City Bank

Here’s an interesting update on the most affordable cities to live in in 2022. This list, courtesy of Living Cozy, shows that Tulsa, Oklahoma is the most affordable place to score a 2-bedroom apartment. At under $900 per month, this is a steal compared to most places. Here’s more of the breakdown from Ash Read. Huge numbers of people do not own their own homes, renting them from landlords instead. There are many reasons why people might rent rather than buy, the foremost being the huge cost of purchasing your own property. Aside from that, renting gives people the flexibility…

Uber Truce

Long ago, an app / service rolled into New York City and declared war on an institution. A scrappy startup called Uber wanted to usurp the sleepy taxi industry that was the lifeblood of New York. In only a few years, “taking an Uber” became so commonplace, it’s used all the time. People don’t use taxis as much. But with any war, it must end and now, Taxis will join in on Uber’s giant customer base. Andrew J. Hawkins at The Verge has more. Riders will pay the same fare for taxi rides as they would for an Uber X…

But Tesla Doesn’t Need a PR Dept

Tesla has been applauded for many things. They were the first to make a legit EV that is ‘sexy’. They had the foresight to know people wanted a reliable charging infrastructure and built one. Elon Musk has become a Founder / CEO visionary-type that uses charisma to get things done. But Tesla also has a lot going against it. Racism seems to be one of those. Lawrence Hodge reports on this at Jalopnik Three workers and their accounts are detailed in a lawsuit that was filed February 9 in the California Superior Court in Alameda. With over 4,000 Black workers…

Back To The Lego

In 2013 Lego introduced the first Back to the Future kit. This time-traveling Delorean was notable for being the first Lego Cuusoo fan-created set to be sold. Of course I bought it right away and to this day it sits on a shelf for everyone to see. But, like most Lego, it takes a bit of imagination to see it for what it is. That is now going to change. Jonathan Gitlin at Ars Technica has more details. For those who missed out, there’s now a way to get a Lego BTTF DeLorean—no time machine required. On April 1, the…

California’s Mushroom Kingdom

New theme park experiences are a big focus at Disney with the Galactic Starcruiser, Galaxy’s Edge, and the new Avengers experience. Not to be outdone, Universal Studios opened Super Nintendo World in Osaka about a year ago. Now, they have announced this immersive experience is coming to their California theme park. A. Khalid at Engadget has more. What can fans expect from the US park? The original Super Nintendo World in Osaka has a ride where fans can race on a life-sized Mario Kart course, as well as a slower ride on Yoshi’s island. While Universal representatives aren’t giving details on which rides are…

Unauthorized Storefront

A restaurant group in Florida is suing Google for allegedly setting up landing pages that don’t belong to the eateries. According to the group, Google is providing a profile within their search results that have “Order Online” buttons but those point to delivery apps. Tim De Champ at Ars Technica has the story. When users click the “Order Online” button, they’re directed to a page that in many cases contains large links to food delivery companies, complete with their logos. The restaurant’s own site gets a link as well, though it’s a small, generic “website” button. In some cases, Google…

Be Our Guest. Please.

When Disney announced the price of their Galactic Starcruiser experience I was taken aback by the cost. Six grand for a 72-hour experience in Florida is asking a lot of people. Maybe it’s because of the price or people still not wanting to travel because of COVID, but Katie Dowd at SFGate reports that Disney isn’t exactly in need of any sort of waitlist. [The Galactic Starcruiser] is not even close to selling out, Disney’s availability calendar shows. Guests who check the “start planning your voyage” page will nearly have their pick of dates through the second half of 2022.…

Going Maskless

When Apple debuted Face ID for the iPhone, it was a wonderful idea and one wherein they thought the days of Touch ID were numbered. COVID completely derailed the reliability of something that worked so well. Apple, nor anyone for that matter, could’ve predicted constant mask-wearing. Now, finally, with iOS 15.4 Apple has created a system to work around it. Jose Adorno at 9To5Mac has more. Just after you update your iPhone to iOS 15.4, a new prompt screen will appear explaining the new “Use Face ID with a mask” feature. Even though Apple actively gives users this new option,…

Permanent Savings

With yet another shifting of the clocks forward to begin Daylight Saving Time, the frustration I (and many others) shared with super-early sunsets was alleviated. Finally we got back to a time I prefer where it will get dark at sometime closer to 6:30 than 5:30. Then out of nowhere, it seems this change is on its way to becoming permanent. Without any sort of fanfare or reporting before the fact, the United States Senate voted on the “Sunshine Protection Act” (talk about an over-dramatic name!) that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent beginning in 2023. Sam Machkovech at Ars…

The Lime Is Back

In the heydey of the aughts, it was extremely common to find music downloading software running on every college kid’s computer. Music piracy was rampant. After the downfall of Napster, one service became king: LimeWire. It was sued into oblivion by the RIAA in 2010. Now, it returns but in the most 2022 way possible: an NFT marketplace. Meera Navlakha at Mashable has more. The defunct platform is getting a crypto makeover, thanks to a pair of entrepreneurs in Austria who have just bought the rights to LimeWire. Paul and Julian Zehetmayr will be relaunching under a new company, LimeWire…

