Thursday, August 25, 2022

Early Thursday Technology News and More...


Technology News and More...




Sony has raised the price of PlayStation 5 in most major markets, citing “challenging economic conditions” such as high global inflation rates and adverse currency trends, the latest in a series of challenges engulfing the current generation gaming console. The new price, which largely varies between $30 to $80, goes immediately into effect in Europe, the UK, China, Australia, Mexico and Canada,



40Engadget / 1h
Gamers who've yet to get the PS5 may have to pay more for the console when they do buy it. Sony Interactive Entertainment has raised the console's prices in select markets due to "challenging economic conditions," president and CEO Jim Ryan has announced on the PlayStation blog. The company had to make the difficult decision, he said, due to high global inflation rates, as well as currency fluctu



Warner Bros. has confirmed a swathe of delays for many of its biggest movies, with Aquaman sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, hit the hardest. News broke overnight that the studio would be moving many of its release dates, with both Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Shazam! sequel, Shazam: Fury Of The Gods shifted back. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom had originally been due to debut in theaters o




Nvidia’s RTX 4090 has been spotted in what are apparently documents from a manufacturer, indicating that the flagship graphics card is already in production. At least that’s the theory, but we need some heavy seasoning with this leak – which comes from the Baidu forums (in China), as highlighted by a regular Twitter rumor pedlar, Harukaze5719 – because as ever, we can’t be sure that said photogra



Smaller laptops aren’t often considered powerful, their condensed frames believed to be too compact to house anything extraordinary. Lenovo aims to debunk the stigma of “bigger is better” with the ThinkPad X13s, a feature-rich 13.3-inch ultraportable system running a Snapdragon Gen 3 Processor. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›



Mashable / 10min
Let me cut to the chase: If you’ve been waiting four or five years to upgrade your MacBook Air, go ahead and do it now. That’s because the new 2022 MacBook Air , powered by Apple’s in-house M2 silicon, is just about the ideal work-from-home (or work-from- wherever , really) companion. For a starting price of $1,200, this new M2 Air delivers everything you need any job centered around using a comp



Mashable / 10min
In April, social messaging app WhatsApp announced it was working on a new 'Communities' feature , a way for separate groups to come "under one umbrella," in what sounded like a hopeful competitor to Slack. Now, the feature is available for beta users . The Meta-owned messaging platform has been slowly rolling out incremental updates over the last few months: groups sizes doubled to 512 people , 3



Wired / 10min
The novelist makes the Earthly rituals of sex, marriage, childbirth—and all of human life—appear delightfully outlandish.



Gizmodo / 11min
Earlier Wednesday, Facebook endured the digital equivalent of what happens when you drink one too many and your body says: “No, ma’am.” It filled users’ news feeds across the globe with very weird posts that random people had sent to celebrities like Eminem, Taylor Swift, and Nicki Minaj—stuff that wouldn’t turn up… Read more...



Mashable / 28min
If you’ve been dealing with a decrepit, dying iPhone all year, your time is almost here — Sept. 7 to be exact . Yes, Apple's keynote iPhone event is locked in for early September, which means it’s just about time for the company to announce a boatload of new products, chief among them being this year’s lineup of new iPhones . As always, the rumor mill has been swirling around this hotly anticipat



The Inflation Reduction Act, which US President Joe Biden signed into law last week, will steer tens of billions of dollars into projects designed to capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released from power plants and industrial facilities. That provision is proving to be one of the more controversial climate items in the sweeping spending package. Critics argue that the tax credits for



Mashable / 46min
James Corden loves a rap recap, whether it's end of year roundups , TV recaps , or — as in this case — a run-through of the summer's biggest headlines. In the video above the Late Late Show host covers everything from politics to Batgirl being cancelled and Minions -inspired TikTok trends. Did all that really happen over the past few months?



A family disagrees on whether the electronic accessory should be communal or not.



