Friday, August 18, 2023

Technology News and More-Friday Edition...

Technology News and More...


United Airlines Pilot Charged In Axe Attack At Denver Airport Parking Lot


59One Mile at a Time / 1h
While we see all kinds of people acting inappropriately at airports, it’s not usually the pilots… United Airlines pilot attacks airport parking gate A 63-year-old United Airlines pilot has been charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief, after his behavior at Denver International Airport (DEN) on August 2, 2023. Specifically, the pilot was trying to leave the employee parking lot while still in u



Threads app’s latest update gives more prominence to reposts
TechCrunch / 1h
Threads haven’t launched a web version yet, but the app has shipped a new update to give more prominence to reposts on the social network. Meta has changed two things regarding reposts on the app. First, there is now a dedicated “Reposts” tab on the profile page, so people can quickly scan through all reposts by a user. Earlier this month, the company rolled out a new option on the settings page



Roku has added a ton of free channels from NBCUniversal and more are on their way
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 11min
What do New York, LA, Miami and Chicago have in common? As of this week, they're among the cities whose local news channels are being added to the free Roku Channel, which has over 80,000 movies and shows , so you can stream them on your Roku TV or other Roku device. The Roku Channel is available to anybody who has a Roku TV like the Roku Plus Series or one of the best Roku streaming device s, su


Threads adds a separate feed just for reposts
Mashable / 1h
Don't panic if your Threads profile is looking a little more sparse than you remember. Meta 's Twitter / X competitor has added a new reposts tab, separating users' original posts and ones they've shared from others. All your reposts are still safe — they've just been moved to another tab. "[W]e're rolling out a new Reposts tab on your profile so you can see all the threads you reposted in one pl


Spotify almost removed 'white noise' podcasts to save money
Engadget / 2h
White noise podcast creators on Spotify are making serious money, and the audio streaming service was reportedly not happy about it and tried to cut them off. According to Bloomberg , it has viewed an internal document revealing that podcasts with white noise content, such as the sounds of waves, vacuums and whirring fans, accounted for a total of 3 million consumption hours on the platform every


Amazon is reportedly testing a confusing star rating system
Engadget / 3h
Amazon has started testing a new star rating system in specific regions that makes it harder to gauge how buyers are liking a specific product. Android Police has spotted the the experimental system on the company's mobile app in India, its German website and its global website when accessed from Germany. We couldn't replicate what the publication has seen on the US website, but it looks like the


X (Twitter) may implement ID verification to fight impersonators, but will it work?
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 3h
The implementation of ID verification to Twitter (now known as X) is something that’s been long rumored ever since Elon Musk bought the platform. This new security feature may be coming soon as details on how the verification process will work have recently emerged. At least potentially. This information comes from independent app researcher Nima Owji who shared a screenshot of an in-app window r


HealthXCapital’s team joins Jungle Ventures
TechCrunch / 3h
The team behind HealthXCapital , which invested in and helped health tech startups scale up, has joined Singapore-based Jungle Ventures . Seemant Jauhari, who led HealthXCapital since it was founded eight years ago, is now a partner at Jungle, where he will invest in healthcare startups in Southeast Asia and India. HealthXCapital’s portfolio includes RED.Health, Homage , Medfin and THB. The firm


Twitch will let streamers block banned users from watching streams
TechCrunch / 4h
Twitch’s chat ban tools have been around for ages, but the platform is about to hand streamers a way to control who can watch a stream to begin with. In Twitch’s latest episode of Patch Notes , its monthly product update show, the company announced that it would soon let streamers block banned users from watching streams. If moderators or streamers enable the feature, banned users will be booted


A lifetime subscription to Babbel is on sale for 66% off
Mashable / 4h
TL;DR : A lifetime subscription to Babbel (all languages) is on sale for £157.10, saving you 66% on list price. Learning a new language isn’t easy, but it might open some interesting doors, whether you’re a student, professional, or a traveller with your eyes on the horizon. The trouble is finding the time to sit down and actually study another language. Formal classes may take a while, and some


'Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake' trailer goes to very distant lands
Mashable / 5h
Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake has released its official trailer, offering a preview of the upcoming return to the Land of Ooo. The 10-episode spinoff series will follow Fionna the Human and Cake the Cat, the alternate female versions of Adventure Time protagonists Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. Frustrated by her mundane life in a world not unlike our own, Fionna soon finds herself and her cat C


Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for August 18
Mashable / 7h
It's Friday, and with it comes a new Wordle puzzle to usher you into the weekend. We're here for you, as we are every day, with some tips and tricks to help you figure out the solution. If you just want to be told today's answer, you can jump to the end of this article for August 17's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategie


NASA’s buildings are even older than its graying workforce
Ars Technica - All content / 9h
Enlarge / NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio, formerly known as Plum Brook Station, is the world's largest space test chamber. (credit: NASA/Michelle Murphy ) It's big news when a hurricane damages buildings at NASA's Kennedy Space Center or hits a rocket factory in New Orleans. There's damage that needs repairing immediately so missions can move forward to launch. But there's a deeper p


David Harbour Talks Stranger Things End and Creature Commandos Future
Gizmodo / 9h
In a previously recorded appearance on Josh Horowitz’s podcast Happy Sad Confused promoting Gran Tourismo, the film’s star David Harbour discussed the Stranger Things finale and joining James Gunn’s Creature Commandos f or DC Studios . Both projects are currently being paused as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue as… Read more...


'Quordle' today: Here are the answers and hints for August 18, 2023
Mashable / 9h
If Quordle is a little too challenging today, you've come to the right place for hints. There aren't just hints here, but the whole Quordle solution. Scroll to the bottom of this page, and there it is. But are you sure you need all four answers? Maybe you just need a strategy guide. Either way, scroll down, and you'll get what you need. What is Quordle ? Quordle is a five-letter word guessing gam


Quordle today - hints and answers for Friday, August 18 (game #571)
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 9h
It's time for your daily dose of Quordle hints, plus the answers for both the main game and the Daily Sequence spin off. Quordle is the only one of the many Wordle clones that I'm still playing now, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it's good fun, but also difficult. What's more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also


The eco-friendly glass that's hard to crack
26BBC News - Technology / 9h
Scientists have developed an extremely strong glass which is less energy intensive to make than regular glass.


It’s Time For Tourists To Return To Maui
View from the Wing / 9h
West Maui is in shambles. Lahaina has largely been destroyed. 111 people are confirmed dead, with as many as 1,000 still missing. Over 2,000 structures were damaged - most of them residential. But slowly life is being put back together. Verizon cell phone service was just restored. Yet Maui already needs tourism back. Continue reading ...


What’s Next for Blue Beetle in the DC Universe? | io9 Interview
Gizmodo / 10h
Read more...


End of the road: The Xbox 360 game marketplace will shut down
Ars Technica - All content / 10h
The Xbox 360. (credit: Thomas Hawk ) The digital storefront for purchasing games and other media on the Xbox 360 game console will be shut down next summer, just a bit shy of 20 years after the console's debut. A blog post announcement credited to Dave McCarthy, CVP of Xbox Player Services at Microsoft, stated that purchases will no longer be possible starting on July 29, 2024. The change affects



Western Digital, SanDisk Extreme SSDs don’t store data safely, lawsuit says
Ars Technica - All content / 10h
Enlarge / SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2's are water-resistant, but are they erase-your-data-and-become-unmountable-resistant? Amid ongoing pressure to address claims that its SanDisk Extreme SSDs are still erasing data and becoming unmountable despite a firmware fix, Western Digital is facing a lawsuit over its storage drives. A lawsuit filed on Wednesday accuses the company of knowingly se


Heavy, highly magnetic star may be first magnetar precursor we’ve seen
22Ars Technica - All content / 10h
Enlarge / Helium-rich Wolf-Rayet stars generally form by the ejection of hydrogen and other materials. (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team ) Magnetars are some of the most extreme objects we know about, with magnetic fields so strong that chemistry becomes impossible in their vicinity. They're neutron stars with a superfluid interior that includes charged particles, so it's e


How the ‘Proust Effect’ Can Help You Study
23Lifehacker / 10h
When you need to remember something important, it makes sense to look around for hacks and tricks to maximize your recall. And plenty of those are out there, but do they actually work? One popular tip involves chewing a certain flavor of gum or spraying an specific scent in the air while you study or work, then using… Read more...


