Technology

NASA is aiming to fly its massive, next-generation rocket, the Space Launch System, for the first time in February of 2022, a critical test flight on NASA’s journey to send people back to the Moon. However, plenty of tests still need to go well before the much-delayed vehicle can finally take flight. Confirmation of the new target date, which was rumored in August, comes a day after engineers fully stacked the Space Launch System, or SLS, inside NASA’s massive hangar at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Standing at 322 feet high, the SLS rises taller than the Statue of Liberty. On top of the stack is NASA’s Orion crew capsule, a new spacecraft that’s been developed to carry people into deep space. However, when the SLS flies for the first time next year, there won’t be any people on board. ...

Microsoft has spent the past 10 years embracing open-source software and, at several points, even admitting it loves Linux and the open source community. The Linux Foundation even praised Microsoft for working with the open source community after the company joined the foundation nearly five years ago. All of this goodwill could be about to come crashing down, thanks to a storm that’s brewing in the .NET community — Microsoft’s flagship development toolkit and core software framework. A controversial business decision inside Microsoft has left many questioning the company’s commitment to open source. Multiple sources at Microsoft tell The Verge that it has also angered lots of developers inside the company but that they’ve effectively been told not to complain. Microsoft has declared its l...

A post on Twitter’s blog reveals that Twitter’s algorithm promotes right-leaning content more often than left — but the reasons for that remain unclear. The findings drew from an internal study on Twitter’s algorithmic amplification of political content. During the study, Twitter looked at millions of tweets posted between April 1st and August 15th, 2020. These tweets were from news outlets and elected officials in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US. In all countries studied, except Germany, Twitter found that right-leaning accounts “receive more algorithmic amplification than the political left.” It also discovered that right-leaning content from news outlets benefit from the same bias. “Negative posts about political outgroups tend to receive much more engagement o...

A second Facebook whistleblower has come forward with a new set of allegations about how the social media platform does business. First reported by the Washington Post, the person is a former member of Facebook’s integrity team and says the company puts profits before efforts to fight hate speech and misinformation on its platform. In the affidavit, copies of which were provided to The Verge, the whistleblower alleges, among other things, that a former Facebook communications official dismissed concerns about interference by Russia in the 2016 presidential election, assisted unwittingly by Facebook. Tucker Bounds said, according to the affidavit, that the situation would be “a flash in the pan. Some legislators will get pissy. And then in a few weeks they will move on to something else. Me...

The government has successfully hacked the hacking group REvil, the entity behind the ransomware that’s been linked to leaked Apple leaks, attacks on enterprise software vendors, and more, according to a report from Reuters. The outlet’s sources tell it that the FBI, Secret Service, Cyber Command, and organizations from other countries have worked together to take the group’s operations offline this month. The group’s dark web blog, which exposed information gleaned from its targets, is also reportedly offline. Reports about the group going offline started surfacing earlier this week, with TechCrunch writing that its Tor website was no longer available on Monday. There was speculation of a hack, fueled by a forum post from one of the group’s suspected leaders saying that its server was “co...

Warning: this story contains descriptions of sexual assault that some readers may find disturbing. Ten people were killed in physical altercations and over 4,000 people were assaulted during Lyft rides from 2017-2019, the company revealed in its first-ever safety report. Also during that period, 105 people died in fatal vehicle crashes involving a Lyft car. The report was long overdue, coming at least two years after Lyft originally said that it would be published. It represents the first set of publicly available data regarding the safety of Lyft’s ride-hailing platform and how it compares to national US averages. The company is currently facing multiple lawsuits from victims of sexual assault and rape. the numbers appear to paint a dark picture of the ride-hailing industry While the numb...

Even though someone managed to secure early purchases of a couple of Core i9-12900K CPUs, we still didn’t have detailed information about Intel’s upcoming line of Alder Lake chips. A (now-removed, but shown below) sale page popped up on Micro Center, suggesting the chips will be available for $669.99 when they launch on November 4th. The spec sheet reveals this chip will have a 3.2GHz operating frequency, capable of 5.2GHz in Turbo Mode, with 16 cores and 30MB of L3 cache. As expected, the specs reveal it also supports DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5, and the Intel Z690 chipset motherboards that should go on sale at the same time. During its Architecture Day 2021 event in August, Intel promised Alder Lake chips with 16 cores using eight performance cores and eight efficient ones. This leak lines u...

Tennessee lawmakers have approved an $884 million incentive package for the “mega campus” near Memphis where Ford plans to make batteries and electric vehicles, according to the Tennessean. The money — which is coming from Tennessee’s current $2.1 billion budget surplus — is the single largest investment in the history of the state. It comes at a time when many major automakers are looking to build new facilities in the US dedicated to EVs, batteries, or other supply chain components necessary for electric vehicles. Ford itself has committed to spending more than $5 billion on the Tennessee project with South Korean battery company SK Innovation, which it calls “Blue Oval City.” Ford is also simultaneously spinning up battery factories in Kentucky. A $500 million grant, plus hundreds of mi...

For those looking to take their gaming experience to the next level, Samsung is elevating the playing field with its all-new Odyssey Neo G9 gaming monitor. The first of its kind, the Odyssey Neo G9 is a state-of-the art display that meets the standards of today’s gaming landscape with the ability to showcase the highest quality graphics as they were intended. The Odyssey Neo G9 is the world’s first curved mini LED gaming monitor, and this particular model builds further on its predecessor with even better picture quality, immersiveness and advanced technology. HYPEBEAST is giving fans an exclusive look at the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 that’s set to be elevate and complete the vibe of any room its placed in. One of the most enticing features of the gaming monitor is the picture quality, provid...

Twitter has shared the discoveries of a study that examined which news outlets and elected political officials are amplified by its algorithm. The study analyzed hundreds of millions of Tweets containing political content that linked to articles, published between April and August of last year. It then enlisted two independent organizations, AllSides and Ad Fontes Media, to categorize the news outlets based on media bias ratings. The platform discovered that certain political content, particularly right-wing content, is favored on its timeline. “Right-leaning news outlets, as defined by the independent organizations listed above, see greater algorithmic amplification on Twitter compared to left-leaning news outlets,” Twitter reported. Twitter users have had the option to view the timeline ...

The button is simple, almost plain. A flat black circle, simple dye-sublimated letters, and a small LED pinprick to let you know that it’s on. “EXTRA BASS,” it declares in tall, bold capitals. For indeed, the EXTRA BASS button only does one blindingly obvious thing: it adds extra bass. The speaker in question here is a Sony XB90 Extra Bass High Power Audio System. It is a product without pretension, without guile or duplicity. It has Extra Bass in the name, and the eponymous button is a microcosm of the device, a thing that encapsulates the form and function in a neat, tidy shorthand. This is not a speaker for listening to soft sonatas of Mozart or enjoying the sonic subtleties of a rare acoustic studio recording. It is a party speaker, with emphasis on the “party,” and if you don’t happen...