Technology

Despite the Shiba Inu token‘s immense surge over the past week, famed hedge fund manager Michael Burry has called the cryptocurrency “pointless.” Coming to fame for his portrayal by Christian Bale in The Big Short, Burry is most known for being the first investor to foresee the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. between 2007 and 2010, subsequently profiting massively during the financial meltdown. Over the past week, Burry noted SHIB’s incredible skyrocket in value, going up 235% over the period. Despite the cryptocurrency’s recent success, the investor pointed towards its supply of one quadrillion tokens in the market, calling the entire thing “pointless.” “Just saying, one quadrillion seconds is about 32 million years,” he wrote. “One quadrillion days is 2.7 trillion years, or all of t...

It’s been hard to fault Fairphone’s sustainable credentials over the years, whether it’s the company’s lengthy support periods, easy repairability, or ethically sourced materials. But when it comes to the devices themselves, previous Fairphones have struggled to be competitive with similarly priced smartphones. They lacked modern features, used outdated designs, and generally had more quirks than you’d expect to get from a modern phone. The Fairphone 4 is a big step forward. It’s every bit as sustainable, with a modular repairable design that Fairphone now offers a five-year warranty for. But more important is that it feels much more like a modern smartphone. The huge top and bottom bezels of the Fairphone 3 have been stripped away, and there are also modern conveniences like an IP54 ratin...

The Weeknd Announces Goodwill Ambassadorship for the UN’s World Food Programme Following in Angelina Jolie’s humanitarian footsteps. 6 Hrs ago 1,242 Hypes    Chanel Limits Purchases of Most Popular Handbags to One per Customer Each Year Making the brand even more exclusive. 6 Hrs ago 3,135 Hypes    Entertainment Bobby Flay to Leave the Food Network After 27 Years Responsible for Food Network classics like ‘Hot Off the Grill,’ ‘Grillin’ & Chillin,’ and ‘Iron Chef America.’ 7 Hrs ago 1,531 Hypes    MF DOOM Posthumously Joins Atmosphere and Aesop Rock in “Barcade” A cut from Atmosphere’s latest project, ‘Word?’ 7 Hrs ago 249 Hypes    The Nike Air Force 1 Shell Surfaces in “Provence Purple” Fitted with a toggle lacing sy...

Instagram is set to introduce a new feature that will encourage teenagers to step back from the social media platform. Nick Clegg, Facebook VP of global affairs, stated during CNN’s State of the Union, “We’re going to introduce something which I think will make a considerable difference, which is where our systems see that a teenagers is looking at the same content over and over again, and it’s content which may not be conducive to their well being, we will nudge them to look at other content.” He added that the new measure will be “called ‘take a break,’ where we will be prompting teens to just simply take a break from using Instagram.” In a September 27th blog post, Instagram head Adam Mosseri noted, “We announced last week that we’re exploring two new ideas: encouraging people to l...

Before it premiered, Jason Sudeikis described season two of Ted Lasso as the show’s Empire Strikes Back season, and sure enough, the entire season focused on fathers and sons, and after the season finale we have a pretty clear “enemy” all set up for season three. I know season two was not as universally liked as its freshman season, but Ted Lasso dug into some thorny issues about men and sports and mental health that few other shows attempt, and still managed to make me smile pretty much every week. I’ll miss this show until its return next year. I’ve also managed to binge-watch Midnight Mass on Netflix— an interesting if not quite fully-baked examination of organized religion— and am still hanging in there with The Morning Show which has gotten quite spicy thanks mainly to Julianna Margul...

Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company Blue Origin said Sunday it will postpone the flight that is slated to fly William Shatner to space due to forecasted high winds at its launch site. The flight of the company’s New Shepard spacecraft is now scheduled for 9:30AM ET on October 13th, a day later than originally planned. It’s targeted to lift off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in Texas. A statement on Blue Origin’s website said New Shepard NS-18 has met all mission requirements, and the astronauts have started their training. “Weather is the only gating factor for the launch window,” according to the statement, which is signed with the company motto “Gradatim Ferociter” (Latin for “step by step, ferociously”). The company officially announced last week that Shatner, best known as Captain Jame...

