Technology

Facebook has released a report to show what content was most widely viewed by Americans in the last quarter, and the list includes a post from President Biden, a video from 5-Minute Crafts, and arguments about whether you should put sugar on spaghetti. Facebook’s report comes as a response to frequent reports that some of the platform’s posts with the most interaction are from right-wing sources that critics say could have a radicalizing effect on users. Facebook says that the report shows what people actually see on the platform, as opposed to what content on Facebook gets the most interaction, and that it’ll be creating these reports on a quarterly basis in the future. However, the picture the report paints is, by Facebook’s own admission, an incomplete one. Wednesday’s report covers the...

T-Mobile has released more information about its most recent data breach, and while the company’s findings fall short of the reported 100 million records, the numbers are staggering. While saying its investigation is still ongoing, the company confirmed that records of over 40 million “former or prospective customers” who had previously applied for credit and 7.8 million postpaid customers (those who currently have a contract) were stolen. In its last earnings report (PDF), T-Mobile said it had over 104 million customers. The data in the stolen files contained critical personal information included first and last names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license / ID numbers — the kind of information you could use to set up an account in someone else’s name or hijack an ...

The Overwatch League wrapped up its fourth regular season last weekend amid ongoing uncertainty of the league’s future. The pandemic knee-capped the league’s pivot to live, in-person events, and the employee discrimination lawsuit filed against its parent company Activision Blizzard has seen nearly all of the OWL’s sponsors revoke or pause advertising. Now reports are circulating that the league may take an extended break once the playoffs conclude in September in order to ensure the start of the new season coincides with the release of the long-in-development Overwatch 2. But before we can contemplate what’s to come for the Overwatch League, let’s take a look at how this fourth regular season unfolded. Photo: Blizzard The good In season four, teams participated in four alliteratively name...

Facebook and Instagram have removed more than 20 million posts for violating their policies on COVID-19-related misinformation in the second quarter, Facebook said in its community standards enforcement report on Wednesday. In addition, the social media giant said that it deleted more than 3,000 accounts, pages and groups for repeatedly violating its rules against spreading COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation. The company placed warnings on more than 190 million COVID-19-related posts on Facebook. Facebook reported that the prevalence of hate speech has decreased over the last three quarters, which is largely due to the company’s improvements in detection and ranking changes in News Feed. In Q2, the prevalence of hate speech was measured at 0.05 percent, meaning there were five views ...

Catering to “those who dare,” Republic of Gamers has collaborated with professional skateboarder Nyjah Huston to bring his personal aesthetic and unmatched hustle to a special edition of the ASUS ROG Strix Laptop. Huston has gained notoriety and respect in the scene thanks to his aggressive approach to mastering new tricks while street skating, and the intense discipline he brings to every session. No matter how challenging a new skateboarding trick is, Huston will commit to a spot and keep trying until he lands it — an unrelenting mentality he shares with ROG. A look behind the scenes of Huston’s multifaceted approach to training shows the grit and passion he puts into his art form. His serious regime includes a mix of filming and skating, which is supplemented by lifting weights, biking ...

Waymo announced plans to build a hub for its autonomous semi-trailer trucks on a nine-acre site near Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The Alphabet-owned company also said it is partnering with rental truck company Ryder on fleet management as it looks to grow the delivery and logistics portion of its business. The hub in South Dallas will be Waymo’s “primary operations center” in the state for its fleet of autonomous trucks. The hub will be built to accommodate “hundreds of trucks and personnel” as the company gets closer to launching a full-scale freight-hauling operation using its fully autonomous vehicles — though Waymo has yet to say exactly when that will be. “primary operations center” Currently, Waymo is testing the fifth generation of its “Driver,” which is the term used to describe its c...

The memory machines that Apple, Facebook, and Google have built to remind us of our favorite moments can, like any algorithmic creation, serve up subpar output. Instead of evoking recollections of those times we felt like we were living our best lives, they can invoke the low points of our existence — a miserable job, a rotten commute, a bad breakup, or the death of a loved one. Apple Photos, Facebook, and Google Photos provide tools to manage what their “memories” features can push out to you. But these settings to control what pictures and posts get algorithmically bubbled up to your screen aren’t always easy to find — even, in some situations, after these apps have presented a gut-punch of a reminder. Here’s how to control, at least in part, what memories you will see in each of these a...

When you build a procedural tree of life, there are going to be branches. This was a learning process for the Irish artist David OReilly, whose existential simulation games started making their way into galleries around the world. Everything, which was long-listed for an Academy Award, was launched in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The game allows players to control, bond, and shift between objects at various scales, from subatomic particles to land animals and planets. “To make Everything, it involved making this incredibly detailed library of objects,” OReilly says. “And so all the interaction was done by having a really big catalog of things, along with information about their relationship with other objects: their color variation, their size, their sound effects, how they move...

It’s been almost a year since Apple first debuted the iPhone 12 lineup, and introduced its MagSafe accessory system. So where are all the MagSafe chargers? Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of accessory developers making cases, wallets, car mounts, desk stands, and even magnetic Qi chargers and battery packs that work with MagSafe — but almost no actual MagSafe accessories. And that’s a big difference because of how Apple has designed the MagSafe standard. Anyone can wirelessly charge an iPhone 12 device using a Qi charger at Apple’s standard rate of 7.5W. Magnets, being a physical phenomenon, are even more universal, meaning that device manufacturers can easily stick an iPhone 12 and a Qi charger together. (Many already have.) Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge But those two things alone...

Ubisoft Singapore, the lead studio on Skull & Bones and co-developer of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, is being investigated by a national employment watchdog over allegations of misconduct at the studio. Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times reports that the country’s Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) began its investigation after receiving anonymous feedback about conditions at the studio. The probe follows a wide-ranging report from Kotaku last month based on conversations with over 20 current and former employees about the studio’s allegedly toxic workplace environment. Sources said female employees were sometimes subjected to unwanted physical contact, and that subsequent investigations from HR would drag on for months and result in minor pena...

Epic Games launched Fortnite: Impostors yesterday, a new mode that copies the Among Us game mechanics. While Among Us, the multiplayer game that soared in popularity at the start of the pandemic, was free on the Epic Games Store recently, Epic didn’t collaborate with Innersloth, the studio that created Among Us, for the new Fortnite mode. The developers behind Among Us are clearly surprised and unhappy that Epic has copied their game so blatantly, with social deduction gameplay and a very similar map. “It would’ve been really, really cool to collab,” said Victoria Tran, Innersloth community director. “Like game mechanics, fine, those shouldn’t be gatekept, but at the very least even different themes or terminology makes things more interesting?” Gary Porter, a developer for Among Us, also ...

Microsoft’s upcoming release of Windows 11 will make it even harder to switch default browsers and ignores browser defaults in new areas of the operating system. While Microsoft is making many positive changes to the Windows 11 UI, the default apps experience is a step back and browser competitors like Mozilla, Opera, and Vivaldi are concerned. In Windows 11, Microsoft has changed the way you set default apps. Like Windows 10, there’s a prompt that appears when you install a new browser and open a web link for the first time. It’s the only opportunity to easily switch browsers, though. Unless you tick “always use this app,” the default will never be changed. It’s incredibly easy to forget to toggle the “always use this app” option, or simply select the browser you want and never see this p...