Technology

Real-time collaborative chat, as exemplified by apps such as Slack, has become a common way to communicate between colleagues and friends, especially since last year when so many of us transitioned to working from home. Google has apparently taken note of this and is pitting itself against Slack by taking two of the features from its corporate Workplace app suite — Chat and Rooms — and integrating them into its standard Gmail app. Google Chat allows you to hold chat sessions with friends and groups of friends either on an informal or formal basis. The former can be done just between two people or between several in what Google calls a group conversation. The latter is done via a separate space that Google currently calls a Room. What’s the difference? According to Google, Chat is simply a ...

The latest teaser for Star Trek: Picard’s second season has arrived, giving an actual look at the upcoming series (instead of some long shots inside Picard’s house as Patrick Stewart pontificates on the nature of time, as seen in the first “teaser.”) And while the new trailer — released in honor of “Captain Picard Day” — does give a glimpse of what looks like the time-traveling shenanigans the former Starfleet captain and his new crew will be up to when the show returns in 2022, something is missing. SPOILERS FOR PICARD SEASON 1 Where are the robots? The first season of Picard dealt with the Federation debating whether artificial life and androids should exist, culminating with Picard himself getting his biological body replaced with a cybernetic replacement. But there’s no sign that Picar...

One month ago, Amazon-first gadget brands Aukey and Mpow suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from the giant online retailer’s storefront, with almost all their electronics vanishing from Amazon’s shelves. Today, popular battery and charger brand RavPower has completely disappeared as well — and Amazon now confirms to The Verge that it was the one that removed RavPower from its store, and that it removed Aukey and Mpow previously. Amazon hasn’t yet said why it took the action on RavPower, but it’s not hard to imagine what happened here. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal’s Nicole Nguyen ran a story about how her new RavPower charger included an offer for a $35 gift card in exchange for a review, something that Amazon confirmed was a violation of company policy. Amazon banned incentivized ...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for people to cancel online subscriptions after a free trial period has ended. Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), John Thune (R-SD), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and John Kennedy (R-LA) say the Unsubscribe Act would require companies to be more transparent about their subscriptions. “The subscription-based business model is exploding, and it’s largely because of the deceptive practices that some companies use to lure and trap in customers,” Schatz said in a statement. “When people sign up for a free trial, they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops just to cancel their subscription before being charged.” The bill addresses what’s known as “negative option billing,” where a customer signs up for a free trial and the com...

The best way to watch Luca, the latest feature from Pixar, is when you’re that very particular kind of tired that comes from a long day at the beach. I recommend pulling out a projector so you can watch it outside, preferably as the sun starts to set, and ideally with some gelato to accompany you. What I’m saying is: this is just about the perfect summer movie. Okay, sorry, so what is Luca actually? At its most basic, it’s a coming-of-age story about sea creatures, directed by Enrico Casarosa (who previously directed Pixar’s 2011 short La Luna). Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is a young monster who lives a sheltered life on a family farm under the sea, largely oblivious to the human world above him. Most of what he knows comes from his parents, who tell him that the “land monsters” are “here to do ...

Deepfakes aren’t a big problem on Facebook right now, but the company continues to fund research into the technology to guard against future threats. Its latest work is a collaboration with academics from Michigan State University (MSU), with the combined team creating a method to reverse-engineer deepfakes: analyzing AI-generated imagery to reveal identifying characteristics of the machine learning model that created it. The work is useful as it could help Facebook track down bad actors spreading deepfakes on its various social networks. This content might include misinformation but also non-consensual pornography — a depressingly common application of deepfake technology. Right now, the work is still in the research stage and isn’t ready to be deployed. The method could help track down t...

Smart displays, those cousins of voice-controlled smart speakers with full touchscreen displays, are great devices for managing your smart home, displaying useful bits of information throughout the day, or even playing music or video. Like a smart speaker, a smart display is primarily voice-controlled, so you can bark commands at it from across a room. But unlike a smart speaker, a smart display can display information such as upcoming appointments, weather, in-progress timers, the current time, a grocery list, recipes, and more without you having to utter a single command. They can also be used as a modern, cloud-connected digital photo frame, allowing you to see all of those memories you’ve captured over the years that are currently trapped on your smartphone. Some models also come with ...

Minority languages are often associated with aging rural communities, thought to have fallen out of use or confined to textbooks. Defined simply as a language spoken by less than half of the population in a country, they adapt with the times like any living language, often due to the efforts of enterprising young people. Recently, many of these languages have found new life from an unexpected source: video game streamers. On Twitch, streamers from around the world are showcasing indigenous languages as a form of entertainment and activism. Estimates show that we lose one language every two weeks, and half of our 7,000 languages will be extinct by the end of the century, so preserving these tongues and the cultural identities that go with them is crucial. With its easy access, potential for...

Windows 11 leaked yesterday, offering a closer look at some of the UI changes Microsoft is planning for its next version of Windows. The leak has also revealed what will likely become Microsoft’s default wallpaper for Windows 11, and a collection of new wallpapers that are bundled with the operating system. They’re Microsoft’s best Windows wallpapers yet. The main default wallpaper includes light and dark mode versions, with what looks like a crumpled piece of fabric. It’s a big departure from the Windows logo that was used as the default in Windows 10, or the two daisy flowers in Windows 8. Grid View You can download the full-size versions in the gallery above. Microsoft has also included a collection of other wallpapers inside Windows 11. The “Captured Motion” set offer a more colorful o...

Lincoln, Ford’s luxury brand, has announced plans to make its entire lineup either hybrid or all-electric by 2030 as part of its parent company’s new business plan. The brand will reveal its first all-electric vehicle in 2022, and it expects that half of its global sales will be zero-emissions vehicles by around 2025. In addition, Lincoln vehicles are gaining a hands-free advanced driver assistance feature based on Ford’s BlueCruise system, though the luxury marque will call its version “ActiveGlide.” New Lincoln vehicles coming in 2023 will also feature Google’s native Android Automotive operating system, which is is being added to “millions” of Ford vehicles that same year. Four of Lincoln’s electric vehicles will be built on the new flexible EV platform that Ford announced in May when i...

Microsoft will let Xbox One owners play next-gen Xbox games through its xCloud service. The news was buried in a blog post recapping Microsoft’s Xbox + Bethesda showcase, with the company confirming plans to leverage Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) for Xbox One consoles. That means the 2013 hardware will be able to play Xbox Series X exclusive games from 2021 — extending the lifecycle of what would normally soon be obsolete boxes. “For the millions of people who play on Xbox One consoles today, we are looking forward to sharing more about how we will bring many of these next-gen games, such as Microsoft Flight Simulator, to your console through Xbox Cloud Gaming, just like we do with mobile devices, tablets, and browsers,” says Will Tuttle, editor in chief of Microsoft’s Xbox Wire. Microsoft is...

The Atari VCS — a part-desktop PC, part-retro console modeled after the Atari 2600 — is finally available to buy at retail. Atari is selling the console via its own site while Best Buy and Micro Center also have their listings. This isn’t the first time the console has been available to the public (VGC notes that IndieGoGo backers recently received their consoles) but it’s the first time the machine has been available to buy at retail. The VCS has been a long time coming. Originally teased in 2017 as the “Ataribox,” the project re-emerged the following year as the Atari VCS, with Atari running an IndieGoGo campaign to fund its development in June 2018. Originally, the console had been due to ship in mid-2019 but reportedly ran into a series of development difficulties, culminating in the p...