Instagram will introduce new measures to nudge teenagers away from harmful content and encourage them to “take a break,” from the platform, Facebook vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said on Sunday. Clegg made the remarks on CNN’s State of the Union show less than a week after whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before Congress about internal research that showed Instagram can have a negative effect on the mental health of young people. “We’re going to introduce something which I think will make a considerable difference, which is where our systems see that a teenagers is looking at the same content over and over again, and it’s content which may not be conducive to their well being, we will nudge them to look at other content,” Clegg said. He added that in addition to pausing...

Elon Musk said during an open house at Tesla’s new Gigafactory near Berlin this weekend that the company is aiming to begin production of its Model Y cars there before the end of the year. And the CEO added he’s hoping the plant will be producing between 5,000 and 10,000 vehicles weekly by the end of 2022, Bloomberg reported. But Tesla is still waiting for final approval for the plant, as local authorities evaluate its environmental impact on the area. Tesla held a “Giga-Fest” county fair style event in Gruenheide near the Gigafactory on Saturday, which included music, rides, and food trucks along with tours of the new plant for local residents. Tesla’s German Gigafactory is in the final phases of construction, after being delayed several times by complaints from environmental groups in th...

Last week Saturday Night Live poked fun at Jeff Bezos and the billionaire space race, and this week it took aim at the senators who conducted this week’s Facebook whistleblower hearing, portraying them as mostly confused by the social media platform, and the memes they found online (or “mem-ays” as Aidy Bryant’s Ted Cruz pronounces it). Cecily Strong reprises her role as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who asks Heidi Gardner’s Frances Haugen about an Animorphs post, and Kyle Mooney as Sen. John Kennedy asks about Facebook’s algorithm: “do you have it with you now?” while proudly showing off his Jitterbug flip phone (aw). Bryant as Sen. Cruz asks whether posts that say “Ted Cruz sucks” should be flagged as misinformation, to which “Haugen” answers that it’s not really misinformation, just one person...

NASA has officially pushed back the launch of its Orbital Flight-Test 2 until next year, as it continues to work on an oxidizer isolation valve issue on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, the agency announced. The agency said in a blog post that it’s continuing to assess potential launch windows for the mission: “The team currently is working toward opportunities in the first half of 2022 pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest and space station availability,” according to the post. Steve Stitch, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, added that it was “a complex issue,” affecting parts of the spacecraft that aren’t easy to access, which has required “a methodical approach and sound engineering to effectively examine.” Boeing’s Starliner is one of two vehicles designed to take pass...

New leaks from a marketing site appear to confirm that the camera for the Pixel 6 will have a new Magic Eraser feature, and the devices will apparently get five years of Android security updates (h/t 9to5 Google) According to reliable leaker Evan Blass, the Carphone Warehouse website was showing images of Google marketing materials for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro (the images have since been taken down, but you can view the earlier versions of the Carphone Warehouse pages on the Wayback Machine here and here). Screenshots show the description for the previously leaked Magic Eraser, which will apparently be linked to Google Photos: Magic Eraser makes distractions disappear with a few taps. Remove strangers and unwanted objects in Google Photos, so the people and places that you capture remai...

Twitter has invested in Facemoji, a plug-and-play startup platform that aids technological developers in implementing avatar systems into apps and games, as neighboring tech giants including Apple and Facebook begin to move into the avatar space. The platform has raised a $3 million USD seed round led by Play Ventures, according to TechCrunch. Facemoji functions on its own rendering pipeline, unlike most other platforms, which utilize Unity plugins that most developers would prefer to avoid. Additionally, the startup hosts its own system of avatar artwork, which is available to developers. Facemoji is built around the idea that a growing number of game-makers want to conveniently expand their own avatar network without having to plug into other systems. As reported by TechCrunch, ...