Technology

Roku experienced a significant service disruption on Wednesday evening, which resulted in some of the company’s streaming devices and even Roku TVs getting stuck on the loading screen or going through a reboot loop and becoming effectively useless. Roku TV sets from TCL, Hisense, and other manufacturers were affected. Users took to social media and Roku’s subreddit to report problems with their Roku hardware, and Down Detector showed a spike for Roku’s services. The company’s support account acknowledged the ongoing issues at around 8:30PM ET. “Roku is aware of an issue reported by users who are unable to access some Roku services,” the company said. “If you are trying to activate your device, please try again later. Our priority is to get this resolved as soon as possible, and we ask that...

AMC Theatres has given away free NFTs to its Investor Connect shareholders. In November, Sony Pictures and AMC announced that they would be offering an exclusive Spider-Man NFT to AMC Theatres Stubs Premiere & A List and AMC Investor Connect members in anticipation of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Soon after, the popular theatre chain announced a second NFT drop exclusive to AMC Investor Connect members available through the WAX blockchain. AMC Investor Connect is a program designed for self-identified AMC shareholders, so fittingly, the exclusive NFT drop features a gold embossed medallion that says: “I Own AMC.” The company previously said that it expects to airdrop discounts or other benefits at its theatres to the holders of the NFTs. On Tuesday, CEO Adam Aron tweeted tha...

A new trailer gives us a glimpse of Apple TV Plus’ WeCrashed, an upcoming miniseries about the real-life buildup and dramatic downfall of WeWork, the coworking space with the weirdly bombastic public filing that laid off thousands of employees while later giving its brash CEO a huge golden parachute. The script practically writes itself. Jared Leto stars as WeWork’s former eccentric CEO, Adam Neumann, while Anne Hathaway takes on the role of his wife, Rebekah Neumann, who served as the company’s chief brand and impact officer and was former CEO of WeGrow. The trailer opens with Leto reimagining a run-down building as a vibrant office space — and then making that vision a reality. Leto and Hathaway are then seen leading a “WeWork” chant in front of a crowd, emphasizing the almost hypnotic e...

Google is launching a limited beta of its app to bring Android games to Windows PCs. Google Play Games will be available in beta in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan today, allowing Windows PC owners to play popular Android games like Mobile Legends, Summoners War, State of Survival, and Three Kingdoms Tactics. Players in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan will be able to sign up to access the beta and access Google’s standalone app on Windows PCs. Google is promising “seamless gameplay sessions between a phone, tablet, Chromebook, and Windows PC,” suggesting that you’ll be able to easily resume games between multiple devices. “Players can easily browse, download, and play their favorite mobile games on their PCs while taking advantage of larger screens with mouse and keyboard inputs,” sa...

Disney has named Joe Earley, a former EVP of its tentpole streaming service Disney Plus, to the position of president of Hulu. Earley previously served as EVP marketing and operations at Disney Plus and is headed to its sister service after joining the company in January of 2019. In the new role at Hulu, Earley will be tasked with building on the service’s brand and will liaise with its various content studios. The announcement comes as part of a reorganization as Disney continues to rally resources around its streaming business. Earley will report to Michael Paull, who the company has appointed to the role of president of Disney’s overall streaming business. In this newly created position, Paull will oversee the company’s ESPN Plus, Hulu, Disney Plus, and Star Plus streaming services. Pau...

Panic, the maker of the quirky Playdate handheld, has released a public beta of its Playdate Pulp in-browser game builder. The company describes it as “a friendly tool for making tiny but visually and narratively rich games for Playdate,” in its developer documentation. In the Pulp editor, you’ll be able to do things like make pixel graphics, build levels, write music, and even create custom fonts. As you’re working on your game, you can test it right in your browser, and when you’re ready, you can export your game as a .pdx file (a clever reference to Panic’s Portland roots) so you can load it onto a Playdate handheld. You don’t have to write any code to make a game in Pulp, but if you do want to try your hand at some coding, you can use the PulpScript scripting language. I’m no game deve...