Electric Buzz

After a very public and very humiliating experience with trying to get around car emission requirements, Volkswagen promised to do better. They also promised to go all-in on building electric vehicles. The ID4 was released with a nice look to it and now VW has dipped into the nostalgia well with the ID Buzz, an electric reimagining of the classic VW Bus. While the car only releases in Europe this year and won’t come to America for another 2 to 3 years, it is worth noting this is a production car and IS coming. The Buzz looks really cool with…

No Chorus, No Problem

Generally, music follows a structure. A song will have some verses, a chorus, a bridge, then more chorus. That key and repeating part of the song is usually what sticks the most. Now, enter this video from David Bennett that goes over famous songs without a chorus. The chorus is also a big way in which we identify a song. There are so many “I didn’t know what song this was until the chorus” situations that have crossed my mind over the years. However, Bennett talks about specific songs that are mega-hits. None of them have a chorus. But a…

Reinventing the Wheel

I always say that we’re living in the future, we just haven’t realized it yet. More proof comes out of this report by Steve DaSilva over at Jalopnik. It recounts  Jón Schone’s attempts to 3D print a Mercedes wheel that would actually work on his car. He started it back in 2020 and only recently got it to function somewhat. Not only did the wheel support the weight of the Mercedes and the pressure of an inflated tire, it held up to driving, turning, and stopping. It may not quiteclear the Mercedes’ front calipers, judging by all the scraping sounds, but…

Green Hill Zone: Act 2

A sequel to look forward to. That’s what I’ve been calling the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie. This was the last movie I saw in theaters and was only a short time before COVID lockdowns began. Now at a lull in the pandemic, we get the sequel. And, oh man, it looks great. The trailer looks to have a lot of faithful lifts from Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. Chaos Emeralds, Knuckles, snowboarding, red biplanes, and, of course, Miles “Tales” Prower. Luckily enough we don’t need to worry about Paramount retooling Sonic’s look this time after their disastrous Sonic look…

And We’re Calling It ‘Back To Office’

With COVID numbers falling across the country from Omicron’s spread, many companies are calling their employees back to the office. Apple has pushed back their return date many times, but this time it may stick. Earlier this month they announced April 11th will begin the transition for employees to return. Kim Lyons at The Verge has more. In the third week of the pilot, Cook writes, employees will come in twice a week, with the full hybrid pilot — where workers will come into the office on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and work “flexibly” on Wednesday and Friday — would…

I’ll Spin

Every few months some new Wheel of Fortune “controversy” swirls around the internet. This time around it’s about three contestants who either don’t know, what looks to be an obvious, answer or never get the chance. With the puzzle nearly revealed, a contestant asks to solve and then gets it wrong. It’s a cringy moment, but it happens. Heck, it’s a game show. People are going to mess up. But then the next contestant also guesses letters that weren’t there and the third ends up landing on Bankrupt. They go around the horn a few more times, with the middle…

Why Bother, Nintendo

For all the good Nintendo does for their products, the biggest bugaboo for them has been their online service. From the eShop being a complete mess to their online services lacking basic features, it’s something the company stumbles upon again and again. Five years after the Switch has released, they’ve come out with version 2.0 of their mobile app. Jon Porter at The Verge has more. For my money, the 2.0 update’s most interesting improvement is that it offers an easier way to find and share your friend code, the cumbersome 12-digit identifier that’s the primary way of adding friends…

27″ of Hurt

Tuesday’s Apple Event unloaded a bunch of new products. A revised iPhone SE, an M1 chip in the iPad Air, a new Mac called the Mac Studio, a 27″ Studio Display, and a new green iPhone 13 / 13 Pro color were all brought to the market. However, there was one thing quite evident with Apple this time around: the Mac is back to being expensive. Really expensive. For years the argument against Apple has been their Pro line of computers was really not Pro enough. The price and specs did not cater to that audience. Now with the updates…

Green Update

While Microsoft may have pioneered regular software updates back in the Windows 98 days, they are not alone in this realm anymore. We live in (and have lived in it for a long while) a world where software constantly updates. It is to the point where developers will even ship software to get it out the door and patch / update it later on. Now, Microsoft is doing something interesting: updating when the computer is using green energy. Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica has more. Using “regional carbon intensity data” from electricityMap and Watttime, Windows will keep tabs on what…

Playing Password

One of the biggest pains when signing up for a service or an overzealous policy is choosing a password. Back in the day, you came up with something you could remember. That was it. Then it became more complicated. Systems began requiring a mix of upper, lower characters, special characters, and numbers. Soon our passwords looked something like P@ssword123. Then with being forced, usually at work, to change them periodically, we soon just settled into P@ssword1234, P@ssword1235, and so on and so on. Enter Hive Systems and their “Password Table” that explains how secure a password can be. They recently…