Warning: Extremely big spoilers ahead for not only Stranger Things Season 4 but the immersive experience. If you want to bail, as our guy Eddie Munson put it, "Don’t try to be heroes. There is no shame in running." Look, I'm aware it's been weeks. You can lower both of those eyebrows. But frankly, I'm not over the Stranger Things Season 4 finale for one big, legitimate reason: I need to know what



All smartphone makers promise to help us get things done faster. As a result, there are a ton of competing flagship smartphones on the market — the iPhone 13 , the Galaxy S22 , and the Pixel 6 , to name a few — that ensure a brisk mobile experience housed in an elegant design. The OnePlus 10T strays only slightly from that formula. Straddling both the premium and midrange markets, it combines the



TL;DR: As of August 25, you can get the Refurbished 5th-generation Apple iPad in Space Gray for just $319.99 instead of $499 — that's a 35% discount. Buying refurbished tech isn't just a great way to lower your carbon footprint. It could still get you decent devices that hold up well in terms of performance, durability, and longevity. For example, this refurbished 5th-generation iPad still has pl



TL;DR: As of August 25, you can get 10,000 LongTailPro Keyword Lookup Credits for just $49.99 instead of $598 — that's a 91% discount. Keyword research can be exhausting, but it’s just one part of getting your content noticed on the internet. With so much competition on the popular search engines, getting onto the first page could take a lot of work, depending on your topic. That work might be a



TL;DR: As of August 25, you can get the VH-80 Bilateral Laser Distance Measurer for just $144.30 with code VH80 — that's a 27% discount. Whether you're hanging a painting, sticking a curtain rod above a window, or just trying to see for sure if an ad for a new home told the truth about the square footage of your potential "walk-in" closet, there's a lot of reasons you might want an easy way to me



TL;DR: Between Aug. 24 and Sept. 18, you can get the Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription for just $199 instead of $499 — that's a 60% discount. Speaking a second or third language may be cool, but it also could do something more for you. Beyond making it easier to find the non-touristy spots when you travel, there’s evidence to suggest another huge benefit to being multilingual: keepi



Once upon a time, reading smut was a private endeavor. Your Archive of Our Own (AO3) bookmarks were something kept in the recesses of your internet browsers and erotic fiction was read under the covers. You only shared your current recommendations behind the anonymity of a Tumblr username. Now, however, young people are embracing their smut on TikTok and going public with their horniness. Videos



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



20Mashable / 1h
Starlink is getting significantly cheaper for many users around the world. SpaceX offered no official announcement about the price reductions, but users have been getting emails saying their monthly Starlink fee has been reduced. In Croatia, the price reduction has been drastic, from 799 HRK ($106) to 370HRK ($49) per month. "The price reduction factors in your local market conditions and is mean




The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



The presence of various payment forms and providers is one reason why businesses in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region have operational challenges in managing revenue and collection. These businesses often use outdated methods such as Excel sheets to keep a record of these collections, especially subscription-based ones, or build in-house automation systems , therefore, they miss out on v



The hackers that breached Twilio earlier this month also compromised over 130 organizations during their hacking spree that netted the credentials of close to 10,000 employees. Twilio’s recent network intrusion allowed the hackers access the data of 125 Twilio customers and companies — including end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal — after tricking employees into handing over their corporate



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



We're now in the last week of August, which means we're on the verge of crisp air, fall leaves, and pumpkin spiced this and that. But how can you be expected to enjoy the changing seasons when today's Quordle is such torture? Fortunately, all four Quordle answers for today are down below. But if you've got time, check out our strategy guide. Become a Quordle champ by summer's end, instead of jump
YESTERDAY



Samsung unveiled its new flagship SSD (solid-state drive) line, the 990 PRO Series, which is said to be built for a wide range of applications like gaming and 4K video editing. There's a fair amount of hype for the 990 because there were hints this new SSD would run on the PCIe 5.0 interface. Unfortunately, people will have to wait longer for a consumer-level PCIe 5.0 SSD from Samsung as the 990



