Technology

The crime-tracking app Citizen is now launching its own emergency response service, promising access to agents who can call 911 or keep tabs on a potentially dangerous situation. Protect, which costs $19.99 per month, builds on a beta program that launched earlier this year. It’s part of a larger — and sometimes controversial — expansion effort at the startup, which has built a crime-mapping system into a live broadcasting platform while experimenting with private security services. Citizen Protect is essentially a private safety help line that draws on smartphone features like location tracking. When subscribers open the Citizen app, they can hit a button to call a “Protect Agent” via video, audio, or text. Agents are supposed to talk subscribers through unsafe scenarios and help callers ...

Spotify Plus is a new $0.99 subscription tier being piloted by the streaming service which combines elements of its existing free and premium tiers. The plan still features ads like Spotify’s free tier, but it doesn’t impose any limits on the number of tracks you can skip per hour. Users are also free to pick which specific songs they want to listen to, rather than mostly being limited to shuffling within albums and playlists. The new Spotify Plus tier is a tenth of the cost of Spotify’s unrestricted ad-free Premium tier, which currently costs $9.99 a month. Spotify’s free tier has existed in its current form since 2018. It doesn’t let users skip more than six tracks per hour, and only lets them pick and listen to specific tracks from 15 select playlists, ranging from editorial-selected pl...

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates filed for divorce on May 3rd after 27 years of marriage. Now, three months later, the separation of one of the world’s richest, most powerful couples has been finalized by a judge in King County, Washington. Court records show that neither party will change their name or receive “spousal support,” report CNN and Bloomberg, but exactly how the Gates’ immense fortune will be divided is unclear. Washington is a community property state, which means all assets accumulated during a marriage must be divided equally in the event of a divorce. But the Gates’ split is being carried out under the aegis of a separation contract, details of which are unknown. Bill Gates is currently the fourth richest man in the world According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Bil...

Not everything needs Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Case in point is Amazon’s new Smart Soap Dispenser, the latest let’s-stick-a-chip-in-it replacement for ordinary objects. And because it’s made by Amazon, it’s design to be paired with an Echo speaker to run Alexa routines. Why? Well, according to Amazon, it’s to “automatically play songs, jokes, and more when you wash.” The 12oz liquid soap dispenser is fitted with 2.4GHz (only) 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and features an LED timer around the top that reminds you to keep scrubbing until the CDC-recommended minimum wash time of 20 seconds has elapsed. The rechargeable battery is said to last three months on a single charge. A feature available on touchless soap dispensers that cost a lot less One useful feature is the variable rate dispenser that pumps out m...

Twitter has announced a new partnership with the Associated Press and Reuters in its continuous efforts to fight against misinformation on its social media platform. According to a blog post from the company, the new partnership will materialize in three main ways for users. To begin with, Twitter will now be better equipped to provide credible information in real-time as discussions emerge on its platform, including features like Trends with added contextual descriptions or links out to trusted sources. On top of this, the company also hopes to anticipate these emerging discussions and provide more contextual information along the way before misinformation becomes viral. Finally, Twitter will better align its production initiatives through services such as Birdwatch for its prem...

Scientists at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague have made a profound discovery that details the transformation from water into metal, even if it is only for just a brief moment in time. Pavel Jungwirth, a physical chemist, and his colleague Phil Mason, recently published their findings that showcased the details of what happens when alkali metals are dissolved into ammonia. The experiment found that the process caused the liquid to turn into a bronze hue. Ammonia was later substituted by water, which was originally a risky demonstration since alkali metals typically explode when in contact with water. In order to counteract the explosion, researchers had to determine a way to diffuse the electrons quicker than the reaction of water and metal coming together. To combat this, a syringe...

The Google Pixel 6 will be the first phone to use Google‘s all-new Tensor mobile processor, the first system-on-chip designed by Google. The chip is named after Google’s open-source machine learning platform, TensorFlow, and was co-developed with Google’s AI researchers. According to CEO Sundar Pichai, Tensor has been “four years in the making and builds off of two decades of Google’s computing experience.” The Tensor will allow new Google products (smartphones in particular) to deliver what previous chips could not, including improved photography and video processing, accelerated machine learning tasks, and advanced voice recognition. In an interview with Engadget, Google’s chief of hardware Rick Osterloh reveals several functions on the upcoming Google Pixel 6 smartphone made possible by...

Facebook announced on Monday that all employees will be required to wear masks when offices reopen. The policy goes into effect on August 3rd and will remain in place until further notice. The company confirmed last week that it’s requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all employees returning to work at its US campuses, which it plans to fully reopen by October. “Given the rising numbers of COVID cases, the newest data on COVID variants, and an increasing number of local requirements, we are reinstating our mask requirement in all of Facebook’s US offices, regardless of an employee’s vaccination status,” said a Facebook spokesperson. Facebook’s update happened the same day health officials in the Bay Area announced the reinstatement of indoor masking requirements in several counties. The order...

Vizio has revamped its WatchFree streaming experience, given it a brand new look, and tacked a “plus” on the end of its service’s title. (Because if a streaming service doesn’t include the symbol, does it even really count?) With the update announced today, the service formerly known as WatchFree is getting new navigation features to improve search and discovery of free content with recommendations that cater to a viewer’s individual interest. Plus, its live programming guide now offers hundreds of free channels across a surprisingly comprehensive number of genres — everything from comedy and sports to a lengthy list of entertainment channels. Vizio’s revamped WatchFree Plus service.Image: Vizio In addition, Vizio’s WatchFree Plus program guide now includes a “featured” category for season...

Pearson, the largest publisher of college textbooks in the US, has announced Pearson Plus, a new subscription service for digital textbooks. The Pearson Plus app, available in both mobile and desktop form, will be available on US college campuses this fall and is expected to roll out globally in the future. There are two subscription tiers. Enrolled students can pay $9.99 per month to access one textbook at a time or $14.99 per month for access to the company’s full library (a selection of over 1,500 e-books). The app provides various other study aids as well, including flashcards, annotations, and customizable fonts. The Pearson Plus app will be available on US college campuses this fall College textbooks are a big expense, and can saddle some students with hundreds of dollars of costs pe...

An initial assessment from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has recommended workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama hold a new election to determine whether to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The recommendation comes from the hearing officer assigned to the case and is only a preliminary ruling, but still hands the union a surprising win in a fight that many in the labor movement had considered lost. In April, workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama voted not to unionize by a margin of more than 2-to-1. But in the aftermath of the result, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) alleged that Amazon had illegally influenced the drive and petitioned the NLRB to invalidate the result. In particula...