Technology

Hulu has fully reenabled picture-in-picture support (PiP) on iOS, MacRumors reports, which means half-watching network TV is once again possible for Hulu subscribers on iPhone and iPad devices. Hulu joins a collection of major streaming services that support the feature on iOS, leaving YouTube as the major exception. PiP for iPhones was enabled for Hulu around iOS 14’s original release, but it was later disabled to “work on a few updates to provide the best experience for our viewers,” Hulu said. Now that the feature is back, users can enable PiP mode by starting a show or movie and touching the PiP button to pop the video into a resizable, floating player. The picture-in-picture button inside Hulu’s app.Image: Hulu Hulu joins services like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime...

Intel may owe quite a bit of cash to a semiconductor company that hasn’t existed for 20 years. A Texas jury has asked Intel to pay $2.18 billion for infringing two patents owned by VLSI Technology, according to Bloomberg. VLSI seemingly rose from the dead in 2019 specifically to sue. The last time it was an independent company was in 1999, when Philips purchased the semiconductor design firm for $1 billion. Its assets later traveled to Philips spinoff NXP (which you may know from its tap-to-pay NFC chips, among other things). NXP will reportedly get some of Intel’s money, too. One of VLSI’s claims to fame was being part of the original project with Apple and Acorn to produce the first ARM processors — and the ARM company — responsible for the underpinnings of the chips that now appear in e...

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa invited the public on Tuesday to apply for a spot on SpaceX’s Starship in his private mission around the Moon, reaching out to a “wider, more diverse audience” two years after announcing he’d only ride with a select group of artists. The trip is slated for 2023, but that date might not hold. “I want people from all kinds of backgrounds to join,” Maezawa said in a video posted Tuesday afternoon, when the contest’s application went live. “It will be 10 to 12 people in all, but I will be inviting 8 people to come along on the ride.” [embedded content] Maezawa, the founder of Japan’s largest online fashion retailer, is worth about $2 billion. He was revealed as Starship’s first signed passenger back in 2018 during an event with CEO Elon Musk at SpaceX’s Cali...

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, the time-traveling epic that hasn’t quite been a hit at the box office, will come to movie theaters in New York City on Friday, Deadline reported. It gives NYC theaters — which can reopen at limited capacity starting Friday — a marquee film for theatergoers who want to see Tenet on the big screen. The movie’s release was pushed back several times because of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting movie theater closures, making it a litmus test of sorts for summer movies during a rampant pandemic. Warner Bros. released the movie in international markets including Australia, Canada, France, and the UK in August, and some US theaters on Labor Day weekend. But most US moviegoers didn’t seem to think venturing into a theater was worth the risk; Tenet has only grossed a...

Fortnite creator Epic Games is acquiring video game studio Mediatonic, the maker of smash hit Fall Guys, for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced on Tuesday. The deal marks one of Epic’s higher-profile acquisitions of late, following its 2019 purchases of social video app Houseparty and Rocket League developer Psyonix. According to the blog posts and FAQs detailing the announcement, Fall Guys will remain available on Steam, and the developer is still bringing the game to both the Xbox and Nintendo Switch platforms. Epic and Mediatonic say there are no plans right now to make the game (which currently costs $19.99) free-to-play, as Epic did with Rocket League. Interestingly, Fall Guys is built using the Unity game engine, a rival to Epic’s Unreal platform. Despite that, the companies...

Razer’s small form factor Tomahawk gaming desktop is finally available for sale — mostly. The PC’s main appeal, apart from its size, is that you only need to worry about two parts: the NUC and the graphics card. Razer has a listing for a version that comes with just the NUC, which would allow users to slot in a graphics card they already own, but it seems to be marked as out of stock. The version that’s available for sale today comes with an otherwise extremely hard-to-get RTX 3080 Founder’s Edition. If you have the $3,199.99 to spend on the version with the 3080, today’s launch seems like the real deal — you can add it to your cart, and Razer’s site says it will ship the next business day. As for the NUC-only version, it’s still listed as out of stock, just like both versions were when th...

