Technology

Just after Spotify removed around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast without offering an explanation, Rogan posted a video on Instagram apologizing for saying the N-word on his show in the past (via New York Times). In his apology, Rogan specifically addresses a clip compilation, which was shared by singer India Arie, that shows Rogan saying the N-word repeatedly during podcast episodes over several years. “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now,” Rogan says. “Instead of saying the N-word, I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.” Rogan says the clips were taken “out of context” Rogan says the clips w...

Meta has introduced a new ‘personal boundary’ feature within its VR spaces Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues. By enacting a personal boundary, a user will by default have a nearly 4-foot (1.2 m) distance between their avatar and others. Via an invisible barrier, the system will halt the forward movement of other avatars as they reach the boundary. Meta says that the feature will make it easier for users to avoid unwanted interactions such as harassment. Users can still walk past other avatars with personal boundaries enabled and can even give them a high-five or fist bump. The feature will be rolled out as always-on, by default, which Meta says will “help to set behavioral norms” in the VR space. In the future, the company will consider adding new controls, such as allowing users to custom...

Twitter’s experimental downvote feature, which the company began testing last year, is now rolling out globally. Downvotes were initially also only available to certain web users but will be expanded to iOS and Android users. Downvotes are private reactions to replies. They’re not dislikes, nor will they change the order of replies under a tweet. Rather, downvotes are a tool for users to give feedback on the type of content they want to see. The company says that downvotes help “to understand the types of replies you find relevant in a convo, so we can work on ways to show more of them.” Twitter found that the majority of users downvoted replies that they perceived to be offensive or irrelevant and that downvoting proved to be the most frequent way for users to flag content they don’t want...

Drop is a retailer best known for making the often-perplexing world of custom mechanical keyboards approachable to a far wider audience. Traditionally, it’s focused on individual components like custom keycaps or high-end switches, but in recent years, the retailer, which was formerly known as Massdrop, has begun selling fully assembled keyboards. These are made of similar components but come in a fully assembled and more approachable package. The Icon collection is the retailer’s latest pre-built keyboard range. It’s split into three price tiers, which range from the relatively accessible $150 Expression series to the truly wallet-busting $499 Paragon keyboards. The Mythic Journey keyboard is from the $349 middle tier, the Signature series. It’s programmable and comes with nicer switches ...

Federal investigators served Google with a geofence warrant as part of an investigation into an attempted arson against a police union headquarters in Seattle during protests of the shooting of Jacob Blake, as shown by documents unsealed today in federal court. The attempted arson took place on August 24th, 2020, one day after police officers shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him paralyzed. Amidst broader protests in Seattle and across the country, two people threw Molotov cocktails at the rear entrance of the headquarters of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG). While the building sustained little damage, the attack spurred widespread national interest: Seattle police initially posted a $1,000 reward for information, and the FBI later offered up to $20,000 for any tips t...

NFT traders made nearly $8.9 million USD in 2021 using an illegal activity called “wash trading” to artificially boost the value of their assets. A new report by blockchain data platform Chainalysis revealed that some NFT traders are “making a killing” with wash trading, where the seller is on both sides of the NFT trade, leading to misleading inflation in the asset’s value. According to the report, wash trading is usually of concern with cryptocurrency exchanges, where trade volumes are faked to appear larger. “In the case of NFT wash trading, the goal would be to make one’s NFT appear more valuable than it really is by ‘selling it’ to a new wallet the original owner also controls,” Chainalysis said. The platform tracked NFT washing by analyzing sales of NFTs to addressed that were funded...

On Thursday, after a month of confusion, delays, and canceled flights related to Verizon and AT&T’s rollout of 5G C-Band networks, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing to “discuss the impact that deployment of 5G technologies has on the aviation industry.” Anyone tuning in hoping for bombshell revelations would’ve been disappointed. While some of the testimony was enlightening, giving insight into how certain segments of the industry viewed the events, the main takeaway was that we have a long way to go before C-Band and aviation will be able to co-exist happily. “We recognize that the existing process for spectrum allocation didn’t serve anyone well” “The process” that led to this situation, where the FCC auctioned off bandwidth that the FAA had warn...

NASA and SpaceX say they are looking into a recurring issue with lagging parachutes on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule — critical features the spacecraft needs to land when it returns from orbit. However, the two spaceflight partners are downplaying the seriousness of the problem, claiming that the parachutes are still behaving safely despite the behavior. The parachute issue cropped up during the two most recent landings of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. During each of those descents to Earth, one of the four main parachutes on the spacecraft was slower to fully inflate than the other three. The lagging parachute was clearly visible during a livestream of a November landing, in which the Crew Dragon carried four astronauts home from the International Space Station. A January landing, which re...

The estimated cost of replacing Huawei and ZTE equipment in US networks has increased substantially. On Friday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress that providers had applied to be reimbursed $5.6 billion for “ripping and replacing” equipment deemed insecure by the US government (via Light Reading). In September, 2020, the FCC estimated that the effort would cost $1.8 billion, and in December, 2020 Congress earmarked around $1.9 billion for the effort. But Rosenworcel said Friday in a statement that the FCC had received “over 181 applications from carriers who have developed plans to remove and replace equipment in their networks that pose a national security threat.” She went on to say that she “look[s] forward to working with Congress to e...

Peloton’s no-good-very-bad downfall from its pandemic peak — losing over $20 billion in value since November and becoming a dangerous subplot in prime time TV — has attracted speculation that the connected fitness company is a target to be acquired, but by whom? A Friday evening report from the Wall Street Journal tosses out Amazon as one of the “potential suitors” that may be considering a deal — just as markets closed for the weekend and only a few days before Peloton issues its Q2 2022 earnings report on February 8th. Just the suggestion caused a spike in Peloton’s stock price, sending it up 20–30 percent in after-hours trading. Peloton’s yo-yoing fortunes over the last two years have been well documented, but combine the deep-pocketed tech giants trying to enhance their health and fitn...

Around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast mysteriously disappeared from Spotify on Friday, as spotted by JREMissing.com, a web tool that tracks missing episodes. The show (and Spotify’s relationship to it) have faced heavy criticism over the past few weeks, but there’s no clear connection between that and the missing episodes, nor is there any immediately apparent link between the episodes that were removed. For anyone who’s taken the sanity-preserving step of muting the phrase “Joe Rogan” on Twitter, here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on: Spotify, which has been the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience since the streaming giant reportedly paid $100 million for the pleasure in 2020, has taken a lot of heat from people accusing Rogan’s show of spreading misinformation about COV...