3D Printers Go Rogue, Start Printing While Owners Are Asleep
100+Futurism / 11h
Ghost in the CNC What happens when a 3D printer goes rogue? Just ask the owners of Bambu's product line, which overnight went from playing the docile machine to acting with all the impulse control of a toddler left alone with crayons and a blank wall. As The Verge reports , many owners of either Bambu's X1C or P1P models woke up on Tuesday to find that their beloved printers had mysteriously star


The State of the Star Wars Galaxy Coming Into Ahsoka
Gizmodo / 11h
When Ahsoka begins next week , we’re getting even further insight into a Star Wars galaxy at a crossroads moment in time —arguably the first major crisis of a nascent New Republic, and a galaxy still picking itself up after the fall of the Galactic Empire. But what do we actually know has happened in the run-up to the… Read more...


The Best Study Gadgets for Students
21Lifehacker / 11h
It’s back-to-school season, which used to mean loading up on fresh pencils and notebooks—more often now, though, it means loading up on new tech. (Although, you can still buy pencils and notebooks and probably should .) There are a ton of great devices out there right now to help you study and manage your academic… Read more...


Pentagon Launches Study on How to Start an Economy on the Moon in the Next 10 Years
Gizmodo / 11h
The Moon is so hot right now, metaphorically speaking. Several US government agencies , private space ventures , and foreign governments like China are plotting for mankind’s return to the lunar surface over the next decade. Unlike the days of Apollo, the modern-day race to the Moon involves establishing a sustainable… Read more...


Tinder is losing the tool it uses for background checks
59Engadget / 11h
The background-checking tool used by Match Group to offer a safety feature for Tinder users is shutting down. The non-profit and female-founded Garbo, which the dating app conglomerate has partnered with since 2019, will shut down its consumer tool at the end of August. “Most tech companies just see trust and safety as good PR,” Kathryn Kosmides, Garbo’s founder and CEO, told The Wall Street Jour


As a Hyatt loyalist, here’s why Europe is more appealing than ever
24The Points Guy / 11h
Not all that long ago, Hyatt loyalists struggled to find hotels they could book in many European destinations. There are still numerous European destinations — such as Warsaw, Poland and Bucharest, Romania — that don’t have any hotels you can book through Hyatt. But as I plan upcoming trips, I’m starting to see a lot more Hyatt hotels in Europe. I’m excited about some of the options I’m finding w


World Of Hyatt Member Charged $5,500 To Cancel An Award Stay When His Father Died
32View from the Wing / 11h
He paid 63,000 points for a stay at The Grand Victoria Hotel in Lake Como. His father passed away, and the funeral conflicts with this stay. So he can’t go, and he’s been charged $5,500. That’s how Hyatt’s (and Marriott’s) rule works. It’s also unacceptable. Most people assume that they’ll lose the points, not the cash, but that isn't the rule! Continue reading ...


You Can Get a Lifetime of Curiosity Stream for $200
Lifehacker / 11h
Curiosity Stream is an award-winning streaming service that has a huge library of documentaries on science, history, technology, nature, biographies, and true crime, and a lifetime subscription is on sale for $199.99 right now . Read more...


Match Group’s background check provider Garbo ends its partnership
27TechCrunch / 12h
Tech nonprofit Garbo announced today it’s ending its formal partnership with Match Group, the dating app giant behind Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Match and other apps. The two companies first teamed up in 2021, when Match made a seven-figure investment in the background check provider, following a series of reports about harm that came to dating app users through Match-owned apps. In particular, a da


How birth/rebirth Explores the Joys and Horrors of Motherhood
Gizmodo / 12h
io9 first caught director and co-writer Laura Moss’ debut birth/rebirth at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2023— read our review here —and its grisly yet deeply emotional exploration of motherhood has stuck with us for months. With the film about to hit theaters, we were excited to speak to Moss all about it. Read more...


