Technology

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s newly proposed budget includes plans to tackle pollution choking portside communities while also expanding the state’s capacity to accommodate the nation’s growing hunger for imported consumer goods. The proposal comes as pandemic-fueled supply chain problems have created a crisis at California’s ports, thrusting them into the national spotlight. The draft budget released yesterday for the 2022–23 fiscal year proposes investing $2.3 billion in the state’s congested ports. That includes $875 million for zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure — with a majority earmarked for trucks. It also includes $1.2 billion for “port-related” projects, like rail yard expansions, meant to increase the flow of goods from ports to consumers. Southern California is home ...

Printers are the worst. They’re unreliable, they guzzle reportedly $12,000-a-gallon ink, and their manufacturers have been known to use dirty tricks, scare tactics, and DRM to strongly encourage you to buy cartridges exclusively from them. But Canon is now getting a taste of its own medicine. Some of Canon’s own toner cartridges are now being detected as fakes — and they’re forcing the company to teach customers how to bypass its own DRM (via Techdirt). According to Canon’s own support website (Europe, Germany), the company is “currently facing challenges in sourcing certain electronic components that are used in our consumables for our multifunction printers.” In other words, Canon’s been hit by the great chip shortage, too — only the components Canon’s missing aren’t powering video game ...

Wordle, the word-guessing puzzle game that’s taken over our Twitter timelines, doesn’t currently have an official app. That may come as a surprise to anyone who’s searched for it on the App Store, though — earlier today, doing so would show you several blatant unofficial copies, each of which use the same name and mechanics as the original, which was made by Josh Wardle and distributed on the web for free. Most people who’ve been online recently will have had at least some exposure to Wordle if they haven’t been playing it themselves (The Guardian reports it has 2 million daily players). It’s a simple concept but done well: each day, you go to the Wordle website, where you’re given five chances to guess a five-letter word. The game gives you feedback about what letters you’ve put in the ri...

T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T — the three biggest US cellular carriers — have all confirmed to The Verge that they aren’t blocking Apple’s new iCloud Private Relay feature, following reports that some customers were having issues with the VPN-like feature. AT&T and Verizon straight-up say they’re not blocking the feature from functioning. Verizon spokesperson George L. Koroneos confirms that Private Relay works on both cellular and Fios internet connections, and AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom says the carrier’s policy is not to block Private Relay. T-Mobile’s situation is a little more complex: most customers shouldn’t have any issues with iCloud Private Relay. But those who use content filtering services (like the carrier’s Family Controls) won’t be able to use iCloud Private Rela...

A ransomware attack last week has left an Albuquerque area jail without access to its camera feeds and rendered automatic door mechanisms unusable. Inmates have been confined to their cells as a result, while technicians struggled to bring systems back online. As first reported by the Albuquerque Journal, visitor access to the Metropolitan Detention Center was completely suspended as the jail was put into lockdown. All internet services at the jail were also knocked offline, leaving staff unable to look up inmate records. All county internet services at the jail were also knocked offline, leaving staff unable to look up inmate records Based on the lack of camera coverage, all inmates within the facility were placed on lockdown from the morning of January 5th. Further, according to an emerg...

Beats’ best earbuds yet, the Beats Fit Pro, were only available in the United States immediately upon their release a few months ago. Apple then launched the earbuds in China, but now they’re set to become much more widely available on January 28th. That’s when the Beats Fit Pro will launch across Canada, Europe, and Japan. According to a tweet from the Apple-owned brand, preorders for the “worldwide” release will begin on January 24th before the buds hit shelves on the 28th. The Beats Fit Pro include flexible wingtips that help them (comfortably) stay anchored in your ears without coming loose — even during exercise. According to Engadget, in Europe the Beats Fit Pro will be priced at £200 / €230; in Canada they’ll cost $250 CAD; and in Japan you’ll be able to get them for 24,800 yen. As ...

