Sunday, December 17, 2023

Technology News and More for a Sunday...

Technology News and More...



How to Find Your Family and Friends Using Google Maps


300+How-To Geek / 16h
Google Maps can give you peace of mind when it comes to your loved ones. Whether it's a school-aged child or an elderly family member, you can use Google Maps to find your family or friends' locations.


Jeff Bezos Discusses Plans for a Trillion People to Live in Huge Cylindrical Space Stations
500+Futurism / 19h
Habitat Prime If it were up to Amazon founder and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos, we'll all be living inside massive cylindrical space stations one day, floating through the distant corners of our solar system while longingly staring back at the Pale Blue Dot we once called home. During a recent interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Bezos said that these habitats, like those first described by scienc


Scientists say they conversed with a whale. It may be practice for aliens.
97Mashable / 21h
Scientists searching for life outside our planet say they’ve finally made contact – with a humpback whale. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, and the Alaska Whale Foundation reported in a new study that they had a 20-minute "conversation" with a humpback whale named Twain. The study, published in the journal Peer J


Lifetime access to Headway Premium is on sale for under £50
Mashable / 2h
TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to Headway Premium is on sale for £47.75, saving you 80% on list price. Self-improvement is a powerful goal, but it’s also time-consuming. The inspiring best-selling books may be out there, but the time to sit down, read, and learn from them probably isn’t. Headway does some of the work for you, giving you a library of nonfiction best sellers condensed into 15-minut


Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Sunday, December 17, 2023
LifeHacker / 4h
If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for December 17, 2023, read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easy to medium; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for December 17, Wordle #911! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game. How to play Wordle Wordle lives here on the New York Ti


Today's NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Sunday, December 17, 2023
LifeHacker / 4h
Today is another fun puzzle—not as easy as the last few, but still pretty straightforward solving. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Sunday, December 17, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, ther


Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for December 17
Mashable / 4h
Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle . As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer. If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for Dec. 17's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. Where did Wordle co


NYT Connections today: See hints and answers for December 17
Mashable / 5h
Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle , Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle. If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the e


The secret sauce for Taiwan's chip superstardom
100+BBC News - Technology / 5h
How an island that exported t-shirts and sugar turned into the world's largest silicon chip factory.


Quordle today - hints and answers for Sunday, December 17 (game #692)
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 7h
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 fun, but also difficult. What's more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keep


British Airways Removes Jewish Sitcom From Inflight Entertainment, Says Anti-Jewish Stance Is “Neutrality”
24View from the Wing / 7h
They refuse to show a Jewish sitcom and thinks that this isn’t ‘taking sides in the conflict,’ indeed perhaps the most objectionable thing is British Airways not wanting to take sides against Hamas, terrorism, and the mission to cleanse Jews ‘from the river to the sea’ (and, indeed, beyond). Continue reading ...


How to use points and miles to give gifts with zero out-of-pocket cost
22The Points Guy / 8h
Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. Each holiday season, some consumers find that they have no extra money for gifts. If you’re in this situation, you could put your holiday purchases on a 0% interest credit card if you know you can pay the charges off during the introductory period. However, if you have points or miles tucked away in your loyalty acco


Apple is testing a feature to help App Store developers undercut competitors’ subscription prices
Engadget / 9h
Apple says it has begun piloting a new App Store feature called “contingent pricing” that will help developers lure in customers with cheaper subscriptions based on their previous purchases. The contingent pricing model will let developers offer discounts to customers who already have subscriptions to other services, be it those developers’ own apps or their competitors’. It’s starting with a sel


thekimonogallery: by Japanese illustrator Hikari Masuko
Music, Arts & Literature / 9h
thekimonogallery : by Japanese illustrator Hikari Masuko


Miles, Points, and Courtrooms: The Wildest Loyalty Program Exploits Revealed
View from the Wing / 9h
The best loyalty program deals ever are the ones that really scale - earning millions of miles at a reasonable cost by thinking outside the box and thinking big. Sometimes these deals work out, and other times they wind up in court. Continue reading ...


Google’s Gemini comes to more apps, Cruise slashes its workforce and Tesla issues a recall
24TechCrunch / 10h
Hey, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering the major happenings in the tech-o-sphere — or most of them, anyway. As the world’s largest AI conference, NeurIPS, got underway in sunny New Orleans, Google shared more on Gemini, its flagship AI model family — and lots happened elsewhere. In this edition […] © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal


Obituary: Godzilla Suit Actor Kenpachiro Satsuma Has Passed Away
200+Gizmodo / 10h
Japanese actor Kenpachiro Satsuma died earlier today, according to a translated post from Matomedane , from what’s said to be interstitial pneumonia . The 76-year-old actor is best known for portraying various monsters during Godzilla’s Heisei era , including the lead monster himself. Read more...


