Technology

Elon Musk on Friday took to Twitter to call out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos after Amazon’s satellite broadband company, Kuiper Systems, urged the FCC to dismiss SpaceX‘s plans for more Starlink satellites. Musk, CEO of SpaceX, wrote, “Turns out Bezos retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against Space X …” Bezos officially stepped down as CEO of Amazon on July 5. Turns out Besos retired in order to pursue a full-time job filing lawsuits against SpaceX … — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 27, 2021 In its submission to the FCC, SpaceX proposed launching almost 30,000 additional satellites into space as part of its second-generation Starlink, which would join the 1,740 already in orbit. Kuiper protested the plan in a letter to the FCC, stating that SpaceX violated codes by ...

Peloton has said that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have subpoenaed it for documents and information related to its reporting on injuries caused by its Tread Plus treadmill (via ABC News). The company released this information in its annual 10-K form, citing the investigations by the agencies, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as risks to be disclosed to its investors. You can read excerpts of the document below. [A]s previously disclosed, we have received reports of a number of injuries associated with our Tread+ product, one of which led to the death of a child. In April 2021, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) issued a warning to consumers about the safety hazards associated with the Tread+ and is co...

In June, we wrote that Windows 11 will leave millions of PCs behind, seemingly because their processors aren’t as new and fully featured as Microsoft would like. This morning, Microsoft revealed a change of plan to The Verge: it won’t technically abandon those millions of PCs, because you’ll be able to manually install the downloadable Windows 11 ISO on whatever you want. The company’s also extending its official CPU compatibility list to a bunch of Intel’s most expensive Xeon workstation processors and its most expensive line of Core X desktop CPUs — and, tellingly, the less powerful Intel chip it shipped in its Surface Studio 2, so it no longer has to defend the idea of abandoning a flagship product that it still continues to sell brand-new. But while it might seem like Microsoft’s openi...

TikTok, Reddit, and Facebook are dealing with waves of content about ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that has picked up traction among anti-vaxxers as a COVID-19 treatment. Sales of ivermectin meant for animals, as well as calls to poison control centers, have increased enough that the FDA issued a consumer update explaining why people shouldn’t take it to treat or prevent COVID-19. On TikTok, Rolling Stone found videos, some of which had more than a million views, promoting ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment under tags like #ivermectin4covid and #ivermectinworks. TikTok has since removed the videos for violating community guidelines and blocked the tags, and a spokesperson says TikTok will continue removing related videos and hashtags. The #ivermectin tag is still up, though many of the...

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...

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