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Tech NewsYou Need to Update Chrome Right Now
Google rolled out Chrome version 86.0.4240.198 on Wednesday in response to two zero-day vulnerabilities discovered in the wild—the fourth and fifth security flaws discovered in the browser in the last three weeks alone. Although Google has not made details about the attacks involving the zero-days public, the company was reportedly alerted to the vulnerabilities by … Continued
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Tech NewsHey, Google Photos, What Gives?
If you’ve been enjoying the luxury of unlimited premium file storage with Google Photos, I have some unfortunate news. Google Photos previously supported unlimited file storage with photos uploaded under its “high” setting (rather than in their original, sometimes beefier formats). The only caveat was that photos over 16MP would be compressed to that size … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsReport: Elon Musk Is Kind of a Dick
It’s not exactly a secret that Elon Musk, billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, self-proclaimed Thai pedophilia expert, and designer of death race trucks, doesn’t give a flying fuck what other people think about his actions. To wit: Musk has endorsed a sex cult’s system for ranking news organizations based on “critical thinking,” regularly railed … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsThe Xbox Series X May or May Not Be Catching on Fire, and Microsoft Is Investigating
The Xbox Series X is so hot right now, and I don’t mean figuratively. I mean literally. Some people are claiming that their new Xboxes are catching on fire, but there’s a lot of skepticism over whether these claims are true. As our sister site Kotaku reports, this could be an elaborate hoax. It all … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsNanoleaf’s Super Affordable New Smart Lights Are Designed to Work Perfectly with the HomePod Mini
Until now, Nanoleaf has been best known for those fancy RGB-lit triangles, squares, and hexagons that show up in the background of seemingly every YouTuber’s videos. But starting this week, Nanoleaf is entering the world of mainstream smart lighting with its affordable Essentials Line. The first two members of the Essentials Line are Nanoleaf’s A19 … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsI’m 100% Ready to Start Bringing My Own Folding Shopping Cart to the Grocery Store
Working from home, it’s relatively easy to minimize my potential exposure to the covid-19 virus—at least until I have to leave the safety of my suburban fortress of solitude every week to buy groceries. Even with safety precautions in place and a mask on my face it’s still an incredibly stressful experience, which is why … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsRoku 4K Devices Finally Support Apple’s AirPlay and HomeKit Features
Roku support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit is finally arriving on select 4K devices, with support coming to 4K TVs running Roku’s OS in the coming days. The Apple feature support, initially announced back in September, will begin rolling out to 4K devices with the Roku OS 9.4 update. Of the company’s streaming solutions, the … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsFacebook and Google Extend Political Ad Bans, Due to Certain Circumstances Currently Affecting Democracy
Facebook and Google aren’t lifting their political ad bans soon, most likely not until Donald Trump sorts out a coup timeline concedes. This morning, Facebook sent advertisers an email reviewed by Gizmodo announcing that the platform is suspending political and issue ads for another month. “While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still … Continued
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Tech NewsPoliticsHere’s All the Big Tech-Linked Advisors on Biden’s Transition Team
On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden announced his administration’s transition team, including the list of agency review team members that will help his White House “hit the ground running on Day One.” It also, by all indications, includes a deeper bench of big tech figures than any transition team prior. Biden’s list is also a mix … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsGadgetsPlaying the Nintendo Switch With an Original 1977 Atari Joystick Is Extreme Devotion to Retro Gaming
Hand a modern controller to someone who hasn’t gamed since the days of the original Atari console and they’ll be immediately overwhelmed by its complexity. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, controllers featured a joystick and a single button, and if you’re looking for the most authentic way to play retro games, you can … Continued
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Tech NewsArtificial IntelligencePope Francis Wants You to Pray for Ethical Robots
There’s a lot of folks worried about the ethics and future of AI and robotics. Apparently, you can count Pope Francis among them. Each month, the pope issues a new prayer intention. The topics vary from month to month—September, for instance, was about sustainability, February was for migrants, and, uh, March was for Catholics in … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsI Need This Cattle Prod For Humans Who Aren’t Properly Social Distancing
If you’re not wearing a mask in public or properly practising social distancing to prioritize your comfort and convenience over everyone else’s health and well-being, you not only deserve to be called out but also reminded of your social responsibilities with a gentle 4.5-volt zap courtesy of this Covid-19 cattle prod. The Social Distancing Zapper … Continued
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Tech NewsCultureThis ‘Telewriter’ Transmitted Handwriting Across Long Distances in the 1930s
Need to send a message to a friend 50 miles away? Today, you’ve got plenty of options—whether it’s SMS, email, tweet, Facebook message, Zoom video chat, or the old-fashioned telephone. But back in the 1930s, the choices were much more limited. You could use the phone or write a letter or send a telegram. And … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsBreaking Down All of Apple’s Tech Speak to Understand the New M1 Chip
After months of rumors and speculation, Apple has finally revealed the specs of its in-house custom ARM processor that will power future Macs—well, at least most of the important ones, like core count and number of transistors. Unfortunately, those specs don’t paint a complete picture of how the M1’s performance will actually compare to other … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsI Miss This Weird Easy-Bake Oven CD-ROM Playset
Growing up you wouldn’t catch me dead with anything pink. Pink meant girly, and girly—I was convinced—meant weak. From a young age, I insisted on jeering at anything soft or sparkly. It only got worse when I started gravitating toward stereotypical male-coded hobbies, namely video games, which brought so-called “girl games” onto my radar of … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsTikTok, Like Us, Wants To Know If It’s Banned Or Not
TikTok filed an injunction in a U.S. Appeals Court late Tuesday night in an attempt to halt an order by the Trump administration that would force the app to shutter. In the August 14 executive order, Trump directed the app to prohibit all new downloads beginning on Sept. 30, with parent company ByteDance being forced … Continued
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Tech NewsSocial MediaFacebook Maybe Not Singlehandedly Undermining Democracy With Political Content, Says Facebook
In a dispatch from Facebook’s newsroom released Tuesday night, corporate executives sought to downplay the role partisan discourse plays in shaping the platform, stressing that political content makes up only about 6% of users’ newsfeeds and that ranking pages by which posts receive the most engagement is not necessarily a good metric to determine which … Continued
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Tech NewsInternetWe Now Know How Much Ubisoft Games on Amazon’s Cloud Gaming Service Will Cost
As of this morning, anyone who has received, or will receive, a beta invite to Luna, Amazon’s brand new cloud gaming service, can access the Ubisoft+ channel that’s filled with—you guessed it—Ubisoft games like Assassins’ Creed Odyssey. What Amazon didn’t initially announce was the price of subscribing to that game channel. But according to Ubisoft, … Continued
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Tech NewsYour Cop-Friendly Spy Device Could Burst Into Flames
Another argument for throwing your Ring doorbell into a cement mixer: It might catch your house on fire. After receiving 85 reports of doorbells catching fire, Ring has issued a recall of some second-generation Ring doorbells (the one with the blue ring). The announcement on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s site claims that smoldering … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsWest Virginia Man Arrested for Making a ‘Wall Hook’ That Could Turn an AR-15 Into an Illegal Machine Gun
A West Virginia man named Timothy Watson was arrested last week for allegedly selling a 3D-printed wall hook that, when disassembled, was actually a “drop-in auto sear,” a small piece of plastic that could turn the popular AR-15 rifle into an illegal machine gun. The product, still available at the excitingly-named portablewallhanger.com, consists of two … Continued
By John Biggs