Technology

Facebook has fired back nearly two weeks after The Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram made body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls according to Facebook’s own data. The salvo comes courtesy of Pratiti Raychoudhury, Vice President, Head of Research at Facebook. Raychoudhury’s post on Facebook’s Newsroom claims that The Wall Street Journal’s characterization of internal research is “not accurate” and blames it all on a poor interpretation of the data the WSJ has in its possession. On September 14 The Wall Street Journal published a story to The Facebook Files, which is a series of stories based around an enormous cache of internal Facebook documents leaked to the newspaper. The September 14 piece focused on data that suggested Instagram had an extremely harmful effect...

While the world speculates on the rise of NFTs and which cryptocurrencies to invest in, a hamster in Germany has quietly been dealing. “Mr. Goxx” has been trading various crypto since June 12 and has been outperforming Bitcoin, Warren Buffet, and the S&P 500. According to Mr. Goxx’ Twitter, the hamster’s portfolio is up over 20% in that time and involves real money and quite possibly the most technologically advanced hamster cage in existence. On any given day, the hamster will enter its “Goxx Box” — a separate office in its home that houses an “intention wheel” that is wired to about 30 different cryptocurrencies. Once it makes its decision, Mr. Goxx will then enter one of the “two decision tunnels” that determines whether to buy or sell a certain trade. [embedded content] The hamster...

We’re nearing the season finale of Ted Lasso (only two more new episodes!), and it seems like the show’s got a lot of story threads that need to be knitted together after episode 10. Titled No Weddings and a Funeral, episode 10 was solid, but I didn’t quite love it. I’m trying to write about the episode without spoiling it, let’s just say I didn’t love how the session between Ted and Sharon which we’ve been waiting for all season was edited together with Rebecca’s retelling of a traumatic event with her own father. Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham were both so great, but editing the scenes together kind of killed the dramatic momentum. But! New plot twists suggest a cliffhanger of a season finale is coming in two weeks’ time. I’m ready. Here are the new trailers for this week: [embedde...

Apple says it has identified an issue where the “unlock with Apple Watch” feature might not work with its new iPhone 13 devices. A new note on its support page describes the problem: You might see “Unable to Communicate with Apple Watch” if you try to unlock your iPhone while wearing a face mask, or you might not be able to set up Unlock with Apple Watch. On Friday, users on the r/AppleWatch Reddit board began reporting that they were seeing this problem, and some said they were able to use the Watch unlock feature with other iPhone models, including the iPhone 11 Max. Apple introduced the ability to unlock an iPhone that uses Face ID with a paired Apple Watch earlier this year with the release of iOS 14.5. It comes in handy during a pandemic where face masks are recommended in many public...

The pandemic has led to a collection of unusual digital experiences, from Google Forms escape rooms to whole virtual, two-dimensional comedy shows. But the interactive digital play / upstate barn wedding I attended last Friday, Future Wife: Party in a Spreadsheet, takes things to a strange new level. The show, co-created by playwright ruth tang and director Sarah Blush, and put on by a cast of game collaborators and theater company New Georges, manages to be playful, confounding, and surprisingly, a little touching. Basically all the things Google Sheets never are. It’s difficult to describe Party in a Spreadsheet in a way that makes sense. There are communist goats, alien activists, several themed islands, and an anonymous audience masquerading as a variety of exotic animals. There are al...

Despite the head of the National Transpiration Safety Board expressing serious concerns about its safety last week, Tesla has now enabled access to the beta of its “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) program to more Tesla drivers, via a “request” button on Teslas’ dashboard screens. However, before a driver gets access to the software, Tesla will determine their “safety score,” using five criteria that estimate “the likelihood that your driving could result in a future collision,” according to a page on Tesla’s website. The score is tabulated using data collected by sensors on the driver’s Tesla, and considers instances of forward collision warnings per 1,000 miles, hard braking, aggressive turning, unsafe following, and forced Autopilot disengagement. A Tesla’s Autopilot feature disengages after gi...

California has now decided that all autonomous vehicles muost be electric by 2030. Signed into law on Thursday by the state’s governor Gavin Newsom, the new requirement will come into effect at the turn of the new decade and will ban any autonomous vehicle incapable of zero emissions, meaning even hybrid powertrains will be outlawed. The decision comes as yet another step towards a more sustainable future for the state, which currently boasts the largest vehicle market in the U.S. It also follows shortly after California introduced laws last year to restrict the sale of all new passenger internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 and commercial trucks and vans by 2045. Since the introduction of these two executive orders from Newsom, more than 15 states have followed suit, implementing si...

Netflix debuted a video from its upcoming series based on Neil Gaiman’s DC comic book series The Sandman. The video was brief, but it gave us a good glimpse at actor Tom Sturridge as Dream. The video was shown during Netflix’s Tudum event that took place Saturday. The show also also featured Gaiman, Sturridge, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste (who plays Death) talking about the series. If you want to get another preview of what to expect from the series, check out the character posters Netflix shared for Sturridge’s Dream, Howell-Baptiste’s Death, and Mason Alexander Park’s Desire in a Twitter thread. The Sandman has been in development for years, with Netflix picking up the show in 2019 in a deal with Warner Bros., which owns DC Entertainment, that was reportedly “massive.” Earlier this year, Ne...

Delta Airlines said in a pair of internal memos to employees this week that it’s asked competitors to share their no-fly lists, to try to keep passengers who cause disturbances on planes from bringing their mayhem to other airlines. Since January 1st, the Federal Aviation Administration says it has received 4,385 reports of unruly behavior by passengers, which includes 3,199 reports of passengers “refusing to comply with the federal facemask mandate.” The FAA has issued more than $1 million in proposed fines, but the agency does not have the authority to conduct criminal prosecutions. Among the incidents, according to the FAA (these are across various airlines): On a May 24th flight from New York to Orlando a passenger was “allegedly throwing objects, including his carry-on luggage, at oth...

Netflix has released a new trailer for Arcane, its upcoming series based on the League of Legends universe, and also revealed when the show will premiere: November 6th. But you won’t be able to watch all of Arcane on that day, as Netflix plans to release the season in three separate “acts,” each consisting of three episodes released one week after the last. That means the first act will be out on November 6th, the next will release on November 13th, and the final one will premiere on November 20th. Arcane was first announced in 2019, though League of Legends developer Riot Games delayed the series to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, the news broke that Netflix had picked up the show and that it would debut in the fall. Earlier this week, Netflix and Riot revealed some of Arcane’s...

Tiger King, the hugely popular documentary heavily associated with the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, will premiere on November 17th, Netflix revealed at its Tudum event on Saturday. Netflix just announced the second season, which it is calling Tiger King 2, on Thursday as part of a short trailer revealing many other true crime shows heading to the streaming service. Netflix is promising that it will have “just as much mayhem and madness” as the first season. While it’s unclear exactly what the second season might be about, Netflix’s Tudum trailer showed a brief clip of Joe Exotic, the main focus of the first season, in prison, so it could focus in part on that. Tiger King’s first season was a cultural sensation; in a press release, Netflix said that it “attracted 64 million househol...