Technology

Ticketmaster has agreed to pay $10 million for breaking into a competitors’ network. The company and its parent Live Nation admitted to hiring a former employee from rival ticket seller CrowdSurge, then using his knowledge — including old usernames and passwords — to learn CrowdSurge’s inner workings and “cut [the company] off at the knees.” “Ticketmaster employees repeatedly — and illegally — accessed a competitor’s computers without authorization using stolen passwords to unlawfully collect business intelligence,” said acting US attorney Seth DuCharme. “Further, Ticketmaster’s employees brazenly held a division-wide ‘summit’ at which the stolen passwords were used to access the victim company’s computers.” The hacking allegations were reported in 2017 after CrowdSurge (which had merged w...

Peloton is getting into the music business. The popular fitness startup, already known for its use of popular music during its classes, announced today that it will be commissioning its own music that can only be heard from within its app. For the new year, three new remixes of Elvis tracks are coming to the app from Chromeo, Big Boi, and DJ Dillon Francis. Peloton will own the exclusive rights to the songs, which premiere in the app today as part of an “ultimate remix collection,” which includes yoga, strength, core, and outdoor running classes. As part of a New Year’s promo, the company is also extending its 30-day free trial to two months. A spokesperson says the idea behind starting with Elvis was to find a “new expression of the classic catalog in a contemporary way” — which to me rea...

Health officials in the United States may be able to use a fluke of COVID-19 testing to monitor the spread of a more contagious form of the virus, which was identified in the country for the first time this week. The variant is spreading widely across the United Kingdom, and has been found in over a dozen countries so far — including the US. Experts don’t think the coronavirus variant is more deadly than other forms of the virus, and the vaccines already developed should still protect against the new strain. But the variant does appear to spread more easily, and uncontrolled outbreaks would overwhelm hospitals more quickly. So far, one US case was detected in a patient with COVID-19 in Colorado. Health officials say that the patient hasn’t traveled out of the country, indicating that the v...

Wondery, one of the last major independent podcast networks, might soon be owned by Amazon. The companies announced an acquisition deal today, ending speculation about who might eventually buy the network, which is most well-known for true crime podcasts like Dirty John. (Apple and Sony were also reported to have at least discussed a possible purchase.) Amazon didn’t disclose the acquisition price, although earlier reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal suggested Wondery’s value was at least $300 million. Wondery would technically be part of Amazon Music, which launched podcast support in September this year. The acquisition is a notable one, if only because it sets Amazon up to better compete against Spotify, which has been acquiring networks and exclusive talent for over a ye...

Sony has announced its January lineup of games that are free for PS Plus subscribers to download. Starting January 5th, you’ll be able to get the PS5-only version of Maneater, the eat-em-up game that Polygon’s Chris Plante described in his entertaining review as “the best shark game… ever?”, as well as two other PS4 games, Greedfall and Shadow of the Tomb Raider — both of which are playable on PS5. Unfortunately, the PS4 version of Maneater isn’t available for people who haven’t yet made the jump to the PS5, so PS4 owners get just two games this month. This bundle will no longer be available after February 1st, 2021. It seems like Sony has established a formula for its monthly batch of complimentary games, with one PS5 game serving as the highlight and two PS4 games to round it out (...

If you received a virtual reality gaming headset this holiday season, congratulations! Whether you’ve got the newly released Oculus Quest 2, one of the last few units of the now discontinued Oculus Rift S, or another headset like the PlayStation VR, there are a ton of video games for you to explore with your new head mount display. Here are ten games I personally enjoy and think are worth your time and money. We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass; and our top choices for gaming PCs, the PS5, Xbox One and Series X / S, Nintendo Switch, and VR. We’ve also listed our favorite streaming shows on Disney Plu...

Samsung’s One UI 3.0 update has started hitting older Samsung devices, starting with the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Plus, according to SamMobile. The update, which brings Android 11-specific feature changes and some small visual and interface tweaks to Samsung smartphones, is only arriving on last year’s Note 10 devices in Germany, Spain, and Switzerland for now, but a wider release is expected at some point early next year if not in just a few weeks. Samsung first began beta testing One UI 3.0 this past fall following the release of Android 11, and it’s been at various stages of availability for different smartphones depending on your region. The Note 10 and Note 10 Plus versions have been available in beta since October, and in early December Samsung began its official rollout of ...

It’s not easy to make it to a library right now, and with a long winter stuck at home looming ahead for many of us, there’s never been a better time to hunker down with a good book. If you’ve been lucky enough to receive a new Kindle (or a non-Amazon-branded e-reader or just a device with an e-book app on it), you might be looking for some new books to read. To help, here are some of the best new science fiction books released in 2020 (along with some additional recommendations for other books in a series, where applicable), which should be the perfect pairing with your new e-reader. We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade a...

HDR10+ Adaptive is a new feature coming to the high dynamic range standard that’ll optimize TV picture quality based on a room’s ambient brightness, Samsung announced today. HDR content is typically designed to look its best in dark rooms with as little ambient light as possible, but the new feature promises to use your TV’s light sensor to react to bright environments and adjust its picture quality accordingly. Samsung says the feature will launch globally with its “upcoming QLED TV products.” HDR10+ isn’t the first HDR standard to have introduced such a feature. At last year’s CES, Dolby announced Dolby Vision IQ, a new feature for its own HDR standard that similarly promises to optimize HDR content for the room it’s being watched in. The feature went on to appear in select TVs from LG a...

Boston Dynamics’ Atlas and Spot robots can do a lot of things: sprinting, gymnastic routines, parkour, backflips, open doors to let in an army of their friends, wash dishes, and (poorly) get actual jobs. But the company’s latest video adds another impressive trick to our future robotic overlords’ repertoire: busting sick dance moves. The video sees Boston Dynamics entire lineup of robots — the humanoid Atlas, the dog-shaped Spot, and the box-juggling Handle — all come together in a bopping, coordinated dance routine set to The Contours’ “Do You Love Me.” It’s not the first time Boston Dynamics has shown off its robots’ dancing skills: the company showcased a video of its Spot robot doing the Running Man to “Uptown Funk” in 2018. but the new video takes things to another level, with the Atl...

A major Chinese supplier of consumer electronics components, Lens Technology, has been accused of using forced Uighur labor workers from the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, China, according to a report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) shared with The Verge. The report says Lens Technology — a gadget glass supplier to companies like Amazon, Apple, and Tesla — has used thousands of such workers as part of the Chinese government’s ongoing detention and forced labor campaign against the Uighur minority. The Washington Post first reported TTP’s findings on Tuesday. TTP’s investigation cites media reports from Global Times of China and government records, which allegedly show Lens Technology was sent thousands of workers from Xinjiang to work in its factories in the Hunan provin...