Technology

Amazon has now updated its work-from-home policy for corporate employees as the world begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, offering its individual teams the power to decide on an arrangement that best suits their needs. The original plan for the e-commerce giant was to have everyone return to the office in January 2022, but the company’s CEO Andy Jassy has now decided on a change in direction. In an email to its office workers, the company’s head explained that individual teams will now have the option to decide what kind of arrangement best suits their work models: “For our corporate roles, instead of specifying that people work a baseline of three days a week in the office, we’re going to leave this decision up to individual teams. This decision will be made team by team at the ...

Instagram is testing a new feature that will alert users when the service is having major technical difficulties. The alert will appear as a notification in users’ Activity Feed when “people are confused and looking for answers,” says Instagram. In other words: when the app’s systems take a serious and prolonged nose-dive, as they did last week. It’s a sensible feature from Instagram’s parent company Facebook, given the chaos that’s caused when its services go down. When Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram fail, people often wonder if there’s something wrong with their connection, their internet, or their account. A little notification telling users, “Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s us” will probably save a lot of confusion in the future. It seems users will also be notified when ...

HTC is planning to release a new VR headset this week and is also working on its own metaverse-like virtual world, according to a report from Protocol. Let’s start first with that new headset. It’s reportedly a standalone VR headset called the Vive Flow and is intended to be a media consumption device “with access to some casual gaming,” Protocol says. However, it won’t ship with controllers and will be less powerful than the Oculus Quest 2, Protocol reports. The Vive Flow will reportedly be announced at HTC’s October 14th event, which would make sense, as HTC is promoting the event with the “Go with the Flow” tagline. The new metaverse space is apparently called Viveport Verse. According to a site about the service (which was live as of publishing this article), you’ll be able to make you...

Magic Leap has raised $500 million in funding and is preparing to release a new AR headset, the Magic Leap 2, next year, the company announced Monday. The headset will be generally available next year, the company said, and “select customers” are using it as part of an early access program. CEO Peggy Johnson said in a statement that with the new funding “Magic Leap will have greater financial flexibility and the resources needed to continue our growth trajectory as we expand on our industry-leading AR technology.” She revealed the new device in an Monday appearance on CNBC. Magic Leap, of course, is the company that began its existence as a mysterious AR startup, received almost $3 billion to fund its consumer-friendly AR headset, before changing its headset’s name from Magic Leap 1 to The...

Samsung is sharing new details about how it tests the durability of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3. However, it’s unclear exactly why Samsung is releasing this information now, especially given that both phones launched in August; that makes us think it could be an attempt to assuage fears sparked by recent reports of cracks on Galaxy Z Flip 3 screens. In a video posted on its website, Samsung shows four separate tests. One has the phones in an environmental chamber, where Samsung tests the phones under different climates to make sure they still work. Another test engulfs the phones in water. One uses a robot arm to test the performance of the S Pen on the Z Fold 3. A fourth test folds both phones over and over. Samsung has shown off its stress tests in the past Samsung has shown off its...

Sky has launched a new streaming TV called Sky Glass. Integrating hardware, software and content, the cutting-edge model offers Sky TV over WiFi, meaning it doesn’t require a satellite dish or box to operate. For its venture into hardware, Sky Glass offers its viewers a 4K HD screen and six powerful speakers, optimal viewing and sound quality. It also prioritizes energy efficiency, with built-in low-power features such as auto-switch-off and auto-adjusting screen brightness. Sky partnered with the agency Map Project Office to design the TV, which is available in three sizes — ranging from 43 inches (109 centimeters) to 65 inches (165 centimeters) — and five colorways, with choices including blue, white, black, green and pink, as well as matching remotes. Utilizing only one wire and plug, t...

Netflix has suspended a trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle’s comedy special The Closer. In the stand-up set, which was released on October 5th, Chappelle doubles down on his jokes about LGBTQ groups. The next day, Netflix software engineer Terra Field tweeted about Chappelle, writing that the comedian “attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness” in the special: I work at @netflix. Yesterday we launched another Chappelle special where he attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness – all while trying to pit us against other marginalized groups. You’re going to hear a lot of talk about “offense”. We are not offended — Terra Fied (@RainofTerra) October 7, 2021 The tweet thread went viral, quickly spiraling into a con...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent an email to employees on Monday outlining a shift in work-from-home policies for its office workers. As of August, the plan had been for employees to return to the offices in January 2022, with the expectation being that workers spent three days a week in the office and two days a week remote. However, under the new policy announced Monday, Amazon lets individual teams decide how often their people need to come into the office. Here’s Jassy’s explanation of the new policies and how they will work: For our corporate roles, instead of specifying that people work a baseline of three days a week in the office, we’re going to leave this decision up to individual teams. This decision will be made team by team at the Director level. We expect that there will be teams th...

Twitter is rolling out a new feature that lets any user on the web remove a follower without blocking them, an action also known as a “soft block.” To soft block a follower, head to your profile, click followers, click the three-dot menu next to a follower, and then click the option “Remove this follower.” (You can see what that option looks like in an image from Twitter at the top of this post.) A follower you remove won’t be notified of the change. A soft block is different from a block because it allows a user to still see your tweets and direct message you, but they won’t see your tweets on your feed. That said, when you remove a follower, they can follow you again if they want. The new method is easier than the previous one The feature might be useful if you don’t want to do a full-on...

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said Monday that she will speak to the platform’s independent Oversight Board at its invitation. “I have accepted the invitation to brief the Facebook Oversight Board about what I learned while working there,” Haugen tweeted. “Facebook has lied to the board repeatedly, and I am looking forward to sharing the truth with them.” Haugen, a former product manager in Facebook’s civic integrity group, leaked a large cache of internal Facebook documents to the Wall Street Journal showing problems within the organization. She appeared on 60 Minutes two days before she testified before Congress that Facebook “repeatedly” misled the public about “what its own research reveals about the safety of children and the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems as ...

Apple has filed an appeal in response to a ruling in its ongoing legal battle with Epic Games. The tech company went to trial with Epic, the maker of Fortnite, in September. Epic had wanted to install its own version of the App Store on iPhones and iPads, potentially seeking to circumvent the company’s in-app payment methods and the 15% to 30% fees it charges. A federal judge ruled in favor of Apple for nine of the ten counts brought against it by Epic. The judge, however, ordered that Apple must allow app developers to include information about outside payment methods within their apps, which could possibly serve as another way for companies to avoid the App Store’s fees. The ruling is now set to go into effect in two months. In the appeal that Apple filed on Friday, October 8, the compan...

The Nintendo 64 games being re-released as part of the upcoming Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription will run at 60Hz, Nintendo of Europe has confirmed. The news follows concerns reported by Eurogamer that the re-released games, which include classic titles like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, would run at a reduced 50Hz in European PAL regions. The disparity is a holdover from the days of standard definition TVs which typically used the 50Hz PAL standard in Europe, but the 60Hz NTSC standard in the US. It meant that footage shown on European TVs would refresh 50 times per second, rather than 60 as in the US. This wasn’t a major issue for regular TV content (which typically ran at 30fps in the US and 25fps in PAL regions), but it had a big impact on...