A full six months ahead of 2022’s E3 gaming convention, the Entertainment Software Association announced E3 will be virtual this year. “Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022. We remain incredibly excited about the future of E3 and look forward to announcing more details soon.” VentureBeat E3 was virtual last year too and they’re taking no chances with Omicron causing enormous spikes in cases everywhere. Contrast this with CES and their insistence that they conduct an in-person event in…
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The NY Times is a fantastic publication, however if you’re a sports fan it’s not a place to go. The surprising hit since 2016 has been The Athletic. The Athletic is an online sports-focused site with a dedicated reporter for every North American team. For teams that have traditionally been under-covered or in markets where local newspapers have gone out of business, The Athletic has been a breath of fresh air. Now, it’ll become part of the New York Times for a cool $550 million. The deal brings The Times, which has more than eight million total subscriptions, quickly closer…
Games are insanely popular on mobile to the point where entire companies have been built around them. Many come and go, but some have a real impact. Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Threes, Words With Friends, and more have become juggernauts on mobile. Now, we get a new contender: Worldle. Created by Josh Wardle, the idea is simple: guess a 5-letter word in six tries. But that’s where the game aspect of Wordle ends. This game is not an app. Wordle exists only on the web. It does not have ads. It doesn’t force you to watch videos, offer purchases, timers,…
When Apple rolls out new products or services, the hook is their ecosystem. People can make fun of “it just works” when things don’t work. However, many ways Apple devices and services have an interplay between them is a huge benefit. Airdrop for starters is amazing. Airplay is another no-hassle way to sling content from one device to another. Even AirPods are part of it with a single-pairing that carries to all your other devices. At CES, Google has unveiled their plans to develop their own ecosystem. The company announced several new features that will be available in 2022: Coming…
We seem to be reaching an inflection point for car manufacturers’ embracing of electric vehicles. Whether it’s for financial reasons, a response to customer’s embracing of Tesla, or other reasons we don’t exactly know, it’s great to see nearly every company make public statements. They are not designing prototype or “compliance” cars for California. They’re making full-fledged EVs for everyone. Personally, I believe a car needs to look normal. It should be electric as an “extra” in order to appeal to people. Nobody wants a Jetsons car. With the F150 Lightning, Ford is ready to make waves. Ford says its…
The NHL expanded into Seattle, Washington over the summer with a new team called the Kraken. For a trainer on the Vancouver Canucks, this business decision for the league has literally saved his life. At an October game where the Canucks visited Seattle, Nadia Popovici, a Vancouver fan, spotted something wrong with Brian Hamilton’s neck. Popovici had written a note on her phone that said she was concerned about a mole she’d noticed on his neck. She made the text on the screen large and colourful, obviously hoping he’d notice it. He finally saw it but didn’t think much of…
In less than 15 years, the gargantuan Blackberry went from “must-have” to “see ya later”. If it wasn’t the iPhone who did it, Android certainly would’ve been the one to hammer the first nail in the coffin. For anyone who truly was hanging onto their “crackberry” devices, January 4th signals the shut down of everything that made Blackberry worthwhile. On January 4th, Blackberry will be shutting off all the key services — data, SMS, phone calls, and 911 support. In official terms, they are ending network provisioning for these older devices, meaning that they won’t be able to join any…
Sometimes a company has a monumental screwup so big that they simply want to move on. Never look back and never talk about it again. For Microsoft, that is certainly the 2007 “Red ring of death” debacle during the days of the Xbox 360. That video game console had a green ring surrounding the power button. However, if it turned red and remained that way, the console was dead. This “red ring of death” was immensely infuriating to gamers. The system would brick due to a design flaw and it would come out of nowhere. The system was basically overheating…
For many cord-cutters out there, YouTube TV has been a good option as a replacement service. The Alphabet-owned streaming service carries a bunch of live channels for $65 a month. Unlike cable, there’s no contracts or hoops or bundling or any other nonsense. One thing however that has carried over from cable-land are disputes with networks. As of today, YouTube TV lost access to all Disney channels it was carrying. Jon Brodkin as more at Ars Technica. YouTube TV was seeking a most-favored-nation (MFN) clause from Disney. “Our ask to Disney, as with all our partners, is to treat YouTube…
There are two types of companies most people can agree we all hate: cable / ISP companies and cell phone carriers. Verizon, being both, doubly-sucks when news broke of its data collection it’s beginning to turn on. They are rolling out something called “Custom Experience” which collects data about your apps and web browsing activity to help “provide you more personalized experiences with Verizon.” Even worse: Verizon is opting in everyone by default. Yes, if you do nothing, you are giving them permission to collect everything they want on an ongoing basis. Emma Roth at The Verge has more details…
Little by little, cities and towns across the US are enacting stricter regulations to help the environment. Sometimes they offer incentives to builders to construct better spaces. Rebates and tax credits are a big part as well for getting alternative energy into real use. On the opposite side is eliminating the use of machines and devices that pollute. New York City has come close to making that reality this past week. Emily Pontecorvo over at Grist has the details. The New York City Council voted to pass a bill on Wednesday that will address the Big Apple’s biggest source of…
Have you noticed lately that every single time you’re driving at night, you can’t see behind you? No it’s not from fog or heavy rain or even someone moving your mirrors out of alignment. I’m talking about cars with headlights so bright they nearly burn your retinas out of your skull. Finally, something is about to be done with that. Peter Holderith writing for The Drive explains that a provision buried in the recently-passed infrastructure bill is a provision to address the scourge of blinding headlights The text that enables this change is relatively straightforward. Under section 24212 of the bill, which…
December now can mean one sure thing on YouTube: Mark Rober puts out a Glitter Bomb video. This year has him iterating on his designs and rolling out version 4 of his Porch Pirate Bait. The idea is simple: invent a package that tempts thieves to steal it. When it opens, it wreaks havoc on those scummy people who stole it. Plain and simple. Oh and it records everything. Mark Rober has a great channel that makes science and engineering fun. This video in particular is always a great one. It’s now a December tradition.
