Technology

A little over two years ago when Rivian’s all-electric vehicles were still just blueprints, American carmakers Ford and GM were itching to invest. Fast-forward to the present, and Ford wound up becoming one of Rivian’s biggest partners alongside Amazon. What most people may not realize, however, is that Ford nearly lost its spot to GM. This Wall Street Journal report describes some of the clandestine dealings in cinematic detail, and explores how Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe’s bond with Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s former president of global operations, became the foundation of Ford’s investment in the company. According to the WSJ, Hinrichs first met with Scaringe in 2018. But because Ford had just missed its earnings targets, it wasn’t ready to invest in Rivian. This left room for GM, which had alread...

The developers of Forza Horizon 5 are planning to add on-screen sign language interpreters who would appear in a picture-in-picture display during the game’s cutscenes. The feature won’t be available when the game launches worldwide on November 9th, but Playground Games creative director Mike Brown wrote in a blog post on Xbox Wire that it would be “coming soon.” “We’re constantly listening to the community to make Forza Horizon 5 an inclusive experience for everyone to enjoy,” Brown said in a blog post on Xbox Wire. “With this in mind, the team is excited to share we are also working on American Sign Language (ASL) and British Sign Language (BSL) support for cinematics in Forza Horizon 5.” He didn’t offer an exact release date for the feature. Forza Horizon 5 will have several other acces...

Earlier this month, Netflix officially got into gaming by rolling out a mobile game service for Android users. While Netflix says that it’s working on an iOS version of the service, Bloomberg tech reporter Mark Gurman says that Apple’s App Store policies will prevent Netflix from making games available from its app. Apple bars third-party apps from functioning as a hub for games, which has become a point of contention with cloud gaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Nvidia GeForce Now, and Google Stadia. Cloud gaming services can only get around this by offering their games through a web app, just like Facebook has already done. “Apple will need to change its rules or grant Netflix an exemption” According to Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter, Netflix will tiptoe around Apple’s ru...

Microsoft says OneDrive users on Windows, 7, 8, or 8.1 will be unable to sync their content to the cloud starting on March 1st, 2022, according to a blog post on its Tech Community forum. OneDrive will also no longer receive updates if it’s running on a system that doesn’t have Windows 10 or Windows 11 installed. Files will still be accessible from the OneDrive app no matter what version of Windows you’re using — they’ll just no longer automatically upload to the cloud. To avoid any issues with OneDrive, Microsoft recommends upgrading to a newer version of Windows before March of next year. As for systems that aren’t able to run Windows 10 or Windows 11, Microsoft says that users can still back up their files by uploading them to the OneDrive web app. In addition to halting updates and the...

Tesla CEO and wealthiest person in the world Elon Musk tweeted out a poll Saturday, asking his Twitter followers whether he should sell 10 percent of his stock in the automaker, ostensibly to pay more tax. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he tweeted. He said in a subsequent tweet that he’d abide by the results of the poll “whichever way it goes.” By Sunday morning, “yes” replies were leading, with 57 percent of more than 3.1 million votes. I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021 Musk had been a vocal critic of a proposal to tax unrealized gains on publicly traded assets for some of the wealthiest Americans. Under the proposal by Sen. Ron Wyde...

Alienware did it. Its latest 17.3-inch X17 gaming laptop can actually deliver an enjoyable 4K gaming experience. The last time I checked in on how laptops were faring with 4K gaming in 2019, things weren’t looking so hot. Nvidia’s last-gen RTX 20-series mobile chips couldn’t work hard enough to smoothly run demanding games at 4K without several compromises to visual fidelity. Fortunately, things have changed for the better this year with the RTX 3080 — specifically, for the X17’s high-powered 16GB VRAM variant. The X17’s 3080 has a maximum graphics power level of 165W and a boost clock speed of 1,545MHz. That’s really powerful for a mobile GPU and close to the highest amount of power that Nvidia allows for its mobile graphics chips. It’s certainly the most graphically capable laptop that I...

For years, fans have been wondering just when the heck League of Legends developer Riot would make an animated series. It seemed inevitable. The studio previously created stunning animated shorts to promote everything from new characters to esports tournaments. And with an increasing focus on expanding League’s storytelling — something that’s tough to do within the confines of a team-based strategy game — a show made a whole lot of sense. Now, it’s real, with a nine-episode series called Arcane. The best part: not only is it a lot of fun, but you don’t have to know anything about League to get into it. Arcane is set (mostly) in a city called Piltover early on, which is on the verge of a big change that could impact the entirety of the fantasy realm of Runeterra: a pair of scientists are fi...

As if the chip shortage didn’t make it hard enough to get our hands on graphics cards, criminals are making it a heck of a lot worse. According to a forum post by EVGA product manager Jacob Freeman, thieves made off with a whole truckload of EVGA RTX 30-Series graphics cards. The graphic cards were in transit from San Francisco to EVGA’s southern California distribution center at the time of the theft, and it remains unclear how many cards were affected. “If a user does end up acquiring a stolen card, we will address [it] on a case by case basis” If you think you may have a card that was involved in this theft, you can find out by entering your card’s serial number on EVGA’s warranty status page. You can also check by attempting to register your card on the My Products section of this site...

A federal appeals court on Saturday issued a stay against the Biden administration’s vaccine rules for US companies. The new rule announced Thursday requires workers at businesses with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, or submit to weekly testing. The rule requires affected companies to provide paid time for employees to get vaccinated, and to ensure any unvaccinated employees wear face masks while at work. The deadline for meeting the provisions is January 4th, 2022. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned for an emergency stay of the rule, which was to be enforced by the Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The petition was joined by attorneys general from Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah, and several privat...

Facebook’s own internal research found 1 in 8 of its users reported compulsive social media use that interfered with their sleep, work, and relationships— what the social media platform calls “problematic use” but is more commonly known as “internet addiction,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The social media platform had a team focused on user well-being, which suggested ways to curb problematic use, some of which were put into place. But the company shut down the team in 2019, according to the WSJ. Pratiti Raychoudhury, a vice president of research for Meta, Facebook’s new parent company, writes in a blog post that the WSJ misrepresented the research (a claim the company has made about some of the other articles the WSJ has produced based on Facebook’s internal documents). She says the...

Evidence is mounting that WhatsApp may be working on a Communities feature. XDA Developers first spotted the possibility in October, but now WABetaInfo has come forward with similar findings. According to WABetaInfo, the Communities feature appears to give group admins more power over groups. This includes the ability to create groups within groups, which may be similar to how channels are arranged beneath an umbrella Discord community. Photo by WABetaInfo Admins may be able to invite new users via a Community Invite Link and then start messaging other members. It’s hard to tell how exactly these chats might look right now, but WABetaInfo notes that they appear to be end-to-end encrypted. It also looks like a subtle design change will help distinguish Communities from regular group chats. ...

Every year, one of the highlights of the League of Legends World Championship is the opening ceremonies. It’s been a regular chance for developer Riot to create a real-world spectacle ahead of the big game. In the past that’s meant everything from holographic musical performances to an appearance from an augmented reality K-pop group. In 2021, though, things went in a different direction. Without an audience in attendance due to COVID-19 restrictions, Riot instead went with a pre-produced series of music videos that featured gigantic real-world sets spliced with moments from the upcoming Arcane animated series. It may not have been a live performance, but it was still impressive. “This is really what feature films do, what Marvel does,” says Matt Kauth, head of production at London Alley E...