Privacy breaches are not only bad for users, but also costly for tech companies. For example, GDPR fines now total $1.7 billion , and earlier this year Twitter had to pay $150 million for misrepresenting the security and privacy of user data. Based in Pune, India and Delaware, Privado wants to make it easier for developers to keep user data under wraps. The company announced today that it has rai



Sonos is working on a new flagship speaker that could be quite a departure from its existing models, according to The Verge . The publication reports that it has seen early images of a new high-end speaker with the codename Optimo 2. If its current design sticks, the device will be encased in a dual-angled shell and will be able to fire sound in nearly all directions, including upwards. Its work-



Max Novendstern, co-founder and former chief executive of Worldcoin, has left the high-profile startup to launch a new venture, according to sources and regulatory filings and investor deck obtained by TechCrunch. A Worldcoin spokesperson confirmed that Novendstern is no longer at the startup, but said he continues to advise the firm. Novendstern did not respond to a Twitter message Wednesday. Hi



TL;DR: The 2022 Complete Python Certification Bootcamp Bundle is on sale for £29.03, saving you 98% on list price. Want to start coding but don't know what language to start with? Python could be a useful first language to have under your belt. Often recommended by programmers as a primer because of its accessibility and the many different ways you can use it, Python is also still the most popula



It's a new day and it's time to set out on a puzzle adventure: There's a new Wordle to solve! Take our daily Wordle hints and tips — it's not dangerous to go alone, but it will certainly be harder. The answer to the August 25 Wordle, puzzle #432, can be found at the end of this article. Before you get there, though, there are a couple of subtle clues to help you narrow it down, and as you scroll



There’s been a lot of hype about “Web3”, but the reality is that it’s still a largely nascent and fragmented concept, and that has led to Web3 startups building platforms to engage with it more easily getting a lot of attention. In the latest development, a startup called thirdweb — which has created a development toolkit to make it easier to build and launch Web3 products such as blockchain game



The ocean is home to a number of superyachts from the world's wealthiest people. Which yachts do most want to see in person? The winner may surprise you.



You might be surprised to learn that the GM mid-engine sportscar known as the Fiero is getting a second chance price-wise.



Android Auto has received its 8.0 designation, and that round number may have you convinced this is a major upgrade. Sadly, that's not the case.



Qantas will once again land in New York, but its return will come a bit differently than originally planned. The flag carrier of Australia announced on Thursday that it would soon connect New York-JFK with Auckland Airport (AKL) in New Zealand. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . The airline will use flight numbers QF3 and QF4 for the eastbou




Carl Pei's Nothing launched its first two products amid a sea of controversy and heated debates, and it doesn't look like things will change anytime soon.



Apple has finally expanded the self-service repair program to cover its MacBooks with the M1 chip, but the process may scare away many DIYers.



Supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine is driving increased costs of goods and services, affecting not only the industrial sector (e.g., semiconductors), but also the agriculture industry. Global food prices have dropped for three consecutive months but still remain relatively high compared to last year, per the 2022 report by the Food and Agriculture Organ



Two days ago there was Delta business class award space to Zurich and now there's space from New York JFK to Amsterdam and from Salt Lake City to both Paris and Amsterdam in business class for two passengers for January through March. Continue reading ...



A new leak claims Sonos is working on three new speakers, one of which has been described as a wireless model sporting some unique design choices.



Today's Wordle solution is pretty simple, offering users a reprieve from the tricky puzzles seen earlier this week. These hints will make it even easier.



If you're still waiting for Starlink availability in your region, you may have a new option for getting the satellite internet service, but there's a catch.



The Dodge Viper is officially a part of automotive history, but its popularity lives on, and that has seemingly inspired an incredible Viper concept design.



These days, Star Wars works better if you know Star Wars. Knowing that Obi-Wan Kenobi will let Darth Vader kill him makes the Obi-Wan Kenobi show richer. Hearing Ahsoka Tano say “Thrawn” on The Mandalorian will be that much sweeter to fans of Star Wars Rebels . The examples go on and on. And while playing to nostalgia… Read more...



Thousands of users reported issues on Wednesday as a glitch hit the social media site's homepage.



