Technology

Tech fans have been eager to hear about Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk‘s plans. In a Tweet earlier this week, Musk revealed that he has indeed been working on his third Master Plan. Part one of the plan was initially published in 2006, titled, The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan. Musk shared his goal of bringing his electric vehicle vision to life, in hopes of making the world more sustainable and less reliant on fossil fuels. Ten years after the reveal, Musk tweeted that he would be working on the second part of the Master Plan, which included building a broader range of items including the robotaxis, semi-trucks, pickup trucks and more. While his most recent tweets do not reveal too much information regarding Master Plan Part Three, Musk kept it simple when he responded to a Twitter user...

YouTube is the latest company to offer free shows TV with ads. The video giant says you’ll now be able to stream nearly 4,000 episodes of TV for free, as long as you’re also willing to watch ads during the show. Shows available include Hell’s Kitchen, Andromeda, and Heartland, and you’ll be able to watch them in the US on the web, mobile devices, and “most connected TVs via the YouTube TV app,” YouTube says in a blog post. With the new free TV shows, YouTube is taking on a number of major competitors. One is over-the-air television — by offering free TV on demand, YouTube is likely hoping that you’ll see what’s available on its platform instead of channel surfing to see what else might be on. There are already many options for streaming ad-supported TV for free And there are already many o...

Several Apple users have voiced their complaints about their iPhone batteries draining faster than usual ever since updating to iOS 15.4. Taking their complaints to Twitter, owners of different iPhone generations publicly shared their common problems regarding their model’s batteries; an iPhone 13 Pro Max user revealed that their phone “could go for days without charging, but it’s down to half capacity by mid day,” an iPhone 11 user with a 93% battery capacity found that it was lowered to 80% after 24 hours despite only actively using the screen for two hours max and only opening apps Safari, YouTube, Instagram and Uber and another user who did not disclose their iPhone shared that their “battery life today is half what it was last week.” Other users claimed that the 120Hz refresh rate is ...

With the warmer months just around the corner, Insta360 is here to help you capture your adventures with its latest ONE RS action cam. Now offering 360-degree video capture at 5.7K via a newly-developed one-inch wide-angle lens co-engineered with Leica, the ONE RS ensures not a single flip, jump or dive is left out of your frame. Aside from allowing you to choose which angle you prefer the most after recording, you’ll also be able to capture third-person views of yourself thanks to the camera’s dual-lens configuration, automatically stitching out your selfie stick. When you’re not in need of 360-degree videos, the ONE RS can shoot with detail through the company’s new 4K Boost Lens, working in tandem with an upgraded half-inch sensor to deliver crisp footage at 60fps or sharp 48-megapixel ...

Zoom is launching a new Avatars feature, joining its other digital experience functions including virtual backgrounds, filters, and immersive scenes. Similar to Apple’s Memojis, Avatars replace the user’s appearance with a virtual animal that mirrors head movements and facial expressions. Zoom sees Avatars as a fun feature to lighten the mood and a way to “provide a good middle ground for users who don’t want to appear on camera but still want to express body language and facial expressions.” Use cases suggested by the company include hybrid work, classrooms, pediatric consultations, and virtual events. While the Avatars feature is able to track facial expressions, it does not utilize facial recognition, and images of each face are not stored or sent to Zoom. The animal Avatars can now be ...

Twitter may have just rolled back a really bad product decision, but on Tuesday, it added a very good one: you can make GIFs right from the in-app camera on iOS. The new feature could be a useful way to share short clips to your timeline without having to upload a full video. Here’s a GIF I recorded from my iPhone 12 Mini just before writing this story if you want to get an idea of how one of these GIFs looks: Recording the GIF was easy. In the iOS app, I hit the new tweet button, tapped the photo icon, then the camera icon, made sure I was on the GIF mode, and pressed and held the record button. (Twitter has posted a handy GIF of its own demonstrating the steps.) My GIF loops, kind of like Instagram’s Boomerangs, though you can have the GIF start over from the beginning if you prefer. How...

Google says it doesn’t plan to update the software for the Pixel 4a 5G, 5, or 5a to support C-band 5G in the US, despite also saying that the phones have the necessary hardware and that the functionality will work in other countries. Google hasn’t explained this decision, which it announced in a post on the Pixel support forums (h/t to Android Police for spotting that post). Google has updated its latest Pixels in the US, the 6 and 6 Pro, with C-band via a software update, but not those older phones. The post says that the earlier Pixel models “have C-band capable hardware and are enabled for operation in certain countries” but that the company does “not have any plans to support C-band operation in the US” for those earlier Pixel models. Two of the big three US carriers are betting big on...

Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan is stepping down. In a blog titled “Moving Forward, with Gratitude,” Hasan says COO Sean Leow will be interim CEO and that the search for a permanent replacement is already underway. In an interview with Fast Company, Hasan says “personal reflections” and a desire to spend more time with his family informed his decision to leave Kickstarter after three years. “I am so proud of the work we’ve done together,” Hasan writes. “Leading such a passionate, skilled, and dedicated team through intense moments of change, milestone victories, and complex challenges has been a humbling and rewarding experience.” He touted the company’s successes under his leadership, including reaching $6 billion raised in pledges by 20 million backers. Hasan’s announcement comes a few months...

The hacking group Lapsus$, known for claiming to have hacked Nvidia, Samsung, and more, this week claimed it has even hacked Microsoft. The group posted a file that it claimed contains partial source code for Bing and Cortana in an archive holding nearly 37GB of data. On Tuesday evening, after investigating, Microsoft confirmed the group that it calls DEV-0537 compromised “a single account” and stole parts of source code for some of its products. A blog post on its security site says Microsoft investigators have been tracking the Lapsus$ group for weeks, and details some of the methods they’ve used to compromise victims’ systems. According to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), “the objective of DEV-0537 actors is to gain elevated access through stolen credentials that enable...

A few of Apple’s services are experiencing another outage, just one day after a good chunk of Apple’s services and online infrastructure were knocked offline on Monday. Currently, Apple’s system status page says that Apple Music, Podcasts, Books, and the App Store are the ones having issues since 5:09PM ET. It lists the issue as ongoing and says that “some users are affected.” Thankfully, iMessage, iCloud, Apple Maps, and Apple TV seem to be working fine, but those looking for an app or song may be out of luck. Apple also warned that there were issues with Weather, Game Center, and the iCloud Web Apps, saying that they may be “slow or unavailable,” but it now has those issues marked as resolved. That warning is still present for the Apple Card, though. While Apple Music worked fine for at ...

The National Football League will now allow teams to secure sponsorships with blockchain companies. However, it will still prohibit them from promoting specific cryptocurrencies and fan tokens, according to a report from CNBC. This reverses the NFL’s previous decision to bar teams from cryptocurrency sponsorships completely. In an internal memo viewed by CNBC, the NFL says it will permit “promotional relationships without undertaking excessive regulator or brand risk,” which won’t include stadium signage. It also maintains that “clubs will continue to be prohibited from directly promoting cryptocurrency.” Blockchain sponsorships can only last three years Sponsorships between teams and blockchain companies can only last a maximum of three years for the sake of “flexibility,” Joe Ruggiero, t...