Technology

Last year, Google pledged that, by 2022, it would include recycled materials in all of its Made By Google products, a list that includes Pixel phones, Pixelbooks, Google Home speakers, Nest devices, and accessories like phone cases and charging stands. Today, the company announced it hit one of its goals ahead of schedule: all new Pixel and Nest products are now designed with recycled materials, according to Google sustainability systems architect David Bourne. That’s not to say its products are made entirely of recycled materials, but they at least include recycled materials somewhere in the product. According to Google, the back cover of the Pixel 5 is made with 100 percent recycled aluminum, and the new Nest Audio has 70 percent recycled plastic, with the sustainable fabric cover it int...

The Mandalorian’s second season is fast approaching, and Star Wars: Squadrons is getting a small content update to celebrate. More to the point: the game is adding a Baby Yoda bobblehead that you can put in your in-game cockpit, which immediately catapults to the top of the “best cosmetic DLC added to a game in 2020” list. (Sorry, Marvel Fortnite skins.) The “Mysterious Creature” statue isn’t the only thing being added to the space flight simulator game. Each of the two factions is getting a new hologram, decal, dashboard statue, and hanging item, for a total of eight new items. (You can see a few of the new options in the image below.) And yes, that does mean that Baby Yoda will be exclusive to New Republic ships like the X-wing or Y-wing; TIE Fighter pilots will sadly have to continue li...

YouTube is facing a lawsuit from a group of channel owners who say their rights were violated by the platform’s recent moderation actions against QAnon accounts. The users, many of whom boasted hundreds of thousands of followers on the platform, are seeking a temporary restraining order to restore their accounts. “YouTube’s massive de-platforming, which occurred just three weeks before the 2020 Presidential election, worked to the severe detriment of both conservative content creators and American voters who seek out their content,” the complaint alleges. “YouTube took this draconian action so swiftly that the Plaintiffs… received no advance notice and were not able to download their own content.” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act typically protects platforms from lawsuit...

Amazon received a “blistering” letter last Thursday about copyright infringement and Twitch’s nonexistent licensing deals with major music rights holders, Variety reports. The letter was signed by organizations including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Recording Academy, the National Music Publishers Association, the American Association of Independent Music, SAG-AFTRA, and more. The document accuses Twitch of allowing streamers to play copyrighted music without getting the proper licensing to do so. (Music copyright is a thorny, complicated subject; if you want to play music to audiovisual content, you need at least two different licenses to do it legally: a synchronization license and a mechanical license.) “Twitch appears to do nothing in response to the thousa...

There’s just over a week left until Election Day and Snapchat is reviving one of its most beloved characters, the dancing hot dog, to encourage users to make a plan to vote. The hot dog first reappeared in Snapchat’s filter reel on Saturday for Vote Early Day, but it disappeared after the holiday finished. The character is set to return for Election Day on November 3rd, dressed in an Uncle Sam-style outfit twirling a sign calling on users to find their polling location. If a user clicks the sign, they’re linked to Snap’s Before You Vote tool that helps users find their polling locations and learn about the issues and candidates on their ballots. Snapchat’s dancing hot dog returns for Election Day. Snap is also reviving its “I Voted” sticker filter that also links out to the app’s voting pl...

YouTube is updating its mobile apps with a few new features that should make viewing and controlling videos a bit easier, with new gestures, updated player controls, and additional features. The biggest update is a new gesture to enable or disable full-screen video: instead of tapping the button (or rotating your phone), you’ll now be able to swipe up on the video window to enter full-screen and swipe down to return back to the standard player page. (Those gestures will only work when swiping on the playback window itself — so you don’t have to worry about getting it confused with the swipe gestures to exit applications on both iOS and Android.) The new autoplay toggle and closed captioning buttons on YouTube. There are also a few new buttons on the video player: there’s now a new closed-c...

