Technology

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, may branch out into physical stores, The New York Times reported. The company rebranded to its new moniker last week as Mark Zuckerberg announced his vision to build out the metaverse. Internally, Meta has “discussed opening retail stores that will eventually span the world,” The Times wrote, citing company documents and people with knowledge of the matter. “The stores would be used to introduce people to devices made by the company’s Reality Labs division, such as virtual reality headsets and, eventually, augmented reality glasses, they said,” according to The Times. Opening physical stores would be an interesting move for the company, given that the futuristic metaverse is based on the concept that thanks to new technology, objects no longer ...

Uber will be relaunching its Uber Pool service, or at least a version of it, sometime in the future. The low-cost carpooling service, which was shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, would pair up to three riders in one vehicle based on the proximity of their destinations. Speaking to The Verge, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the company was “launching an Uber shared pool product.” “We have been investing for years in a high-capacity product, which is looking more and more attractive as it relates to a unit economic basis, where that can bring the price significantly lower,” she continued. The return of Uber Pool would potentially seek to remedy the recent hike in Uber prices, which have risen 20 percent compared to last year, per The Verge. Over the pandemic, many drivers left...

If you need a powerful iPad with plenty of storage and a gorgeous display, Amazon and Best Buy are selling the 512GB, Wi-Fi version of the latest 12.9-inch iPad Pro for its lowest price yet. Normally $1,399, the retailer is selling it for $1,249 instead. In Dieter Bohn’s review, he deemed this the best and nicest iPad out there. Powered by Apple’s M1 processor, the 2021 iPad Pro is a speed demon and it comes with features like Thunderbolt connectivity, Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, Apple Pencil support, as well as Face ID unlocking. As we noted yesterday, if you’re looking for something cheaper and smaller, Apple’s 2021 11-inch iPad Pro (128GB, Wi-Fi) is also on sale, selling for $699 instead of $799 at at Best Buy and Amazon. Apple 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2021, Wi‑Fi, 512GB) $1,250 $1,400 11% off Ap...

Cryptocurrency and blockchain news presents many headlines that are hard to believe, so when a seemingly authentic press release ties a major retail outlet to second-tier crypto, it can take a moment to find out the truth. That was the case with a fake “Walmart takes Litecoin” release in September, and again this morning as PR Newswire published an illegitimate announcement claiming Kroger will start accepting Bitcoin Cash. Because Kroger’s webpage pulls in the releases from PR Newswire, the fake release actually appeared on Kroger.com until it was removed. Kroger has been linked to cryptocurrency but does not accept it as payment. A partnership announced with Lolli late last year allowed users of that rewards program to earn small amounts of Bitcoin back on purchases. Kroger PR confirmed ...

Pfizer’s antiviral pill is highly effective at preventing people who catch COVID-19 from becoming seriously ill, the company said today in a press release. A clinical trial showed that the pill, which has the brand name Paxlovid, cut the risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent for adults at high risk of developing severe disease when it was given within three days of symptoms appearing. The company said it plans to submit its data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization “as soon as possible.” This is the second effective anti-COVID-19 pill. The first, developed by pharmaceutical company Merck, cut risk of hospitalization and death by about half. The United Kingdom’s health agency authorized the Merck pill on Thursday, and the FDA’s advisory committ...

Lime announced today that it raised $523 million in debt financing, a sign that investors are feeling more optimistic about the long-term survival of shared electric scooters in a post-pandemic world. Lime must be feeling more optimistic, too, because a spokesperson confirmed that the company plans on going public sometime in 2022. Last September, Insider reported that Lime was hoping to raise up to $200 million in convertible debt from Uber and other previous investors. The scooter company was also reportedly in talks with investment bank Evercore about going public via a reverse merger with a special acquisition company, or SPAC, but Insider says those talks fizzled. Now, Lime says that its most recent funding round was oversubscribed, with $418 million in debt financing led by Abu Dhabi...

