Technology

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...

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...