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Tech NewsMicrosoft Tried Out a 4-Day Workweek and Hot Damn, It Worked
Microsoft’s Japan offices recently experimented with shorter work weeks, and the results provide a glimmer of hope that large companies can alter the workweek and save us from collectively burning out. In August, Microsoft introduced the “Work Life Choice Challenge,” during which the Tokyo offices were closed every Friday. The company also pressed workers to … Continued
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Tech NewsT-Mobile and Sprint Merger Gets Official Approval From the FCC
After more than a year in review and several extensions, the FCC has finally given the T-Mobile Sprint merger its final approval. The new carrier—which people have been calling New T-Mobile—will become the second-largest U.S. carrier with control of 29.4 percent of post-paid wireless market according to data from earlier this year. That share is … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsSomeone Stuffed an Original NES With a Smaller NES and Its Own Built-in Projector
Like the gaming version of a turducken (those Thanksgiving abominations with a chicken and a duck stuffed inside a turkey) but less horrifying, YouTuber Geeksmithing has created a self-contained portable version of the original NES console that even includes a tiny projector for big screen gaming anywhere. https://gizmodo.com/this-extremely-tiny-gaming-laptop-recreates-the-thinkpa-1836849100 Geeksmithing started with an original 8-bit Nintendo … Continued
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Tech NewsSocial MediaTop Civil Rights Lawyers Warn Mark Zuckerberg of Potential Criminal Liability in Scathing Open Letter
In a letter aimed at gutting Facebook’s rationale for allowing misleading and dishonest political ads across its platform, a prominent civil rights organization on Tuesday issued a stern warning to Mark Zuckerberg, outlining a number of federal laws to which, the group claims, Facebook may theoretically be held to account. Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights … Continued
By Dell Cameron -
Tech NewsBland Content Isn’t Apple TV+’s Biggest Problem
Apple has had a long slow crawl from hardware maker to entertainment service provider. First, there was iTunes and selling music online, then movies and TV shows. Later came Apple Music, a streaming service provided for a monthly fee, and earlier this year there was News+, a news service… provided for a monthly fee. Now … Continued
By Alex Cranz -
Tech NewsGadgetsTimex Flips Off the Smartwatch Trend and Revives a Classic ’80s Digital Watch Instead
As watchmakers scramble to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon and attempt to steal a sliver of market share away from Apple, Timex has decided to take the opposite approach. The company has dug into its archives and revived the T80, an iconic digital watch from the ‘80s whose only smart feature is retro styling. https://gizmodo.com/maybe-dont-get-too-excited-just-yet-over-google-buying-1839606181 … Continued
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Tech NewsBernie Sanders Smacks Apple For ‘Throwing Pennies’ at California’s Housing Crisis
Every so often, Big Tech likes to announce splashy social initiatives where it throws money at a problem. Big Tech looks good for ‘caring’ and, more importantly, it distracts from the not-so-great things happening on the sidelines. Yesterday, Apple announced a $2.5 billion plan to address the housing crisis in California—a plan that 2020 Democratic … Continued
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Tech NewsGoogle Ends Support For Original Pixel, Improves the Pixel 4’s Smooth Display
With the calendar having recently turned over to November, Google has sent out updates to its latest phones with the Pixel 4 getting a handful of improvements. However, anyone still rocking an original Pixel unfortunately got nothing. For November 2019, Google’s latest batch of updates includes six major patches headlined by improvements to the Pixel … Continued
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Tech NewsTransportationSurprising No One, Uber Continues to Hemorrhage Cash
Beleaguered ride-sharing giant Uber continued to torch cash like an outdated Joker reference in Q3 2019, but it claims that the news is positive because parts of its business would technically be profitable if one looked past all the ways it’s losing money. In quarterly results posted on Monday, Uber reported a net loss of … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsSocial MediaFACEBOOK IS DOING JUST FINE, OK?