An article that flew under my radar was this one over on Krebs on Security wherein Brian Krebs explains Zelle scams. It’s a fascinating breakdown of fraudsters anticipating how the system works and manipulating victims into bypassing Zelle’s security. Here’s the kicker: it’s not about giving up your password. An important aspect of this scam is that the fraudsters never even need to know or phish the victim’s password. By sharing their username and reading back the one-time code sent to them via email, the victim is allowing the fraudster to reset their online banking password. Brian Krebs Zelle, for those…
A common theme lately is the fight between streaming services and movie theaters. COVID changed a lot with films coming out on Day 1 as a movie in the theatre. Over on VOX’s YouTube channel, they have an interesting explainer as to why theaters are still a viable business. Vox does a good job of explaining the release window. This is an exclusive time a movie is in theaters before it goes onto be available elsewhere. This exclusive time period is essential for the theater to make money. Studios make money still from theaters and also gain some ground by…
Console manufacturer Analogue is a well-known player in the retro-gaming scene. They make high-end gaming consoles that can play retro games. The machines emulate original hardware via fancy chips called FPGAs and they are pixel-perfect recreations of what Nintendo and Sega put out in the 80’s & 90’s. Hot on the heels of their TurboGrafx system comes the long-awaited release of their portable console, the Analogue Pocket. At a glance, the Pocket looks like production on the Game Boy never stopped and Nintendo kept revising it over the past three decades. It has basically the same form factor as the…
Year after year we are being pushed into a culture of renting. We don’t own things like purchased movies, digital video games, Kindle books, and lots of software. Car manufacturers, smelling blood in the water, are looking to cash in with subscription services too. Enter Toyota who includes a remote start feature on many cars since 2018. If you’re one of those lucky owners, Toyota can require a subscription after a trial to continue using this part of your car. If you don’t, it gets disabled. A Toyota spokesperson confirmed to The Drive that if a 2018 or later Toyota is equipped…
Earlier this past week Epic dropped a ten minute demo of the upcoming game The Matrix Awakens. This uses the latest Unreal engine to render the gameplay on Xbox Series X and PS5. I could keep talking about it, but you need to see just how incredible this game looks. Epic says, and it all looks incredibly real – there will be moments in which you won’t be able to discern whether you’re watching a real-life movie or a game. The environment in which the action is happening is an open-world city, full of AI-controlled characters and vehicles which make…
Palm was a trailblazer in the late 90’s and 2000’s with great hardware. They were THE company with their Pilot line of PDAs and the Pre will forever live in nerds hearts (I’m looking at you Dieter Bohn). Palm’s last gasp of air came not long before the calendar flipped to 2010. It exists in name only. And that’s where the Palm Buds Pro come in. Like Kodak, RCA, and Polaroid, Palm is a dead brand but continues to produce stuff crap that is simply tech products with the brand slapped on them. Samuel Polay over at InputMag reviewed Palm’s…
Storytelling for movies have come a long way over the decades. Specifically when you see movie trailers, you can tell how a studio’s methods change when enticing you to see a film. Some movies that stand the test of time would benefit from a modern take on their trailer. That’s exactly what Michael Edwards has done with Terminator 2: Judgement Day. He’s taken this classic sci-fi action-drama and cut a trailer worthy of the modern era. It’s gorgeous and looks pro AF. Have a look for yourself: Two things strike me as excellent attention to detail. First, the omission of…
SONOS makes really good speakers. They hook into a number of music services, come in a few different configurations, and (to me) sound great. They’ve had their ups and downs, especially after a short-lived policy of bricking perfectly-good speakers when customers were upgrading. They’ve now announced that speakers coming in 2023 will be more repairable and use less energy. They call it their “Design for Disassembly” program. This includes changes like swapping out adhesives for fasteners, which can make it easier for consumers to take apart Sonos products for repair. But the program is intended to “make it easier to repair,…
Streaming TV service Pluto is coming to the Google TV platform. Pluto does something pretty revolutionary: they have liner TV channels that run commercials and doesn’t let you rewind, skip, or pause. It’s literally the style of live TV but on a streaming app. And I love it. Catie Keck at The Verge has more: Beginning today, Google TV will now support Pluto TV within the live TV tab, meaning users can easily access more than 300 free channels from the platform’s primary live TV hub. Pluto TV is the fourth streaming service to grab a spot on Google TV’s tab. …
