Technology

Sony is making it a little bit harder to buy games digitally on the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Vita. Beginning October 27th, you won’t be able to use a credit card, debit card, or PayPal to purchase games or add money to your wallet on those systems, according to a support document. Instead, you’ll have to use a PlayStation Store gift card or load up the wallet tied to your account on the PlayStation Store on the web, your phone, or on a PS4 or PS5. This disappointing change is the latest in something of an ongoing story of Sony’s support for its older consoles. In March, Sony announced it would be closing the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and Vita, but it reversed that plan a few weeks later, saying it “made the wrong decision.” As part of that original March announcement, Sony als...

Netflix’s immensely popular Squid Game is getting an edit after phone numbers shown in the series dialed real numbers, leading to what the company described as “unfortunate” prank dials. The Korean drama about a sadistic “game,” in which players find themselves with no option but to participate in a series of twisted challenges, contains visible phone numbers in multiple scenes (a phone number is also clearly visible in the Squid Game trailer). Reuters, which earlier reported the news, cited Netflix and production company Siren Pictures as saying they purposefully did not include a complete number and weren’t aware the number shown would reach a real line. Netflix confirmed to The Verge that the numbers that appear in Squid Game will be edited, adding that it hopes that the change will end...

Syniverse, a telecom company that helps carriers like Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T route messages between each other and other carriers abroad, disclosed last week that it was the subject of a possible five year long hack. If the name Syniverse sounds familiar, the company was also responsible for the disappearance of a swath of Valentine’s Day text messages in 2019. The hack in question was brought to light in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Syniverse published last week. In it, Syniverse shares that in May 2021 it “became aware of unauthorized access to its operational and information technology systems by an unknown individual or organization.” The company did its due diligence notifying law enforcement and conducting an internal investigation, resulting in the discovery ...

Twitter is testing new prompts on iOS and Android that warn before you jump into a conversation that could get heated. In one example, there’s a prompt dropped right into a conversation in progress that says “conversations like this can be intense.” In another, which seems like it appears if you try to reply to one of those intense conversations, is titled “let’s look out for each other” and lays out three bullet points to encourage empathetic and fact-based conversations. You can get a look at the prompts in the tweet below: Ever want to know the vibe of a conversation before you join in? We’re testing prompts on Android and iOS that give you a heads up if the convo you’re about to enter could get heated or intense. This is a work in progress as we learn how to better support healthy conv...

Two new iPhone 13 Pro camera features that Apple promised would be coming in future software updates have shown up in the latest developer beta of iOS 15.1. Now users can record video with Apple’s ProRes codec, and there’s a switch to turn off the automatic macro mode switching (via 9to5Mac). With this release of the third beta, users have gained access to the toggles, which could indicate that the features are coming soon. In the current versions of iOS, the iPhone 13 Pro will automatically switch from the main camera to the ultrawide camera when it detects that you’re close up to a subject, enabling the close-focus macro mode. Some reviewers found the switch (which happens without much of a UI indication) jarring, and Apple said it would add a setting to turn it off. Now that it’s shown ...

Apple’s promised Conversation Boost feature that uses the AirPods Pro to make it easier to hear people’s voices is available now (via Macrumors). Support for the new feature was included as part of the same update that made it easier to find AirPods Pro and AirPods Max using the Find My app. Conversation Boost is included as a Custom Transparency Mode in Apple’s headphone accommodations. When the feature is enabled, the beam-forming microphones on the AirPods Pro attempt to isolate voices above any background noise and other conversations. There’s also access to sliders to modify the amplification, transparency, and tone of what you hear. If your AirPods Pro are running firmware 4A400, you can enable Conversation Boost as a Custom Transparency Mode. You can enable the feature for yourself ...

Windows 11 is officially out, but if you’ve got an AMD Ryzen processor, you might want to hold off on updating for a bit: the company is reporting that its chips might have issues with the new OS that could cause performance drops of up to 15 percent in some cases. AMD and Microsoft have found two main issues with Windows 11 on Ryzen. The first is that Windows 11 may cause L3 cache latency to triple. AMD says that the issue could cause 3–5 percent worse performance in most affected applications, while some games (AMD specifically calls out those “commonly used for eSports”) could see performance dips of 10–15 percent. Windows 11 is also having issues with AMD’s “preferred core” technology, which usually aims to shift threads over to the fastest core on a processor. AMD warns that users cou...

Twitch on Wednesday confirmed via Twitter that the company has suffered a major data breach. “We can confirm a breach has taken place,” the company wrote. “Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available.” We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us. — Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021 Twitch released its statement after an anonymous hacker reportedly shared more than 120 gigabytes of the company’s data on an online forum called 4chan. The data included the source code for Twitch’s streaming service, details on how much ...

Two NASA astronauts originally slated to launch on an upcoming flight of Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft have been reassigned to an upcoming SpaceX flight instead, as delays continue to push back Starliner’s next flight to space. Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were supposed to be among the first human passengers on Starliner during its first crewed flights in the coming years. Now, they’ll fly together on SpaceX’s fifth crewed mission to the International Space Station, which is slated to take place in the fall of 2022. Mann and Cassada were first assigned to fly on Starliner in 2018. Mann was supposed to fly on the Starliner’s first crewed test flight, along with Michael Fincke and Butch Wilmore — a critical test to prove that Starliner is safe to carry people. Cassada was slat...

Medical device company Medtronic issued an urgent recall of the remote controller for certain insulin pumps because they’re vulnerable to hacks. It’s possible for someone to copy the signals sent from the controllers to the pumps and deliver or block a dose of insulin, which could be dangerous for diabetic patients using the pumps. In the recall statement, Medtronic said that it wasn’t aware of any situations where this type of hack has occurred. The company was first made aware of the issue in 2018 after an independent cybersecurity researcher found the vulnerability and told users about the problem. That initial alert told users how to disable the remote control feature when they weren’t using it. Now, the company says people shouldn’t use the remotes. “After further review, Medtronic ha...

For weeks, Facebook has stared down mounting anxiety over a leaked internal study about the harmful effects of Instagram on teenage girls — and Tuesday night, Mark Zuckerberg finally responded to the scandal personally. In an open letter to Facebook staff, Zuckerberg scoffed at concerns raised by whistleblower Frances Haugen, doubling down on earlier Facebook claims that the report has been misinterpreted. “If we’re going to have an informed conversation about the effects of social media on young people, it’s important to start with a full picture,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re committed to doing more research ourselves and making more research publicly available.” But for researchers who study social media, the internal study that sparked the controversy was mostly confirmation of what they a...

Facebook is slowing down the release and development of some new products and features to make sure they won’t bring more scrutiny towards the company or harm children, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The “reputational reviews” come as Facebook is facing backlash from the public and policymakers after a wave of reports citing Facebook’s own research showing ways Instagram could have a negative effect on teen girls’ mental health. Facebook was also slammed in congressional hearings by whistleblower Frances Haugen, who shed more light on Facebook’s internal research, as well as its business model and algorithms. Some of Facebook’s recent public actions and statements back up the idea that it’s being extra careful right now. In late September, the company announced it’s “pau...