Self-Hacked

Academic researchers have discovered that if you get within close enough proximity, you can “hack” an Amazon Alexa device to execute commands the owner may not want. I put the word hack in quotes because this is less of a security failure and more of a “that’s how this thing works” way that the Echo (or any voice assistant) operates. Dan Goodin at Ars Technica has more. The attack works by using the device’s speaker to issue voice commands. As long as the speech contains the device wake word (usually “Alexa” or “Echo”) followed by a permissible command, the Echo…

Hertz So Good

Katie Wedell and Laura Layden writing for USA Today with a bonkers story on how renting a car could literally turn you into a criminal. She’s [Paula Murray] now one of 230 plaintiffs suing Hertz for false arrest and in some cases prosecution. The lawyers for this cohort say they know there are more cases out there – warrants for arrest that people who rented from Hertz years ago don’t even know exist, like ticking time bombs waiting to explode their lives at any moment. USA Today This entire thing sounds like something out of a low-budget comedy, but it…

Campnite

In “I definitely didn’t have this on my 2022 BINGO card” news, is this weird acquisition. Fortnite’s maker Epic Games has gone ahead and purchased the music website/service platform Bandcamp. Todd Spangler at Variety has more. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. “Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy,” Epic Games, best known as the company behind battle-royale game “Fortnite,” said in announcing the pact. “Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist-friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money.” Variety Bandcamp has been a go-to…

Switch At Five

It’s crazy to think the Nintendo Switch has been on the market for five years. Back in 2017, it was very much a gamble. Nobody could know it would be a massive success over and over. Nintendo has rebounded from the Wii U years incredibly well. I personally bought my Switch at launch and fell in love immediately. The biggest change Nintendo made this generation was making sure there was a constant release of games. That (among other reasons) was a big reason for the Wii U’s failure. Over on Endgadget, they go over some of their favorite games for…

Rotary Dial

If you’re looking to combine retro-tech with new-age capabilities, look no further than this innovative idea. (Fellow Long Islander) Justine Haupt is someone who wants to carry a cell phone but make calls with it. Nothing more. So, she built her own. That uses a rotary dialer. And it does nothing else. This short YouTube video has all the details. Haupt 3D printed the casing and built the entire system herself. Even better than seeing this in action is the fact that she is selling these as a kit! Her website Sky’s Edge describes it as the Rotary Un-Smartphone Kit.…

Sanderson Time

For many, many years the Pebble Time has been the top project ever on Kickstarter. The revolutionary smartwatch was a smash hit on Pebble’s second trip to Kickstarter. I was an early backer and loved the product. After so many years though, it was only a matter of when someone overtook Pebble to claim the #1 slot. Leave it to prolific author Brandon Sanderson to be that person. Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge has more. The project’s original goal was to raise $1,000,000 in 30 days; Sanderson hit that number in around 35 minutes, according to The New York Times.…

Nobody Asks That

Most companies / brands have a ‘voice’ or style that they look to use everywhere. Whether it’s in their advertising, website, copy on its products itself, etc. Oat milk company Oatly decided to have some fun with their website and dedicate a section of their website to infrequently asked questions. The page itself is funny, but more so because many of the questions are accompanied by a user manual or poster-style graphic that visualizes the question. Some of the questions they’ve been “asked” include getting an electric vehicle tax credit by buying their oat milk and asking if any oats…

Long Runtime

Brian Stauffer reported for Variety on something I’ve surely noticed a lot lately: movies are really freaking long now. So many movies clock in at two and a half or even nearly three hours, lately. For me, it seems to be a detrimental factor each and every time I think about watching a film. Even when watching at home, the long runtime means you can’t just pop a movie on after dinner, especially when you need to be up for work the next day. Stauffer talks to a number of industry people about this and how all that extra footage…

Standing Still

Toyota has been a long-popular car manufacturer. However, lately, they’re in the news for the wrong reasons. The car company announced that they have once again had to halt production of their cars due to a supplier getting hacked. Jonathan Gitlin at ArsTechnica has more. Toyota is becoming quite the frequent target for hackers. It was compromised at least three times in 2019, including a malware attack in Australia, a breach of 3.1 million customers’ data in Japan (and possibly Thailand and Vietnam), and a scam that cost a subsidiary $37 million. ArsTechnica Last year they were hacked through a…

I Agree, I Agree

If anything from using software and signing up for stuff has taught us, it’s that nobody ever reads the giant page of legal text before using something new. Basically, we click “I Agree” and move on. Software license agreements and Terms & Conditions are important, yet it’s more of a legal CYA than anything. Enter TikToker Mckenzie Floyd who found something funny on Peacock’s Terms & Conditions. In a viral TikTok posted last week, TikToker Mckenzie Floyd (@mckenziefloyd) revealed Peacock’s secret Easter egg: A chili recipe from The Office. “Kevin’s famous chili” is famous among Office fans, featured in the slapstick cold open to the episode “Casual…