ve had to make the extremely difficult decision to move fo



97Gizmodo / 12h
“I knew my character was going to be the queer one ,” Vico Ortiz said in our interview last week. “I’m used to being the queer one .” Ortiz is speaking about their role in the hit pirate comedy , Our Flag Means Death . Their character, Jim (shortened from their last name, Jiminez), is a transgender, nonbinary, Latine… Read more...



Elon Musk Tesla Office•
Elon Musk delivered an ultimatum to Tesla and Space X’s corporate workforces: Spend a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office, or leave the company. Musk today confirmed in a tweet that screenshots of an email sent to workers was real. According to The New York Times , worker

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