100+Ars Technica / 10h
Enlarge / Mehmet Oz, US Republican Senate candidate for Pennsylvania, speaks during a campaign event in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, June 9, 2022. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg ) In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mehmet Oz—aka Dr. Oz—repeatedly emailed top-level Trump administration officials, urging them to push the ineffective malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat COV



Enlarge / The Dolmen of Guadalperal completely visible in July 2019 due to a low water level in the Valdecañas reservoir. (credit: Pleonr /CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Last week we told you about the flurry of recent coverage resurfacing 2018 news stories about the re-emergence of so-called " hunger stones " due to extreme drought conditions in Europe. We also noted that Europe is once again in the midst of a



Stretched thin as they've rebuilt their route network, Qantas hasn't restarted Los Angeles - New York. They're planning to fly non-stop to New York using new Airbus A350-1000 aircraft potentially as soon as 2025. Until then they have a new solution for serving the New York market. They will fly Sydney - Auckland - New York JFK starting in June 2023. Continue reading ...



On Wednesdays we wear black and watch the latest behind the scenes featurette for Tim Burton’s Netflix series centering on Wednesday Addams . In it, the master of cinematic oddities like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands discusses Wednesday star Jenna Ortega ’s take on the classic Charles Addams character. Read more...



Google announced today that Google Play Games for PC , a program that lets users play Android games on Windows, is now available to all users under an open beta in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia. The company introduced a limited test earlier this year with interested players getting to try out the platform through a waitlist. With the new announcement, they will not have t



It was the first time that an influence operation promoting U.S. interests abroad had been discovered and taken down from the social media platforms.



67Engadget / 11h
After introducing 30-minute deliveries last year , Instacart will now allow you to order large items from retailers. The company’s new service, aptly named “Big & Bulky ,” promises same-day and scheduled delivery of products like outdoor furniture, office supplies and home electronics. As of today, a handful of retailers, including Mastermind Toys, Office Depot and Staples, are participating in t



Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic will be sending its CubeRover platform to the moon under a new award from NASA. The company will use CubeRover to test technologies for surviving the lunar night and communicating across greater distances on the moon’s surface. Lunar night survival is trickier than one might think. Nights on the moon are long — up to 14 days of darkness at a time — and frigid, with tem



77Futurism / 12h
Ocean Planet An international team of astronomers have announced the discovery of a potential "ocean planet" exoplanet orbiting a star in a binary system just 100 light-years from Earth — a tantalizing new target that, if confirmed, could be a tantalizing new target in the search for alien life. The exoplanet, dubbed TOI-1452b, is a little bit bigger in both size and mass compared to Earth, and a



Pedestrian Paths Forget about tech neck — smartphones in Hong Kong are distracting pedestrians as they cross the street so badly that officials are piloting a new kind of street light to help keep them from walking into traffic. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the new lights are being tested at four locations for six months. They give off an eerie red glow on the crosswalk and sidewalk below,




Back Up Some North Carolina drivers who own a Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck may get paid a little cash to help stabilize the local power grid during peak times, in an interesting example of how electric vehicles, with their sizable battery packs, could come to prop up local power grids. Canary Media reported this week that Duke Energy, which serves around 8 million customers in North Caroli



Keith Crawford and David Odusanya, two former Nike marketers, are trying to reinvent the cremation business in a direct-to-consumer (DTC) pivot that could do away with traditional funeral experiences that often cost a pretty penny, Ad Age reports . Experts believe millennials and Gen Z in particular are looking for new ways to honor the death of their loved ones, sparking the emergence of a numbe



Swim among starfish, stingrays and dolphins in the Caribbean Sea with this deal. Flights to Grand Cayman are as low as $295. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter . Round-trip fares to Grand Cayman for the next six months — and even next summer — are anywhere between $295 and $374, depending on where you depart from. Fly into the island’s capital



Hulu has been around for years, and its plan options have gotten a bit complicated. In addition to on-demand content, Hulu has live TV, add-ons, and a bundle.



