Technology

Two and a half years after Mark Zuckerberg floated the idea on a podcast, and several months after organizers said it would be ready to hear cases, Facebook’s independent Oversight Board is now up and running. In a call with reporters today, the board’s co-chairs said that they are now prepared to hear appeals from the billions of people who use Facebook and Instagram each day. The ability to appeal to the board will roll out gradually around the world over the next several weeks. And when it’s complete, one of the bolder experiments in platform governance will have finally begun. Let’s begin by taking a step back. One of the more striking things about our social networks, I have argued, is how terrible they are at customer service. If your post is taken down in error, or your account is s...

You might have seen that many journalists have just received PlayStation 5 units for review, but today we also got our closest look yet at the PS5’s new DualSense controller thanks to an unboxing video from YouTuber Austin Evans. We already knew that the DualSense has some familiar PlayStation hallmarks — a D-pad and four face buttons on the top half, two analog sticks on the bottom half, four triggers, and, like the PS4’s DualShock 4, a touchpad in the middle — and Evan’s video gives a good look at all of those features and the controller’s new design. But Evans didn’t use the controller with a PS5, so we don’t get to see things like the DualSense’s new haptic feedback and adaptive triggers in action. And despite the DualSense’s box only listing compatibility with the PS5, Evans did manag...

Federal regulators are keeping their eye on the rollout of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” experiment. This week, the automaker began beta testing its latest advanced driver assist software with a select group of customers, and so far, the government is taking a wait-and-see approach. In a statement, a spokesperson for the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would “monitor the new technology closely and will not hesitate to take action to protect the public against unreasonable risks to safety.” The statement also included some footnoting of Tesla’s decision to describe its driver assist feature as “self-driving” (emphasis ours): “As we have stated consistently, no vehicle available for purchase today is capable of driving itself. The most advanced vehicle technologies av...

A year after YouTubers launched a campaign to raise enough money to plant 20 million trees, the campaign is in a critical phase: planting the trees and ensuring their survival. Even though fundraising was a resounding success, making sure the planet gets its bang for that buck will be harder. The charity coordinating the tree planting, Arbor Day Foundation, says it’s on track to reach its goal of having all 20 million trees in the ground by the end of 2022. But it faced some bumps in the road this year as the ongoing pandemic and historic wildfires unfolded. Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson got the campaign, dubbed #TeamTrees, rolling last October as a way to commemorate his YouTube channel reaching 20 million subscribers. More than 600 YouTubers, including popular creators like Mark Rober (8.7M ...

OnePlus’ Buds usually cost $79, but they’re just $59 today at Amazon and B&H Photo. That’s a great price for a set of wireless earbuds that have good battery life with IPX4 water and sweat resistance. Check out my colleague Chris Welch’s review (and very fun video review by Becca Farsace above) to find out all of the details about these earphones. At $59, that price puts them at $10 above OnePlus’ latest model, the Buds Z. The biggest difference to form and fit is that the Buds Z use ear tips for better sound isolation than the standard Buds, which are rigid like AirPods and may not fit will in every type of ear. Currently, the Buds worked best when paired with OnePlus phones, but apparently an update is coming to the app in Google’s Play Store that will enable other phones to use all ...

What a difference a year makes. I loved the Surface Pro X design when I pitted it against the Surface Pro 7 last year, but in practice this ARM-powered device wasn’t quite ready. I couldn’t install a bunch of apps I use daily, and even Microsoft’s own Chromium Edge browser wasn’t available. I had to rely on an emulated version of Chrome that ran poorly, and just give up on getting some of my favorite apps to work. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Microsoft is back with a refreshed $1,499 Surface Pro X this year, and not much has changed hardware-wise. The 2020 model includes an updated Microsoft SQ2 processor, with promises of improved performance and battery life. But the real story is how much has changed for Windows on ARM app support over the past year. I can now run most of the apps...

This laptop was a pain in the neck to review. That’s because the battery life is so gargantuan that our traditional rundown test was next to useless. I’ve praised the battery life of several thin-and-light systems this year — Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 7 is a monster. But nothing — and I mean nothing — that I have ever used comes close to topping the lifespan this device has. This is the Dell Latitude 9510 2-in-1. As is often the case with premium, convertible business laptops, there are about a million different configurations with a variety of processors and other specs. The base model, currently listed at $1,848.99, comes with a quad-core Core i5-10210U, 128GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM; our test model, currently listed at $1,848.99, comes with a six-core Core i7-10810U, 16GB of RAM, and a 5...

Huawei announced the Mate 40 Pro yesterday, and now we have one in hand. It might not be easy to recommend Huawei phones outside of China, since the Trump administration’s targeted sanctions have prevented it working with US companies like Google, but devices like the P40 Pro Plus and last year’s Mate 30 Pro have had hardware as impressive as anything else on the global smartphone market. The situation shouldn’t be any different with the new Mate 40 Pro. It’s likely to be Huawei’s most advanced device yet — even if there are still questions over the extent to which the company is actually able to manufacture it. I thought the Mate 30 Pro was the best-looking phone released in 2019, and the Mate 40 Pro builds on that design. The unit I have is in the “Mystic Silver” colorway, which Huawei i...

As well as letting you find lost items, Apple has considered allowing its unannounced, but heavily leaked AirTags to do everything from measuring your posture to helping your phone display information relevant to the building you’re in. The details have emerged in a pair of patent applications that were filed a year ago and were found by Patently Apple after they were made public yesterday. Since there have been so many leaks about Apple’s Tile-like tracking pucks, we already have a good idea about their features, which involve helping you to keep track of your belongings. So what’s most interesting in these patent applications is the other use cases Apple has been thinking about. One series of diagrams shows how the trackers could be stuck on your body and used to track your posture, or e...

Microsoft’s head of gaming and Xbox, Phil Spencer, has hinted that the company is planning TV streaming sticks for its xCloud cloud gaming service. In an interview with Stratechery, Spencer discusses the potential for additional tiers of Xbox Game Pass, which could include a free bundled TV stick to play xCloud games. “I think you’re going to see lower priced hardware as part of our ecosystem when you think about streaming sticks and other things that somebody might want to just go plug into their TV and go play via xCloud,” says Spencer. “You could imagine us even having something that we just included in the Game Pass subscription that gave you an ability to stream xCloud games to your television and buying the controller.” Spencer also teases the potential for an “Xbox Game Pass Platinu...

If you never used Sony’s now-shuttered PlayStation Vue internet TV service, you’re probably unaware of one of its best features: multiview. PS Vue allowed you to watch multiple channels on-screen at once, which is something most of the bigger TV apps — Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu, etc. — don’t currently offer. But now, FuboTV is putting a bigger focus on multiview. You could already stream two channels simultaneously with the FuboTV app on Apple TV, and starting today, that’s expanding to four. FuboTV says the feature is particularly popular with sports fans since it lets them keep an eye on multiple games at the same time. But you can use it with other networks as well. Want to stress yourself out with election coverage in all four slots? Nothing’s stopping you. “We believe Multiview 2.0 s...

Minecraft players have been able to play without a Microsoft account for the past six years that the company has owned the game, but that will change in 2021, the official Minecraft blog announced yesterday. Players who own the original version of the game and do not switch to a Microsoft account will be unable to play. The game has existed in two separately developed versions since its 2011 launch on consoles. Previously, the original Minecraft: Java Edition used Mojang accounts, while Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, the name for the console and Windows store version of the game, used Microsoft accounts. After this change, the accounts will be the same, but there’s still no crossplay: you still won’t be able to play with friends using the other version of the game. the new accounts will offer...