Technology

Major U.S. airlines have now warned against a potential “catastrophic disruption” caused by the upcoming launch of C-Band 5G. In a new letter to the White House Economic Council, Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communications Commission, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, numerous CEOs of both passenger and cargo airlines including Delta, United and Southwest claim that AT&T and Verizon‘s launch of the new service could cause massive issues for air travel due to interference from cell towers with safety instruments on board their planes. They also plead for 5G buffer zones around the country’s busiest airports and runways, arguing that cell towers shouldn’t broadcast the service anywhere within two miles of those locations. “Unless our major hubs are cleared to fl...

Logitech has announced a new stylus called Pen, and it’s aimed at being the best option available for classrooms full of Chromebooks. Unlike many rubber-tipped styli, the Pen is an active stylus that supports the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) standard, effectively guaranteeing one thing: it’ll work out of the box on a number of recent Chromebooks — no pairing required. If a Chromebook is mentioned on this list, the Pen will work with it. Logitech says that more Chromebook manufacturers have been moving forward with the USI standard, so expect to see more models added to it. The Pen can recharge via a USB-C port located where you’d find the eraser on a traditional pencil, and Logitech says it can last for up to 15 days of regular school use, though that claim assumes your student is usi...

Apple has officially removed its long-running noise cancellation feature from the iPhone 13 series. A 9to5Mac reader by the name of Steve reached out to the Apple Support team who confirmed that the feature is no longer available on the iPhone 13 line. “That is correct. It is not supported. If you would like to leave feedback about this feature, please feel free to visit: apple.com/Feedback,” the Apple Support team wrote back. “[A]fter working with Apple and a senior advisor for months saying to wait for an update to fix the issue, I got an update regarding the issue, and apparently, it won’t be fixed and noise cancelation is intentionally disabled for those devices for unspecified reasons,” Steve added. Apple’s noise cancellation feature aimed “to reduce ambient background noise on phone ...

The Brooklyn Nets have officially become the first professional sports team to enter the Metaverse. Dubbed the “Netaverse,” the NBA team debuted a new innovative video system over the weekend that develops 3D lifelike renderings in a matter of seconds. With the metaverse, the Nets are hoping to offer fans a futuristic way to watch the NBA. The “Netaverse” uses over 100 high-resolution video cameras surrounding the court that help to render a 360 virtual reality experience. The visuals are then fed directly into Canon’s Free Viewpoint System which then generate realtime, detailed 3D models and images of every player on the court. Fans are then able to position themselves anywhere along the sidelines of the court, behind the nets or even in the middle of the court, catching every angle of th...

Spain has new rules in place for how social media influencers can advertise or promote cryptocurrency. Reuters reported that Spain is planning to make the move to regulate the rampant crypto advertising by February 2022. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets have seen a surge in growth worldwide and have been seen as a risk to the financial system if it is not monitored. Starting next month, the Spanis National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) demands that companies and people notify it at least 10 days prior to running a crypto assets ad. The rule applies to those with more than 100,000 subscribers and are paid to promote any cryptocurrency-related news. Crypto advisers will not only need to release the contents of their upcoming campaigns to the CNMV but will also need to include a disc...

A decentralized autonomous organization known as Spice DAO has just reportedly paid $3 million USD for an original 1975 copy of Dune. Selling for roughly 100 times its estimate, well over its market value even if you factor in the success of the film reboot, a series of tweets is leading users to believe that Spice DAO thinks it gives them the rights to the story. In two of its goals from purchasing the book, it indicates that they will make the book free to the public, and produce an animated limited series to sell to a streaming service, as well as NFTs. The issue with this is that the book is already free online, and buying the book would not legally give them permission to create an animated series based on the story. As on user points out, buying a Spider-Man comic would not mean the ...

Samsung has announced the Exynos 2200, its new in-house mobile processor for smartphones. It’s the first mobile system-on-a-chip to include a GPU with AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architecture, enabling features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The collaboration with AMD has been long in the making. The two companies first announced a licensing deal in 2019, then AMD confirmed last year that Samsung’s “next flagship mobile SoC” would use RDNA 2. Samsung recently teased an announcement event for the Exynos 2200 that was supposed to take place on January 11th, but it was mysteriously delayed. The Exynos 2200 is manufactured on Samsung’s 4nm EUV process. Samsung is branding this GPU as “Xclipse,” and AMD’s SVP of Radeon GPU tech David Wang says in a statement that it’s “the first result of mul...

Following their 2020 collaboration, mastermind JAPAN and COTODAMA have reconnected for a Lyric Speaker Box release. Combining the design philosophies of both brands, the full music experience speaker matches mastermind JAPAN’s devotion to high-quality techniques and craftsmanship with COTODAMA’s focus on the traditional Japanese notion of “cotodama” (spirit of words). The Lyric Speaker Box is a next-gen wi-fi speaker equipped with “Lyric Sync Technology.” Lyrics are displayed on a transparent LCD monitor in matching motion graphics and fonts. Sonics are expressed through a two-way bass-reflex speaker for a wide range of sound. The movement of lyrics is determined by the genre and type of music for an unmatched visual and audio experience. The mastermind JAPAN x COTODAMA Lyric Speaker Box w...

Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law who acted as a senior advisor during Trump’s time in the White House, was apparently interested in the idea of whether the federal government should make a cryptocurrency in 2018. In an email to then-US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Kushner asked if he could have a group of people “brainstorm” about the government creating its own digital currency, as revealed by a Freedom Of Information Act request from CoinDesk. While we haven’t seen the idea come to fruition, it’s interesting that someone who had a lot of status in the White House (and also acted as the director for the Office of American Innovation) was thinking about it years ago. Here’s the email in full: Steven — Would you be open to me bringing a small group of people t...

Google offers many ambient sounds from the Google Assistant, including one for white noise that might help block out noise to make it easier to sleep or study. But the company seemingly changed its white noise sound last week, and many have expressed frustration with the update, as reported by 9to5Google. The change has been disruptive for a lot of people, as documented in this Google Nest community thread with more than 150 replies. Some described the new white noise as quieter or sounding muffled. One person said their child has asked to use another white noise generator instead of a Google Nest Hub. Another said their toddler has observed the change and wakes up during the night. Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. It’s unclear if the company plans to adjust the wh...

If you’re a history buff, or are looking for a new web game to play, Wikitrivia may be worth your time. The game’s creator, Tom Watson, describes it on his site as “Wikidata as a trivia card game,” and the tweet that brought it to our attention called it an “online clone of the card game Timeline.” Playing it is simple: it gives you a card that represents something that has a date, which is pulled from Wikidata; some examples I saw asked me to pin down when the Bastille was built, when the Foo Fighters were formed, and when the October Revolution ended (unfortunately, it was looking for a year, not a month). You then have to put the card on the correct place in the timeline. You’re allowed three mistakes, which are represented by hearts, and you’ll lose one if you put a card in the wrong p...