Technology

Elgato’s Stream Deck is a popular tool for live-streamers, letting them set shortcuts and controls they can access with the push of a button, and the company announced a new model on Thursday, the Stream Deck MK. 2. This version brings a host of welcome improvements, including a detachable stand, interchangeable faceplates, and a removable USB-C cable. You can order it right now on Elgato’s website for $149.99. While the Stream Deck MK. 2 does seem like a nice upgrade, it was announced on perhaps the worst possible day. Just a few hours ago, Valve made a huge splash by revealing its new handheld gaming console called the Steam Deck. While they’re entirely different products, there’s sure to be some confusion about the names “Stream Deck” versus “Steam Deck.” Alongside the Steam Stream Deck...

Apple employees say it’s harder than ever to get remote work requests approved after the company rolled out a new hybrid model that will require people to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Some employees say they will quit if Apple doesn’t change its stance. While Apple historically discouraged employees from working from home, there were one-off exceptions to the rule, and some teams were more lenient than others. Now, employees say that even those exceptions are being denied. In a company Slack channel where employees advocate for remote work, roughly 10 people said they were resigning due to the hybrid work policy or knew others who’d been forced to quit. The Slack channel currently has more than 6,000 members. In a survey on remote work conducted by em...

Valve’s surprising new Steam Deck has been officially announced, promising to let players take their whole Steam library of games on the go. But how does the handheld compare to other major consoles on the market, like the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X / S, and the PlayStation 5? First off, let’s look at the Steam Deck’s specs. It’s powered by an AMD APU with a quad-core / eight-thread Zen 2 CPU and an AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 8 compute units, alongside 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. There are three models available: one with 64GB of eMMC storage for $399, one with a 256GB NVMe SSD for $529, and a top-of-the-line model with 512GB of high-speed NVMe SSD storage for $649. While the base eMMC storage configuration could potentially mean slower game installs and load times, Valve promises that “there is no i...

Bukayo Saka, a player on England’s national football team said in an Instagram post Thursday that social media platforms did not do enough to prevent the racist abuse he and his teammates were subjected to after the team’s loss to Italy. “To the social media platforms @instagram @twitter @facebook I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that me Marcus and Jadon have received this week,” Saka wrote. “I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.” Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Saka, who are Black, were among England’s players to participate in a penalty shootout to decide the winner of the UEFA Euro 2020 championship match on Jul...

High tide flooding hit record levels in the US last year and is only expected to get worse, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Coastal communities experienced twice as many days with high tide flooding last year than they did 20 years ago. Records were either matched or broken in 14 places across the Southeast Atlantic and Gulf coastlines. Nationally, coastal communities were hit with a median of four days of high tide flooding in the past year — although some places suffered through more than quadruple that number. NOAA’s outlook for the rest of the year until April 2022 rises to three to seven days of flooding. But because of sea-level rise tied to climate change, the long-term forecast is more alarming: 2030 could see seven to 15 day...

Valve just announced the Steam Deck, its long-rumored Switch-like handheld gaming device. It will begin shipping in December and reservations open July 16th at 1PM ET. It starts at $399, and you can buy it in $529 and $649 models as well. The device has an AMD APU containing a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units’ worth of AMD RDNA 2 graphics, alongside 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. There are three different storage tiers: 64GB eMMC storage for $399, 256GB NVMe SSD storage for $529, and 512GB of high-speed NVME SSD storage for $649, according to Valve. You can also expand the available storage using the high-speed microSD card slot. The Steam Deck.Image: Valve The Steam Deck has a huge number of control options. There are two thumbsticks, but also two small, Steam Controlle...

Samsung’s new entry-level Chrome OS laptop, the $299 Galaxy Chromebook Go, is available to purchase now at Samsung’s website and other retailers. While only the Wi-Fi model is available Thursday, Samsung plans to offer an LTE model in the coming weeks, which should be a nice extra perk for web browsing on the go. The Galaxy Chromebook Go’s modest price seems to be reflected in its features. It’s got a 14-inch 1366 x 768 HD display, a definite step down from the 4K OLED panel that shipped on the $549 Galaxy Chromebook 2. It’s also working with an Intel Celeron N4500 processor and 4GB of RAM, which probably won’t set the world on fire, but should be enough for casual Chrome use. The Galaxy Chromebook Go features USB-C ports and a USB-A 3.2 port.Image: Samsung Samsung claims the Galaxy Chrome...

The draft list for the next round of new emoji was announced today, two days ahead of World Emoji Day on July 17th. Contenders include a melting smiley face, a low battery, a disco ball, and several new hand shapes — like heart hands and index finger pointing at viewer — for courting your sweeties or taunting your enemies. The release of new emoji was delayed this year because of the pandemic, and proposal submissions were on pause until April. This list won’t be finalized by the Unicode Consortium until September, but in general, most candidates shown in the draft make it through. The final versions should roll out to different devices and platforms starting in late 2021 through 2022. Drafts of new emoji that will likely make their debut in Emoji 14.0.Image: Emojipedia The new emoji show ...

Microsoft is bringing its infamous Clippy character back to life as an emoji in Office. After a successful campaign to get some Twitter and Instagram likes, Clippy will now replace the paperclip emoji that exists across Windows, Office, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 products. It’s part of a bigger update that will see 1,800 emoji in Microsoft 365 updated with 3D designs and the company’s Fluent Design language. Clippy is the star of the show, with 3D emoji that have been redesigned to add a lot more personality. “I grew up using Clippy, and it just seemed like a fun little Easter egg,” says Claire Anderson, Microsoft’s official “Emoji-ologist,” in an interview with The Verge. “We just all imagined that delight when you put the paperclip in a Microsoft product and then all of a s...

The pandemic nearly killed those Instagram-ready pop-up experiences. Places like Color Factory and Museum of Ice Cream laid off employees as the world shut down, and they tried, seemingly unsuccessfully, to re-create their photogenic experiences online. But now, they’re back, raising money, and opening new locations. Color Factory tells The Verge it recently closed a $10 million fundraising round from private equity and angel investors, which it’ll use to expand and hire people who help build the sites. Today, it’s additionally announcing its next location: Chicago. It’ll be opening a Color Factory in the Willis Tower, a major sightseeing destination that brings in nearly 2 million visitors a year on its own. The idea is clearly for Color Factory to benefit from the people already visiting...

Chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reiterated that it expects chip shortages to continue into next year, Bloomberg reports. The warning came as the company reported its latest financial results, which saw its net sales rise almost 20 percent to NT$372 billion (around $13.3 billion) compared to the same quarter the previous year. However, automakers should see the shortage gradually easing this quarter. As the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, a lot of attention has been paid to TSMC amid the global chip shortage, which has impacted the manufacturing of everything from cars to game consoles. TSMC is a leading manufacturer of semiconductors and is responsible for producing the majority of smartphone processors worldwide. It supplies chips to the...

As the second season of the great 2000s crime drama The Wire begins, Baltimore police detective Jimmy McNulty finds himself on a boat. After spending the previous season sounding the alarm about local drug kingpin Avon Barksdale, to the indifference and annoyance of his various superiors, McNulty is exiled to the city’s marine unit. (His bosses have learned he gets seasick, and punish him accordingly.) The special investigation team he was part of is forcibly disbanded; drug dealing in Baltimore continues unchecked. Something similar happens to Alex Stamos, the non-fictional former chief security officer of Facebook, in the wake of his 2016-17 investigation into Russian interference on the platform. In An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, authors Sheera Frenkel and Cecil...