Samsung’s upcoming midrange device, the Galaxy A52 5G, appears to be in line to receive monthly security updates. First spotted by Galaxy Club, the yet-to-be formally announced A52 5G appears on Samsung’s security update page for its monthly update cycle. Along with earlier rumors of high refresh rate screens — and a new leak that suggests the main camera will offer optical image stabilization — this looks like Samsung is taking the A51’s successor very seriously. Samsung generally reserves spots on the monthly update schedule for flagship and higher-end devices. While this isn’t the first time a midrange A-series device has been scheduled for monthly updates, last year’s Galaxy A51 and A51 5G are on the quarterly update schedule. Putting the A52 5G on the monthly schedule makes it more co...

If you’re moving from LastPass (or another password manager you’re dissatisfied with), you may be tempted to simply go with the password manager that comes with your browser or operating system. It’s certainly an easy solution, and a reasonable one, depending on your point of view. Until recently, third-party password managers were known to be more secure, but Apple and Google have been working to make their built-in password managers more secure, while Microsoft is adding one to its authenticator app. So it could be a viable choice. One way, however, that these built-in password managers don’t stand up to their independent competitors is how tricky it can be to get preexisting passwords into their systems. If you tend to hang out in the Google ecosystem and / or you have an Android mobile...

The next Alien video game will be cooperative. Today, developer Cold Iron Studios revealed Aliens: Fireteam, a multiplayer third-person shooter about surviving an onslaught of Xenomorphs set a few decades after the original Alien films. Fireteam is a class-based shooter — where players take on roles like gunner, demolisher, or technician — and Cold Iron says there will be a huge range of enemies to take on, including 11 types of Xenomorphs, as well as some of those pesky Weyland-Yutani synthetics. Here’s the basic premise: Set 23 years after the original Alien trilogy, Aliens: Fireteam drops players into the role of a Colonial Marine aboard the USS Endeavor, recently tasked with answering a distress call from the outer colonies. Deploy to overrun facilities, abandoned ruins, and strange al...

You could now line up five years’ worth of Surface Pro devices next to each other and it would be all but impossible to tell them apart. Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 7 Plus keeps the same familiar design, which is likely just to satisfy corporate customers who want to standardize their hardware for years at a time. That might be good news for business customers, but for the rest of us who want slimmer display bezels and a more modern design like the Surface Pro X, then the wait continues. It’s no surprise then that Microsoft is limiting sales of the Surface Pro 7 Plus exclusively to businesses and schools. Consumers won’t be able to purchase this from a store, and it’s really for businesses and schools looking to upgrade older machines. While I’ve bemoaned the current design of the Surface ...

At $329, Apple’s eighth-generation iPad is the most affordable tablet offered by the tech giant. But if you want to save some additional cash, you can buy the base model, which includes 32GB of storage, for only $299 at Amazon in space gray only (in stock March 28th). Walmart is price-matching the e-commerce giant, but you have the option to buy it for $299 in space gray or rose gold. This iPad includes a 10.2-inch display and features an A12 Bionic processor. The tablet also includes a Touch ID fingerprint sensor and a Smart Connector, allowing you to connect it to a Smart Keyboard. Apple iPad (2020, 32GB, Wi-Fi only) $299 $329 10% off Prices taken at time of publishing. Apple’s new eighth-generation iPad with 32GB of storage looks exactly like the previous iteration, but it has a faster ...

Swedish automaker Volvo says it will only sell electric cars by 2030, phasing out all diesel, petrol, and hybrid options in an effort to reduce global carbon emissions. The company previously aimed for half of its cars sales to be electric by 2025, but says the new strategy is an “acceleration” of this goal driven by “strong demand” for its electric options. The company also says future sales of its electric cars in “coming years” will be online-only. Volvo, which is owned by Chinese conglomerate Geely, launched its first fully-electric car, the XC40 Recharge, last year. The SUV has a roughly 200 mile range and can charge its batteries to 80 percent capacity in 40 minutes. In our time with the car we found it to be an “impressive blend of Swedish ingenuity, crossover utility, and electric ...