Technology

The city of Chicago has sued food delivery services DoorDash and Grubhub for allegedly using deceptive and unfair tactics that hurt restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic. The two lawsuits accuse the services of a panoply of misconduct, including falsely advertising delivery services for restaurants without their consent, charging misleading fees to customers, and hiding the costs that they added to a meal. “It is deeply concerning and unfortunate that these companies broke the law during these incredibly difficult times, using unfair and deceptive tactics to take advantage of restaurants and consumers who were struggling to stay afloat,” said Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who filed the complaints alongside Acting Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) Commissioner Kenneth Me...

23-year-old tennis star Naomi Osaka has joined forces with Tom Brady‘s NFT platform Autograph for an assortment of blockchain-backed preseason access passes. Osaka’s NFTs arrive at various levels — Carbon Premier, Platinum Premier, Emerald Premier, Sapphire Premier and Ruby Premier — that differ in exclusivity and price. The four-time Grand Slam champion will digitally sign each iteration of her Preseason Access Pass NFTs, which grant owners VIP access to Autograph’s first limited-edition Naomi Osaka drop and the platform’s private community on Discord. Osaka recently joined Autograph’s advisory board alongside Brady, Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods, in an effort to provide new methods for fans to connect with sports players. While the first drop concluded on August 25, the second release is n...

The first Asian giant hornet nest of 2021 has been destroyed in Washington, according to officials in the state on Thursday. The nest was discovered in the base of a dead alder tree in Whatcom County, east of Blaine, roughly two miles away from the nest the Washington Department of Agriculture (WSDA) eradicated in October 2020 and one-quarter mile from where a sighting of a live “murder hornet” was reported earlier this month. Our team eradicated the first #AsianGiantHornet nest of the year yesterday. Read about it in our press release or tune into our press conference at 11 a.m. live streaming on YouTube. https://t.co/hY2MZJVqVd #SoundOn pic.twitter.com/U2CMgN5y2C — Washington State Department of Agriculture (@WSDAgov) August 26, 2021 WSDA staff first vacuumed 113 worker hornets from the ...

Scientists have identified a new class of exoplanets with large oceans and hydrogen-rich atmospheres, dubbed “Hycean” planets, that could support life outside Earth’s solar system, according to a new study published on Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. Conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the study suggests that focusing on Hycean planets — many of which are up to 2.6 times larger than Earth and reach temperatures up to almost 200 degrees Celsius — could accelerate missions to discover extraterrestrial life. “Essentially, when we’ve been looking for these various molecular signatures, we have been focusing on planets similar to Earth, which is a reasonable place to start,” said Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, who led the research, in...

Astell & Kern’s latest portable music player is as high-tech as it is extravagantly expensive. The $2,399 A&ultima SP2000T releases in October, and it stands out from the brand’s previous models like the Kann and Kann Cube with a new triple amp system. These things are never affordable, and the price might seem especially out there if you’re content with listening to music from a streaming service on your phone. But there’s some real engineering swagger in effect here. Astell & Kern managed to fit a tiny tube amp inside of this device. Specifically, it uses a Korg Nutube 6P1, which conceptually operates just like larger tube amps, only it’s small enough to fit in a device that can go in your pocket. To avoid any interference that the resonance of the tubes might generate, Astel...

Microsoft is announcing today that it won’t block people from installing Windows 11 on most older PCs. While the software maker has recommended hardware requirements for Windows 11 — which it’s largely sticking to — a restriction to install the OS will only be enforced when you try to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 through Windows Update. This means anyone with a PC with an older CPU that doesn’t officially pass the upgrade test can still go ahead and download an ISO file of Windows 11 and install the OS manually. Microsoft announced its Windows 11 minimum hardware requirements in June, and made it clear that only Intel 8th Gen and beyond CPUs were officially supported. Microsoft now tells us that this install workaround is designed primarily for businesses to evaluate Windows 11, a...

Lordstown Motors has hired a new CEO, Daniel Ninivaggi, just two months after its previous chief executive and founder resigned after misleading investors. Ninivaggi comes from an automotive background and recently wrapped up a seven-year stint as a member of Hertz’s board of directors, where he helped oversee the rental car company’s very public bankruptcy and restructuring. That experience could come in handy. Lordstown Motors needs someone at the helm who can steer the company through the adversity that lies ahead — including, mainly, surviving past early 2022, which is when the startup says it expects to deliver its first electric pickup trucks and when it will also run out of money unless it finds new funding. But Lordstown Motors’ struggles since its late 2020 SPAC merger have also p...

Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

James Thomson started developing PCalc in 1992 as a way to learn to program for the Mac. Since then, he’s rewritten the calculator app multiple times to feature new UI changes, ported it to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, and maintained it for the Mac over the decades. But PCalc’s popularity — let alone financial success — is an unlikely one. After all, Thomson doesn’t just have to sell customers on the idea of paying for a calculator app; he has to convince them to spend $10 on his app in a world where Apple already offers its preloaded Calculator app for free on every iPhone and Mac. Apple bundles each iPhone with over 35 applications, spanning web browsing, email, weather, clock, calendar, camera, music, and virtually every other major part of the phone. It also has a huge home-f...

Nintendo debuted a new trailer for Metroid Dread ahead of its October 8th launch on the Switch. Whereas the E3 2021 trailer was claustrophobic, featuring the E.M.M.I robots that will stalk you throughout the game, this one shows off bigger environments, as well as other enemy types and bosses that you’ll encounter along the way. Notably, Samus goes up against a gigantic living Chozo warrior, one that appears to share a lot in common with Samus in terms of its armor and arsenal. There’s also a boss that looks a bit like Kraid from Super Metroid. Additionally, the trailer lets you get a glimpse of some new skills that Samus will pick up during the story. There are familiar ones, like the ability to do Samus’ signature screw attack, getting a speed boost to blow through walls, and collecting ...

Twitter is beginning its rollout of Ticketed Spaces, or paid live audio rooms. The company announced yesterday that it’s “experimenting” with the feature for some iOS users. It first rolled out applications to try the product in June with the plan to eventually make it available to all interested iOS and Android users. “Know it’s taking us a little time, but we want to get this right for you,” Twitter wrote in its announcement yesterday. Hosts can charge between $1 and $999 for their ticketed rooms and can also set a room size cap for them. These test group participants will initially keep 97 percent of the money they make, after the fee Apple and Google charge for in-app purchases. But Twitter will increase its cut from 3 percent to 20 percent if a user makes a total of $50,000 across the...

Elden Ring is a collaboration between two masters of fantasy: Game of Thrones author George R.R Martin and Dark Souls studio FromSoftware, led by visionary director Hidetaka Miyazaki. With big names like those come equally big expectations, and the game has been hotly anticipated, even as players have seen little of it since it was announced in 2019. (The first gameplay trailer was revealed in June.) In many ways, it’s a big departure for the studio, with a more traditional story structure and an ambitious open world to explore. To get a better sense of what Elden Ring actually is, I recently had the chance to view a hands-off demo and chat with FromSoftware’s Yasuhiro Kitao to learn about its development and philosophy. Here are six things I learned. The world is huge For the first time, ...