Technology

Familiars.io is a minimalist monster-catching game that went online last year, and right now, you can play it inside Twitter. As developer Nigel Nelson tweeted this afternoon, he ported (or in his words, “smuggled”) the entire game to an embedded Twitter card. That means that you can play it directly through Twitter’s web interface or mobile app. The game is built around Pokémon-style exploration and combat in a shared, lo-fi setting. You can wander around capturing enemies to expand your team of familiars, then use them to fight other players (or simply walk around saying “howdy,” if you prefer.) “Me and my brother used to do this thing where we would start new games on Pokémon Red and Blue, progress through the game as fast as we could in a 3-hour period, and then fight each other with o...

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red (CDPR) is rolling out an update to the game that could reduce the potential for some sequences to induce epileptic symptoms. The risks of seizure were brought to light by Game Informer editor Liana Ruppert earlier this week. The 1.04 hotfix is now live on PlayStation consoles and PC, and CDPR is working to have the update out “as soon as possible” on Xbox. CDPR says it has changed the way its “braindance” sequences look. During these sequences, a device is placed in front of your character’s eyes that flashes red and white lights. The effect is similar to what actual neurologists do to trigger seizures for diagnoses, according to Ruppert, who reported that she suffered an epileptic episode when she played the game. The flashing effect during braindan...

This week, United Airlines pledged to completely eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To make good on that promise, the company says it will invest in emerging technologies that capture planet-heating carbon dioxide from the air. It also plans to continue powering its flights with sustainable aviation fuel. United is the latest airline to respond to consumers’ growing concerns about climate change and make ambitious commitments to reduce its effects on the environment. Delta announced in February that it would spend $1 billion over 10 years to become carbon neutral by reducing and canceling out emissions with carbon offsets and carbon removal schemes. JetBlue joined a Climate Pledge initiative last week that commits it to becoming carbon neutral by 2040. The new steps United is ...

You may have never heard of the company X-Mode Social, but its code may be in some of the apps on your phone, tracking and selling your location data. Now, Google and Apple are trying to put a stop to it. According to a Wall Street Journal article, the tech companies have told developers to remove X-Mode’s code from their apps, or risk getting them pulled from their respective app stores. X-Mode works by giving developers code to put into their apps, known as an SDK, which tracks users’ location and then sends that data to X-Mode, which sells it. In return, X-Mode pays the developer a certain amount based on how many users the app has. According to the company, its technology is in over 400 apps, including many apps designed for Muslim users, such as one that reminds users when to pray, an...

If you’ve noticed that you’re receiving SMS texts and iMessages from people but aren’t getting any notifications about them, you’re not alone. Far from it. I’m one of many people experiencing an annoying bug where messages come through fine — but without any pop-up notification or even the usual red badge to indicate that there’s a new message waiting to be read. Last month, MacRumors wrote about increasing reports of the problem on the new iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max phones. But it seems to also be affecting people with older iPhones as well, so this is looking more and more like an iOS 14 issue. What’s more aggravating about the glitch is that it doesn’t always happen. I’ve noticed some messages pop up on my lock screen like normal, but others just quietly roll in wi...

Christopher Nolan recently went on a very public tirade about the importance of movies, including his, being seen on the big screen — but if anyone’s interested in watching Tenet’s opening prologue, they can do so now on YouTube. Warner Bros. has posted the film’s first six minutes on YouTube ahead of the movie’s digital release next week. Don’t worry about spoilers for the time-warping heist film, there aren’t any. (I saw Tenet when it was released at a theater in suburban Canada; it was me and one other person at the other end of the theater.) The scene follows John David Washington’s Protagonist and a couple of other characters as they enter an auditorium to complete a mission. That’s really all you need to know. It’s a pretty fun, entirely Christopher Nolan segment that works on its ow...

