Technology

A federal judge denied Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s request to force the Securities and Exchange Commission into court to address his allegations about unpaid settlement funds. In a recent court filing, US District Judge Alison Nathan said it was “unclear” exactly what Musk was requesting. Musk has accused the SEC of subjecting him and his company to “endless, unfounded investigations” and alleged that the agency was ignoring its commitment to distribute $40 million in fine money to Tesla shareholders, as per the 2018 settlement. The SEC responded that it was still developing a plan to allocate the funds. Nathan rejects Musk’s request for a conference, arguing that if he wants to impose a deadline on the distribution of funds, he needs to file a motion to request one. “Otherwise, the Court cannot...

People who speak limited English struggled to access telehealth services in the US during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new analysis, affecting their ability to connect with medical care. It’s something experts worried about as soon as health organizations made the switch from in-person to virtual care. “That was really a concern of ours — who is getting left out?” says Denise Payán, an assistant professor of health, society, and behavior at the University of California, Irvine, who worked on the study. Payán and her colleagues interviewed staff and patients at two community health centers in California about their experiences with telehealth between December 2020 and April 2021. One of the clinics serves a primarily Spanish-speaking population, and the second ser...

MWC is back in full swing this year in Barcelona from Monday, February 28th, through Thursday, March 3rd. The mobile technology convention is currently anticipating over 1,800 attendees and exhibitors from 183 different countries, which is a strong number after major companies including Samsung, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Google skipped last year to prevent a superspreader event, with many favoring virtual product launches. In 2020, MWC was forced into cancellation after the GSM Association banned travelers from coronavirus outbreak zones in China and many exhibitors pulled out. This year, many of the big names in mobile tech will return, including Google, Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, Nokia, Ericsson, and even Meta. Samsung has already announced a livestream event coinciding with MWC on February 27th...

Conflict between Ukrainian and Russian forces near Chernobyl raised fears that the site of the worst nuclear accident in history might be disturbed. The site still contains radioactive debris, which the world has worked to contain in the 36 years since the disaster. Russian troops seized the nuclear power plant today, according to scattered reports from officials, including Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak. “It is impossible to say the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is safe after a totally pointless attack by the Russians … This is one of the most serious threats in Europe today,” Podolyak said, according to Reuters. The International Atomic Energy Agency, however, said in a statement that the Ukraine regulatory body reported “no casualties nor destruction at the indus...

Social audio app Clubhouse has now come full circle with the addition of in-room text chat for those who might not want to interject or are uncomfortable speaking. In a new blog post detailing the update, the social media platform says that the new feature will give a voice to those who wish to participate silently. “We know not everyone in the community wants to raise their hands and jump on stage to participate,” it reads. “Many of you want a way to join in on the conversation from the comfort of the audience. And we get it – cause even on the internet, stage fright exists.” With the new in-room chat feature, users will now be able to contribute through texting in real-time during audio conversations and sessions. If text chat is enabled for a certain room, you’ll find a chat icon on the...

A tool released on GitHub advertised the sought-after ability to unlock the full Ethereum mining capabilities of recent Nvidia RTX graphics cards but actually contains malware. Tom’s Hardware and PC Gamer wrote about the initially promising utility, called “Nvidia RTX LHR v2 Unlocker,” which claimed to remove Nvidia’s “Lite Hash Rate” software that was implemented in newer graphics cards to deter crypto miners from buying gaming GPUs. In a YouTube livestream yesterday on the Red Panda Mining channel, members of the mining community ChumpchangeXD and Y3TI shared less welcome findings: the tool contained multiple viruses. Importantly, according to Tom’s Hardware, the tool doesn’t even perform its namesake function of removing the cap on the hash rate for your GPU. Instead, it apparently infe...

There’s been an interesting development in the ongoing unionization efforts of Starbucks baristas in upstate New York to join Starbucks Workers United. The legal team hired by the coffee chain to upset the organization of its workers experienced something of a hiccup thanks to an unfortunate software malfunction on February 11th. The firm Littler Mendelson, who has been representing Starbucks’ anti-union efforts, failed to submit a dispute with the National Labor Relations Board on time due to an untimely crash in the firm’s Microsoft Outlook. The dispute, called a statement of position, was aimed at stalling the organizational voting of several upstate New York stores. The dispute stated that holding elections for individual stores would be inappropriate and should instead tally votes on ...

Following a record-breaking 2021 fourth quarter, Etsy is raising seller transaction fees from 5 percent to 6.5 percent, the company announced today. In a report to investors today, the company says the 30 percent increase will take effect beginning on April 11th. The transaction fee is the percentage of the total order amount Etsy charges when a seller makes a sale. The added expense to sellers comes as Etsy announced a fourth-quarter revenue of $717.1 million, which the company attributes to a strong holiday shopping season. Etsy added 10 million new buyers in the fourth quarter of 2021, bringing the number of active buyers to a record 90 million. Stock prices jumped more than 15 percent after market close on Thursday following the report to investors. “We have demonstrated our ability to...

Paramount is reportedly making a live-action movie based on Beyblade fighting tops, which Deadline says will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (who’s had a hand in the Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure franchises, and has produced movies like Bad Boys and Black Hawk Down). For those unfamiliar, Beyblades are toys that you fling together into an arena using a specialized launcher, hoping to knock your opponent’s Beyblade out of the ring or stop it from spinning. They also feature in several manga series (the first came out around the same time as the toys in 1999), some of which have been turned into animated TV shows. Deadline says the movie is still in “early production,” but the idea of a Beyblade movie has been floating around for awhile. In 2015, Deadline reported that Para...

Late Wednesday night, Russian troops invaded Ukrainian territories across the country’s northern, southern, and eastern borders, kicking off the largest troop mobilization in Europe in a generation. As Russian media attempts to cast the invasion as a response to Ukrainian aggression, on-the-ground reporting has played a crucial role in countering the propaganda, with footage coming from both professional journalists and amateurs on social media. But as the conflict intensifies, many civil society groups are increasingly concerned about the possibility of direct attacks on the country’s internet infrastructure. Russia has previously been linked to DDoS attacks against Ukrainian government sites — but a full blackout would mean going further, using physical or cyber weaponry to disable telec...

When Dieter Bohn reviewed Apple’s MagSafe battery pack, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with its performance. Unfortunately, the relatively small battery pack didn’t have enough juice to top off an iPhone 12 even once. And, like most things from Apple, it came with an unusually high price tag and only worked with a proprietary Lightning cable for charging. Since then, other manufacturers like Anker have produced MagSafe battery packs with friendlier features and better capacity. Now, the case makers at Otterbox have joined that trend with a pair of wireless MagSafe power banks that cost less than Apple’s model but provide better capacity and features. Otterbox’s lineup includes both a 5,000mAh and 3,000mAh model that cost $69.99 and $49.95, respectively. The double-sided magnets allow the batte...

Authorized Apple service technicians might be able to make Face ID repairs on iPhone XS and newer phones without needing to replace the entire device, MacRumors reports. The tech giant may soon grant Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers access to a new TrueDepth Camera service part that consists of Face ID and front camera modules. As a result, stores and authorized providers would perform same-unit repairs when a phone suffers from Face ID issues instead of replacing the device. As described by Apple in an internal memo provided to MacRumors, the move will reduce the carbon footprint of its products by decreasing the number of whole-unit repairs. If it happens, it also means owners of iPhone XS models and newer won’t need to set up a new iPhone and possibly lose data just b...