Technology

Last September, a bored 24-year-old from South Carolina decided to livestream the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 graphics card, little knowing the GPU was about to become one of the most difficult-to-buy gadgets in the world. Now, Larry says he’s on track to pull in $100,000 a year — and another $100K for his software development partner Stu — as the proprietors of Falcodrin Stock Alerts and the Falcodrin Community Discord. They’ve become full-time GPU hunters, helping others find an estimated 50,000 graphics cards (and counting) in exchange for affiliate revenue. You sign up for alerts and get a ping when a GPU’s in stock. Like what you see? When you press the buy button, that retailer gives Falcodrin a piece of the action. But if you’re hoping to find a GPU this holiday season, Falcodrin ha...

A new update to Pokémon Go for iOS lets you run the game at higher frame rates. With version 1.191.0, the “advanced settings” section of the app now includes an option that reads “Unlock your device’s native refresh rate for higher FPS.” I tried it out on my iPhone 13 Pro and it makes a huge difference. Pokémon Go isn’t the most visually complicated game, of course, but there’s a lot of scrolling and camera movement, and the smoother touch response feels a lot better when you’re lining up a pokéball throw with your finger. Here’s how the feature appears in the game’s menu: Pokémon Go was previously locked to 30fps on iOS devices. Many Android phones are already capable of running the game at a higher frame rate, though in my experience testing across several devices the support can be hit ...

Five years after Jamal Hinton secured himself a seat at Wanda Dench’s thanksgiving dinner thanks to a wrong number, their story is being turned into a Netflix feature film, the streaming giant has announced. The Thanksgiving Text will be written by Abdul Williams (The New Edition Story and The Bobby Brown Story), but Variety notes that a cast or director are yet to be announced. The Thanksgiving Text is the latest example of a film drawing inspiration from viral online content. Perhaps most notably, Zola turned viral Twitter thread #TheStory into a surprisingly good feature-length movie. This 2015 article from Gizmodo has plenty of other examples, including Bad Ass, a film loosely based on the viral video “AC Transit Bus Fight,” and the fact that the original Deadpool may never have been g...

Google is finally developing its own branded smartwatch, according to a source close to the project. Reports suggest that the upcoming wearable — currently codenamed “Rohan” — will be Google’s first expansion into the wearables market despite other companies such as Samsung creating smartwatches based on the Android system. The tech giant’s Pixel hardware division is in charge of development and will keep Rohan separate from its other Fitbit subsidiary, although there’s no confirmation about whether it’ll actually be called the Pixel Watch. As you’d expect, the smartwatch will come with all the usual features the industry is now accustomed to after numerous generations of Apple Watches and Galaxy Watches, such as fitness tracking, a heart rate monitor, and a step counter. It’ll also probab...

As the year comes to a close, Unicode has compiled the data for the most used emojis of 2021. According to this year’s research, Unicode Consortium has reported that 92% of the world’s online population uses emojis as a form of communication. Amongst all the different kinds of emojis, the Tears of Joy accounts for more than 5% of all emoji use with the red heart coming in second. Across the globe, the top ten in order from most used are the crying-laughter emoji, red heart, rolling on the floor crying face, thumbs up, streaming tears, prayer hands, kissing face, smiling face with hearts and the smiley face. It appears that the most-used emojis this year still maintained a positive vibe, not completely different from 2019’s reports. When breaking down into categories, the rocket ship is the...

Endwalker is coming, and I’m not ready for it. I came to Final Fantasy XIV only this year, ravenously tearing through A Realm Reborn and Heavensward before abandoning the game somewhere in the middle of Stormblood, which is generally considered to be inferior to the other FFXIV expansions. Then news of a new expansion hit, rekindling my desire to restart my journey, hopefully finishing in time for Endwalker’s launch. I harbored no illusions about my ability to power through one-and-a-half expansions’ worth of content before December 8th, but I could try, and trying meant getting through Stormblood first. So I proposed an experiment: Final Fantasy XIV will go down for maintenance at 4AM EST in preparation for a new patch and to open up Endwalker early access for the lucky chosen. If I could...

Zoom has reached a settlement (PDF) in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy and security issues, and if you used the videoconferencing app before July, then you could be eligible to receive money as a result. The company has agreed to pay $85 million while continuing to deny the allegations and any liability. There are two groups eligible to file a claim. If you paid for a Zoom Meetings App subscription between March 30th, 2016, and July 30th, 2021, you can file a claim for $25 or 15 percent of what you paid for that subscription (excluding optional add-ons). You’re entitled to whichever is greater. The plaintiffs allege Zoom failed to prevent Zoombombing The second bucket is much broader. If you aren’t eligible for the first group but you “registered, used, opened, or downloaded th...

Valve has shared a preview of the Steam Deck’s final package design ahead of the handheld gaming PC’s recently delayed launch date. Each Steam Deck comes with the console and a carrying case, and Valve revealed in these photos that each device also comes with its own USB-C power supply, meaning you won’t have to source your own like you have to with many recent smartphones. The box also has a handful of fun Easter eggs for Valve superfans — I’ve spotted a few Portal references myself. The Steam Deck’s box, closed.Image: Valve Valve says it’s testing the packaging design, so there could be some changes from what you see in the pictures when the Steam Deck ships next year. The company also says it has completed its design validation manufacturing build of the Steam Deck and that there will b...

Nintendo launched its “Expansion Pack” for the Switch Online service back in October, which brought Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64 games to the library of playable retro titles. The first new addition has now been announced, and it’s just one game: Paper Mario. It’ll be available on December 10th. Paper Mario was released for the N64 in 2000 and was the first entry in what became a popular spin-off series featuring Mario characters and RPG-style turn-based combat. The most recent game, Paper Mario: The Origami King, came out on the Switch last year. The launch of Nintendo’s Expansion Pack was somewhat contentious. The $49.99 annual fee does also include a big Animal Crossing expansion, but it’s still a big hike over the regular $29.99 service that includes NES and SNES games, and the quality...

Shortly after Facebook’s cryptocurrency lead David Marcus has stepped down, the company has now announced that it’ll begin allowing advertising for crypto once again. Citing greater government oversight and a more mature market for the world of cryptocurrency, Meta says that it’ll soon expand the list of regulatory licenses it accepts from just three to a much larger pool of 27, opening the gates to many more companies and businesses to advertise on its platform. “Over the years the cryptocurrency landscape has matured and stabilized and experienced an increase in government regulation, which has helped to set clearer responsibilities and expectations for the industry,” a statement from the company reads. “This change will help make our policy more equitable and transparent and allow for a...

Secure messaging app Signal has launched a new feature that allows users to make donations within the app, the company announced. As a nonprofit, Signal doesn’t receive financial support from any advertisers or shareholders, a new blog post notes, and relies on users for donations. Users can choose to make monthly donations, or one-off contributions within the app using Apple Pay or Google Pay, and their payment information won’t be associated with a user’s Signal account, according to the blog post, as the company will use the same anonymous credential scheme it uses for private Signal groups: Clients make payments and then associate a badge to their profile such that the server can authenticate the client is in the set of people who made a payment, but doesn’t know specifically which pay...