Technology

A video doorbell is one of the most useful smart home devices you can buy. With one gadget you can update your front door’s communication skills from a 1980s landline to a modern smartphone. A motion-activated camera with a microphone, speaker, and doorbell attached, a smart doorbell sends alerts to a smartphone to show you who’s calling without you needing to open the door, or even be at home. Whether you’re tucked up on the couch, hard at work in a home or actual office, or sunning on a beach in the Bahamas, a video doorbell keeps you in touch with what’s happening on your doorstep. I have tested more than 30 smart doorbell cameras and while there’s no one size fits all — like a smartphone, it’s a personal choice — I have thoughts on which are the best of the best, and which work well fo...

This story contains spoilers for Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. The end of Eorzea is nigh, and I’m running around looking for ingredients for a superbread that will sustain its entire population on a space voyage to find a new planet. Panaloaf isn’t just any old type of bread, but a meticulously designed science experiment meant purely as a vessel for nutrition; since it’s a disaster ration, it can only be made using resources available on our spacecraft, which just so happens to be the moon. It goes without saying that panaloaf tastes like utter shit, and the thought of eating it for a day, much less a year or even a decade, is absolute hell. This isn’t a Silicon Valley doomsday scenario, but the Culinarian questline in Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker set in the isolated city of Old Sharlayan...

Lenovo has now unveiled its 5th-generation ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop, geared for those who need a little extra performance while working from home. Now carrying the newest 12th-gen Intel Core i9 H-Series processors, the workhorse of a computer pairs the CPU with NVIDIA‘s newest GeForce RTX GPUs, making sure you have plenty of computer power when your job calls for it, or even if you’re taking a break and hoping to run some video games. RAM can be upgraded to 64GB DDR5 with a maximum of 8TB in SSD storage, and Lenovo installed a vapor chamber cooling system with integrated liquid metal thermal paste that it claims can increase performance by 10%. Other features of the laptop include a 16-inch 16:10 display with 4K resolution, up to 600 nits in brightness and a refresh rate of 165Hz, Dolby ...

Amazon has brought its cashierless Just Walk Out technology to a Whole Foods store for the first time, allowing customers to shop and leave the store with their items without having to interact with any kind of cashier. The revamped store opened on February 23rd in Washington, DC’s Glover Park neighborhood, where there’s been a Whole Foods store for over 20 years. Although Amazon has been operating cashierless grocery stores in increasingly large Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh-branded stores, this is the first time it’s bringing the technology to a Whole Foods store. Amazon bought the grocery chain for $13.7 billion in 2017, but until now the brand’s integration with Amazon has been more minimal, consisting of discounts and free delivery for Prime subscribers. The store can also use a palm sca...

YouTube has blocked Russian news channels RT and Sputnik across Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Alphabet-owned company confirmed the news on Twitter, saying it would “take time for our systems to fully ramp up” and that it would continue to “monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action.” It’s the latest example of internet platforms blocking Russian media outlets in response to the war. Yesterday, Meta blocked RT and Sputnik on both Instagram and Facebook after receiving requests to do so from a number of governments in the EU. TikTok also banned the two channels. YouTube had already stopped these outlets from generating revenue on its platform via advertising and restricted access to these channels in Ukraine itself. Russia’s invasion of its neighbor...

One of my favorite things about famous game developers is how hyper-specific their fame is. So naturally I was delighted to see a promotional video put out by Valve showing its co-founder and president Gabe Newell — one of the most famous game developers in the world — confusing the heck out of some members of the public by hand-delivering Steam Decks in person. To be fair, a handful of recipients immediately recognize a face-masked Newell when he shows up at their doorstep with a Steam Deck in hand. But in a lot of other cases the deliveries are accepted on behalf of other members of the household. “What’s with the camera crew?” the confused wife of a man on a ski trip asks, while another politely checks whether they need to sign anything before closing the door. My favorite aspect of the...

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth day, a coalition led by the US and Europe has mounted a coordinated response focused on financial sanctions and, increasingly, military aid. While the conflict grows in scale and intensity, organizations far beyond the apparatus of military and government are being drawn in — including ransomware groups active in Russia and Ukraine. That gravitational pull is particularly fraught in Russia, where the borders between hackers and the Russian intelligence services are sometimes porous, and one group in particular has been made to pay for its allegiance to the Putin regime. On Friday, the notorious ransomware gang Conti surprised many observers by explicitly casting its lot with Putin’s military agenda, declaring “full support” for the Russian g...

Luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors is slashing its production forecast for 2022, citing supply chain constraints. The Newark, California-based company announced it was revising down its production expectations to 12,000 to 14,000 vehicles from the original prediction of 20,000 vehicles. “This reflects the extraordinary supply chain and logistics challenges we’ve encountered and our unrelenting focus on delivering the highest-quality products,” Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said in a statement. “We remain confident in our ability to capture the tremendous opportunities ahead given our technology leadership and strong demand for our cars.” “Supply chain and logistics challenges” Shares of the company fell 14 percent in after-hours trading on the news. The company did not specify what sup...

Social media is having a go at Ethereum NFT gaming project Pixelmon after the community voices out their disappointment over the shoddy in-game artwork. Pixelmon quickly became the laughing stock of crypto Twitter after the NFT community was quick to point out that Pixelmon raised $70 million USD in funding earlier this month, marking one of the largest launch sales ever to be completed for an NFT project. Buyers paid up to 3 ETH per mint, roughly $9,200 USD, with the project completely selling out in less than a day. The project promised fans, “the largest and highest quality game the NFT space has ever seen.” It planned to build out a Pixelmon metaverse with play-to-earn features as well as additional perks for holders of the “Generation 1” Pixelmon. The current backlash Pixel faces on s...

The Xiaomi-owned Poco debuted the X4 Pro 5G and M4 Pro at Europe’s MWC 2022, both of which offer fairly impressive specs for prices you’d typically find on mid-range phones. The Poco X4 Pro 5G features a 6.67-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate.Image by Xiaomi Poco describes its X4 Pro 5G as providing a “flagship-level experience,” but for a price of €299 (~$335) or €349 (~$391), depending on the storage level you choose. The cheaper model comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage, with the more expensive model providing 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage. Poco’s X4 Pro 5G is the successor to the X3 GT Poco released last July, with similar specs for an affordable price tag. The X4 Pro features a 6.67-inch AMOLED DotDisplay screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and 360Hz sampling rate, and a 24...

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has blocked Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik across the European Union, the company said Monday. The change means that the RT and Sputnik pages aren’t visible in the EU on Facebook and Instagram, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone tells The Verge. “We have received requests from a number of Governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state controlled media,” Nick Clegg, the company’s newly-named president of global affairs, said Monday on Twitter. “Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time.” We have received requests from a number of Governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state controlled media. Given the exce...