Technology

Alienware’s new 14-inch X14 gaming laptop is now on sale, following its announcement in January at CES 2022. While the X14 is considerably smaller (and thinner) than the 15-inch X15 or 17-inch X17, it borrows some of the highlights of those pricier, more powerful machines. At launch, it features a 14-core Intel Core i7-12700H processor, up to Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics chip, and up to 2TB of SSD storage and 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM clocked at 5,200MHz. If you want a machine with those specs inside, it’ll cost you $2,299.99 — not cheap for an RTX 3060-equipped laptop. There are less costly options at launch, and more are on the way. Prices for the low-end X14 configuration currently start at $1,649.99, and you’ll get the same Core i7-12700H processor, but with 16GB of LPDDR5 clocked at a slightly...

Matt Buchholz’s artwork is usually a hit during the holidays. Under the name Alternate Histories, he creates surreal landscapes of sci-fi staples — think Godzilla or flying saucers — appearing around major cities, which he prints on giftable items like postcards and calendars. But this year, Buchholz found himself with unexpected competitors: counterfeiters ripping off his designs and offering them for sale via Facebook ads. “Someone sent me a screenshot and was like, ‘Hey, I just saw this ad on Facebook for your calendar’,” he said in an interview with The Verge. The ad had his 2022 calendar and even some of his marketing copy, but the shop wasn’t his. “It had tons of other products that a reverse image search on Google showed were stolen.” Buchholz is one of the many small sellers overwh...

2021 is in the rearview mirror, but the year’s final reckoning didn’t come until the past week — at least where Wall Street is concerned. Major companies ranging from Apple and Google to Netflix and Tesla all announced their earnings for the holiday quarter — and, as has been the case for more or less the last decade-plus of history, Big Tech made Big Bucks. But taken in total, 2021 looks like a different year, even by Big Tech company standards. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the fluctuating economy and job market, supply chain issues, semiconductor shortages, and other socioeconomic issues, major tech firms didn’t just manage to scrape out some tiny margins of revenue last year: they more or less broke the bank with some of the biggest annual revenue increases ever. Chart is inte...

Apple has reportedly filed for a new patent for a keyboard that would see the iPad transformed into a MacBook. The new technology is rumored to bridge the gap between Apple’s iPad and MacBook as reports indicated that the tech company wants to create a hinged keyboard mechanism that would give iPad keyboard support that allows it to function like MacBook Pro. The design sees the keyboard directly attached to the iPad. In the past, Apple has renounced any idea of converging the iPad with the MacBook line, however, the new potential patent suggests that the Cupertino-based company might be gathering a fresh perspective on the matter. The patent describes a base system that features an electromechanical keyboard accompanied by a hinged coupler that attaches to the iPad in various modes includ...

Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies and replace them with a bundle of new standards referred to as the “Privacy Sandbox” just overcame a key regulatory hurdle. The UK’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has formally accepted Google’s commitments about how it’ll develop the new standards so they don’t harm competition or unfairly benefit the search giant’s own advertising business, the regulator announced today. Google’s plans are still in flux, and it’s not yet clear exactly what technologies Privacy Sandbox will use to replace third-party cookies. Just last month, Google abandoned one planned approach, FLoC, in favor of a new system called Topics API. Today’s approval is for Google’s approach, rather than any one specific technology. The regula...

Two years after the wildly popular subscription service MoviePass crashed and burned, its co-founder Stacy Spikes is determined to bring it back. Spikes says MoviePass will return this summer. The company, recently bought by Spikes after his unceremonious ouster from MoviePass in 2018, held its launch event today at the Walter Reade Theater Lincoln Center in NYC. Spikes began by wasting absolutely no time addressing the Helios and Matheson Analytics-shaped elephant in the room. The firm is now infamous for being the parent company of MoviePass that managed to blow the entire thing up shortly after the firm bought the startup, which became famous for offering unlimited movie tickets for a monthly fee. “A lot of people lost money, a lot of people lost trust,” Spikes said, claiming he was amo...

Google has announced that it’ll shut down Currents, which was introduced in 2019 as a replacement for Google Plus for G Suite. In a blog post, the company says it’s “planning to wind down” Currents, and that it’ll push the people who were using it to Spaces, which is sort of like Google Chat’s version of a Slack channel or Discord room. Google says that it’s making the change so users won’t have to work in a “separate, siloed destination” — instead, they’ll be using Chat and Spaces, which will soon be prominently integrated into Gmail. The company promises it’s going to make Spaces a more suitable replacement over the next year, saying it’ll “deliver new capabilities” like “support for larger communities and leadership communication, investments in advanced search, tools for content modera...

Wordle, the extremely popular online puzzle, is now officially being run by The New York Times after its creator sold it a few weeks ago. It lives at a new URL, https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html, but before you head there for your daily game, you should know that there’s currently issues with how player statistics (including streaks, win percentages, and guess distribution) are being transferred from the old version to the new. Here’s what an FAQ page from The Times says about how the stats transfer should work: How can I transfer my game statistics to the new Wordle site? We have automatically transferred your game statistics (including streaks) to Wordle’s new home on New York Times Games. Nothing to do on your end. Help! My game statistics or streaks did not migrate correc...

Ford’s remote vehicle app FordPass was updated a week ago, and Electrek reports that it contains a set of image files hinting at a possible driverless parking assistant feature. Following in the steps of Tesla’s quite popular Summon feature The images have filenames beginning with “freeDriveBehind” and “freeDriveForward,” which show stencil drawings of what looks like an overhead view of a Ford F-150 Lighting with arrows pointing from the rear-back and the front-forward, respectively. Associated images included also show the electric truck’s front view in between two Mustang Mach-Es while a checkbox displays on an iPhone, which is a fairly apt representation of a driver-free parking function. It wouldn’t be off-brand either for Ford to call the feature FreeDrive as the filenames suggest. T...

Horizon Forbidden West’s February 18th release is almost here, but if you’re planning on getting a digital version of the game directly from Sony to play on your PS5, you should hold up just a second before pushing the buy button. While you might see listings for $69.99, such as on this landing page, you should know that the standard edition of the PS4 version of Horizon Forbidden West is $10 cheaper and has a free upgrade to the PS5 version. In September, Sony announced that the game wouldn’t have an upgrade path from PS4 to PS5, despite originally promising a free upgrade, and Sony quickly pivoted in response to fan outcry. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan stated it plainly on the PlayStation Blog: “Players who purchase Horizon Forbidden West on PlayStation 4 will be able to upgrade to the Play...