Technology

The smart home should be a natural evolution of our homes, bringing better appliances, better systems, better experiences. But to date, it’s been complicated, confusing, and expensive. Walled gardens have stifled innovation as developers focus on getting their devices to work with three or four or more different platforms rather than spending their time creating better products and new features. Consumers spend too much energy figuring out which product works with which and then troubleshooting those connections, before often giving up on the whole thing. This has led to a slower smart home adoption than many expected. What the smart home needs, and has needed for a long time, is a universal connectivity standard — a basic level of common plumbing in our homes for everything to flow throug...

On Tuesday, Dell announced a new design concept for a laptop that’s long lived, easy to take apart and fix, and takes a smaller toll on the climate. It’s a collection of ideas that could go a long way toward making the tech giant’s products more sustainable — depending on whether, and how, Dell decides to implement them. Called “Concept Luna,” the proof-of-concept laptop dreamed up by Dell’s design team has a number of unusual features that are intended to make repair and maintenance easy. No screwdrivers or glue solvents are needed to pry loose a broken keyboard or peel off a cracked screen; both components simply pop free after a pair of keystones holding them in place are removed. The entire system contains far fewer screws than a typical Dell laptop, reducing the time needed to replace...

The title Everything Everywhere All At Once rings true — Michelle Yeoh is, in fact, everywhere all at once in this new film, directed by the Daniels duo, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the same team behind the absurd Swiss Army Man featuring yet another Daniel: Daniel Radcliffe. Yeoh stars as “an exhausted Chinese American woman who can’t seem to finish her taxes” In Everything Everywhere All At Once, Yeoh stars as “an exhausted Chinese American woman who can’t seem to finish her taxes,” but there’s obviously a lot more to the film than just that. The trailer opens with Yeoh, aka Evelyn Wang, discussing her finances with an almost unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis. Suddenly, she’s flung into another universe — via a rolling office chair — and the lens that we’re viewing Yeoh through crack...

Toyota is ramping up its electric vehicle production schedule, vowing to release 30 electric vehicles by 2030 rather than just 15 EVs by 2025, as was previously promised. The Japanese automaker also vowed to sell 3.5 million battery EVs globally by 2030 and to transform Lexus into an EV-only brand by 2035. The company said it would invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) in battery vehicle technology, an increase over its previous commitment of 1.5 trillion yen ($13.6 billion). Toyota was an early pioneer in electrification, helping pave the way for companies like Tesla and others by proving that vehicles with alternative powertrains could be immensely popular. But the company has since fallen far behind its competitors. Toyota was an early pioneer in hybrid tech but has since fallen far beh...

Google is hiring an “Augmented Reality OS” team focused on building software for an “innovative AR device,” according to job listings spotted by 9to5Google. The team is led by Mark Lucovsky, who announced he’d joined the company this week. Lucovsky previously worked at Meta developing an in-house alternative to Android to power the company’s hardware, and also co-authored the Windows NT operating system. According to Google’s job listings, the Augmented Reality OS team is building “the software components that control and manage the hardware on [its] Augmented Reality (AR) products.” This is far from Google’s first stab at developing AR software, and follows the company’s work on ARCore for Android and Tango. The company’s Google Glass, which is aimed at the business and enterprise market,...

Today, as the year winds down, let’s talk about what we learned in 2021 about the relationship between tech and democracy — and about where the most urgent questions lie as we head into 2022. In the years that Donald Trump served as president, platforms faced frequent calls to remove his accounts. From his primary posting station on Twitter, Trump had among other things spread lies about COVID, incited harassment against average citizens, and threatened nuclear war. After losing re-election to Joe Biden, he lied relentlessly about the outcome, undermining faith in democracy and ultimately inciting the January 6th attacks on the Capitol. Because he was president, he was allowed to keep his accounts through January 6th. But after Congress certified Biden’s victory — and Trump’s supporters st...

Artificial intelligence programs that check medical images for evidence of cancer can be duped by hacks and cyberattacks, according to a new study. Researchers demonstrated that a computer program could add or remove evidence of cancer from mammograms, and those changes fooled both an AI tool and human radiologists. That could lead to an incorrect diagnosis. An AI program helping to screen mammograms might say a scan is healthy when there are actually signs of cancer or incorrectly say that a patient does have cancer when they’re actually cancer free. Such hacks are not known to have happened in the real world yet, but the new study adds to a growing body of research suggesting healthcare organizations need to be prepared for them. Hackers are increasingly targeting hospitals and healthcar...

Google has warned that YouTube TV could lose access to over a dozen Disney-owned channels later this week if it’s unable to renew its agreement with the company. In a blog post, YouTube TV says its current deal with Disney is due to expire this Friday, December 17th, after which the channels could disappear if it’s unable to reach a new agreement. “Our ask of Disney, as with all of our partners, is to treat YouTube TV like any other TV provider – by offering us the same rates that services of a similar size pay, across Disney’s channels for as long as we carry them,” YouTube’s blog post reads. Here’s the list of impacted channels. The Hollywood Reporter notes that eight ABC local stations could also disappear from YouTube TV. ABC News Live Disney Channel Disney Junior Disney XD Freeform FX...

Earlier this month, Facebook went through a major rebranding to better focus the company on its metaverse endeavors. As the company continues to make strides into the digital space, Facebook’s owner has acquired the exclusive rights to the name “Meta” from a South Dakota bank for $60 million USD. The deal cements the value of the Meta name for the tech giant. Earlier this week, South Dakota-based Meta Financial Group confirmed that it sold its Meta trademark to a company called Beige Key LLC, which has been known to be connected to Meta Platforms. It was confirmed to Forbes by Meta Platforms that they were involved with the purchase. Meta Financial has agreed to remove the word “Meta” from its name and its branding within the year. Reuters reported that Meta Platforms was already “engaged ...

Elon Musk has been given TIME Magazine‘s inaugural title of “Person of the Year” for 2021. Musk is a pioneer in multiple fronts of innovation, leading the development of electric vehicles through Tesla, Space exploration through SpaceX, brain-machine interfaces through Neuralink, urban restructuring through The Boring Company, and more. TIME begins in its announcement letter with a brief introduction: “The richest man in the world does not own a house and has recently been selling off his fortune. He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver. With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons. An army of devotees hangs on his every utterance. He dreams of Mars as he bestrides Earth, square-jawed and i...

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation into the collapse of an Amazon warehouse in Illinois that left six people dead. The damage was caused by a tornado that swept through the area Friday evening, leaving a path of destruction across three states. In addition to the six people killed at the Amazon warehouse, 45 were rescued, according to The New York Times, which reported that local authorities had some difficulty determining how many people were in the facility at the time since many who work out of the warehouse are contractors for other companies. “OSHA investigates all workplace fatalities and we are supporting them,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in an email to The Verge. As first reported by CNBC, OSHA will have six months to com...