Technology

Virgin Galactic just successfully sent founder Richard Branson to the edge of space and back, and now the company is offering a chance for you to take the trip in the company’s spaceplane as well. After Sunday’s flight, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic had partnered with fundraising platform Omaze to open a sweepstakes that will send the winner and a friend on a spaceflight. The winner will take a trip on the VSS Unity spaceplane, the same plane Branson traveled on. You’ll also get a tour of Spaceport America in New Mexico from Branson himself, “with my Willa Wonka hat on,” Branson said. (“And I promise lots of chocolate in the factory,” he joked.) [embedded content] The sweepstakes is also a fundraiser for the nonprofit Space for Humanity, and the more you donate, the more entries y...

On Friday, when I wrote about how a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES sold for an eye-popping $870,000 at auction and set a new record for the most expensive video game ever sold, I wondered which game would be the first to sell for more than a million. Just two days later, I have my answer: a sealed copy of the Nintendo 64 classic Super Mario 64 sold for an astonishing $1,560,000 at Heritage Auctions on Sunday, smashing the record that had just been claimed by The Legend of Zelda. Over the past 12 months, the record for the most expensive video game ever has risen dramatically. Here’s the timeline of the record, as far as I am aware: July 10th, 2020: copy of Super Mario Bros. sells for $114,000 November 23rd, 2020: copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 sells for $156,000 April 2nd, 202...

Black Widow is the first Marvel movie to debut on Disney Plus the same day it hit theaters, and based on financial figures Disney released on Sunday, the movie has been very successful on the streaming service in its first weekend, where it is available as a Premier Access title. According to Deadline, the movie has earned $60 million in sales on Disney Plus, which isn’t far behind the $80 million it earned in domestic box office sales and the $78 million it earned internationally. Disney first introduced the Premier Access program, which lets Disney Plus subscribers stream select new movies for $30 the day they debut in theaters, with 2020’s Mulan, and Raya and the Last Dragon and Cruella were also available on Premier Access when they were released this year. But these Black Widow figure...

I’ve spent a lot of time with many ergonomic keyboards, but ZSA’s Moonlander Mark I may be my favorite one I’ve ever used. It’s a customizable mechanical keyboard that’s split into two halves for better shoulder ergonomics. You can adjust its tilt to make it most comfortable to your hands. You can swap out the switches for any key without much effort. You can program multiple functions for every single key. I’ve been typing full-time on the Moonlander for about three months, and I may very well switch over permanently from my previous daily driver, the Kinesis Freestyle Pro. But getting the Moonlander to that point has taken a lot of work. The keyboard is endlessly customizable, and the sheer amount of options at your disposal can be overwhelming. Even if you’re used to typing on an ergono...

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and a crew of Virgin Galactic employees nailed a clean touchdown in New Mexico on Sunday after launching to space aboard the company’s SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. The mission, dubbed Unity 22, marked the fourth test flight to space for the vehicle and the first for Branson, the 70-year-old daredevil entrepreneur who’s been waiting over a decade for his debut trek to the edge of space. The SpaceShipTwo plane, dubbed VSS Unity took off at 10:40AM ET attached to the belly of Virgin Galactic’s twin-fuselage WhiteKnight plane. Unity dropped from the center of the carrier craft at an altitude of around 45,000 feet roughly 50 minutes after takeoff. Moments later VSS Unity ignited its single rocket engine to blast to the edge of space, some 55 miles above the g...

Clubhouse has another partnership, and this time, it’s with one of the most popular podcast networks. The company announced today that it’s partnering with TED to bring exclusive chats to the social audio platform throughout the summer and beyond. The first room, called Thank Your Ass Off, will start July 12th and run weekly at 11AM ET on Mondays. The company says additional rooms will launch soon, all going through TED’s Clubhouse club. Under the deal, TED is free to sell brand partnerships or ads, if it’s interested, and Clubhouse won’t take a cut, a spokesperson confirms. The partnership makes sense given that people often compare Clubhouse rooms to TED talks, essentially meaning people wax on about big ideas and often do so in the style of a conference presentation. The company is also...

In response to the growing amount of cyberattacks recently, New York City is now opening the nation’s first cybersecurity defense center. Located in lower Manhattan, the new office brings together a whole group of talents both from private businesses and government agencies, including those from the NYPD, Amazon, the Federal Reserve Bank, IBM, and even healthcare systems across the city. The project has existed for two years prior, but has always been carried out virtually until now. Discussions of forming the group first began back in 2017 when local leaders and law enforcement discussed how to fight off a terrorist attack that targetted the city’s water supply. As cyberattacks increased over the years, the NPYD, district attorney, New York City Cyber Command and Global Cyber Alliance dec...

President Joe Biden will soon be signing into effect an executive order that’ll make fixing your own tech gadgets easier and more accessible, finally addressing concerns long raised by various right-to-repair groups across the country. According to new reports, a draft of the executive order was in the works earlier this week White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirms it will soon be issued. The new regulations come following a report from the Federal Trade Commission detailing the restrictive measures and practices by various tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft when it came to repairing their products, which the FTC concluded constituted anticompetitive behavior with “scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications.” The executive order will give more consumers or independ...

Nearly four years after the lights went out at AlphaBay, the feds are still charging people with criminal activities linked to the dark web marketplace. On Friday the SEC and the Department of Justice announced charges against Apostolos Trovias, a Greek national who they allege posted on dark web marketplaces using the nickname “The Bull.” Trovias is facing charges of securities fraud and money laundering However, unlike drug dealers targeted in previous actions, the authorities allege Trovias used dark web forums as a way to troll for people willing to buy or sell insider trading information while hiding behind “anonymizing software, screen names, and bitcoin payments.” On AlphaBay and other dark web sites like Dream Market or Nightmare Market, the indictment alleges Trovias offered and e...

The weekend has arrived, bringing with it an assortment of great discounts on everything from student-centric laptops to headphones to some games that launched as recently as this week. We’ve rounded up many of the highlights below, and if you’re looking for the best of the best and not just what’s currently on sale, we’ve also updated our comprehensive guides to the best streaming devices and best gaming laptops, both of which offer a host of entertainment options for looking to escape the summer heat. You don’t necessarily need to opt for a Google Nest Wifi system or a similar mesh network in order to boost your home’s Wi-Fi network — sometimes a simply Wi-Fi extender like the TP-Link AC750 will do. If you have a compatible router, the dual-band device will help boost its signal (not inc...

If you can’t get “Bezos I” out of your head, then you’re in good company as a soundtrack to Bo Burnham: Inside scored the comedian the first Billboard Top 10 appearance of his career. But since the musical comedy special was on Netflix and came out during the pandemic that inspired much of its content, you probably watched it alone. [embedded content] Now fans of the special can see it in a group setting, as Netflix and Iconic Events have teamed up to present the special in theaters nationwide on July 22nd. Tickets are available at many theaters across the country, but you may want to move fast — at the moment there is only one showing per theater at the locations I checked, and some already show that they’re sold out. Check the BoBurnhamInside.com website for showing and ticket informatio...