Technology

Mere hours before a planned walkout from Netflix’s trans and allied workers over comments made by Dave Chappelle in a recent special, co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said he “screwed up” over his response to employers over outrage from within the company. Chappelle’s special The Closer debuted on the streaming service earlier this month and immediately came under fire from members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community as well as Netflix employees who criticized the special as being transphobic. Sarandos, for his part, has stood by the special, telling employees that Netflix doesn’t allow titles on its service “that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe The Closer crosses that line.” In an interview with Variety published on the eve of the planned walkout, the Netflix executive...

Google on Tuesday announced the latest updates to its smartphone lineup, including the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The phones have been given a major camera boost, with Google stating that the picture quality is equal to that of a DSLR camera. In addition, the phone now comes with Face Deblur, which helps to better stabilize subjects in images, Magic Eraser, for removing distractions in the background and Motion Mode, which helps to blur landscapes for an artistic look. In addition, the camera now recognizes and expresses a broader range of skin tones for greater accessibility. The phone has been outfitted with a Google Tensor processor and Android 12 operating system for optimal performance, and machine learning. The phones also feature Live Translate, which can detect and tra...

Facebook is testing out its cryptocurrency wallet called Novi. Beginning with a small pilot in the United States and Guatemala, a limited number of users will be able to use the wallet to send and receive money instantly. The company has been teasing Novi for over two years. Facebook’s payments chief David Marcus finally announced the rollout of the wallet this morning. “We’re doing a pilot to test core feature functions, and our operational capabilities in customer care and compliance,” Marcus wrote on Twitter. “We’re also hopeful this will demonstrate a new stablecoin use case (as a payments instrument) beyond how they are typically used today.” For its pilot, Novi partnered with Coinbase and is operating using the stablecoin Pax Dollar (USDP) instead of the company’s proposed cryptocurr...

Facebook is delivering an update to Portal devices that will make it possible to turn off the Watch Together feature during calls in Household Mode. The update comes shortly after a BuzzFeed News article criticized Facebook’s blatant oversight of not including an “off” switch for the feature. Watch Together lets you watch shows, music videos, or funny clips with distant friends or family members. Choose a video from Facebook’s selection, and it’ll be simultaneously presented to you on your Portal and on your friend’s device, whether that may be a phone, tablet, or Portal. Watch Together may sound like a great idea, but it obviously isn’t ideal for parents who want to keep their kids away from videos on the internet. When a Portal device is in Household Mode, everyone in the house has acces...

For the first time ever, Google’s new phones are powered by a Google-designed chip, giving the company an Apple-like level of control over the inner workings of the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. But if you were hoping that meant they’d also get an Apple-like level of new OS updates, the company is throwing a bit of cold water on that. Google’s support page shows it’s only promising to offer Android updates through October 2024 (via Android Police), a total of three years after release. “Users will still get at least 3 years of OS updates, after which we’re committing to ensure that Pixels will stay up-to-date and secure,” Google tells The Verge. “The frequency and categories of updates will depend on the capabilities and needs of the hardware.” While Google prominently announced during its ...

If you’re looking at buying the $1,999 base model MacBook Pro 14-inch, there’s one upgrade that you may really want to make — the $20 one that gets you the 96W power adapter instead of the 67W included power adapter. That’s because, according to some wording on Apple’s MacBook Pro configuration page (spotted by MacRumors), you’ll need the more powerful charger if you want to take advantage of the computer’s fast charging feature, which can charge the laptop up to 50 percent in half an hour. Is it ridiculous that Apple is basically taxing the people who want to buy its least expensive (but still very pricey!) new MacBook Pro? Yes, absolutely — but you should still probably pay it if you want to charge your laptop up quickly. The exception is if you already have a charging brick capable of 1...

Activision Blizzard, facing a discrimination lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (or DFEH), has filed an application to stay that lawsuit so it can investigate claims that DFEH lawyers engaged in ethical misconduct. The application claims that the DFEH is represented in the case by lawyers who previously worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (or EEOC) — a federal agency that investigates claims of workplace abuse. The application additionally claims such an arrangement is in violation of a California State Bar conflict of interest rule that says, “a lawyer who has formerly served as a public official or employee of the government […] shall not otherwise represent a client in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated p...

Playboy first entered the world of NFTs last spring with its Liquid Summer collection in collaboration with artist Slimesunday. After selling out their debut collection in under three minutes, the company is now back with an ambitious new NFT project dubbed “Rabittars,” a civilization of unique, non-fungible rabbits inspired by Playboy’s iconic bunny logo. 11,593 “Rabbitars” will be offered, paying homage to Playboy’s founding year 1953. Each 3D cartoon rabbit character is given unique traits including background color, fur, glasses, and props, with some rarer than others. The “Rabbitars” serve as modern keys to the Playboy Club, which grants exclusive access to member events, merchandise and artwork. going forward, the company has made it clear that it plans to continue to expand int...

The gory Saw film franchise is getting its own line of NFTs. Announced in a sinister trailer by Jigsaw himself, the collection is set to release leading into Halloween weekend. As one of the most popular horror franchises in history, the Saw movies center around a serial killer that traps his victims in tortuous life-or-death games. The ninth installment in the longstanding series, a spin-off called Spiral, debuted in May. The Saw Chapter One collection will consist of 10,000 collectibles and will be divided into three categories based on the marks from the films: keys, schematics and traps. NFTs for the traps will drop on October 26th, followed by schematics and keys on October 28th. Come Halloween night, those who have acquired one of the NFTs from each group will receive exclusive acces...