Technology

The PlayStation 5 was released in November 2020, but it’s still incredibly hard to get. The chip shortage has rendered it nearly impossible to log onto your favorite retailer’s site and order one. In other words, among the no-doubt massive amount of people who want a PS5, very few are actually able to get one these days. But if you are one of the lucky people who have just got one (or are hoping to get lucky soon), or if you have a friend who was able to score one, we’ve put together a list of great PS5 games to play this holiday and beyond. If you take our recommendations, you’ll have so much gameplay to enjoy that you probably won’t need any more until early to mid-2022 — which is the release window for Sony to launch its much-anticipated Horizon Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok. ...

After nearly two and a half decades of planning and work, NASA is finally set to launch its next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, this morning. The spacecraft will ride to space on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket, taking off out of Europe’s primary launch site in French Guiana, South America. The launch is expected to last just 26 minutes to get JWST to space. Once it’s free of the rocket, JWST will then spend the next month traveling to its final destination roughly 1 million miles from Earth and slowly unfurling to reach its final form for probing the cosmos. Here’s what you need to know to watch today’s launch. How do I watch the launch? NASA plans to livestream today’s launch on its dedicated channel, NASA TV, with coverage starting at 6AM ET. You can wat...

A self-described “community of Olive Garden fans” are minting and selling NFTs of Olive Garden locations around the country, despite not having any affiliation with Olive Garden, Futurism reported. Dubbed “Non-Fungible Olive Gardens,” each NFT is an ERC-721 token that corresponds to a real-life Olive Garden. An image of the location is laid over backgrounds of the restaurant’s offerings, including including fettuccine alfredo, chicken marsala and more. Kind of at a loss for words right now…can’t believe I’m even tweeting this but excited to say I’m the proud new Owner of the Olive Garden of Wayne Town Center, NJ ? this means absolutely nothing but everything at the same time ? #nft #olivegarden pic.twitter.com/1pi4bVQnl0 — tylerswallet.eth (@t_dilks) December 24, 2021 The token artwork isn...

As part of its annual holiday software update, Tesla has released a new feature that lets drivers turn their cars into megaphones. The update was spotted by Electrek, which reports that it’s only available in newer Tesla models (2019 or later). This is because the feature uses external speakers that were installed in recent Tesla vehicles to meet US regulations. These regulations stipulate that otherwise silent electric cars should be able to alert pedestrians to their presence at low speeds. A video of the feature (below) captures these external speakers repeating everything the driver says with a slight delay and an echo-y, bass-heavy distortion. It’s not clear if this distortion can be changed or removed. It’s not the first creative use Tesla has found for its cars’ external speakers. A...

Microsoft is the latest company to drop a physical presence at CES, as the increased prevalence of COVID-19 spooks exhibitors. It joins a growing list of major companies ditching the world’s largest technology show. “After reviewing the latest data on the rapidly evolving COVID environment, Microsoft has decided not to participate in-person at CES 2022,” a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. (The spokesperson declined to give their name because that’s how Microsoft prefers to announce event status changes.) Instead, the company will have a digital presence for both the Microsoft Partner Innovation Experience and Automotive Press Kit. Microsoft was a featured exhibitor at the technology conference, and is now the latest to say it will not attend. Lenovo, T-Mobile, Amazon, th...

More than fifty countries have placed bans on cryptocurrency, according to a report from the Law Library of Congress. The November report served as an update to research that was published in 2018. Since 2018, “the number of countries found to have issued cryptocurrency bans has increased significantly,” the report said. As of November 2021, nine countries have placed an “absolute ban” on crypto, meaning that it’s completely illegal. Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Qatar and Tunisia have all joined China in outlawing crypto. China first made the decision to ban crypto trading in 2017. The country extended its ban to block crypto mining earlier this year. 42 more countries have issued “implicit bans” prohibiting banks, lenders and other financial institutions from d...

If you’re a fan of The Expanse, like me, you’re probably wondering whether its final six episodes — currently airing each Friday through January 14th — are enough to wrap up its epic story. What you’re probably not wondering: whether Amazon has buried nearly one-tenth of the show’s final season in a place you might not think to look, and can’t even find on your TV. But it’s true. The Expanse’s production company filmed an additional 25 minutes of story across five vignettes, which you can only access through Amazon’s X-Ray service by pausing the show and scrolling through otherwise hidden menus. (They’re under Bonus Content.) But I couldn’t find them on Apple TV or Google TV, and the showrunners have confirmed that’s because Amazon hasn’t made them available there yet. They’re only on phon...

A Russian court has fined Google $98 million over its failure to remove content deemed illegal in the country. The 7.2 billion rouble fine is around eight percent of Google’s revenue in Russia, Reuters reports, and comes amid a broader push within the country to exert more control over big tech companies and the content people publish on their platforms. Google tells The Verge it will “study the court documents when they are available and then decide on next steps.” However, a Russian official cited by Bloomberg threatened “very unpleasant measures” if Google doesn’t comply with the country’s mandate to delete banned content, which includes promotion of drugs and posts by organizations the government says are extremist or terroristic, including those associated with opposition leader Alexe...

An early-alert system designed to give people crucial seconds of warning before earthquakes lived up to its promise on Monday. It buzzed through a half a million phones ahead of a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that hit northwest California — the largest quake since the system, called ShakeAlert, rolled out across the entire state, The Guardian reported. ShakeAlert pulls information from the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) sensor network. If data from those sensors says there will be major shaking in an area, people living there get alerts through the MyShake app (if they’ve downloaded it), or through the wireless emergency alerts system on their phones. Alerts also go out to Android users through a partnership between Google, USGS, and the California Office of Emergency Services. The e...

Apple must allow dating app developers to offer non-Apple payment systems for in-app purchases or face a hefty fine, according to a detailed ruling released today from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The regulator has been investigating the company’s App Store practices since 2019, but Reuters reports that it decided to focus on dating apps after receiving a complaint from Match Group, owners of dating services like Tinder, Match.com, and OkCupid. This decision doesn’t apply to other app categories, like games or productivity apps, in the country. “Some app providers are dependent on Apple’s App Store, and Apple takes advantage of that dependency,” writes Martijn Snoep, chairman of the board of ACM. “Apple has special responsibilities because of its dominant posi...

NASA has published audio recorded in June during a close flyby of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. Scientists used a Waves instrument, which was specially designed to understand fields and particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. In a briefing in New Orleans last week, Scott Bolton, the Principal Investigator of NASA’s Juno mission, released a 50-second audio track of electric and magnetic radio waves produced in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Captured during NASA’s 34th trip around Jupiter, the spacecraft was within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of the moon’s surface and traveling at a velocity of 41,600 miles per hour (67,000 kilometers per hour). Once recorded by the Waves instrument, scientists had to shift the frequency of the waves into the audio range. “This soundtrack is just wild enou...