Technology

Facebook is planning for possible chaos around the November 3rd US presidential election with internal tools it’s used before in countries like Sri Lanka and Myanmar, The Wall Street Journal reported. The plans may include slowing the spread of posts as they begin to go viral, altering the news feed algorithm to change what content users see, and changing the rules for what kind of content is dangerous and warrants removal. They’re strategies Facebook has previously used in so-called “at-risk” countries dealing with mass ethnic unrest or political bloodshed. The tools would only be used in the event of election-related violence or other serious circumstances, according to the WSJ, but some employees at the company said they were concerned that attempting to slow down viral content could un...

Chrome OS may finally be getting a dark mode, but so far it’s only been spotted in its experimental Canary channel, Android Central reported. Before you go tinkering with Canary just be advised: Canary is Google’s “bleeding edge” Chrome OS path, which receives daily updates of features before they’ve been widely tested. It can only be accessed from Chromebooks switched into a special developer mode (not to be confused with the Chrome OS Developer channel). Google warns that Canary can be “unstable.” But at the moment, to activate dark mode on your Chromebook, you need to have the Canary channel installed. Once you’ve done that, Android Central says you just open Chrome and type in chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark and chrome://flags/#enable-webui-dark-mode into the URL bar. I should note I...

So in between catching up with episodes of Grace and Frankie and watching the presidential debate, I tried to watch the new Netflix version of Rebecca, which is exactly the kind of flick I am usually 100 percent here for. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t able to really get into it, but I think Josh Rivera’s review really nails it: it’s kind of a boring take on the story. It’s a beautiful-looking movie, but idk, none of the characters — except maybe Kristen Scott Thomas’s Mrs. Danvers— has much depth. I’m about three-quarters of the way through it and still waiting to feel the sense of dread I did reading the novel. Maybe the final act will bring it home? In any event, there are a lot of great new trailers to check out this week, so I’ll have something new to watch soon. [embedded content...

PayPal has terminated the account of domain registrar and web hosting company Epik for violating its “risk controls,” prompting angry letters and blog posts from Epik alleging conservative bias was to blame, Mashable reported. Seattle-based Epik is perhaps best known for its support of right-wing social media site Gab. The site was banned by its hosting company, domain registrar, and PayPal in 2018, after it was discovered that the alleged shooter at a Pittsburgh synagogue had written anti-Semitic tirades on Gab. In a 2018 blog post, Epik CEO Robert Monster criticized what he called the “digital censorship” by other sites. According to Mashable, the issue that got Epik kicked off PayPal has to do with Epik’s digital “alternative currency” Masterbucks. It can be used to buy Epik products or...

Samsung Electronics has announced the death of its chairman, Lee Kun-hee. The company says he died on October 25th with family including his son, vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong, at his side. He was 78. A cause of death was not given, but Lee had been incapacitated for many years after suffering a heart attack in 2014, causing him to withdraw from public life. Lee Jae-yong, also known as Jay Y. Lee, had been widely assumed to take over upon his father’s passing and has been viewed as the de facto leader in recent years. “The motivating driver of the company’s vision” Lee Kun-hee was a controversial figure who played a huge part in pushing Samsung from a cheap TV and appliances maker to one of the most powerful technology brands in the world. He became the richest man in South Korea, with the Sa...

Food delivery platform DoorDash has partnered with a restaurant for the first time to build a new brick-and-mortar store, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Burma Bites, a spin off of Oakland, California-based Burma Superstar, was designed for delivery and takeout, and will offer versions of menu items from the parent restaurant as well as new items in environmentally-friendly to-go containers, DoorDash said. According to the Chronicle, all menu items are priced between $12 and $19. DoorDash did not disclose the amount of its investment in Burma Bites, but told The Verge in an email it has been working on the project for about a year. The restaurant was originally supposed to open in March, but that was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. Georgie Thomas, head of regional merchant partn...

Epic Games fired back against Apple yet again in a new court filing, saying the iPhone maker “has no rights to the fruits of Epic’s labor,” the latest salvo in the ongoing battle between the two companies. A quick recap: Back in August, Epic introduced a new direct-payment system in its wildly popular Fortnite game to bypass Apple’s 30 percent fee. Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store for breaking its rules, and Epic responded with a civil lawsuit against Apple, alleging that Apple was violating antitrust law. Epic also revealed that Apple threatened to terminate the developer account used to support the company’s Unreal Engine platform, which would prevent Epic from developing future games for iOS or Mac. Earlier this month, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted an injunctio...

In its latest teardown video, iFixit took apart an iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro, and found that the devices look pretty similar to each other on the inside. The displays are interchangeable, iFixit found, and so are the 10.78 Wh batteries. The iPhone 12 is on the left, the iPhone 12 Pro is on the right. iFixit When they removed the camera shield on the iPhone 12, iFixit found a plastic spacer where the iPhone 12 Pro has its telephoto lens and LiDAR sensor. Both devices have 12 MP wide and ultra-wide cameras. iFixit also examined an X-ray (courtesy of Creative Electron) of the insides of the phones, which show the MagSafe wireless charging array. The X-ray of the iPhone 12 Pro appears to have a black border, but it’s the stainless steel frame (the iPhone 12 has an aluminum frame). iPhone Pro...

Patreon has updated its policies and will no longer support creator accounts on its platform that “advance disinformation promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory,” the company announced in a blog post. A “small number of creators” on Patreon have supported QAnon with their work, the platform says, adding it’s taking action because “a number of other online platforms become overrun with pages and groups actively focused around QAnon disinformation.” QAnon-dedicated creators identified by Patreon’s policy and trust & safety teams will have their accounts removed, the blog post added. The policy update “applies only to creators engaged in spreading QAnon-supporting disinformation,” the company said; while just “mentioning, entertaining, reporting on, or debunking QAnon” will not be consider...

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In 1939, Alfred Hitchcock came to Hollywood. The English master of suspense would ply his trade in sunny California, and Rebecca, his first American film, would win him his first and only Oscar. Despite the acclaim, Hitchcock hated Rebecca, as it was his first encounter with American censors and their stodgy Production Code, which made it nearly impossible to accurately adapt the Daphne du Maurier book on which it was based. Still, Hitchcock found a way, and we remember Rebecca now as a classic. Like other classics, Rebecca has been reinvented many times. Director Ben Wheatley’s 2020 adaptation is the latest, and it’s new on Netflix this week. Being shot in the modern era, Wheatley’s film has significantly fewer hurdles to clear, given that we no longer have official arbiters dictating wha...

If you take the typical death toll in the United States in a typical year and add the population of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or the population of St. Louis, Missouri, you’ll end up with the number of people who died this year. There were nearly 300,000 more deaths than there would have been during a normal year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Without a pandemic, that many more people would still be alive. Most of those deaths, about two-thirds, were from COVID-19. But around 100,000 people died as a consequence of the pandemic, even if the virus didn’t directly kill them. They may have died because they avoided a hospital, despite their symptoms of — for example — a stroke, because of a local COVID-19 outbreak. Or maybe they couldn’t get trea...