Technology

The Chicago Sun-Times needs help. After being bought and sold several times over the last decade, the 73-year-old paper is looking for a more stable home to continue its award-winning reporting — and it may have finally found it in an unexpected place: a radio station. Chicago Public Media, which owns the radio station WBEZ, is currently in talks with the Sun-Times to merge. A final deal would combine their newsrooms and audiences in hopes of creating a financially stable enterprise for both teams. Similar mergers and acquisitions have become a common way to bolster the struggling print industry, but if radio were to take on a major newspaper, that would be a first. “Audio is a growth business,” says Jim Friedlich, chief executive of The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, who advised CPM on...

It’s still not a full trailer, but Netflix showed off the best look yet at its upcoming live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation in a new teaser to celebrate the one-month countdown to the show’s debut on November 19th. Like the previous teasers for the show (which so far have included stills and the opening credits), the latest video, titled “Cowboy Bebop: The Lost Session,” isn’t actually made up of footage from the show but does show off the key trio of Spike Spiegel (John Cho), Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir), and Faye Valentine (Daniella Pineda) in action as they hunt down a bounty, get some noodles, and fight through an army of thugs. That said, it’s a very fun teaser, shot with kinetic, color-coded shifting frames that bounce between Spike, Jet, and Faye as they bicker and brawl back an...

Fortnite’s big Halloween event, Fortnitemares, is making its return. But this year’s edition comes with a fun twist: one-time Fortnite performer Ariana Grande is now officially part of the game’s lore, with a questline that turns her into “the galaxy’s greatest monster hunter.” The event runs from today until November 2nd, and — in keeping with this season’s theme — it’s centered on the ever-present cubes that now dominate Fortnite’s island. The story event is called “The Wrath of the Cube Queen,” and developer Epic describes it like this: Since Fortnitemares began (and even before), the cubes have been mobilizing. Their migration towards the island’s center wasn’t just to spread corruption — they’re now at the center forming the Convergence. What is the purpose of this mysterious structur...

Apple’s new 140W charging brick, which works with a new MagSafe charging cable to power the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, uses the USB-C Power Delivery 3.1 standard, Apple has confirmed to The Verge. As well as being included with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, the brick is available separately for $99 (not including the USB-C-to-MagSafe cable, which costs an extra $49). Meanwhile, the new 14-inch MacBook Pros come with 67W and 96W chargers, depending on the exact model. Using the USB-C PD 3.1 standard means Apple’s new charging brick will be cross compatible with other devices that use the same power delivery standard, which was announced earlier this year alongside the USB Type-C Release 2.1 specification. It also means that MacBook owners have the flexibility of using compatible third-party ch...

Arcane, Riot’s upcoming League of Legends-adapted fantasy series debuting on Netflix next month, will become Netflix’s first show to premiere with co-streaming on Twitch. Arcane will premiere on Netflix globally on Saturday, November 6th. The partnership with Twitch will allow communities to stream Arcane’s first episode with community members and allow Twitch streamers to share their reactions in real-time. A spokesperson for Riot tells The Verge that anyone can stream the first episode of Arcane on Twitch — no pre-approval required. The series premiere will coincide with a Global Premiere Event at Riot’s Los Angeles headquarters. The company says in a press release that the event will be streamed by influencers representing over 30 countries. [embedded content] “Interest in deeper storyt...

Raspberry Pi is releasing an add-on that will let you use many of its tiny, inexpensive computers to control certain Lego robot motors and sensors. The add-on is called the Build HAT (HAT stands for Hardware Attached on Top), and slotting it onto a Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins will give you four ports that you can use to control Lego Education’s SPIKE components, which the HAT and its software are specially designed for. It’ll also connect to most other parts that use an LPF2 connector, including the components from the Lego Mindstorms robot inventor kit. There’s also a Python library (basically a set of commands you can use to control the robot) available to go alongside the HAT, which will let you write software to control the robot parts you’ve got hooked up. Programing Lego’s SPIKE compone...

According to reports, Beats is now gearing up to launch a new in-ear audio option. Leaked via internal iOS 15.1 RC files, the “Beats Fit Pro” earbuds are said to be performance focussed earphones in line with the qualities and features found in the Beats Studio Buds released earlier this year. The Beats Fit Pro earbuds are expected to come complete with Active Noise Cancellation, Class 1 Bluetooth and Apple’s H1 chip for seamless pairing with Apple products. An accelerometer is also utilized to reduce external noise when using the Active Noise Cancellation function. Finally, the earbuds are expected to deliver six hours of battery life with ANC or Transparency Mode and seven hours with Adaptive EQ, while the charging case is supposedly able to deliver 27 to 30 hours of charge altogether. 9...

Apple on Monday unveiled several new updates to its existing AirPods, HomePod mini and MacBook Pro lineups at its Unleashed event in Cupertino, California. Here are all of the biggest announcements from Tuesday’s major tech conference: 1. Apple unveiled its Third-Generation AirPods with spatial audio and a sleek new look The latest AirPods update arrives with an all-new design, equipped with a new low distortion driver that delivers powerful bass and clear high frequencies. The listening device supports spatial audio, which provides a three-dimensional immersive listening experience for both surround-sound music and videos. By combining the power of the H1 chip with a new acoustic system, the new AirPods utilize computational audio to produce high-quality sound with Adaptive EQ. Addit...

If you were ever concerned about safely cleaning your Apple products, now you can use an official $19 piece of cloth made by Apple to do so. Apple released this polishing cloth after today’s event in addition to its new MacBook Pros, the M1 Pro and Max chips, and third-generation AirPods (via 9to5Mac). Photo by Apple The Apple-branded cloth, made of unspecified nonabrasive materials, will be available to purchase separately. Other than having an Apple logo stamped on it, it’s unclear how the cloth is any different from a typical microfiber cloth that you can get for a fraction of the price. Apple recommends using “soft, lint-free cloth” and avoiding “abrasive cloths, towels, paper towels, or similar items” when cleaning your Apple devices, which are all worries that this $19 cloth puts to ...

Apple debuted a controversial new Safari tab design this summer at WWDC 2021, and since then, it has tweaked that look and even let you turn off many of the changes. With macOS Monterey, however, the company is going back to the way tabs looked before. On Apple’s official page for the upcoming software update, if you scroll down to the section titled “Access Tab Groups anywhere,” you can just barely see Safari’s older (and arguably better) design in the example screenshots on both a Mac and on an iPad (via Daring Fireball). Perhaps even more surprising is that the old design is now the default, according to MacRumors, which observed the reverted tabs in the macOS Monterey release candidate. However, if you want to use the design Apple revealed at WWDC, where tabs also function as URL bars,...

Apple has just announced the next generation of AirPods, but if you’ve been waiting for new Beats earbuds, you may also have something to look forward to there. A report from 9to5Mac describes the upcoming Beats Fit Pro that, according to the article, will have wingtips that seem to be designed to ensure a better fit in your ear. You can see the rumored earbuds at the top of this post or in this set of images shared by 9to5Mac, featuring the Beats Fit Pro in black, gray, white, and lavender. Grid View In addition to the new design, the earbuds will have active noise cancelation, Apple’s H1 chip for speedy pairing and Hey Siri, and support for quick pairing on Android through the Beats app, 9to5Mac reports. It also seems as if the Beats Fit Pro will have good battery life: six hours with AN...