Keeping a brisk pace in its eternal quest to be as headache-inducing as possible, Facebook announced on Monday that it has rebranded as FACEBOOK. Yes, that’s right. Facebook is now FACEBOOK, written in all caps in what looks quite like a friendlier version of the vaguely authoritarian Futura typeface to capture some of that “Zuckerberg … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsThe Case for Storing Humanity’s Most Important Data on Glass Drink Coasters
It sounds a bit ridiculous at first. Dozens of gigabytes of data can now be encoded on a virtually indestructible glass hard drive that’s the size and shape of a drink coaster. Microsoft just revealed a proof of concept. It’s a thin square of glass that’s been laser-etched with microscopic geometric shapes called “voxels” that … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Internet Archive Fights Wiki Citation Wars With Books
Thanks to the laborious stewardship of the blessed Internet Archive and the unyielding armies of Wikipedia’s citizen scholars, we may, within our lifetimes, reach a consensus on basic historical information. Last week, the Internet Archive announced that it’s been filling out Wikipedia’s book citations with links to two-page previews of scanned books, so that the … Continued
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Tech NewsMaybe Don’t Get Too Excited Just Yet Over Google Buying Fitbit
Last Friday, Google plunked down $2.1 billion to acquire Fitbit. If you’ve been paying attention to wearables, the news wasn’t exactly a surprise. Google has been hobbling along in the smartwatch space for what feels like eons, and despite Fitbit shelling out $23 million to buy Pebble in 2017, its foray into smartwatches has been … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityIs Your Workplace Slack a Surveillance Tool?
Slack markets itself as a tool to increase productivity and portrays other forms of communication, particularly email, as outmoded. Even employees who sit feet away from one another in open areas eventually prefer slacking each other rather than communicating verbally. It seems somehow easier, after all, and maybe less disruptive. But it also feels like … Continued
By Dell Cameron -
Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityNetwork of ‘Camgirl’ Sites Exposed Data of Users and Sex Workers
A company that runs several sites featuring camworkers left the back-end database unprotected, allowing the data of hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of customers and sex workers to be exposed. TechCrunch reports that researchers at cybersecurity firm Condition:Black uncovered that VTS Media, a Barcelona-based company, left its database exposed. VTS runs “camgirl” networks like webcampornoxxx.net, placercams.com, … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsDell’s Latest Pro-Grade Monitor Has a Built-in Colorimeter and Thunderbolt 3
For high-end content creators, making sure your work’s colors are on point is a never-ending battle. So to make things a bit easier, Dell has created what it says is the world’s first 27-inch 4K monitor with a built-in colorimeter and Thunderbolt 3. Making its debut today at Adobe Max 2019, the $2,000 Dell UltraSharp … Continued
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Tech NewsYou Can Now Download Photoshop For iPad
After almost a year of waiting, you can finally download Photoshop for iPad. Adobe announced in a blog that Version 1.0 of the software launches today—though bear in mind, it’s a good idea to temper expectations. The first iteration of the app will, in Adobe’s words, feature “workflows, compositing, masking, and retouching.” So no, it … Continued
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Tech NewsWhat Are the Biggest Challenges Technology Must Overcome in the Next 10 Years?
Technology’s fine—I definitely like texting, and some of the shows on Netflix are tolerable—but the field’s got some serious kinks to work out. Some of these are hardware-related: when, for instance, will quantum computing become practical? Others are of more immediate concern. Is there some way to stop latently homicidal weirdos from getting radicalized online? … Continued
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Tech NewsInternet-Savvy Nazi Says a Bunch of Old Fashioned Nazi Shit in Leaked Tape
Richard Spencer, one of the most high profile neo-Nazis in America, has spent the past three years online trying to rebrand his extremist ideology with terms like “alt-right.” But a newly leaked audio tape makes it clear that this “dapper white nationalist” doesn’t have any new ideas. Spencer is just an old-fashioned Nazi. Milo Yiannopoulos, … Continued
By Matt Novak
