Technology

For the last seven weeks, workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have been voting by mail on whether to unionize. Their ballots are due on Monday, March 29th, and counting will begin the next day. If the union wins, the warehouse employees would become the first members of Amazon’s US workforce to unionize, a momentous event at a company that has long aggressively resisted labor organizing, and one that could be a first step toward improving conditions at the country’s second-largest employer. Here is what’s happened so far and what might happen next. Who’s voting? The vote is taking place at an Amazon warehouse called BHM1 in Bessemer, Alabama, outside Birmingham. It opened recently, beginning operations last March, but by the summer workers had grown frustrated enough with ...

A lawsuit that claims one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers in California failed to provide required meal breaks for employees has moved to federal court, as attorneys seek class-action status. First filed in San Francisco County Superior Court in February, the case was removed to US District Court California, Northern District on Friday. Lovenia Scott, a former employee of the Vacaville, California warehouse, alleges that the company didn’t schedule the required 30-minute meal breaks for workers. When they did get their meal breaks, workers were expected to monitor their walkie-talkies in case of any problems on the floor, which sometimes cut into their break time, the suit claims. The matter of paying workers for time they spend waiting for employers while off the clock has come up in othe...

It’s still fair to call audio sunglasses a niche category, but with Bose offering several models, Amazon in the game, and counting recent announcements from Razer and JLab, it’s certainly a growing one. There are people out there who just aren’t particularly fond of earbuds — often because they dislike the feeling of silicone tips plugging up their ears. Open-style products like the standard AirPods and Galaxy Buds Live are one alternative, but then you still face the possibility of losing them. If you’re running on a trail or out for an intense bike ride, it’s not an insignificant risk. For those people, I can absolutely see the appeal of the Bose Frames Tempo, which have speakers built right into their frame and will stay planted on their face no matter how strenuous outdoor activity get...

Would you believe that it’s Friday already? That means it’s time for this week’s roundup of tech deals that are better than the rest. We comb through hundreds of deals from a variety of retailers each week, picking only the best sales to tell you about. By the time Friday comes around, some of them have usually expired, but we’ve included the good ones that are still happening below. Enjoy the weather this weekend if it’s starting to get nice outside where you live. Save $10 on Super Mario 3D All-Stars before it’s discontinued on March 31st For reasons only Nintendo can explain, Super Mario 3D All-Stars will no longer be produced after March 31st. Even the digital version of the game will be delisted on the eShop. So if you want the game while it’s still relatively easy to find (and afford...

Jeep will install EV charging stations at off-road trailheads across the US as part of a partnership with Electrify America, the company announced. Chargers on the Jeep 4xe Charging Network will either be solar powered or connected to a power grid. The first of the stations will open this spring in Moab, Utah; the Rubicon Trail in Pollock Pines, California; and Big Bear, California. The chargers will have Level 2 (240 volt) charging, which Jeep notes will fully recharge the 17-kWh battery pack in its Wrangler 4xe in about two hours and provide 49 MPGe and 21 miles of electric range. The chargers will be available free to Jeep 4xe owners via a mobile app, and will be compatible with its future EVs. Over the next year, additional chargers will be added at Jeep Badge of Honor off-road trails ...

Facebook froze the page of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro for violating its policy against spreading COVID-19 misinformation, the company confirmed Saturday. As first reported by Reuters, Maduro had promoted a “miracle” remedy that he claimed would cure the coronavirus, but those claims have not been supported by the medical community. Facebook also removed a video where Maduro touted Carvativir, a homeopathic remedy extracted from thyme. Maduro has praised the solution in the past as “miracle drops” and a “medical breakthrough.” Doctors in Venezuela have called Maduro’s claims that Carvatavir can treat the coronavirus “dangerous.” This is not the first time Maduro has made false claims about coronavirus treatments on his social media platforms. Last March, Twitter removed one of Madu...

Netflix announced at Tokyo’s AnimeJapan 2021 Expo Saturday that it will launch 40 new anime titles in 2021, Bloomberg reported, following the success of its Blood of Zeus series last year. The new series to be released this year include an adaptation of the Japanese manga Record of Ragnarok, set to premiere in June; Yasuke, about an African samurai in feudal-era Japan which will premiere April 29th; and Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, based on the video game franchise. Netflix previously announced its anime series The Way of the Househusband, also based on a Japanese manga series, will debut April 8th. Variety notes that the number of anime titles coming to Netflix this year is nearly double the number of anime series and movies it released in 2020. “We want to be able to pride ourselves...

It’s never been possible to know for sure how many people in the United States are sick with COVID-19 at a particular time. Instead, we combine all of the metrics — the percentage of tests run that come back positive, the number of new cases reported each day, people coming to the emergency room sick with COVID-19 symptoms — to get an estimate. It’s like the story of the blind men and the elephant: experts can feel out the different pieces of information to get a sense of what an outbreak looks like, even when they can’t see it directly. We’ve seen the same elephant emerge over and over again over the past year. First, the percentage of tests that come back positive increases. After a slight lag, hospitalizations start to rise, and then deaths. But this time, there’s a new wrinkle: vaccina...

Hulu’s Android TV apps can finally stream in 1080p on new Nvidia Shield TV set-top-boxes and Sony Bravia TVs, as spotted by users on Reddit, and written up by Gizmodo, Android Central, and 9to5Google. Users first noticed the change in the “App & Device Info” page in the Hulu app. After updating, the app lists the new max video resolution as “1920 x 1080”. It’s sort of a sneaky way to make the change. Looking at the update description on the Play Store, there’s no mention of it, so it’s possible something changed on Hulu’s server side as well. Hulu’s App & Device Info screen that shows the new max resolution.Image: 9to5Google Gizmodo says it was able to confirm that at least the Nvidia Shield from 2019 and Bravia TVs received the 1080p bump on March 23rd, but the change hasn’t been ...

Amazon is intensifying its bizarre online public relations strategy of picking increasingly petty fights with sitting US Congress members, with the company’s Amazon News account on Friday shifting targets from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “You make the tax laws @SenWarren; we just follow them. If you don’t like the laws you’ve created, by all means, change them. Here are the facts: Amazon has paid billions of dollars in corporate taxes over the past few years alone,” the account tweeted Thursday in response to a critique from Warren that Amazon exploits “loopholes and tax havens to pay close to nothing in taxes.” There’s a growing mountain of evidence pointing out how Amazon pays very little in taxes compared to its annual sales and...

Among Us’ next big update will add a poop hat to the game. Technically, it’s a “chocolate ice cream” hat. But come on, just look at this picture. 5 MORE DAYS another free hat coming with the update! chocolate ice cream definitely does not look like anything else!! just pure chocolate ice cream!!! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/6M10n7n0XX — Among Us ✈️ The Airship – March 31 (@AmongUsGame) March 26, 2021 It’s definitely poop. The new hat arrives as part of a big update launching on March 31st that adds a brand-new Airship map, an accounts system, and some other new free hats, including a heart, a unicorn, and angry eyebrows. But when I install the update, I’ll probably just be wearing the poop one. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined...

Facebook is planning to start its return to in-person work in May, after over a year of working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Bloomberg. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced remote work plans near the start of the pandemic that promised around half of his employees could work remotely in the next five to 10 years, but until then, in-person work, at least in a limited capacity, is in the company’s immediate future. Facebook is reopening its offices in the Bay Area — including its Menlo Park headquarters — but limiting capacity at 10 percent to start. The company expects its largest offices to not reach 50 percent capacity until September, Bloomberg writes. In addition to limiting how many people are working in close proximity, Facebook also plans to require masks, so...