At a press conference on Monday, the Biden administration announced a policy that will require insurance companies to reimburse up to eight over-the-counter at-home COVID-19 tests for their customers beginning January 15th, as first reported by the Associated Press. The administration said in a Twitter thread that the “update” is a part of a larger plan to “increase access to COVID-19 testing.” Under the new policy, insured Americans will either have to purchase the test kits under their insurance or submit receipts to their insurance for reimbursement. A family of four under the same plan would be eligible to be reimbursed for up to eight COVID tests each, totaling 32 tests per month. The plan will also require consumers wanting reimbursement to do more work. The plan “incentivizes” compa...

Apple’s $19 polishing cloth is back in stock at the company’s online store, as spotted by 9to5Mac. The very expensive piece of cloth was first introduced following Apple’s October event, but it was quickly backordered — according to MacRumors, it was “impossible” to get one before the holidays — so if you’ve been waiting to get one, now’s your chance. “Made with soft, nonabrasive material, the Polishing Cloth cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture glass, safely and effectively,” reads Apple’s description of the cloth on its product page. Sounds perfect if you need to clean a Pro Display XDR with the nano-texture glass screen. That already costs $5,999 — the nano-texture glass is a $1,000 upgrade from the standard model — and if you want Apple’s official stand for the display, you...

Antonio Brown’s on-field incident several weeks ago against the New York Jets is expected to fetch around $1.5m USD when it hits auction as a newly minted NFT. For those new to the story, the star wideout abruptly left the field in the third quarter where he was seen taking off his equipment in a flurry. He proceeded in throwing his gloves and shirt in the stands, going into the endzone to do jumping jacks, before heading into the locker room. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers released Brown in the days to follow. Health over Wealth # Barbarian pic.twitter.com/5pxjpZ6491 — AB (@AB84) January 6, 2022 Ye + AB = SB #CallGod pic.twitter.com/O5Z8Ur6aGf — AB (@AB84) January 11, 2022 Since then, there has been a clash of words between the two sides, with Brown going as far as to post text conversations th...

When I sat down to chat with director Mamoru Hosoda over Zoom last November, it had only been a few weeks since Facebook had announced its name change, and everyone seemed to be talking about the metaverse. Hosoda, meanwhile, was promoting his latest film: Belle, a modern reinterpretation of Beauty and the Beast that just so happened to be set in a metaverse-like virtual world. “I certainly didn’t expect Facebook to change their name during our promotional campaign,” he says. Hosoda is perhaps best known for his 2018 anime Mirai, which was nominated for best animated picture at the Academy Awards. But he’s also been exploring the idea of virtual worlds for quite some time. He got his start directing with a pair of Digimon movies, and in 2009 he released Summer Wars, in which a rogue AI wre...

Cristiano Amon is the president and CEO of Qualcomm, and he’s always been a relentless cheerleader for what mobile computing can do for people — especially if that mobile computing is powered by Qualcomm’s chips. And Qualcomm’s chips are in basically everything: the company’s wireless chips are in virtually every phone — actually every 5G phone — and its Snapdragon processors are in every major Android phone. Then it has businesses in cars, servers, VR headsets — you name it. The company is everywhere. But relentless optimism can only get you so far — like everyone else, Qualcomm is dealing with a supply chain crunch, a global pandemic, and skyrocketing demand for chips that’s led to widespread shortages. On top of that, Apple’s A-series chips in the iPhone have long outperformed the Snapd...

Another week, another restock of Xbox Series X consoles at GameStop. Hopefully this is a trend that new console availability is opening up in 2022 to a point where soon anyone will be able to walk into a store and pick up their hardware of choice without any fuss. While we’re not quite there yet, the restocks are remaining fairly consistent. GameStop has two Xbox Series X console bundles today, offered on its website for shipping to US addresses — as opposed to some of the recent in-store restocks we have seen. The first bundle includes the Xbox Series X console, Far Cry 6, NBA 2K22, a three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and a $50 GameStop gift card for a total of $749.95. The second bundle has the Xbox Series X console paired with the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, a thr...