Technology

Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York, have refiled a union petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado confirmed to The Verge. Workers also staged a “lunchtime walkout” in an attempt to get Amazon to recognize the union, according to a report from CNBC. The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) has been organizing a union at four Staten Island warehouse locations. It initially filed for a union election on October 25th and collected over 2,000 employee signatures in support. However, as reported by Bloomberg, it later withdrew its petition after it was determined that the group needed more signatures. US law dictates that union organizers need the support of at least 30 percent of workers — the four warehouses employ around 5,500 workers in t...

Would it even be a tech tradeshow without a new throne? 2020 brought us the scorpion chair, 2019 gave us the “fully-immersive” toilet, and attempts to encase gamers in their own PCs have been a thing as long as I’ve been on the beat. But LG Display has a new, more elegant take on the idea: a rotating curved 55-inch OLED TV attached to a reclining slice of chair that positions you at the sweet spot of those pixels. Like most of LG Display’s ideas, the “Media Chair” is a concept, not a product — at least for now. LG Display tells us it’s actually working with an unnamed Korean massage chair company to bring it to market someday. “It’s being commercialized by them, they’re going to sell it,” spokesperson Matthew Weigand tells The Verge. LG Display’s Media Chair concept.Image: LG Display But w...

Much like last week’s in-person restock of the PlayStation 5, GameStop is once again hosting another day of in-store new console sales. This time, it will take place on Thursday, December 23rd, and include both the standard, disc drive-equipped PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X. This event is exclusive to GameStop Pro members, which costs $14.99 per year and can be purchased online in advance. GameStop has listed the participating stores for both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on its website, indicating that more locations are stocking Sony’s console — 598 stores with PS5s Thursday, compared to 277 listed for Xbox. Though the PS5 may be more readily available Thursday, both consoles have been difficult to buy online, even with frequent restocks happening every week in the month of Decem...

RadioShack, the venerable retailer relaunched as an online-focused brand in 2020, now wants to chart a future as a cryptocurrency exchange. Earlier this week, the company announced RadioShack DeFi (short for “decentralized finance”), a market where people can swap newly announced RADIO tokens as an alternative to a centralized exchange like Coinbase. Moreover, RadioShack insists that it’s uniquely positioned to take cryptocurrency mainstream — claiming that “RadioShack, and RadioShack alone, can bridge the gap and ‘cross the chasm’ of mainstream usage for cryptocurrency.” RadioShack’s argument is basically that as a very old brand, it’s primed to sell old CEOs on cryptocurrency. “Too many [cryptocurrency companies] focused on speculation and not enough on making the ‘old-school’ customer f...

The other day, I was watching the documentary The Beatles: Get Back, which flashes on the screen the names of the songs being played and happened to miss the identification of a song I didn’t recognize. “What was that?” I asked my partner. He didn’t know either. But my Pixel 6 didn’t miss it. Looking down at my lock screen, it said “Dig a Pony The Beatles,” courtesy of Android’s Now Playing feature. Now, I’m not a huge music fan — I’m the kind of person who listens to the same album again and again, and when I hear a great new song, instead of immediately researching the source, I tend to think, “Hey, that’s nice,” and leave it at that. But now, when I hear something that I sort of like and later on suddenly remember it, I can look it up on my Now Playing list. Or if I’m watching a movie a...

Who knew that leaving the top spot at Twitter could make someone a more interesting follow? The co-founder and (for the second time) former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey recently opened up about his issues with so-called “Web3” projects that aren’t decentralized to his liking and the venture capitalists that he says own the whole thing, creating “ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.” Shockingly, his statements haven’t been received well by fellow tech thought leaders, billionaires, and venture capitalists, who’ve taken turns either trying to minimize his criticism of their blockchain efforts or going directly at him. Marc Andreessen decided to take the step of blocking @jack, and Dorsey responded by saying he’s been “banned from Web3.” That’s not an unfair statement either,...

Marvel’s journey into the multiverse is barreling forward with the first trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange and what promises to be the MCU’s biggest foray yet into the alternate worlds and timelines that installments like Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home have begun to explore. It seems that Multiverse of Madness will be picking up on a breathtaking number of extant story threads in the MCU. It’s a follow-up to Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) most recent appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where he helped Peter Parker do some mild tampering with the fabric of reality. It’ll pick up on the revelations around Wanda Maximoff / The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) from WandaVision. Baron Mordo’s quest to cut down on the number o...

The US government says it is investigating more than half a million Tesla vehicles sold since 2017, following reports that drivers can play video games available on its main display screen while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it received a complaint in August that said live games and internet web searching — which were supposedly restricted to passenger use only while the car was in motion — could be played by anyone in the vehicle at any time. Its Office of Defects and Investigations said in a report that it “confirmed that this capability has been available since December 2020 in Tesla ‘Passenger Play’-equipped vehicles.” ODI’s preliminary evaluation will include an estimated 580,000 Tesla Model 3, Model S, and Model X vehicles sold between model...

Amazon’s warehouse employees across the US will once again have to wear masks, according to an internal notice obtained by CNBC. The company reinstated its mask mandate as the omicron variant continues to spread during Amazon’s busiest time of year. Amazon has been changing its stance on mask mandates throughout the year In the message sent to employees, Amazon said that all warehouse workers must wear masks, regardless of vaccination status or local mask requirements. “Your health and safety are of the utmost importance to us,” the notice read. “In response to the rapid spread of the Covid-19 omicron variant in the US and guidance from public health authorities and our own medical experts, face coverings are again required for everyone.” Amazon has been changing its stance on mask mandate...

On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first antiviral pill to treat COVID-19, a move that gives doctors another tool to fight the disease. The treatment, made by Pfizer, curbs the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk patients infected with the coronavirus. Called Paxlovid, the treatment includes 30 pills taken at home over five days. It has to be started within a few days of symptoms — which could be a challenge in the United States, where it may be difficult for many people to get a COVID-19 test, a result, and see a doctor for a prescription in that window. Paxlovid cut the risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent for adults with COVID-19 at high risk of developing severe disease when it was given within three days of symptoms appearing. The FDA i...

The metaverse and Web3 are two trends supposedly set to revolutionize the digital world. But the richest man IRL, Elon Musk, is not keen on either. In a recent interview, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO said he couldn’t see a compelling use-case for the VR-driven metaverse, and derided Web3 — a nebulous concept in which internet services are rebuilt around blockchain and cryptocurrency — as “more marketing than reality,” adding “I don’t get it.” Musk admitted that he might just be “too old” to understand these new technologies. “Am I like one of those people who was dismissing the internet [in] ‘95 as some fad or something that’s never going to amount to anything?” he suggested, before noting that in 1995 he was very much one of the individuals who understood the potential of the internet. “I don...

Amazon’s crucial web services business AWS is experiencing problems today, with issues affecting services like Slack, Imgur, and the Epic Games store for some users. It’s not looking good if you’re working from home, with some Slack users apparently unable to view or upload images, and work management tool Asana also hit by the outages. It’s the third time in as many weeks that problems with AWS have had a significant effect on online services. Two incidents earlier this month involving AWS ended up knocking out a huge array of platforms and products, taking out streaming sites like Netflix and Disney Plus as well as smart home devices like security cameras from Ring and Wyze. Today’s outages seem less widespread but still notable, with some users unable to access services entirely and oth...