Technology

At least in many of the corners of the internet I’ve been reading all day, the response to the OLED Nintendo Switch has not been all that positive. It’s no surprise, really — credible reporting had suggested a more powerful model with 4K output, but the final product features the same internals as the current Switch. If you prefer to play Nintendo games on your TV, the new version’s bigger OLED screen isn’t going to do anything for you. I’m still buying one, though. A proper screen upgrade has been my most-wanted Switch feature ever since the console came out, and now more so than ever. I swapped my launch-model Switch for a Switch Lite when it came out in 2019. Most of the Switch’s appeal is in its portable nature, I figured, so why not go all-in on a sleeker, more compact version with an...

Louis Vuitton might not scream “audio specialists” to you, but it does know how to create luxurious items that you never knew you needed — like the new Horizon Light Up speaker. Inspired by the Toupie (spinning top) handbag which was designed by the house’s womenswear artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière, the Horizon Light Up speaker sports a conical design that’s unique in the saturated world of portable, wireless audio devices. This piece of tech is both utilitarian and an objet d’art, combining the powerful inners with an exterior that’s quintessentially LV. Bound by noble leather and with metal components, the speaker is covered in the LV monogram and features a subwoofer that’s surrounded by a rainbow of lights that make the LV flower insignia glow. More monogram patterns can be found...

Microsoft is adding support for smaller gatherings to its Together Mode feature of Teams, which uses AI to place all of the participants in a meeting into virtual environments (via OnMSFT). Sports fans may recognize the feature from the NBA’s use of it during the pandemic to provide a crowd-like experience for basketball games. The change to allow smaller crowds is somewhat the opposite of that and is currently in beta. Given Microsoft’s focus on Teams as a personal communications app as well as a corporate one, it’s not necessarily surprising that Together Mode will be able to work for family gatherings as well as company-wide all-hands. At the moment, the feature’s availability seems to be limited to people using the Teams Developer Preview. In theory, joining is easy: you just go to Tea...

Beginning next year, Universal theatrical releases will head to Peacock as exclusives no later than four months after they premiere in cinemas — a clear bid to win over subscribers who may have missed the studio’s flicks on the silver screen. The multi-year deal will see not only Universal titles but films from DreamWorks, Illumination, and Focus Films as well. As part of the agreement, titles will head to Peacock for the first four months as well as the last four months of the traditional 18-month pay-one window, the companies announced Tuesday. (Pay-one refers to the agreements between services and studios for first rights to stream films and content after their initial release.) Universal’s 2022 film roster includes some highly anticipated releases. A spokesperson confirmed to The Verge...

Russian state hackers affiliated with the group Cozy Bear were reportedly behind an attack last week on Synnex, a contractor that provides IT services for the Republican National Committee (RNC), Bloomberg writes. The attack may have exposed the organization’s information. When asked by Bloomberg, a spokesperson for the RNC denied the organization’s systems had been hacked, but confirmed that one of its IT providers Synnex, had been exposed. The RNC provided the following statement in reference to the attack: Over the weekend, we were informed that Synnex, a third party provider, had been breached. We immediately blocked all access from Synnex accounts to our cloud environment. Our team worked with Microsoft to conduct a review of our systems and after a thorough investigation, no RNC data...

One question I have wondered a lot over the past few years is whether the rise of a large-scale conservative social network — a Fox News of Facebook — is inevitable. Last year, during the rise of Parler, we finally got a good test case. Here was an app backed by the Mercer family, who previously championed Breitbart News, Donald Trump, and Cambridge Analytica, among other conservative causes. It was promoted relentlessly by top conservative media personalities, including Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Dan Bongino. And it arrived amid a contentious election in which mainstream platforms’ responsible content moderation — labeling and removing misinformation; promoting reliable information about how to vote — was castigated by many conservatives as outrageous censorship and/or interference wit...

The TikTok app is currently “experiencing some issues,” according to the app’s support account on Twitter. The app’s team is “working quickly to address” the problems. The problem appears to be fairly widespread, with more than 40,000 user reports of problems on DownDetector at one point. The TikTok app is currently experiencing some issues, which our team is working quickly to address. Thank you for your patience! — TikTokSupport (@TikTokSupport) July 6, 2021 Personally, I can’t log in to the app on either the web or my phone. When I try, I get this message, which feels like it is downplaying the issue: “There is a small problem with the server, fixing it now.” There are also many people on Twitter reporting that TikTok is down for them, with a lot of people posting using the #tiktokdown ...

Even though Pokémon Go is turning five years old this week, it’s still going strong with upcoming events, some notable fans, and what appears to be a whole lot of profit. It looks like Niantic’s Pokémon Go brought in over $5 billion since its launch in July of 2016, averaging around a billion dollars per year, according to Sensor Tower analytics. The game started out as a viral sensation but has obviously had staying power over the five years that it’s been around. Sensor Tower claims that Pokémon Go players spent $1.3 billion in 2020, besting its record-setting 2019 revenue by around $400 million. Sensor Tower’s data seems to indicate that the game not only survived the pandemic, but came out stronger. It’s a bit surprising, at least to me, given how few people I know who still play. Sens...

The Nintendo Switch is fine. Like Alex says, there’s no pressing reason for Nintendo to replace it right now. But does that mean today’s new OLED variant has utterly dashed our dreams of a more powerful Switch Pro, one that might play games like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Hyrule Warriors, and Persona 5 Strikers without chugging? I wouldn’t rule out a Switch Pro just yet, partly because I have a hard time believing Nintendo can resist pumping out as many models as the market will hold: And partly because, if I were Nintendo, I’d be saving a Switch Pro for a moment it’ll truly count. Today, Nintendo would have to battle chip shortages and the pandemic game development slowdown to replace a console that’s… already flying off the shelves? But fast forward to 2022, and the company might have...

Microsoft has started rolling out an emergency Windows patch to address a critical flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service. The vulnerability, dubbed PrintNightmare, was revealed last week, after security researchers accidentally published proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code. Microsoft has issued out-of-band security updates to address the flaw, and has rated it as critical as attackers can remotely execute code with system-level privileges on affected machines. As the Print Spooler service runs by default on Windows, Microsoft has had to issue patches for Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and a variety of supported versions of Windows 10. Microsoft has even taken the unusual step of issuing patches for Windows 7, which officia...