Technology

The Food and Drug Administration cleared a smartphone app from Tandem Diabetes Care to program insulin delivery for its t:slim X2 insulin pump, the company announced Wednesday. It’s the first phone app for both iOS and Android to able to deliver insulin, the company said in a statement. Previously, delivery had to be handled through the pump itself. With this update, pump users will be able to program or cancel bolus doses of insulin, which are taken at mealtimes and are crucial in keeping blood glucose levels under control. “Giving a meal bolus is now the most common reason a person interacts with their pump, and the ability to do so using a smartphone app offers a convenient and discrete solution,” John Sheridan, president and CEO of Tandem Diabetes Care, said in a statement. The change ...

Samsung is teasing the announcement of a new Galaxy Book laptop at an event on February 27th coinciding with this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC). In a small animation released alongside the invitation, a laptop can be seen unfolding itself, before being joined by a collection of other Samsung products, including a smart watch, smartphone, and a tablet. The event will be streamed on Samsung’s YouTube channel at 1PM ET / 10AM PT on February 27th. In an accompanying blog post, Samsung Electronics’ head of new computing R&D team Hark-sang Kim gives some hints about the company’s priorities for its “next generation Galaxy Book lineup.” Kim says the aim is to offer a “seamless experience across devices and operating systems” with various different Galaxy devices working together. No conc...

Microsoft’s big upcoming feature list for Windows 11 includes some important optimizations and improvements behind the scenes for PC games. The software giant is planning to bring its Xbox HDR Game Calibration app to Windows 11, and make older games run with less input lag, Auto HDR, and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) if they’re running windowed instead of fullscreen. The upcoming Windows HDR Calibration app will allow PC gamers to improve color accuracy and consistency of an HDR display, just like on Xbox. It will include three test patterns to calibrate HDR efficiently, and Windows 11 testers will be able to access the app soon ahead of its general release. Windows 11 shipped with the Auto HDR feature from the Xbox Series X / S consoles, and Microsoft is now making some optimizations for wi...

Amazon will continue to accept Visa credit cards after reaching a global deal, just weeks after the retail giant threatened to stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK. Bloomberg reports that Amazon will also stop charging Visa credit cardholders an extra fee on purchases made in Singapore and Australia. At the core of the dispute were the payment fees Visa charges Amazon each time a customer makes a purchase with one of its credit cards. In the UK in particular, Visa’s interchange fees on credit cards had risen from 0.3 percent to 1.5 percent after the UK left the European Union and was no longer bound by EU fee limits. “This agreement includes the acceptance of Visa at all Amazon stores and sites today” Bloomberg reports that Amazon had considered shifting its lucrative co-branded cred...

Chrome, Firefox, and Edge are about to hit version 100, in a triple release that could break some websites. The move to version 100 in the coming weeks could result in bugs or compatibility issues on some websites not ready to read triple-digit user-agent strings. Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft are busy trying preempt any big issues. Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft have been warning about the upcoming version 100 release for months, which is about to drop in March for both Chrome and Edge, followed by Firefox in May. Mozilla and Google have both been running experiments to test websites and report breakages. There’s a running list of issues, which is fairly small right now, and Engadget notes that the notable sites affected include HBO Go, Bethesda, and Yahoo. The work behind the scenes is ...

J.P. Morgan has launched its virtual Onyx Lounge in Decentraland‘s Metajuku mall, becoming the first bank to enter officially enter the metaverse. Upon entry, lounge visitors are greeted by a dynamic roaming tiger, a floating portrait of the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon, and a spiral staircase. In a report titled “Opportunities in the Metaverse,” J.P. Morgan wrote that the metaverse “will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues,” citing large companies already in the space including Gap, adidas, Nike, Verizon, and PWC. Following J.P. Morgan’s report, Decentraland’s LAND token shot up over 8% on the day. Decentraland is a browser-based 3D virtual world in which users can buy plots of land in the f...

Elon Musk‘s brain chip company Neuralink has found itself in hot waters after claims that its researchers have abused monkeys when testing its products. The complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) by the Physicians Committee of Responsible Medicine (PCRM) which have stated that the Neuralink research has caused its test subjects to undergo “extreme suffering” as they “had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die.” The complaint focuses on a partnership between Neuralink and the University of California, Davis between 2017 and 2020 when researchers implanted a device around the size of a quarter into the skull of its monkey test subjects. PCRM obtained health records and documents that revealed that the monkeys suffered from “ex...

Oppo has released official images of its latest flagship phone, which will be part of the Find X5 series. The company posted pictures of black and white versions of the device along with details on its launch event, which will take place at 6am ET on February 24th, just ahead of Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona. The Find X5 Pro has already leaked extensively, with the Hasselblad partnership and branding revealed in a hands-on photo last month. Oppo made the Hasselblad partnership official earlier this week, following last year’s collaboration between the camera company and Oppo sub-brand OnePlus. Oppo says the Find X5 Pro has a “cutting-edge camera like no other” and a “futuristic flagship design” made from a “beautifully unique ceramic material.” Hasselblad partnership aside, the u...

A recent SEC filing unveiled that Tesla‘s founder Elon Musk donated over $5.7 billion USD in stocks to a charity in November 2021. The donation, which consisted of approximately 5,044,000 shares of one of the world’s most valuable automotive companies, came after the CEO billionaire sold $16.4 billion USD worth of shares after taking to Twitter to announce he will be offloading 10% of his stake. According to Reuters, he also claimed “he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 due to his exercise of stock options set to expire this year.” Since shares donated to charity would not be subject to capital gains taxes if sold, Musk had great tax benefit in gifting the Tesla stock. Bob Lord said, “His tax benefit would be huge. He’d save between 40% and 50% of the $5.7 billion in tax, de...

Nickelodeon‘s hit animated series SpongeBob SquarePants has teamed up with CASETiFY for a collaborative collection celebrating friendship and food. Paying tribute to the show’s iconic characters, locations and mouth-watering dishes, the limited-edition collection features cases that are crafted with 65% recycled material and covered in CASETiFY’s DEFENSiFY antimicrobial coating, and have drop-protection of up to 10 feet. Fans can spot SpongeBob in his famed pineapple under the sea, Patrick Star and his Pickle Paradise ice cream, Sandy Cheeks and her Sea-Nut Butter, Squidward Tentacles and Mr. Krabs and his Krusty Krab Pizza on a series of CASETiFY’s signature phone case styles that include the Impact, Ultra Impact and Ultra Compostable cases, as well as personalize the Floral Case that tak...