Leave it to The NY Times to come up with a simple and informative interactive flowchart as to why there is an insane problem with manufacturing everything right now. The genius in the feature is how it starts simple. The pandemic hit. Companies, seeing a small dip as the tip of the iceberg, decided to go into crisis mode. They slowed production of the goods they manufacture and also laid off tons of their workforce. These turned out to be critical mistakes. The supply chain is still screwed up from these moves. Instead of conserving their businesses thinking commerce would…
Time and time again companies (admittedly Apple a lot) will beat the drum with a simple mantra. If a service is free, YOU are the product. Reporting from By Jon Keegan and Alfred Ng at The Markup detail how the app Life360, marketed as a “family safety” app, traffics in user data to make all their cash. A former X-Mode [a data broker] engineer said the raw location data the company received from Life360 was among X-Mode’s most valuable offerings due to the sheer volume and precision of the data. A former Cuebiq employee joked that the company wouldn’t be able to run…
“I’ve never been out of cream cheese for 30 years,” said Joseph Yemma, the owner of F&H Dairies in Brooklyn, a dairy product distributor for many of the city’s bagel shops. “There’s no end in sight.” In interviews with owners and workers at about 20 bagel shops and delis across the city, many said they were frazzled, frustrated and rushing to find cream cheese after learning about the shortage in the past few days. Absolute Bagels has enough cream cheese to last until Thursday, Mr. Patta said. But employees at his typical supplier told him they could not confirm when…
After the immense success of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse in 2018, it was inevitable that Sony would produce a sequel. Now Sony has finally released the first trailer for the film. Even more of a surprise is this will be told in two parts. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) has the same amazing mixed animation style as the first movie. Even more interesting is they pulled a trick from Back to the Future. This movie start at the same point where the prior one ended. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld reprise their roles for the movie and it looks…
Benn Jordan, known for writing music under the name The Flashbulb, has uploaded a 20-minute video to YouTube in which he goes over how he’s been scammed. And not by some ordinary person, but by a reputable NYT reporter. At first, this video seems quite long for viewing. But Jordan goes into many details on how New York Times reporter Ian Urbina has allegedly scammed him. Jordan says he was solicited to write original music in exchange for potential exposure. We know exactly what exposure is worth: zero. The video is a full takedown of Urbina’s position wherein he allegedly…
No thanks. I don’t know how else to respond to this announcement by Qualcomm where they showed off the newest version of their Snapdragon Generation 8 processors. This chip supports an always on camera. The Snapdragon is the heart of nearly every Android phone on the market, not to mention many electronics out there. Mark Hachman over at PC World has more details about this privacy invasion. Essentially, it will be able to automatically unlock your phone, but also notice when someone may be peering over your shoulder and alert you… Qualcomm also showed off a video where a cook…
It was only a matter of time before antitrust investigations landed on a negative ruling for Facebook Meta. The independent CMA panel reviewing the merger has concluded that Facebook would be able to increase its already significant market power in relation to other social media platforms by: – denying or limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs, driving more traffic to Facebook-owned sites – Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – which already account for 73% of user time spent on social media in the UK. – changing the terms of access by, for example, requiring TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat to provide…
I’ve talked about Wirecutter before and how it’s one of the three tools I use when doing any online shopping. The site has been around for years and does fantastic work. I never have to spend hours figuring out which item is best. I read one article and then make my purchase. All is not rosy for Wirecutter as the Wirecutter Union announced a strike lasting from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. The strike was due to being treated poorly by the NY Times. The union has asked people NOT to shop via affiliate links that helps generate revenue on…