Technology

Girls Who Code, the nonprofit organization that aims to get more women and girls interested in the field of computer science, has debuted what it calls the “first ever” codable music video. The organization partnered with Doja Cat, transforming her new music video for Woman into an interactive experience. You can try out the experience for yourself at Dojacode.com, where you’ll be greeted by a futuristic image of Doja Cat that becomes pixelated as you drag your mouse over the screen. On the next page, you’ll see three stars, each of which represents a different programming language — yellow for CSS; blue for Javascript; and pink for Python. Once you click the music video, the experience begins. It plays just like Doja Cat’s original music video, only you’ll get to make decisions throughout...

I finally finished The Beatles: Get Back, and even though it meandered a lot, I found myself wanting more. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay nicely captures what it felt like to watch this 50-year old footage as a fan, like we were all kinda just hanging out with John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they worked on new material. Highly recommend watching, it will make you question some of the prevailing narratives about the Fab Four (like the widely held belief that they were at each other’s throats constantly as the band neared its breakup). Also! We got some late-breaking news Saturday about the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s going to be titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and will actually be a two-parter, with part one to be released October 2022, and part two f...

The My Verizon app might be collecting information about your browsing history, location, apps, and your contacts, all in the name of helping the company “understand your interests,” first spotted by Input. The program, which Verizon appears to automatically opt customers into, is called Verizon Custom Experience and lays buried in the privacy settings on the app. The program introduces two different options that appear in the app, Custom Experience and Custom Experience Plus, each of which varies in terms of invasiveness. Verizon provides additional information about both settings within the app, as well as on a FAQ page on its website. It appears that the Custom Experience option is a stripped-down version of Custom Experience Plus, and as Verizon states directly in the app, it helps Ver...

eBay inadvertently suspended an unspecified number of users on December 3rd. The platform has since acknowledged the issue, noting that users who were accidentally suspended have received a notification so they can resolve the issue. Users across social media began reporting that they’ve been suspended from eBay on Friday, despite not knowingly breaking any rules on the platform. An entire Reddit thread on r/ebay is dedicated to the issue, and although the original post has since been deleted, dozens of other users have added their own experiences to the thread. One user describes their own account of the situation, much of which is echoed by other comments: Suspended tonight with no chance of appeal, did an online chat and the woman just told me it wouldn’t be discussed and then cut me of...

And then there were three. After a dramatic live event on Saturday, Fortnite is moving on to Chapter 3, which introduces some big changes for the battle royale. This morning developer Epic detailed season 1 of the new chapter, called “Flipped,” and the most dramatic change is the shift to a fresh, snow-covered island, one that features weather conditions, along with new locations like Sanctuary — which appears to play a large part in Fortnite lore — and the Daily Bugle. Those who pick up the new battle pass will also be able to get their hands on characters like Spider-Man and (eventually) The Foundation, voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. You can get the full run-down of the battle pass right here: [embedded content] (It’s been a busy weekend for spider-news, with a trailer for the sequ...

And then there were three. After a dramatic live event on Saturday, Fortnite is moving on to Chapter 3, which introduces some big changes for the battle royale. This morning developer Epic detailed season 1 of the new chapter, called “Flipped,” and the most dramatic change is the shift to a fresh, snow-covered island, one that features weather conditions, along with new locations like Sanctuary — which appears to play a large part in Fortnite lore — and the Daily Bugle. Those who pick up the new battle pass will also be able to get their hands on characters like Spider-Man and (eventually) The Foundation, voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. You can get the full run-down of the battle pass right here: [embedded content] (It’s been a busy weekend for spider-news, with a trailer for the sequ...

Drone Racing League has released a peculiar Drone Bed ahead of the holiday season inspired by its flagship DRL Racer4 quadcopter that’s raced by its pilots for this year’s DRL World Championship season. The drone beds are available in twin and full sizes and feature red LED lights surrounding the bed, spinning propellor pillows made of high-density foam, and a fiberboard frame coated in high-grade scratch-resistant furniture paint. A TV mount can also be added at the end of the bed upon request, and sleep masks in the shape of First Person View drone goggles come with the offering. The made-to-order drone beds can now be purchased on the Drone Racing League website for $25,000 USD and will arrive approximately 2-4 months after the order is placed. In other news, Christie’s is auctioning tw...

After game designer and author Jane McGonigal sent her Pixel 5a to Google for repair, someone allegedly took and hacked her device. This is at least the second report in as many weeks from someone claiming they sent a Google phone in for repair, only to have it used to leak their private data and photographs. McGonigal posted a detailed account of the situation on Twitter on Saturday and advised other users not to send their phones in for repair with the company. Yeah, don’t send your Google phone in for warranty repair/replacement. As has happened with others, last night someone used it to log into my gmail, Drive, photos backup email account, dropbox, and I can see from activity logs they opened a bunch of selfies hoping to find nudes — Jane McGonigal (@avantgame) December 4, 2021 ...

The first trailer for the highly anticipated sequel to the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse just dropped, revealing both the title — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) — and the surprise that the upcoming adventures of Miles Morales will actually be a two-part affair. The first-look trailer picks up right where the last Spider-Verse movie left off: with Miles (Shameik Moore) lying in bed, before a portal to Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and her universe opens. From there, it seems like Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) is going to be trying to one-up the already stellar animation of the original film, with Miles bouncing across multiple animated universes in a variety of art styles as he dukes it out with Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac, who voiced the character in the ...

Fortnite’s Chapter 2 comes to an end on Saturday, but a trailer for Chapter 3 has already leaked, reportedly from Epic Games’ Polish YouTube channel (via Kotaku). Based on the trailer, the next chapter is poised to be a significant update, adding a brand new island, new mechanics, and your friendly island Spider-Man. The Chapter 3 island looks to have a lot of new areas to explore, including the Daily Bugle and a location reminiscent of the Aztec-themed Sunny Steps from Fortnite’s first chapter. There appear to be new ways to get around, such as sliding down hills to get some extra speed and swinging from high places. And it seems you’ll be able to retrieve stashed weapons from previous matches using tents, which could add some extra strategy to playing a few rounds with your friends. The ...

Spotify has pulled the works of some of the most popular comedians, including Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, John Mulaney, and Jim Gaffigan due to a royalties dispute. First reported by The Wall Street Journal, a number of high-profile entertainers are pursuing royalty payments for their jokes when they’re played on the radio, as well as on services like Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, and SiriusXM. After failed negotiations with Spoken Giants, Spotify removed hundreds of comedians’ content from the service The comics’ efforts are backed by global rights administration company, Spoken Giants, which works to ensure that entertainers are properly compensated for spoken-word content. As the WSJ notes, comedians are typically paid by their label or distributor — along with digital performance rights ...