New observations of the Moon reveal that lunar water may be more accessible than originally thought. The new data is particularly exciting for NASA, which hopes to leverage the Moon’s resources — notably water ice embedded in the soil — to help future astronauts live and work on the lunar surface. In one study, researchers detected water directly on the lunar surface, finding the molecule on areas of the Moon lit by the Sun. A second study speculates that water ice might be trapped in tiny pockets or small craters littered all over the Moon’s surface, making water potentially more abundant and more accessible than we could have imagined. The two studies were published today in the journal Nature. This isn’t the first time water has been detected on the Moon. But the only water we’ve been a...

LG’s new Tone Free FN7 wireless earbuds still have the same germ-killing capabilities of previous models, thanks to the charging case’s built-in UV light. But now, the company is adding active noise cancellation to the mix. Available as of today in South Korea and coming to other regions later this year (with pricing TBD), the FN7 look very similar to the FN6 earbuds; they’ve got silicone ear tips and a “twist-fit Vortex Ribs design” meant to maximize passive noise isolation. The Tone Free FN7 buds have three microphones “that monitor soundwaves coming from all directions” and eliminate background noise. “With ANC activated, environmental noises are now almost completely neutralized, making every note and voice sound clearer, more natural, without losing the details from turning up the vol...

Apple is developing revamped versions of its AirPods and AirPods Pro true wireless earbuds, Bloomberg reports, the first of which could be announced as early as next year. Both will reportedly feature new designs, as well as upgraded wireless chips. Bloomberg also notes that Apple’s long-rumored over-ear headphones are still in development, and that the company has internally discussed plans to introduce a third HomePod speaker to sit between the $299 HomePod and the newly-announced $99 HomePod mini. According to the report, Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro could ditch the stem that has been a hallmark of the AirPods’ design since their introduction in 2016. They’ll reportedly still feature noise-cancellation, but with a design that’s more similar to the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds...

It’s amazing how much innovation and technology goes into finding better ways to fall down a mountain. I’m a snowboarding addict. Despite the fact that I absolutely hate being cold, I find myself looking forward to winter with more and more eagerness each fall. I’m also a huge nerd, which means every year I get all giddy about the new advances coming out that improve the ways we play in the snow, or so they claim. Here, then, is the confluence of those gravitational forces in my life: my picks for the coolest new snow tech. (And take note that, aside from the actual boards, boots, and bindings, a lot of this gear can be used by skiers, too.) Disclaimer: There are hundreds of brands, boards, boots, kits, and gadgets out there, and I am just one person with finite resources (including time, ...

Facebook is the latest tech giant to get into the world of cloud gaming — but the company’s offering is quite a bit different than the competition. Unlike Amazon or Google, which both offer standalone cloud gaming services for a fee, Facebook is introducing cloud games to its existing app — several of which are playable right now. “We’re doing free-to-play games, we’re doing games that are latency-tolerant, at least to start,” says Jason Rubin, Facebook’s vice president of play. “We’re not promising 4K, 60fps, so you pay us $6.99 per month. We’re not trying to get you to buy a piece of hardware, like a controller.” According to Rubin, the reason Facebook is exploring the cloud is because it opens up the types of games it can offer. The company started out in games more than a decade ago wi...

OnePlus has announced a pair of new phones for its midrange Nord lineup — the N10 5G and N100. Both sit below the existing £379/€399 OnePlus Nord in terms of specs and price. The N10 5G starts at £329 in the UK and €349 in Germany (around $412) and is powered by a Snapdragon 690, while the N100 starts at £179 and €199 (around $235) in the same countries and is powered by a Snapdragon 460. Unlike the original Nord, which was only released in Europe and parts of Asia, OnePlus says the N10 5G and N100 will eventually launch in North America. The company has confirmed that both phones will be available there “at a later date,” following their European release. OnePlus says the N100 will arrive in the UK on November 10th, with the N10 5G following later in November. The Nord N10 5G has a 6.49-i...