Technology

Slap bang in the middle of a Venn diagram with two circles labelled “sincere tech startups” and “dystopian satires that are a little on the nose” you will find SquarEat: a company that you would swear is a joke if you weren’t already familiar with how the simulation we’re all living in likes to collide fact and fiction. SquarEat was apparently born of a simple idea: what if you could eat squares? But boy oh boy does it deliver on that premise. SquarEat says it’s “created a new concept of food” (squares) The company claims to have “created a new concept of food” (squares) which it makes by blitzing ingredients and compressing them into “ready-to-eat” 50 gram packages (squares). You can buy your squares in packs of four or six and have them delivered to your house. They can be eaten hot or c...

A few times per month, Anania Williams posts sponsored content to his TikTok account, sandwiched in between memes, social commentary, and amateur drag videos. The sponsorships offer financial security, alleviating “a lot of the pressure of coming from a poorer family” by helping him pay for rent and school in Boston, Williams said. This past July, he was able to quit his summer job, turning TikTok into his primary money-making gig. But more and more, Williams — like other creators from the LGBTQ community — has found himself being asked by advertisers to feature his identity in these sponsored posts, something he isn’t comfortable doing. That’s put these creators in a tough spot: they can either push back and risk a sponsorship, or get paid for something they’d often rather not commerciali...

Beats has presented its latest collaboration, linking up with Bronx-based collective Ghetto Gastro for a new take on the Studio3 Wireless. For this collaboration, Ghetto Gastro has redesigned the over-hear headphones with a black and bone color palette, complemented by a black-on-black Ghetto Gastro logo. The headphones come with a carry case sporting the collective’s original logo, while two sticker decals and a poster represent Ghetto Gastro’s resistance against oppression. The collaboration will also continue Ghetto Gastro’s mission of starting discussions surrounding inclusion, race and economic empowerment through food. Beats and Ghetto Gastro are spotlighting and donating to two non-profit organizations that share the collective’s focus. The two organizations are Sweet Freedom Farm —...

If you’ve had an Android phone for any length of time, it’s easy to get used to living with, well, chaos. If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly adding new apps, deciding they’re okay but not great, adding another, and so on. Then, a few months later, as you’re scrolling through your app drawer, you’re surprised to see several apps that you forgot about and perhaps don’t even remember what they’re used for. In a very short time, it can become a mess. And if you’re really an app enthusiast, it can start taking up more space than you can spare. There are essentially two steps to making sense of all of those Android apps: find a way to organize them (and there are a variety of ways, depending on what you’re comfortable with) and periodically remove all of the extra apps that you’ve acc...

Following a meeting with President Joe Biden regarding cybersecurity threats including the recent SolarWinds hack, Microsoft and Google have now pledged $30 billion USD to increase cybersecurity efforts over the next five years. $20 billion USD of the sum will come from Microsoft, with $150 million USD to be used initially to expand the company’s training network via various non-profits and community colleges as well as upgrading the U.S. government’s own digital security systems spanning across federal, state, and local levels. The remaining $10 billion USD will come from Google, which will focus primarily on enhancing its zero-trust security model, expanding open-source security and securing software supply chains, and also fund more training for programmers. As for Apple and Amazon, whi...

Facebook is considering creating a commission that would weigh in on global election-related issues on the platform, according to The New York Times. Facebook has talked to academics and policy experts about the commission, which The New York Times reports is expected to be announced this fall ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections. Like how the independent Oversight Board helps review content moderation appeals, it sounds as if Facebook could ask the election commission to handle some decisions about election content. That could reduce the perception that Facebook’s decisions about content are politically biased, which has been a common criticism lobbed toward the company from conservatives. However, it’s unclear if this election commission would operate with the same level of independenc...

Instagram plans to more prominently feature photos and videos in search results in the future, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Wednesday. The change could show the grid of photos and videos a keyword search can pull up alongside results for accounts and hashtags, not dissimilar to how TikTok displays results. The search tweak is part of “a series of improvements designed for inspiration and discovery,” according to Mosseri. The company has used keyword search as a way to offer visual results — certain terms can pull up pages of suggested images — but Instagram’s new plan will give those more prominence. Mosseri writes that searching with a term like “space” will pull up suggested photo and video results along with traditional accounts and hashtags, encouraging more exploration. Th...

Tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft promised to help bolster US cybersecurity after a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday. The pledges vary by company but range from spending billions on cyber infrastructure to offering supply-chain aid and education. Wednesday’s high-profile meeting with tech CEOs comes on the heels of major cyberattacks against US government agencies and energy infrastructure like the Colonial Pipeline. “The federal government can’t meet this challenge alone” “The reality is, most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” Biden said at Wednesday’s meeting. Apple announced that it would work with its suppliers to “drive mass adoption of ...

It was just last February that Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay was promoted to lead the company’s entire Windows software and device teams, and now he’s moving up in the world again — he’s becoming an Executive Vice President who’ll be part of the Senior Leadership Team that advises Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella himself, reports Bloomberg. We’ve interviewed him quite a few times over the years, and not just because he’s one of the company’s faces — as Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer, he’s had a direct hand in creating and introducing many of Microsoft’s Surface devices including the recent Surface Duo. Also, yes, he’s the one who’s perpetually pumped. From a corporate standpoint, this means Windows will have a seat at the senior leadership table for the first time since former Windows ...

Airbnb announced on Wednesday that it would provide temporary housing worldwide to 20,000 Afghan refugees escaping a Taliban resurgence. The Taliban has been rapidly expanding control in recent weeks, taking over much of Afghanistan since U.S. troops completed their withdrawal in July. Official statements and local reports indicate that at least 28,000 people have been evacuated from the country so far, according to Al Jazeera. The growing number of Afghan refugees has raised questions about resettlement and placement, spurring Airbnb into action. Through its independent nonprofit Airbnb.org, the site will help provide housing to 20,000 Afghans fleeing Taliban rule, funded through public donations and contributions from Airbnb and its CEO Brian Chesky. “As tens of thousands of Af...

A manual uploaded to the FCC gives us a look at Facebook’s experimental Project Aria AR glasses, which apparently go by the codename Gemini (via Protocol). Facebook announced Project Aria in September 2020, with a message big on vision and light on details — though it was clear that the device exists to help Facebook in its quest (no pun intended) to create a computer that sees and understands the world. Seeing the actual headset’s manual gives us a bit of an idea about how it does that. In some ways, the Gemini headset is like a real pair of glasses, though in other ways it’s very much not: it can be fitted with corrective lenses if need be, but you can’t fold the arms down or use it in a VR headset. And, of course, it’s loaded with things that normal glasses don’t have, like a proximity ...