Professor Says Elon Musk Locked Him Out of His Twitter Account
100+Futurism / 12h
Really Mature When Elon Musk bought Twitter — which he's since cringely renamed X — he said he wanted to make the social media platform into a free speech zone . But apparently that principle doesn't apply to critics like Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University, who says he was locked out of his Twitter account of more than 564,000 followers after snubbing the mercurial tech


What People are Getting Wrong This Week: The Maui Wildfires
26Lifehacker / 12h
The Maui wildlife fires are the deadliest in the U.S. in over 100 years. The rising death toll is currently 111, with thousands still missing. While much of the nation is grieving and offering support for residents of the devastated town of Lahaina, some are responding by creating and spreading lies and conspiracy… Read more...


True Anomaly gets regulatory greenlight for first spacecraft reconnaissance mission
TechCrunch / 12h
Defense-focused space technology startup True Anomaly has received key permits from regulators that will allow it to demonstrate imaging and rendezvous capabilities on-orbit for the first time. The two authorizations — from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — give the company the greenlight to perform non-Earth imaging and t


Microsoft AI suggests food bank as a “cannot miss” tourist spot in Canada
300+Ars Technica - All content / 12h
Enlarge / A photo of the Ottawa Food Bank warehouse. (credit: Ottawa Food Bank) Late last week, MSN.com's Microsoft Travel section posted an AI-generated article about the "cannot miss" attractions of Ottawa that includes the Ottawa Food Bank , a real charitable organization that feeds struggling families. In its recommendation text, Microsoft's AI model wrote, "Consider going into it on an empty


Mars keeps spinning faster every year, NASA InSight data says
34Ars Technica - All content / 12h
Enlarge / A self portrait of InSight's hardware on the red planet. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) To say Mars is a bizarre planet might be something of an understatement. It has nearly no atmosphere, has an unstable liquid metal core that causes it to wobble on its axis constantly, and as a frozen desert, is an oxymoron in itself. As if Mars wasn’t strange enough, data from NASA’s InSight Lander (RIP


Buyers of Bored Ape NFTs sue after digital apes turn out to be bad investment
1KArs Technica - All content / 12h
Enlarge / Bored Ape NFTs can now be purchased for just $50,000 each. (credit: Sotheby's) The Sotheby's auction house has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by investors who regret buying Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that sold for highly inflated prices during the NFT craze in 2021. A Sotheby's auction duped investors by giving the Bored Ape NFTs "an air of legitimacy... to generate investo


When European airports and trains are set to strike next
500+The Points Guy / 12h
Editor’s note: This page will be updated as new information emerges. We always hope your travel will be trouble-free. However, there are several strikes to look out for across Europe in the coming weeks. If you plan to travel during these dates and need advice, read our guide to insurance policies and strike coverage . Additionally, find out what you may be entitled to in terms of compensation if



Your Concrete Project Needs Cement Paint
23Lifehacker / 12h
Concrete is amazing. All you have to do is look at ancient Roman ruins to realize how durable, flexible, and strong concrete can be as a building material. This can lead to the occasional moment of mental dissonance, however, when your outdoor steps are crumbling into dust while the 2,000-year-old Pantheon in Rome… Read more...


Google reveals when your Wear OS 2 smartwatch will get a big downgrade
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 12h
Owners of a Wear OS 2 smartwatch will need to consider upgrading soon because support for the Google Assistant app is officially ending on August 31. 9to5Google initially broke this story when it discovered a string of code in a recent update for the Wear OS companion app, hinting at the impending shutdown. Since then, Google itself as well as other brands have begun notifying users of older wear


Fifteen years in and still early to the industry with Marco Zappacosta from Thumbtack
TechCrunch / 12h
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Marco Zappacosta , the co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack , a startup that runs a marketplace for home services and beyond. Zappacosta talked about his unusual path to entrepreneurship which