These evidently highly adaptable sharks call the Kavachi Volcano, located within the Solomon Islands, their home.



The battery life on GMC's electric Hummer might surprise you with just how many years and miles it's expected to last.



The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is a high-performing phone for those wanting the best of a foldable's features and a toop-notch upgrade.



Apple has officially announced its next product event, and there's a lot to be excited about, including more than just the iPhone 14 lineup.



Elon Musk hasn’t taken kindly to recent criticism of Tesla FSD beta software — the soon-to-be $15,000 upgraded version of its advanced driver assistance system that the CEO promises one day will deliver full autonomous driving capabilities. When a Tesla owner publicly criticized the latest update of the FSD beta software, Musk clapped back via Twitter. “Unfortunately I have to say I’m still havin



To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Didya know that we’ve got all sorts of really awesome newsletters on TechCrunch? Robotics, transportation, fintech, crypto, space and much more. You can subscribe here to keep your finger on the pulse of the topics you care the most about . Just, er, please don’t u



Whether you use a PC, Mac, or iPad, keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of time. On Mac, for example, you can use Command + ` to quickly switch between open windows of the same app, rather than clicking around your desktop searching for the right screen. While most of us know at least a few useful shortcuts, there… Read more...



Twitter’s former security chief will testify at a Senate hearing about the company’s security practices. Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who recently went public with a lengthy whistleblower complaint based on his experiences at the company, will appear at a Judiciary Committee hearing on September 13th. “Mr. Zatko’s allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitte



Amazon plans to discontinue its Care telehealth service by the end of the year, reports The Washington Post . The company reportedly told employees of the decision during a meeting on Wednesday. It's expected "dozens" of employees will lose their jobs as a result. Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget's request for comment. “This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after m



Link: Apply now for the Alaska Airlines Visa® Business card The Alaska Airlines Business Visa Card ( review ) is offering a massive welcome bonus, which is the best publicly available offer we’ve seen on this card. This bonus was first introduced a few weeks ago, and I wanted to post a reminder of it, as it’s anyone’s guess how long it will stick around. Earn 70K Alaska miles plus a companion far



100+Mashable / 12h
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a photograph shot on a smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 mobile platform is worth at least a billion. Thanks to Snapdragon Sight’s innovative features , your smartphone is transformed into a DSLR-quality camera. As a Creative Director at Mashable, I recently had the chance to try it out for myself in a photographer’s dream location. Le



77Gizmodo / 12h
Black Adam will be the only new DC movie you see in theaters this year. Warner Bros. just moved Shazam: Fury of the Gods from its original December 2022 release date to March 17, 2023, a date originally intended for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom . However, that has now been pushed back as well, to December 25, 2023, so… Read more...



Summer may be coming to an end, but Netflix's collection of movies and TV shows will still be around should you need an escape. September sees the return of several Netflix series, including Season 5 of Cobra Kai and Season 4 of Fate: The Winx Saga. This coming month also marks the release of films like teen comedy Do Revenge and rom-com Love in the Villa , as well as the highly anticipated Blond



If you’re looking for an affordable fall Florida getaway, multiple airlines are offering discounted tickets to Tampa International Airport (TPA). Frontier, JetBlue and Southwest have discounted tickets to Tampa from LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Midway International Airport (MDW) and Denver International Airport (DEN). Spu



Reddit, you probably already know, is essentially a modernized version of the standard online forum. It provides communities for individuals with even the most niche interests, giving them space to connect with others who share their passions. It also has something of a language and culture all its own, so if you’ve… Read more...



79Gizmodo / 12h
Pour one out for the dugong today—the bulbous yet endearing undersea mammal has hit a worrying new benchmark of species decline. Scientists have declared the animal “functionally extinct” in part of the South China Sea, in a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Hunting, the fishing industry,… Read more...




If you ever needed a compelling argument against downloading pirated software, cracks, or activators, here’s one - you’ll probably end up with a dangerous infostealer along the way, too. Experts from Zscaler recently analyzed several ongoing malware distribution campaigns, finding an


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