Huenit, a Seoul-based technology company, has designed a modular robotic arm with AI vision that’s capable of 3D printing, calligraphy and laser cutting and engraving. After raising $700,000 USD in funds for the project in just a month, prototypes of the bot have been assembled, showcasing all of its impressive functions. The bot comes with an AI camera that can capture 30 frames per second, equipping it to handle a variety of cutting-edge AI tasks including face recognition, image classification, object detection, line tracking, color recognition and human segmentation. It has a touchscreen display, speaker and microphone that offers voice recognition. For those who need a helping hand, the robot is equipped to use a high-power laser to cut and engrave paper, wood, leather, anodized alumi...

NFT marketplace OpenSea has purchased Dharma Labs, a startup for digital cryptocurrency wallets. Announced on Tuesday, the news follows a report from Axios that said the two companies were discussing a deal valued somewhere between $110 million USD and $130 million USD. Dharma Labs was founded in 2017 and allows users to connect their bank accounts to their Ethereum wallets. Users then buy and swap tokens via the Dharma Lab’s app, however, OpenSea will be shutting down the app as part of the new deal. OpenSea will also be bringing onboard Dharma Labs co-founder and CEO Nadav Hollander as its new Chief Technology Officer. Hollander will be tasked with improving the technology behind OpenSea’s products and building mechanisms for web3. “Our teams share a vision that NFTs will be the cultural...

When, in 2020, the IRS pushed the due date for federal income taxes from April 15th to July 15th because of the upheaval brought about by COVID-19, a lot of taxpayers must have breathed a sigh of relief. Depending on where we lived, many of us were dealing with product shortages, layoffs, sudden isolation, and trying to figure out how to cope with the new normal. Time marches on, however, and two years later, the tax deadline is back to mid-April (April 18th for most states, April 19th in Maine and Massachusetts). So if you won’t be able to file your taxes by then, what do you do? One thing you don’t do is panic. You can still file for an extension — and it won’t take long. If you’re an individual (and let’s assume you are), you can file for an extension easily online by filling out Form 4...

Over half of internet-connected devices used in hospitals have a vulnerability that could put patient safety, confidential data, or the usability of a device at risk, according to a new report from the healthcare cybersecurity company Cynerio. The report analyzed data from over 10 million devices at over 300 hospitals and health care facilities globally, which the company collected through connectors attached to the devices as part of its security platform. The most common type of internet-connected device in hospitals was an infusion pump. These devices can remotely connect to electronic medical records, pull the correct dosage of a medication or other fluid, and dispense it to the patient. Infusion pumps were also the devices most likely to have vulnerabilities that could be exploited by...

Microsoft’s latest Halo game has finally arrived, and as we’ve seen, the Infinite campaign mode delivers. But for players already missing features like campaign co-op and Forge customizations, ongoing issues with the Halo Infinite Big Team Battle matchmaking have been another source of disappointment. A little over a week ago, the developers at 343 said a hotfix was on the way, and now it has arrived. But there’s bad news — it doesn’t seem to work. The size of the update varies by platform, but players report it comes in at about a gigabyte on Xboxes and 110MB for PC players via Steam. If you’ve been online the whole time, you may need to restart your game to download it. Here’s 343 on what’s happening: Hey everyone – The Hotfix was deployed at 10AM PT today for Xbox and PC and inclu...

Meta is adding a new feature to its Quest virtual reality headsets that lets you pinch your fingers to access the Quick Action menu, according to a blog post published Wednesday. The Quick Action menu functions similarly to the Control Center on iOS, so this new feature should give you an easier way to access some top-level settings. To do the gesture while using hand tracking on the Quest, “hold your hand palm-up, then make a pinching motion, and you’ll be able to call up a shortcut menu that will make it easier to take screenshots, activate voice commands, and more,” Meta said. The company also made a handy GIF to show the gesture: This new gesture is arriving with v37 of the Quest software, which is rolling out beginning Wednesday and adds a few other useful updates. One lets you send a...