Technology

Space startup Astra successfully returned to launch today, a little more than a month after its last launch failed mid-flight. Taking off from Kodiak, Alaska, Astra’s LV0009 rocket deployed the satellites it was carrying into orbit for three commercial companies, marking the company’s first successful commercial mission. There was a brief moment during the flight, however, where it seemed like today’s mission might have been a failure. Soon after reaching orbit, the vehicle was supposed to deploy the satellites it was carrying (except for one that was to remain attached to the rocket). However, Astra did not immediately receive confirmation that the payloads had deployed and ended its livestream of the flight before getting word about the fate of the satellites. One of the hosts of the liv...

Google has announced that some ChromeOS users will finally be able to start testing Steam. During the Google for Games Developer Summit, Google’s product director for games, Greg Hartell, announced that “the Steam alpha just launched” for select Chromebooks. It was a brief mention, but the software has been a long time coming — Google announced that it was working on Steam support for ChromeOS in the beginning of 2020, and there hasn’t been much info since. There have been whispers that we’d see it soon, though, as recent reports indicated that companies are working on gaming-focused Chromebooks. Google talked about Steam for all of 13 seconds during its Google for Games Developer Summit keynote Despite how long we’ve been waiting, the announcement comes as a bit of a surprise. As 9to5Goog...

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission rolled out new rules requiring broadcasters to disclose when foreign governments lease time on their airwaves, an issue that has become more urgent following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “In light of recent events, this effort — which is all about transparency — has taken on new importance,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement Tuesday. “It is essential that audiences know when a broadcast station has been compensated to air content coming from a foreign government.” While foreign governments can purchase airwave time, they cannot directly hold a broadcasting license. Tuesday’s rules force broadcasters to provide an on-air disclosure whenever a foreign government, foreign political party, agents acting on behalf of a foreign e...

Within the last year, Microsoft not only revealed a new generation of Windows, it fully dived in by launching Windows 11 last fall, and now it’s scheduled another preview event to discuss the “exciting future” of “Hybrid Work, Powered by Windows.” Set to take place on April 5th at 11AM ET, it will feature Windows exec Panos Panay showing off Microsoft’s security, productivity, and management features, both in the client and the cloud. A Microsoft Teams interface demo showing off a remote meeting.Image: Microsoft What exactly does that include? The event page doesn’t say much and Microsoft hasn’t openly discussed the event, but we’ve seen plenty of clues about the kind of hybrid work solutions and security tools Microsoft is working on for businesses where the “office” is more of an idea th...

There are few things as enjoyable as local multiplayer gaming, and nothing beats saving some coin on tech that doesn’t usually go on sale. The Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers are a prime example, costing $69.99 at Woot instead of its regular $79.99 price. Woot is running this deal until Sunday, March 20th, or until it sells out. The neon blue and red controller combo is not currently available, but the matching gray set is still for sale at this discounted price. It’s rare to get any discount on Joy-Con controllers. In many games, an individual Joy-Con is usable as a small gamepad, meaning you can play four-player local multiplayer with just these Joy-Cons and the pair that came with your Switch. What perfect timing this is, as the first wave of new courses for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is l...

Howdy, team! I’m here, on a Tuesday. And what a day to have a platform, because now I can tell you to go watch / listen to the premiere of MUNA’s new song at 11:45AM ET. May we sob together. (The teaser made the music sound somewhat upbeat, but you really never know.) EXCLUSIVE: Big $$$ in virtual podcast events In-person podcast tours have shown that people are willing to pay for something beyond a pre-recorded episode. But virtual versions of those shows? In this climate of Zoom fatigue? Oh yeah, baby. In fact, they’re booming. Moment House has been live-streaming podcast recordings, called “Moments,” since March 2021, and I’m told that the company has sold 140,000 tickets over the course of the 56 that it’s hosted since then. The streams have averaged six-figure payouts for creators; on...

Unlike her fellow Jersey teens who insist that superheroes aren’t cool, Kamala Khan, the heroine of Marvel’s upcoming Ms. Marvel series, thinks capes are the flyest thing in the world. Naturally, she wants to become one of them herself, and in Ms. Marvel’s first trailer, the young girl’s wish starts to come true. From series creator Bisha K. Ali, Ms. Marvel tells the story of how Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a diehard Carol Danvers stan, first discovers her own burgeoning superpowers and starts putting them to good use as supervillainy begins to take root in Jersey City. Similar to her comics counterpart, the MCU’s Kamala doesn’t hide the fact that she’s something of a fanfiction-writing nerd, something that few of her peers really understand other than her friend Bruno Carrelli (Matt Lintz...

Rifftrax: The Game is a new party game that’s all about creating the most crowd-pleasing text-to-voice dub to overlay B-movie footage. It’s launching for the current and previous generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles, Nintendo Switch, and on Steam (for PC and macOS) for $9.99 on May 5th. This game was made in collaboration with RiffTrax, a group of expert B-movie commentators consisting of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 stars Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. It was developed by Wide Right Interactive, and similar to its previous game, What The Dub?!, the goal is to create the most ridiculous and clever dubs for each clip so that other players can vote on which they like best. A big part of the fun is players vote without knowing who wrote each entry, leading to a lot of...

Samsung’s Galaxy A33, rumored to be the most affordable of the three devices the company will announce on March 17th, has leaked in full. Evan Blass has posted a series of renders of the phone over on Twitter, while Appuals has its specs. These include a 6.4-inch 90Hz 1080p OLED display, a 5,000mAh battery, and four rear cameras. It’ll reportedly be priced at €379 in Europe, which is roughly $417 stateside. Reports suggest the Galaxy A33 will be announced alongside the Galaxy A53 and Galaxy A73 at Samsung’s “Awesome Galaxy A Event” this week. Samsung’s midrange A-series are some of its most popular devices around the world. In fact, the Samsung Galaxy A12 was the sixth best-selling phone in the world in 2021 according to Counterpoint Research, and was the only one of Samsung’s phones to ap...

Tesla has raised prices across its entire line-up of electric vehicles. Prices have increased by between 5 to 10 percent, with the cheapest car the company sells — the Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive — now starting at $46,990, while its top-end Model X Tri motor saw a price increase of $12,500, from $126,490 to $138,990. It’s the second price bump Tesla has implemented in less than a week, after it increased the cost of certain long-range models last Wednesday. However, today’s price raises are not only more substantial than last week’s but apply to every vehicle the company sells. Here’s how those increases play out (with old prices sourced from archived copies of Tesla’s website via Wayback Machine, dated to March 10th or more recent): Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive: $44,990 to $46,990 Model 3 Long R...

Devolver Digital founder Mike Wilson is partnering with medical device expert Ryan Douglas to launch DeepWell Digital Therapeutics, a video game company that will both develop games that can treat health conditions. The company will also help outside companies identify existing games that have therapeutic value, the founders say. Video game-based tools can help with conditions like depression and ADHD, research shows. DeepWell Digital Therapeutics plans to build on those studies. “There was an amazing amount of science that had already been done,” Douglas says. “We started to recognize exactly how therapeutic these games already were.” Often, a game used as a therapy would be designed as a therapy first, with fun or engaging gameplay elements layered on top, he says. But DeepWell wants dev...