Technology

A company called Throwboy is back with another Kickstarter for a collection of pillows shaped like classic Macs, following its 2018 line of Apple-inspired plushes. It’s fittingly called The Iconic Pillow Collection 2, and features pillows shaped like soft versions of Apple’s Lisa, iBook, and both the cheese grater and cube flavors of Power Mac. For Apple history buffs who want to spruce up their living or bedrooms, it may be a campaign worth investigating. In its original collection (which featured pillows shaped like the Finder icon, original Macintosh, and iPods), Throwboy tactfully didn’t mention specific computer names, and it refrained from doing so this time around as well. The Lisa-shaped pillow is called the 1983, the iMac G4-esque one is branded the 2002, and so on. On its Kicksta...

Apple has apparently pulled its 21.5-inch Intel-based iMac from shelves (via MacRumors). Its discontinuation doesn’t come as much of a surprise, now that Apple is transitioning from using Intel processors to its in-house M1 chip. The 21.5-inch iMac was still available after Apple’s October 18th Unleashed event — it didn’t appear to go missing until sometime this week, according to MacRumors. The $1,099 21.5-inch iMac, which came with a 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-Gen Intel Core i5 and an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640, is no longer found on the list of available iMacs on Apple’s online store. A “Buy” button also doesn’t appear for the 21.5-inch iMac on Apple’s product comparison page. We reached out to Apple to confirm the changes, but didn’t immediately receive a response. However, the company con...

Chipotle is a pioneer of the fast assembly-line restaurant format, where you get in line and guide a human worker through the process to build your meal while you watch. It’s a foolproof system, or so I thought before I checked out this investigative story by MarketWatch revealing how Chipotle is handling the growth of online orders in a pandemic world. Once I read the accounts of various Chipotle employees interviewed in the MarketWatch article, I was stunned by what they really go through. One employee detailed the struggle with the onslaught of online orders: “People would just stare at us, angry,” he said. “Orders were coming in faster than they could be made. We would frequently see orders of 75, 80, 90 items within a 15-minute time span.” The idea that a comprehensive and option-fati...

Meta — formerly known as Facebook — has now acquired virtual reality fitness developer Supernatural. While financial details of the new deal have not been disclosed, the VR fitness subscription service will join Meta completely, with all staff members in the startup being offered roles in Meta. Supernatural’s CEO Chris Milk will also be joining, pointing out that the acquisition will give his firm “more resources to expand.” The company itself provides services similar to those of Peloton, using VR to provide training sessions to those at home. “Our larger hope is that we can bring in a whole new type of audience into virtual reality that might not have been interested in it for the use case it has been promoted for thus far,” explained Milk earlier last year. The new acquisition comes sho...

An inspired musician can use pretty much anything as an instrument, but this just-in-time for Halloween cover of the Ghostbusters theme song goes in an unexpected direction. Device Orchestra is dedicated to posting music videos recorded solely with the sounds of common household devices. It’s the work of a Finnish YouTuber who’s been creating gadget-powered covers since 2014 (via Wikitubia). This time, Device Orchestra busted out 14 gadgets for its composition — including electric toothbrushes adorned with googly eyes. One electric toothbrush with pipe cleaners for arms stands front and center, belting out the familiar chorus in a tone comparable to a musically-inclined bumblebee. It might be the star of the show, but it has plenty of backup. A line of receipt machines mimics the sound of ...

It’s the spooky holiday this weekend, but you probably already knew that since Halloween decorations have likely been up in your town for the last month and a half. But what hasn’t been around as long (and will disappear faster than those decorations) are the deals below. To match the mood, we’re going to share special discounts on scary video games that you need to play if you’re trying to get in the holiday spirit this weekend. Just so you know, Steam’s Halloween sale ends Monday, November 1st, likely at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. Following that gaming-centric section, you’ll find deals on tech gadgets that we think you’ll enjoy. Gaming deals Okay, so Deathloop is far from being a scary game at its core (though it can become quite tense when you’re down to that last sliver of health and surrounde...

Federal authorities have accused a Minnesota man with trying to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball after hacking into its computer system. The US Attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and the FBI have charged Joshua Streit, 30, with illegally streaming content from MLB, as well as from the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL). The law enforcement agencies said in a news release that between 2017 through August of 2021, Streit operated a website where he illegally streamed the sports leagues’ live games for profit. He gained unauthorized access to the leagues’ websites, and misappropriated login credentials from legitimate subscribers, according to authorities, and his scheme led to losses o...

One of the most anticipated rounds of international climate negotiations this decade will go down at a United Nations summit in Glasgow over the next couple weeks. But many representatives from the frontlines of the climate crisis won’t be there: people from islands that may be lost under rising seas, representatives of indigenous tribes, and activists who typically turn high-level negotiations into boisterous events with their demonstrations. The 26th annual United Nations Conference of Parties, or COP26, is the five-year anniversary of the Paris climate accords. Signatories, which included nearly every country on Earth, agreed to limit global warming to a level that might be manageable for humanity. Those nations are not close to meeting the goals to which they agreed. In a typical year,...

Just as the FDA officially approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids between the ages of five and 11, Meta, Facebook’s brand new identity, announced that it’s rolling out stricter policies for vaccine misinformation targeted at children (via Engadget). The platform previously put restrictions on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in late 2020, but didn’t have policies specific to kids. Meta says in a new blog post that it’s partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to take down harmful content related to children and the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes any posts that imply the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe, untested, or ineffective for children. Additionally, Meta will provide in-feed reminders in English and Spanish that the v...

Roblox has been down for more than a day, with the game and its related website offline for millions of players. The hugely popular game-creating platform first started having issues more than 30 hours ago, at 7PM ET on October 28th. Roblox said it was “working hard to get things back to normal,” and that it has identified “the root cause as [an] internal system issue.” It’s not clear exactly why Roblox is still down, but some players have been speculating the outage could be related to a Chipotle promotion in the game. Chipotle is giving away $1 million worth of free burritos on Roblox as part of Halloween event in the game. The experience went live at 6:30PM ET on October 28th, just before the widespread Roblox outage. Still making progress on today’s outage. We’ll continue to keep you u...

Nikon recently announced its new flagship camera, the Z9. This camera represents Nikon’s first mirrorless camera fully geared towards professional photographers and hybrid shooters, with a huge spec list designed for use in the demanding fields of photojournalism, sports, nature, birding, and any other use-cases that call for a camera that shoots incredibly fast at high resolution. The $5,500 Z9 is also Nikon’s first camera to omit a traditional mechanical shutter, allowing it to achieve new levels of speed and autofocus performance. Faster speed is great, especially for sports photographers. But it’s interesting to think about where this technology could be used to take traditional-style cameras in the future. This might be the first step towards larger format cameras adopting the computa...

PC peripheral name Angry Miao recently introduced its latest range of customizable mechanical keyboards with an unexpected Wes Anderson inspiration. Drawing from the auteur’s iconic color palette, the CYBERBOARD R3 arrives in a series of colorways drawn from the Isle of Dogs, Come Together and The Grand Budapest Hotel. The four options available feature soft pastels and low saturation accented by symmetrical compositions and elegant settings. The distinct color expressions are the result of extensive experimentation by Angry Miao, ultimately landing on electrophoresis to create bright and bold shades. Each keyboard features a CNC processed aluminum frame that has been sandblasted and subjected to anodizing electrophoresis and the application of a matte ceramic texture. Cutting edge gasket ...