Technology

Qualcomm has a new flagship smartphone processor: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, announced at the company’s annual Snapdragon Tech Summit, giving an early preview at the brains behind the most powerful smartphones of 2022. The successor to last year’s Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the first chipset to bear Qualcomm’s new naming scheme (which the company had previously teased last week), ditching the triple-digit numbering system that Qualcomm has previously used for new, generation-based monikers. As is the case every year, Qualcomm is promising some major improvements in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with better performance, camera technology, AI capabilities, security, and 5G. 20 percent better CPU performance and up to 30 percent CPU power efficiency Let’s start with the hard specs. As e...

Amazon is facing new questions over failed COVID protections in its fulfillment centers, spurred on by New York Attorney General Letitia James. After more than a year of protests from workers and inquiries from legislators, James is now seeking a court order to require Amazon to appoint a monitor to oversee health and safety measures at its warehouse on Staten Island. As part of the same motion, James asked the company to reinstate fired worker Christian Smalls, who led public protests against Amazon last year, accusing the company of failing to keep employees from contracting the virus at work. According to James, Amazon has rolled back many of its health and safety measures at the warehouse, known as JFK8. The Staten Island warehouse, which employs roughly 5,000 people, has been the site...

Microsoft is tacking on a “buy now, pay later” extension to Edge that prompts users to use short-term financing service Zip (formerly QuadPay) when making a purchase on the browser. The option to sign up and use Zip will appear on checkout pages The company introduced the service earlier this month, and now some users are reportedly seeing it integrated into their browsers after updating to Edge version 96, as noted by Ars Technica. The option to sign up and use Zip will be displayed on checkout pages, appearing in the same area where you’d enter your credit card number on Edge (or access a previously used one), and will sometimes be ingrained in the checkout page itself. Zip will pop up when Edge detects that your purchase costs between $35 and $1,000, the price range that the service can...

Microsoft has launched a new Windows software-themed ugly sweater on its Xbox Gear Shop dedicated to the infamous Windows game Minesweeper. It’s well done: not only is the whole Minesweeper level shaped like a Christmas tree, but it’s also got mines masquerading as snowflakes and “buttons” to minimize the window or exit the game if you so desire, plus the classic wavy Windows logo that hearkens back to Windows 3.1. (If you’re wondering why the sweater has “1990” remaining mines, that’s a reference to the year Minesweeper first came out.) This is Microsoft’s second year of Windows-themed ugly sweaters. Last year, the company released three ugly sweater designs, including one garment based on the timeless MS Paint application, which humorously looked as if it were designed in that very app. ...

Vince Staples stars in a new collaboration between Beats and the iconic streetwear store Union. The partnership celebrates the store’s 30th anniversary, founded by Chris and Beth Gibbs in Los Angeles. Inspired by the Pan-African flag, the limited-edition Beats Studio Buds feature a red, black and green colorway, which also serves as a tribute to Union’s legacy as a Black-owned business. The case for the headphones is emblazoned with the store’s frontman logo. A longtime friend of the store, Staples appeared in a brief campaign film called “Home Sweet Home,” where he tries out Studio Buds for himself. “Union has always championed local and Black art, music and fashion, and their L.A. store on La Brea is one of my favorite places to shop,” said Staples. “Beats and Union are family, so this c...

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s signature on the show’s first contract with Lucille Ball’s Desilu Productions is now an NFT. Roddenberry Entertainment is calling it the first “Living Eco-NFT,” which seems straight out of science fiction itself. The NFT’s creators implanted the signature, signed in 1965, into a living bacteria cell in the form of DNA code. As the cell duplicates, it creates new copies of the NFT — over a billion in one night. Even though there will quickly be billions of replicas, the NFT is called “El Primero,” which means ‘the first’ in Spanish. It will be exhibited at the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair that kicks off on December 2nd. DNA is nature’s way of storing data. But instead of encoding that data as zeros and ones as computers do, the basic building blocks fo...

“What is that thing on your shoulder?” has been the question I’ve been asked most frequently for the last month. Understandably so. For the last 30 days, just barely peeking out from under the sleeve of my T-shirts, there has been a big black sticker. It’s round, about two inches in diameter, and it looks like a high-end Band-Aid. But that sticker is just a cover. Under it is a smaller plastic disk, with a little thread that is actually sticking into my body and analyzing my ever-changing blood-sugar levels. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to cyborg status. Levels Health is a new product and service — currently in late-stage beta but gettable by the public — designed to monitor your body’s glucose response to different stimuli, like exercise and stress and especially the foods you eat. It’...

Netflix’s heist drama Red Notice has officially overthrown Bird Box as the streaming service’s biggest movie debut to date, with over 328 million total hours viewed as of today. That beats out Bird Box’s prior record — 282 million hours in its first 28 days — by a good margin, and Red Notice still has ample time to expand its debut-month record. That might seem like great news for Netflix: a movie it wanted to be a huge hit was in fact a huge hit. It commanded views up against an eight-hour Beatles documentary as well as big theatrical releases like a Ghostbusters spinoff and multiple titles from Disney. But the film’s success isn’t quite as remarkable as the numbers make it appear. Sure, the hours viewed figure indicates that subscribers are actually watching Red Notice. But it’s also the...

Apple device collector Giulio Zompetti has photographed a prototype 29W Apple charging brick, and it may be one of the rare instances where the product-in-progress may look better than the final version. What makes it special is that you can literally see Apple’s design process because of the clear plastic shell, unlike the retail version where the internals are hidden by opaque white plastic. Zompetti also tweeted another clear prototype, a pair of AirPods that live up to the “Air” name. The retro-futuristic look of the densely packed electronics makes me wish Apple would actually sell see-through gadgets again. Transparent electronics were a (cool) fad in the 90s, with Apple’s own iMac G3 often being brought up by those reminiscing about the age of transparent or translucent electronics,...

Twitter on Tuesday announced that the sharing of images and videos of private individuals without their consent will be banned on the platform, according to a blog post. The announcement noted that users will be able to contact the social media platform to report media for removal. The private information policy update does not apply to public figures; however, images and videos featuring those individuals can be removed if the platform finds that the content is being posted to “harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence them.” “We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service,” the announcement read. Additionally, if an image or video is publicly available, appears in news coverage or aid...

Qualcomm appears to be collaborating with Razer on a new gaming handheld developer kit built around its upcoming Snapdragon G3X processor. Leaked slides published by VideoCardz call the device a “Snapdragon G3X Handheld Developer Kit,” suggesting it will primarily be aimed at software developers and manufacturers to help them build their own software and hardware powered by Qualcomm’s mobile gaming technology. Alongside it, VideoCardz has also obtained slides detailing Qualcomm’s next flagship smartphone processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The name shows off Qualcomm’s new branding for its mobile chips announced last month. The processor will reportedly be manufactured using a 4nm process, with a CPU that’s 20 percent faster and 30 percent more power efficient, and a GPU that’s 30 percent f...