Technology

Even without Prime Day, Amazon had a blockbuster quarter. Its net income nearly tripled from this time last year, as retail store closures and coronavirus restrictions encouraged people to spend big online. In its earnings report today, Amazon said it made $6.33 billion in net income, up from $2.13 billion during the same quarter a year earlier. Amazon’s Prime Day — which has previously been held in July — was delayed until October, so it didn’t give a boost to this quarter’s results. The corporate holiday / sales event offers days of discounts, helping to drive purchases during an otherwise slower season. Even without it happening this summer, Amazon’s net sales reached $96.1 billion for its third quarter, up from $70.0 billion the same quarter a year earlier. Bezos says customers are alr...

Ted Cruz was shouting at Jack Dorsey. “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?” The Republican senator from Texas was yelling at the Twitter CEO during a congressional hearing on speech moderation on Wednesday. According to Cruz, Twitter, Facebook, and Google represented “the single greatest threat to free speech in America and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections.” The moment could have passed as just another empty symbol of the culture war: a GOP politician insisting against all evidence that conservatives are censored online. But as the Republican war on Big Tech intensifies, conservatives have embraced the idea of directly regulating speech on social media in ways that wou...

Hackers reportedly stole $2.3 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party just weeks before the election using a scheme involving manipulated invoices, the Associated Press reports. The group noted the theft on October 22nd; Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt says that the FBI is currently investigating the case. According to Hitt, hackers used faked invoices from several vendors the campaign was working with for things like election mailings and Trump merchandise. Instead of featuring the vendor’s payment information, the documents relayed the money to the hackers. This kind of hack is actually a fairly common scam: Facebook and Google were hit by a similar phishing scheme in 2017 to the tune of $100 million. Scammers regularly use fake invoices to target businesses, organiza...

Elon Musk was among the celebrities that Trump administration officials tried to woo for a “Helping the President will Help the Country” taxpayer-funded ad blitz that never got off the ground, according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee. The $300 million campaign was pitched as a way to “defeat despair and inspire hope” over the coronavirus. “We must film them ASAP — we need content in the can now,” one official wrote in an email to contractors who worked on the ad campaign on September 13th. Like many of the more than 250 celebrities screened, Musk’s status on the “Celebrity Participant Status Chart,” first reported by Politico, shows as “pending answer.” An additional note by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s name reads that Musk “stated in 2018 that he was a ‘registered in...

On Thursday, Nvidia opened up preorders for the GeForce RTX 3070, the least-expensive of the three Ampere-powered graphics cards Nvidia announced during its September event. It’s a very good card. But if you’ve been following the RTX 30 series the last couple of months, you will know it’s also been very difficult to get your hands on one, and it will likely remain difficult well into next year. I knew I wanted to upgrade my graphics card this year, and I was dead set on buying the RTX 3080, but it literally sold out as soon as preorders went up. (Damn bots.) So I decided I’d be okay with a 3070; It’s not like I have a 4K monitor yet anyway. This morning, I decided to shoot my shot. Wait for it… I fired up two monitors with 20 different tabs spread across four Google Chrome windows, p...

2020 has been a bad year in almost every way. I don’t need to list the reasons. But one of the few bright spots has been the world of video games. From Animal Crossing helping folks stay connected during the pandemic’s early days to Travis Scott performing a virtual concert in Fortnite to politicians streaming Among Us on Twitch, games seem to be everywhere. They’re embedded in just about every aspect of our culture. Not all of this is new, of course, but it’s been accelerated by the current state of the world, where virtual spaces are becoming as necessary as real ones. In fact, you could say that now is the best possible time to pick up gaming as a hobby. From the sheer breadth of experiences that are available to the simple fact that more people are playing than ever before, video games...

Not everyone has an easy time getting wireless earbuds to fit comfortably. It seems like tech companies all size their silicone ear tips differently, and foam tips, as good as they can be, don’t always solve the problem. So there was a lot of excitement earlier this month when Ultimate Ears announced the $250 UE Fits, a pair of earbuds that can mold to the shape of your ear for unmatched comfort. The earbuds use a 60-second molding process that doesn’t require a visit to your local audiologist or taking an impression of each ear with an at-home kit that needs to be mailed in. This approach is an evolution of technology that parent company Logitech picked up through its acquisition of Revols. Ultimate Ears doesn’t quite match the perfect, unique-to-you results that you get with expensive cu...

Uber can continue to send messages in its app to drivers about a California ballot measure that would exempt gig economy companies from having to classify workers as employees, a judge ruled late Wednesday. A California state superior court judge rejected the drivers’ request for a temporary restraining order blocking the messages, which drivers claim is “pressuring” them to support the ballot measure, Prop 22. In his ruling, Judge Richard Ulmer called the drivers’ request for injunctive relief “belated,” noting that Uber’s campaign started in August. He also noted that the vote on Prop 22 on November 3rd would render the company’s barrage of in-app messages about the ballot measure “effectively moot.” A judge criticized drivers for infringing on Uber’s rights to freedom of speech The judg...

The $499 RTX 3070 is available now, though the retailers that stock the new GPU appear to be mostly sold out at this point. If you’re still looking for one of Nvidia’s Founders Edition (FE) GPUs, try looking at Best Buy and Micro Center. If your hunt for the GPU isn’t limited to the FE version, several third-party graphics cards made by OEMs like Gigabyte and PNY are also officially on sale from a few other retailers like Amazon, Newegg, and B&H Photo, in addition to Best Buy and Micro Center. And like past launches, most of these cards sold out very quickly. But keep trying, as you might get lucky. Compared to the 4K-capable RTX 3080 and 3090, this card is an especially good choice if you have a 1440p gaming monitor or see yourself getting one soon. My colleague Tom Warren posted a re...

Samsung Electronics has announced quarterly earnings for the July-September 2020 period, making 66.96 trillion won in revenue and 12.35 trillion in operating profit. That’s the highest quarterly revenue figure ever for the Korean electronics giant, which says that it was able to meet a boost in customer demand following COVID-19 disruption. “Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues around the world, reopening of key economies led to significant increase in consumer demand,” Samsung says in a statement. “Samsung Electronics was able to respond aggressively through flexible global supply chain management, reporting its highest-ever quarterly revenue.” Urgent Huawei orders boost memory business Samsung says that an increase in demand for smartphones helped drive the revenue figures, while oper...

Bang & Olufsen’s latest portable Bluetooth speaker is the Beolit 20, a lunchbox-sized successor to 2017’s Beolit 17. The big upgrade this time around is a new Qi wireless charging pad that can be found on top of the speaker, which can charge other devices like phones or earbuds. According to Bang & Olufsen, the Beolit 20 can also play for 30 percent longer than its predecessor. The company says the speaker’s 3,200mAh battery offers 37 hours of listening at low volumes, but this reduces to a little over 8 hours if you’re listening at typical levels, or just under 4 hours at max volume. There’s a USB-C port for charging. Image: Bang & Olufsen Buttons atop the speaker handle pairing and playback controls.Image: Bang & Olufsen Otherwise, the Beolit 20 features a similar design ...