Weekly Review: December 16, 2023
One Mile at a Time / 10h
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend! I wrapped up some travel earlier in the week, and then had LASIK eye surgery on Thursday. I’m done with traveling for the year, but you can expect a couple of trip reports in the coming weeks, and then I have exciting review trips planned for January. On the points & travel front, this week Turkish Airlines placed a huge aircraft order, Japan Airlines too


Cats of the Louvre (ルーヴルの猫) // Taiyō Matsumoto
Music, Arts & Literature / 10h
strangemonochromes :


Can you keep transferring credit card balances?
The Points Guy / 10h
When it comes to cutting down on debt and managing big purchases, a credit card balance transfer can be an effective strategy for cutting down on the potential interest you have to pay. But it’s important to approach balance transfers with caution, especially if you’re juggling multiple balance transfers. If you’re still paying off a balance after your card’s introductory 0% APR period ends, it c


Apple, Visa and Mastercard sued in proposed class action antitrust case over Apple Pay card fees
Engadget / 11h
A proposed class action lawsuit has accused Apple of accepting a form of bribe from Visa and Mastercard to ensure their dominance over point-of-sale payment card services for Apple Pay transactions, according to Reuters . As a result, the lawsuit says merchants have been forced to pay higher fees. The companies are being sued by beverage retailer Mirage Wine & Spirits in Illinois on behalf of “al


The Meta Quest 3 doesn’t beat my 4K TV for Xbox gaming, but I don’t care – I love it
TechRadar - All the latest technology ne... / 11h
After Thursday’s surprise Xbox Cloud Gaming launch on the Meta Quest 3 , I've spent most (read: too much) of my evenings trying the service out. And while it doesn’t hold a candle to my more traditional 4K TV and console setup from a technical perspective, its portability more than makes up for that. For the uninitiated, Xbox Cloud Gaming is basically Netflix for video games. For a monthly fee of


cazbruce:Remy Charlip, illustration from “A Day of Winter” by...
Music, Arts & Literature / 11h
cazbruce : Remy Charlip, illustration from “A Day of Winter” by Betty Miles, 1961


Voyager 1 Is Glitching Out and More Top Science News of the Week
Gizmodo / 11h
Space is hard, as the cliché reminds us, and that was plenty clear this week, as several groups ran into trouble: NASA with its aging Voyager 1 spacecraft, AstroForge with a struggling debut mission to prove asteroid mining can work, and a few missing-in-action satellites from a recent SpaceX launch. Back on Earth,… Read more...


'Wonka' soars to the top of the box office with $14.4 million opening day
Mashable / 12h
Not only is Warner Bros.' Wonka one of Mashable's best movies of 2023 , but it's also on its way to becoming a box office champion. The origin story of Roald Dahl's famed chocolatier — brought to whimsical life by Timothée Chalamet and Paddington director Paul King — took in $14.4 million on its opening day in the US, according to Variety . By the end of its debut weekend, it's expected to take i


Jason Momoa Basically Says It's Momover, His Aquaman May Be Cooked
80Gizmodo / 12h
Next week sees the release of Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom , DC’s final movie of 2023. The original 2018 film was a billion-dollar hit, but the sequel feels like is occupying this weird space where it feels like it should’ve been out by now, or is farther away than it seems. Either way, if you were wondering about the… Read more...


Activision Blizzard to pay more than $54 million in gender discrimination settlement
Mashable / 12h
$54,875,000. That's the amount that Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay to settle the equal pay and discrimination lawsuit that paved the way for Microsoft's acquisition of the video game company behind hit titles such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty . The Civil Rights Department (CRD) of the State of California announced on Friday that it reached a settlement for more than $54 million wi


Chase About To Pass American Express, Become Third Largest Travel Agency Behind Expedia, Booking.com
View from the Wing / 12h
Chase travel did $8 billion in sales in 2022 with 40% growth in number of customers purchasing travel through their portal. They have had public goals to hit $10 billion in sales this year and $15 billion in sales by 2025. Chase Travel believes they'll pass American Express and become the third largest travel agency within two years. Last year they were less than 8% behind. Continue reading ...


Snow leopard By: Schraml From: Éditions Rencontre Cards 1976
Music, Arts & Literature / 12h
vintagewildlife :


A review of Delta Air Lines in first class on the Airbus A321neo from Los Angeles to Seattle
The Points Guy / 12h
Quick take: Delta Air Lines’ A321neo first class offers recliners with privacy shields, delicious food and generally friendly crew. Pros Delta’s latest first-class recliners have privacy wings around the headrests and shields between