Technology

Stratolaunch, the aerospace firm founded by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, flew its behemoth carrier airplane named ‘Roc’ on Thursday for a second time. It was the company’s first flight under new ownership, coming two years after the twin-fuselage craft’s initial flight test. “Today’s flight, at first review, has appeared extremely successful,” Stratolaunch’s chief operating officer Zachary Krevor told reporters in a call on Thursday. “We accomplished all test points as desired, we have not seen anything anomalous, and we are very pleased with the condition of the aircraft upon landing.” Roc’s wheels were up at 10:30AM ET, and the plane reached a peak altitude of 2.6 miles over the Mojave Desert in California, Stratolaunch wrote in a press release. The flight, powered by six en...

The hit social deduction game Among Us is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 sometime this year, Sony announced during its State of Play presentation on Thursday. Like on other platforms, the game will support crossplay and online multiplayer so that you can play with your friends no matter what platform you’re on. But PlayStation players will be the only ones who can get exclusive Ratchet & Clank-themed cosmetics: a skin and hat to dress up like Ratchet and a pet that is an adorable little Clank. AMONG US – COMING TO PLAYSTATION get ready to welcome a whole new crew on board!!✨ on PS4 and PS5 consoles later this year✨ exclusive Ratchet & Clank skin, hat, and pet✨ crossplay and online multiplayer tell your friends but more importantly.. tell your e...

Snap’s diversity report reveals that the company has made slow progress toward overall racial and gender diversity, with 47 percent of its employees being white and 65 percent male. However, there are some areas of significant progress; Snap says it increased the number of women on its board of directors to 50 percent from 37.5 percent. Other improvements were smaller, with a tiny rise in women’s representation across the company (32.9 to 33.1 percent) and a similarly small increase in underrepresented racial groups among leadership (13.1 to 13.6 percent). Meanwhile, Hispanic / Latinx representation decreased from 6.9 to 6.8 percent, and Asian representation in leadership decreased from 16.5 to 14.3 percent. The company is setting new representation goals, which it aims to meet by the end ...

Scammers are hacking into the accounts of Target gig workers and draining their bank accounts, Motherboard reports. Since March 28th, more than 30 employees who work for Shipt, Target’s delivery app, have posted on Facebook about being attacked. The company employs about 300,000 contract shoppers in the United States. In some cases, the scammers are spoofing Shipt’s phone number and pretending to be corporate employees. They say they’ve noticed unusual activity on the worker’s account and ask for the person’s password. Once they get in, they transfer the worker’s earnings to themselves. The scam is made possible in part by an “instant payout” feature Shipt rolled out earlier this year. The feature allows workers to cash out their earnings within the hour. But it also enables scammers to in...

Another internet meme has sold for big bucks online: Zoë Roth, best known as “Disaster Girl” for the popular image macro taken by her father in 2005 of her smirking at the camera while a house burns down in the background, has sold the original copy of the meme as an NFT for 180 Ether, worth almost $500,000. Roth tells The New York Times that she’ll use the money to pay off her student loans and to donate to charity. And as is the case with many NFT sales, the Roths also retain the copyright to the image and will make 10 percent off any future sales of the NFT. She’s by no means the first meme star to leverage the boom in crytocurrency-based artwork into a small fortune. Chris Torres — the creator of Nyan Cat — sold an NFT of the rainbow, Pop-Tart-bodied cat for close to $600,000 and has s...

Apple’s upcoming 2021 refresh of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — which will feature an M1 processor and a new Mini LED display — will work with the 2020 model of the 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard case after all. But it’s not going to be a perfect fit. According to a newly added note to an Apple support document (spotted by Chris Ball on Twitter) the first-generation Magic Keyboard (model number A1998) will be “functionally compatible” with the updated iPad Pro. But due to the slightly thicker dimensions of the new 12.9-inch model (which is 0.5mm thicker than the 2020 version), Apple warns that “it’s possible that the Magic Keyboard may not precisely fit when closed, especially when screen protectors are applied.” Apple updated the document with clarification today (an earlier copy of the same document...