Twitter has added a new search button on profile pages that makes it easier to search through tweets from a specific user. Social media consultant Matt Navarra noted that the button had started appearing for a small number of users last month, but now XDA Developers says that the feature has rolled out widely in the service’s iOS app. Being able to limit a search to a single user’s tweets is not a new Twitter feature. You can achieve the same result by using the format “from:[Twitter handle] [search term]” in the regular Twitter search box. So, for example, if you wanted to search my (bad) tweets for every time I mentioned the word “keyboard,” you could tap the search icon in the app and enter: from:jonporty keyboard The new button makes life just a bit easier. It could be helpful if, for ...

In May, a ransomware attack shut down a pipeline carrying 45 percent of the fuel used on the US East Coast. The Colonial Pipeline incident led to panic buying and heightened fears about the threat posed by simple hacks to national infrastructure. Now, the US State Department is offering a bounty of up to $10 million to anyone who can supply the “identity or location” of the leaders of the group responsible — an outfit known as DarkSide. In addition to the $10 million bounty, the state department is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction “of any individual conspiring to participate in or attempting to participate in a DarkSide variant ransomware incident.” What exactly that means isn’t clear. Is a “DarkSide variant ransomware incident” one ...

Despite ever-increasing demand from fans, Apple has yet to create an iPhone with a USB-C charging port, and so robotics engineer Ken Philonel decided to just build his own, and the final product is now worth at least $100,000 USD. Posting the entire modification process up on YouTube, the master’s degree student showcased exactly how he went about swapping the usual proprietary Apple Lightning port with a universal USB-C port instead, giving you a full breakdown of the phone’s internals and how you can make one yourself. After completing the build and having it featured all across the Internet, Philonel listed the USB-C iPhone X for auction over on eBay. While he started by just asking for $1 USD, it’s now sitting at a whopping $100,100 USD with six more days to go. Despite the incredible ...

New York City’s mayor-elect Eric Adams said in a tweet Thursday that he wants his first three city paychecks paid in Bitcoin, in a bid to show up the mayor of Miami and indicate his hopes that New York will be a place where the cryptocurrency industry is welcome. To put it lightly, the feasibility of Adams actually getting paid in Bitcoin seems dicey. (Is the city’s payroll even set up for that? How will this work with the fluctuating price of Bitcoin? My goodness, what’s the tax situation going to be like?) Whether it actually happens or not, though, he’s sending a clear message about his intended plans as a mayor — you probably wouldn’t say something like that if you’re going to ignore cryptocurrency and Bitcoin completely. In New York we always go big, so I’m going to take my first THRE...

One of the most anticipated drone releases is finally out. Actually, it’s two drones. Today, DJI has released the Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Cine. There are a few big headline features shared between both of the new drones, but let’s start with the one reserved for the $4,999 Mavic 3 Cine. The Cine model is capable of filming Apple ProRes 422 HQ footage at 5.1K up to 50FPS, and it has a built-in, but not user-replaceable, 1TB SSD. The cheaper $2,199 Mavic 3 doesn’t come with ProRes or a built-in SSD but shares the same dual-camera system powered by a 4/3 CMOS sensor. Both drones are capable of filming in 4K at up to 120fps and capturing 20MP photos. In addition to the main 24mm lens, there is also a hybrid zoom lens capable of 28x digital zoom. In focal length terms, that equates to 162mm at f/4....

Between being affected by supply chain delays, global microchip shortages and increased interest in cryptocurrency mining, demand for graphics cards has skyrocketed, with secondary market prices soaring. Unfortunately, in light of this, some have resorted to crime, and now a truckload of NVIDIA graphics cards has been stolen. The news broke on EVGA’s own forum, where product manager Jacob Freeman revealed that at the end of October, a shipment of its GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards had been stolen during a truck delivery run from San Francisco to the company’s Southern California distribution center. While no specific number has been provided as to how many GPUs were actually stolen, Freeman did point out that due to increased demand for the cards, each of them had an estimated retail...