California rolled out a COVID-19 contact tracing app this week, and officials — including Apple CEO Tim Cook — touted it as an advancement that would help slow their ongoing surge in cases. Using the app will be easy. Measuring whether the app can deliver will be harder. Nine months after Apple and Google first announced their partnership, contact tracing apps’ role in reducing viral transmission is still difficult to measure. Relatively few people have downloaded the apps, and because of the apps’ focus on privacy, it may be nearly impossible to quantify how well they’re actually able to help prevent disease. “It seems to me that it’s incumbent upon those who are behind these efforts to show evidence that they’re having some effect,” says Ryan Calo, law professor and a director of the Tec...

AMC Theatres is warning its investors that if it doesn’t find $750 million, it will run out of cash by the middle of January 2021. The company issued new public documents today announcing that because executives can’t predict what the supply of movies will be like, and it’s unclear if people will even file into theaters again soon, the company is unsure of how much money it can make. Specifically, AMC’s documents note that executives can’t know with “certainty the impact of the Warner Bros. announcement or any similar announcements regarding the release of movie titles concurrently to the home video or streaming markets.” Conversations with studios like Warner Bros. and Disney have yet to take place, the documents add. Now, AMC is facing challenges that “have been exacerbated” by Warner Br...

“Empire. New Republic. It’s all the same to these people,” comments Migs Mayfield (Bill Burr) in the latest episode of The Mandalorian. For a while, it seems that the show believes it, dressing Mando up in stormtrooper armor as he goes to desperate lengths to save Baby Yoda (neé Grogu) from Moff Gideon. In “The Believer,” it’s not an X-Wing swooping in triumphantly to save our heroes; it’s Imperial TIE Fighters — a symbol that fans have come to associate with the forces of evil in the galaxy, potent symbology that The Mandalorian’s first season finale relied on to great effect. And director Rick Fukuyama works to really sell the audience on the victory of the Empire: soaring music plays in the background, as the base’s garrison rushes out to protect the battered truck, the only one to make...

At first we thought this was going to be a slow news week. Now, it’s Friday and we have published two Vergecast episodes back-to-back to cover everything you need to know in the world of tech. To sum it up: We’ve got another new Apple product to talk about, an interview with the president of Qualcomm, and a discussion on the antitrust lawsuits against Facebook put forward by the Federal Trade Commission and 48 state attorneys general. (I hope you understand now why we separated these into different episodes.) In the first half of the first episode this week of The Vergecast, Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Chris Welch discuss the announcement of Apple’s new noise-canceling headphones, the AirPods Max. Nilay was able to try them out for a brief period of time and gives his first impressions o...

Hyundai is officially purchasing a controlling stake in robot maker Boston Dynamics from SoftBank in a deal that values the company at $1.1 billion, the company announced today. The deal has been in the works for a while, according to recent a report from Bloomberg, and marks a major step into consumer robotics for Hyundai. Hyundai is taking approximately an 80 percent stake in the company while its previous owner, Softbank, will retain around 20 percent through an affiliate. Hyundai says its investment will help its development of service and logistics robots, but that over time it hopes to build more humanoid robots for jobs like “caregiving for patients at hospitals.” Other areas of interest include autonomous driving and smart factories. Atlas, another one Boston Dynamic’s robots.Image...

An Apple support page has confirmed that the company’s new MagSafe Duo wireless charger, which is designed to charge an iPhone and Apple Watch simultaneously, isn’t compatible with its older 29W USB-C power adapter. If you’re using an Apple power adapter it’s best to use one of the company’s newer 30W models, which replaced the 29W model in 2018 and retail for $49. It’s an unfortunate revelation for anyone with the old chargers since the MagSafe Duo doesn’t come with a charging brick in the box. Apple’s page doesn’t say exactly what happens if you plug the MagSafe Duo into one of the older 29W bricks. MacRumors reports that if you do it will only be able to charge a single device, an iPhone or an Apple Watch, rather than both at once. Although the 29W brick appears to meet the wattage requ...