Technology

The best deal available today is on the 40mm Apple Watch Series 6 with Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity. Usually $399, it’s just $279 at Best Buy through Saturday, July 24th. Amazon is honoring this deal, too, even going a bit lower with a $265 price (though, act fast as Amazon’s stock tends to sell out faster than Best Buy’s). The thing is, this price cut is limited to the Product Red colorway that has a red aluminum case and a red sport band. This is great news for people who can’t get enough of the color red in their lives, but it’s probably not most people’s first choice in terms of how they’d like their Apple Watch to look. It’s hard to argue with the price, though. We’ve seen it sell for $20 less than this, but not since late in April. Read our review of the Apple Watch Series 6. Apple Wat...

Earlier this month, a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 sold for $1,560,000 at auction, a staggering price that nearly doubled a record set just two days before by a similarly pristine copy of The Legend of Zelda. The auctions could mark just the beginning of even more eye-poppingly large video game sales. It seems very likely that Mario’s first 3D adventure won’t be the last game to command a million-dollar sum. “I think we’ll see more million dollar games, probably sooner rather than later,” Chris Kohler, editorial director at Digital Eclipse, a developer that works on rereleases of classic video games, tells The Verge. Collecting and selling stuff has become a popular trend Collecting and selling stuff — both physical and virtual — for expensive prices has become a popular trend. Pokémon ca...

The president of Blizzard Entertainment sent an email to staff calling allegations of sexual harassment at the company “extremely troubling.” First reported by Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, J. Allen Brack wrote that “the fight for equality is incredibly important to me,” and that he has spent his career fighting against “bro culture.” The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed suit against Blizzard and owner Activision Blizzard on Tuesday, alleging a culture of “constant sexual harassment” existed at the company. The complaint describes a “frat boy culture” that included male employees drinking and sexually harassing female employees without repercussions. Brack is named in the complaint as being one of the people at the company who was allegedly aware and enablin...

A bill that would offer Americans a refundable tax credit on the purchase of a new electric bicycle was just introduced in the Senate by Ed Markey (D-MA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI). The bill is called the Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment, or E-BIKE Act for short, and it’s the companion bill to one introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this year. E-bikes are more expensive than normal bikes, typically costing anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000 for some of the more high-end models. But they also have the potential to replace car trips for a lot of people, with a recent study finding that if 15 percent of car trips were made by e-bike, carbon emissions would drop by 12 percent. “the electrification of transportation is not just about cars” This afternoon, I condu...

Apple may be removing iDOS 2, a popular (or, at the very least, popular for a DOS emulator designed to run decades-old software and games) emulation app that allows users to run DOS games and software on Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices. According to the developer, Chaoji Li, Apple issued the notice of the pending takedown after a recently submitted update for a bug fix. While iDOS 2 has been available since 2014 on the App Store, it seems that with the most recent update, the company has changed its mind. Per the letter that Li received: Upon re-evaluation, we found that your app is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines. Specifically, we found your app is in violation of the following: Guideline 2.5.2 — Performance — Software Requirements During review, your app installed ...

After deciding to release its full slate of 2021 Warner Bros. films on HBO Max under a hybrid streaming and theatrical model, it appears WarnerMedia is prepared to continue using its Warner Bros. assets to lure subscribers to the service in 2022. During AT&T’s second-quarter earnings call this week, the company’s executives were asked about how the pandemic release model would shape a more permanent release strategy going forward, particularly as it relates to theaters. Citing the theatrical success of Godzilla vs. Kong to the tune of $463 million in revenue, WarnerMedia chief Jason Kilar responded that while “the motion picture format absolutely matters,” the company also feels “very good about the response that consumers have given it in the home.” Kilar went on to say that Warner Br...

Jeff Bezos recently became the second billionaire to voyage to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Although Bezos’ company has previously claimed that Bezos and everyone aboard are astronauts, this may not actually be the case, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)‘s official guidelines. Earlier this month, Blue Origin slighted Richard Branson‘s spaceflight company Virgin Galactic by implying in a tweet that their passengers are not really astronauts because of Virgin Galactic’s flight plan. From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name. For 96% of the world’s population, space begins 100 km up at the internationally recognized Kármán line. pic.twitter.com/QRouf...

Electric vehicle startup Rivian has raised another massive round of funding, this time to the tune of $2.5 billion, bringing its total raised to date over the $10 billion mark. The funding round comes as Rivian recently confirmed it’s looking for a location to build a second factory — one that will also produce batteries for its vehicles — in the United States. The company is currently aiming to roll its first electric pickup trucks off the line at its existing factory in Illinois this September. The new round was led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Ford, D1 Capital Partners, and funds advised by T. Rowe Price, each of which are already investors in Rivian. Amazon and Ford each own more than 10 percent of the buzzy EV startup, and are working with Rivian on separate vehicles: Rivian is bu...

NASA’s Europa Clipper will start its journey to Jupiter’s icy moon aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket built by SpaceX. NASA will pay SpaceX $178 million to launch the vehicle in October 2024. The Europa Clipper got the green light from NASA in 2015. It will fly by the moon 45 times, providing researchers with a tantalizing look at the icy world, believed to have an ocean lurking under its icy crust. The Clipper is equipped with instruments that will help scientists figure out if the moon could support life. For years, the Clipper was legally obligated to launch on NASA’s long-delayed Space Launch System (SLS). But with the SLS perpetually delayed and over budget, NASA has urged Congress to consider allowing the Europa Clipper to fly commercial. Switching to another vehicle could save up to $1 bi...

Throughout the past week, we’ve seen story after story about a company called NSO Group, and a piece of spyware called Pegasus. Some of the stories have been shocking, with allegations that fully updated smartphones can be hacked with a single text message, and reports that two women close to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi were among those targeted by a government agency using the spy tool. A coalition of news outlets, including The Washington Post, Le Monde, and The Guardian is behind the reporting, and they’re calling it the Pegasus Project. The project was led by Forbidden Stories, an organization of journalists that works on stories after the original reporters have been silenced in some way. Amnesty International ran detailed forensics on 67 smartphones to look for evidence that ...

Facebook announced a new API that will let developers incorporate video from the Quest 2’s sensors into their games and applications, creating a mixed reality experience. With the Passthrough API, developers will not only be able to mix the black-and-white images from the headset’s sensors into their experiences, but they’ll also be able to customize how it ends up looking to the player, apply effects, and even have the real world show up on specific surfaces. Facebook’s announcement includes examples of how the API could improve productivity software by allowing integration of real-life keyboards and desks, and how games could include your real-life furniture for enemies to hide behind. It’s also easy to imagine other fun experiences that mix your real environment with a virtual world — h...