Technology

Apple will let dating app developers offer alternate payment options in the Netherlands in compliance with the Dutch regulator’s ruling, according to a report from Bloomberg. This will allow dating apps — and only dating apps — distributed in the country to avoid Apple’s 15 to 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. In a message to developers on its site, Apple explains that it’s introducing two new optional “entitlements,” or specific app capabilities, that will let developers add third-party payment processors for dating apps in the Netherlands. Dating app developers can either direct customers to a website to complete their purchase or add a third-party payment service within the app. However, if developers choose to snub Apple’s payment service in favor of an alternative, Apple says...

Apple now requires store and corporate employees to get a COVID-19 booster shot, the company announced in an internal email seen by The Verge. Once an employee is eligible to get a booster shot, they will have four weeks to comply, otherwise, they will need to take frequent tests to enter a retail store, partner store, or Apple office starting on February 15th. Apple will require unvaccinated employees — or those who haven’t yet submitted proof of vaccination — to provide negative COVID-19 rapid antigen tests before entering the workplace beginning on January 24th, although it’s unclear whether this applies to both corporate and retail employees. Apple boosts safety protocols as the omicron variant spreads “Due to waning efficacy of the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines and the emergence...

When we were all at the office, many of us were connected to the office network. We didn’t need to give sharing files much thought. But now that we’re scattered across the landscape, securely sharing important files can take careful planning. Here’s why you might want to use powerful file-sharing services to share sensitive files safely, so you can collaborate better no matter where you’re working. Probably the easiest way to share a file is to just attach a document to an email, or to a Slack or other instant message. But either way invites trouble on several fronts. If you rely too much on your email or messaging system, your poorly archived files could become available to prying hackers with phishing lures. If you’re sharing traditional documents that way, you could also quickly find yo...

We’re starting the weekend with some exciting news for gamers: our pick for the best wired gaming mouse is now available for its lowest price to date. For only the third time, Amazon is selling Razer’s Basilisk V3 for just $59.99 instead of $69.99. The comfortable mouse delivers notable improvements over its predecessor, particularly in regards to its scroll wheel. Depending upon how hard your scroll, the mouse can switch between ridged scrolling and free-spin modes, which make it easier to scroll down the page more freely — a perk that comes in handy even if you’re not using the mouse for gaming. It also touts a 26K DPI sensor, RGB lighting, and 11 programmable buttons, so you can adjust the controls to your liking within Razer’s Synapse software. Razer Basilisk V3 $60 $70 15% off Compare...

Late last year, the Slovak Design Museum released a translated collection of ’80s text adventures from the region. The games, often programmed by teenagers, capture a moment in history when the first generation of Slovak developers were learning their craft to share among their friends. The museum didn’t always cover games. Maroš Brojo, the general manager of the Slovak Game Developers Association, pitched the multimedia collection that he now curates. “When you get the patronage of a museum… it gives you much more credibility,” he says. “Suddenly, people start to have a very different view of this actually being part of something important. Our culture and our heritage.” The 10 games that make up this first batch of translations and re-releases were selected for their historical significa...

For the last few weeks, my mind has been filled with questions that, out of context, make little sense. I’ve thought long and hard about why a high school girl would start eating dirt and which middle-aged man might be covered in glitter. I’ve pondered the significance of everything from psychedelic mushrooms to a high school soccer coach’s pep talk to a missing bullet in a police officer’s gun. I’ve even rewatched video to see if a state championship-winning goal was offside — and don’t get me started on how much I’ve thought about cannibalism. What I’m saying is: Yellowjackets has completely taken over my brain. I haven’t been this obsessed with theorizing about events in a television show since the cast of Lost discovered the hatch. On the surface, there are some very obvious connection...

You might think a Google phone would be the best choice to control your Google-branded speakers, but that’s not necessarily true: Google’s actions have potentially opened the door for other manufacturers to do what the Pixel legally cannot, writes Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman at Esper. Last week, we wrote how “Your Google home speakers are about to get slightly worse because Sonos sued and won.” If you’re using a Google Pixel, that’s true — among other things, you won’t be able to control the volume of a multi-zone Google Cast speaker group. That’s because the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google copied Sonos’ technology and threatened to block imports unless Google implemented five specific software tweaks. One of the Sonos patents specifically dealt with controlling volum...

Amazon-owned Eero seems to be close to announcing new routers sometime soon, as new FCC filings appeared this week for devices that appear to be called the Eero 6 Plus and the Eero Pro 6E. That 6E branding for the Pro could indicate it will support Wi-Fi 6E, meaning it can take advantage of 6GHz spectrum for faster connections. Router makers have slowly been introducing Wi-Fi 6E-capable mesh routers, though some have been quite expensive, such as this $1,500 Orbi system from Netgear and Linksys’ $1,200 option. While we don’t know how much Eero’s 6E-capable system could cost, it could be more affordable than those options, given that a 3-pack for the Eero 6 Pro launched at $599. The new router names show up on labels Eero included in the filings. On the labels, the Eero 6 Plus has a model n...

Rio de Janeiro is set to allocate one percent of its treasury reserves to the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Announced by Mayor Eduardo Paes, this move is just one of the first steps in transforming the capital into a crypto hub. In the long run, the city hopes to offer tax incentives to those paying in Bitcoin — as much as a 10 percent tax reduction on buying a property. Eduardo Paes continued with, “Rio de Janeiro has everything it takes to become the tech capital of South America. Events like the Rio Innovation Week come to strengthen the city’s image as the perfect place to work, live, and innovate.” In other tech news, Dogecoin soars after Elon Musk announces it can be used to purchase Tesla merch. Read Full Article

Nvidia’s latest game-ready driver includes a tool that could let you improve the image quality of games that your graphics card can easily run, alongside optimizations for the new God of War PC port. The tech is called Deep Learning Dynamic Super Resolution, or DLDSR, and Nvidia says you can use it to make “most games” look sharper by running them at a higher resolution than your monitor natively supports. DLDSR builds on Nvidia’s Dynamic Super Resolution tech, which has been around for years. Essentially, regular old DSR renders a game at a higher resolution than your monitor can handle and then downscales it to your monitor’s native resolution. This leads to an image with better sharpness but usually comes with a dip in performance (you are asking your GPU to do more work, after all). So...