Two days after the DC insurrection, as the country was still processing the aftermath, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson posted his second tweet of the past three years. Anderson attached the thinking emoji to an amateurish Photoshop render of Donald Trump, sitting in one of his typically garish offices, with his browser opened to Myspace. “‘MYSPACE TOM’ ABOUT TO GET A NEW FRIEND,” reads the caption, saliently predicting that with the entire internet industry mobilizing to hastily deplatform the president, Trump’s only access to the public might come from a long-zombified social media company. Anderson must’ve found the meme funny enough to log back on, disrupting a truly unprecedented offline streak for the average tech mogul. He disappeared again shortly afterward, withdrawing into the oce...

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally getting ready to sell tickets for seats on its suborbital New Shepard rocket. No details on price or timelines yet, but the company tweeted a video on Thursday featuring a cowboy-hat-wearing Jeff Bezos driving an electric Rivian truck through the Texas desert right after Blue Origin’s 15th New Shepard test flight on April 14th. “Guys, how exciting is this, c’mon,” he said before stepping out to inspect the company’s crew capsule, which had just landed under parachutes (without a crew inside). Blue Origin’s tweet included a link to an application on its website that urged visitors to “SIGN UP TO LEARN HOW YOU CAN BUY THE VERY FIRST SEAT ON NEW SHEPARD,” asking for a full name, email, and phone number. An announcement will come May 5th. The five-story-tall ...

The New York Police Department has canceled its trial of a robot dog made by US firm Boston Dynamics after receiving fierce criticism regarding the “dystopian” technology. “The contract has been terminated and the dog will be returned,” a spokesperson for the NYPD told the New York Post. John Miller, the department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told The New York Times that the machine was “a casualty of politics, bad information and cheap sound bytes.” Said Miller: “People had figured out the catchphrases and the language to somehow make this evil.” The NYPD began leasing the machine nicknamed Digidog last year. “This dog is going to save lives, protect people, and protect officers and that’s our goal,” said the NYPD’s Frank Digiacomo in an interview with ABC...

Best Buy and Amazon are is offering the 40mm Apple Watch Series 6 (GPS) for $249, smashing yesterday’s discounted price of $299. This model normally sold for $399, and today’s price drop makes it more affordable than — and superior to — the Apple Watch SE that costs $279. The one downside to this promo is that it only loops in the Product Red model that’s all red, which might not go with your look. At this price, it’s currently about $80 more than 38mm-sized Apple Watch Series 3, yet it provides a sizable boost in power and capabilities. For one, the Series 6 has more internal storage. A few other perks of this discounted watch include its always-on display that’s surprisingly efficient, and its ability to take blood oxygen readings. You can see all of the differences here. This deal is la...

ChargePoint, operator of one of the largest EV charging networks across Europe and North America, is adding support for Android Auto to its app. The functionality means Android phone users will be able to find, navigate to, and start charging from a ChargePoint charging station from their car’s infotainment screen, without having to pick up their phone. Support for Android Auto follows the addition of CarPlay support in November last year. According to ChargePoint, the Android Auto experience lets you view a map with nearby charging stations, check status, filter by metrics like availability and cost, and then start a charging session once you arrive. The in-vehicle app can also be set to notify the driver once a busy charging station becomes available. ChargePoint says its network include...

The European Parliament has formally adopted a law requiring internet companies to “remove or disable access to flagged terrorist content” within one hour after being notified by national authorities. Once issued, such takedown notices will apply across the EU, with countries able to levy financial penalties against firms that refuse to comply. The legislation will come into force 12 months after it is published in the EU’s official journal, a standard step for all EU law. It will then have to be adopted by each member state. The legislation has been under discussion in the EU for years. It was first proposed in 2018 at a time when terrorist attacks by groups like ISIS were peaking across the continent and lawmakers were worried about online radicalization. Since then the proposals have be...