Technology

Eight months ago, Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force praised Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard as an example of “the kind of knowledge and power we need to put into the hands of the American people.” That dashboard was built by Rebekah Jones. But in May, Jones was fired by the Florida Department of Health for reportedly refusing to manipulate that data to justify reopening the state — and now, Florida state police have raided her home and taken the equipment she was using to maintain a new, independent COVID-19 tracker of her own. Jones posted a series of tweets about the incident, including a video of police entering — with guns drawn. 1/There will be no update today. At 8:30 am this morning, state police came into my house and took all my hardware and tech. They were servi...

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction that should keep the US Commerce Department from banning transactions with TikTok. The Trump administration issued an executive order on August 6th that would have blocked transactions between US companies and TikTok and WeChat’s Chinese parent companies, ByteDance and Tencent. Trump declared TikTok and WeChat a “national emergency,” citing privacy and security concerns. That order invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law that allows Trump to ban transactions between the US and foreign entities. “The government likely exceeded IEEPA’s express limitations.” However, in his opinion accompanying today’s decision, US district judge Carl Nichols said that “the government likely exceeded IEEPA’s express limitation...

From the very beginning, Google Stadia and YouTube were supposed to work together — thanks to the magic of cloud computing, you’d be able to click a YouTube ad to instantly begin playing a game, YouTubers would be able to invite their viewers to instantly join their game, and — perhaps most importantly — creators would be able to instantly, effortlessly be able to livestream their Stadia games to YouTube just by pressing a button on the controller. None of those things happened at Stadia’s launch last November, but the biggest one is apparently arriving tomorrow: every Stadia user will be able to livestream directly to YouTube starting tomorrow, a representative confirms to The Verge. This afternoon, 9to5Google noticed that the feature appeared to be rolling out, and we spotted the ability...

The Federal Communications Commission announced $9.2 billion in awards to companies providing broadband internet to rural areas across the US, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX was one of the biggest winners. The company will receive $886 million over the next 10 years for its Starlink satellite broadband project, under the Federal Communication Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. Starlink is SpaceX’s constellation of satellites that will fly at low altitudes around the Earth, providing internet on the ground below. SpaceX already has launched 900 of the planned 12,000 satellites needed for the Starlink system into low-Earth orbit. Musk has said the company needs 800 satellites in space to provide “significant operational capabilities.” SpaceX kicked off its Better Than Nothing Beta for Star...

Comcast is extending its COVID-19 support programs through June 30th, 2021, including the free Wi-Fi and educational resources it offers at local community centers throughout the US. The company says this is the third time it has extended its programs during the pandemic. Community centers that offer free Comcast internet access are called “Lift Zones” by the company, though what’s most important is how they’re meant to reach low-income students who might have inconsistent internet access at home. Switching to remote learning or a combination of in-person and online instruction has made internet access critical for students, so having a place to log on that’s theoretically close to home helps. Comcast is also extending its Internet Essentials service for low-income households free for 60 d...

Razer’s Blade 15 is one of the best 15-inch gaming laptops. It’s far from a budget purchase, but Razer has released the most affordable model you can buy. As of today, there’s a new Blade 15 Base model up for preorder that is just $1,499. It’ll ship on December 25th. The model includes a Core i7-10750H, 15.6-inch 120Hz screen, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage, plus an open M.2 slot. For ports, you’ll get two USB 3.2 Gen 2, two USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, and an HDMI 2.0. Note: these are almost the exact same specs as the $1,599 Blade 15 Base that you can already buy. The biggest difference is that more expensive model has a 144Hz display. As of this writing, that model is on sale for $1,499 on Razer’s website. That means there’s little reason to preorder the upcoming Base mo...

After a month of testing on university campuses, California’s governor just announced that the state is launching its COVID contact tracing app to the public this Thursday, December 10th. The app is called CA Notify, and its launch makes California the 18th state (plus Washington, DC) to release a contact tracing app. It’s also the largest to have done so since the technology was announced in April. The first app of its kind was released in Virginia back in August, so it’s been quite a long time coming, especially considering California is home to Apple and Google, the two companies that developed the contact tracing technology the app uses. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have tweeted in support of the app: As we work together to fight the rise in cases in California, ex...

“Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button.” That line, from William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, helped define the genre now known as cyberpunk. The book conjures a world where today’s cutting-edge trends are tomorrow’s embarrassing cliches and where desperate hustlers can rise overnight and fade without a trace. Cyberpunk 2077, the long-awaited game by Witcher studio CD Projekt Red, is about a place called Night City. But in its version, the past is never far away. Cyberpunk 2077 was announced in 2012, and it’s based on a tabletop series that launched in 1988. After years of work and reportedly months of brutal crunch time, CD Projekt Red has delivered on an incredibly ambiti...

Grand Theft Auto Online is soon getting its own concert venue with the planned opening of The Music Locker, an underground nightclub that will feature real-world DJs in residence. The announcement on Monday means developer Rockstar Games is taking cues from other savvy multiplayer games like Fortnite and Roblox. Those games and many others in the online social scene have begun transforming their virtual spaces into entertainment destinations that, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, have become vital ways to fill the gap left by the lack of live music and other real-world events. Rockstar is following ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Roblox’ in turning its online virtual world into a live music space Epic’s approach with Fortnite has been to book big-name acts in electronic music and hip-hop, like Diplo an...

Google’s latest Pixel feature drop, where the company brings a slew of new software tricks to its smartphone lineup, is being announced today. Alongside some brand-new functionality like Adaptive Sound, which “improves the sound quality of your phone speaker based on your surroundings,” the December drop is also bringing many of the latest software features from the Pixel 5, 4A 5G, and 4A to older devices; Google says the Pixel 3 and newer will be included. That means features like Hold for Me, where the Google Assistant waits for a real person to hop on the customer support line instead of making you do it, and others like Extreme Battery Saver mode and screen sharing on Duo calls will soon hit older devices. Extreme Battery Saver seemed like an over-correction from the company after last...

Microsoft’s marketing tagline for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S is “Power Your Dreams,” and the newest Xbox ad, a short film by Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, takes the tagline to a whole new level. The ad takes place in a “dream incubation lab,” where a woman plays an Xbox Series X before being guided into a dream state. She then explains her dreams, featuring things like a neon-outlined bunny hopping through a forest and a flying whale in space, all of which appear on-screen. That’s pretty standard dream stuff, if you ask me. But eventually, the woman dreams that a giant Master Chief in space DJs using an entire Halo ring. That would be enough to solidify this as a pretty odd commercial, but the woman then reveals that Master Chief is, in fact, a cat, and then cat-Chief tak...

Apple is working on a new ARM-based processor with as many as 32 high-performance CPU cores that could appear in a Mac in late 2021, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The processor could also appear in a new “half-sized Mac Pro” in 2022. Alongside it, the company is also reportedly developing CPU designs with up to 16 high-performance cores and four power-efficient cores which are destined for new versions of the MacBook Pro and iMac. The new processors could arrive as early as spring 2021. Future Apple Silicon designs could also feature GPUs with up to 128 dedicated cores. News of the upcoming processors comes as Apple has just released its first Macs powered by its own chips. The new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini each used the company’s M1 chip, which features a CPU with...