Technology

Alex Trebek, the longtime host of the answer-and-question game show Jeopardy! has died at age 80, according to a statement from the show. “Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” the statement posted on Twitter read. Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends. Thank you, Alex. pic.twitter.com/Yk2a90CHIM — Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) November 8, 2020 Trebek was born in Sudbury, Canada, on July 22nd, 1940. His career began at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. He moved to the US in the 1970s where he hosted game shows including The Wizard of Odds, Double Dare, The $128,000 Question, and The New High Roller...

The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles launch on Tuesday, November 10th. Whether you were able to secure one in time for launch day, or if you plan to get one soon, you might want some fresh accessories to snag with your big purchase. First up, controllers. You probably already know that Microsoft’s Xbox One wireless controller is also compatible with the new Series X / S consoles, which is great. However, the older controller model lacks a few features that might make the newer one a worthy upgrade for you. For instance, the revised controller has a dedicated share button for saving clips and screenshots and sharing them online, a USB-C port for charging up Microsoft’s optional $24.99 play-and-charge rechargeable battery, along with a few cosmetic and physical improvements to the d-pad a...

There is no shortage of devices that you can stick on your bedside table to use as a voice-controlled alarm clock. You can, of course, just use your phone, but you can also put a small smart speaker, such as Amazon’s Echo Dot, Google’s Nest Mini, or Apple’s new HomePod mini there and bark commands at it to set an alarm, tell you the weather, or snooze for ten minutes. If you want something more fully featured, devices like the Echo Show 5, Lenovo Smart Clock, or Google’s Nest Hub have full-color touchscreen displays that can play video, show camera feeds, or be used as a digital picture frame. Lenovo’s latest entrant in this space, the $49.95 Smart Clock Essential, sits somewhere in between all of that. It’s a voice-controlled, Google Assistant smart speaker with a simple, black-and-white ...

Sony’s PlayStation 5 launches on Thursday, November 12th. Whether you secured one ahead of launch day or plan to buy one during the holiday season, you might want to consider picking up additional accessories to ensure you get the most out of your brand new console. First, there’s the controller. Every new PS5 includes one DualSense controller. Unlike the DualShock controllers, the DualSense has a two-color scheme and a more ergonomic design. The controller also features adaptive triggers, a built-in microphone, and haptic feedback, with some games taking advantage of the controller’s features to provide more immersion. In addition to working with the PS5, the DualSense can connect to Android devices wirelessly. The controller will also connect wirelessly to a PC if your computer supports ...

About midway through Superstore’s season 6 premiere, a customer at Cloud 9, the big-box retailer that the NBC sitcom is set in, is absolutely livid at the idea that she has to wear a mask in the store. Furious at being asked to mask up or leave, she accuses the floor manager, Glenn (Mark McKinney), of working for Satan. Glenn, a devout Christian, is absolutely horrified: “That is the one person I would never work for!” he responds. It’s funny because it’s true: You have to sell your soul to someone to make rent in America, and there are plenty of buyers who aren’t the literal devil. That said, the non-devils don’t care about you either. As we see in Superstore, the staff of Cloud 9 has been left to fend for themselves in the middle of a pandemic. Like just about everything else in 2020, th...

What happens when an app designed to help people navigate the real world doesn’t match up with reality? That’s what happened recently with a National Health Service contact tracing app in England and Wales, which failed to notify many users that they had been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19. Like many contact tracing programs, the NHS app keeps track of when a user is close to other people who also downloaded the app. If someone tests positive, the app can send an alert to all their contacts, particularly the ones that they’ve been around the most. The app calculates a person’s risk based on a few factors, including how long they’ve been close to the person who tested positive. If the calculation passes a certain threshold, an alert gets sent, and the person is asked to isolate t...

Netflix is testing a programmed linear content channel in France, Variety reported. The channel, called Netflix Direct, will be available to Netflix streaming subscribers and will provide content from its existing streaming library in a linear format, much like cable and broadcast TV stations do. “Maybe you’re not in the mood to decide, or you’re new and finding your way around, or you just want to be surprised by something new and different,” Netflix said in a statement announcing the new service. It chose France for the launch of Netflix Direct because traditional TV is “hugely popular” there, and people “just want a ‘lean back’ experience where they don’t have to choose shows,” the company said. Netflix Direct rolled out in some parts of France November 5th, and will expand to more part...

President Donald Trump will lose Twitter privileges he enjoys as a world leader when President-Elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20th, 2021. Twitter confirmed that Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account will be subject to the same rules as any other user — including bans on inciting violence and posting false information about voting or the coronavirus pandemic. Twitter applies special policies to world leaders and some other officials, leaving rule-breaking content online if there’s “a clear public interest value to keeping the tweet on the service.” The public interest policy was formalized in 2019, codifying a rule that had been informally enforced for some time. “Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates, and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able t...

In yet another attempt to slow the spread of misinformation on its platform, Facebook plans to put groups on its platform with too many posts that violate its content rules on a kind of probation, the company said. First reported by The Washington Post, Facebook will restrict any groups— both public and private ones— with multiple posts violating its community standards. Moderators for the groups will have to approve any posts manually for 60 days, and there’s no appeal available for groups on probationary status. “We are temporarily requiring admins and moderators of some political and social groups in the US to approve all posts, if their group has a number of Community Standards violations from members,” Facebook spokesperson Leonard Lam said in a statement emailed to The Verge, “a meas...

Twitter flagged four tweets from President Trump on Saturday for making “potentially misleading claims about an election,” a company spokesperson said, continuing its attempts to try to rein in misinformation on its platform. The president tweeted, without evidence, that “tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states.” He claimed thousands of votes were “illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED,” and said “bad things took place,” during a time when “LEGAL TRANSPARENCY was viciously & crudely not allowed.” The platform labeled a fifth tweet where the president claimed he had won the election “by a lot” with the notice “official sources may not have called t...

The original Mass Effect trilogy is getting a 4K remaster and its coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2021. The game will also have enhancements for the PS5 and Xbox Series X. During N7 day celebration, BioWare announced Mass Effect Legendary Edition a compilation of the first three installments in the studio’s action RPG series, which released between 2007 and 2012. Mass Effect Legendary Edition will also include all the single-player DLC plus additional in-game content such as weapons and armor. BioWare also confirmed that the compilation will be optimized for 4K Ultra HD visuals. It is important to note, however, that this is not a full remake but enhanced versions of the first three Mass Effect games with BioWare’s focus on improving the games so players can experience the epic space op...

After years of chaos, extremism, and death, Americans have chosen to remove President Donald Trump from office. Despite the president’s attempt to sow discord in the late hours of the election, Joe Biden will replace him. Four years ago, Trump’s win rearranged reality and hijacked our timeline, setting us on a darker path. He was extreme even as a candidate: denying science, praising dictators, promising to torture his enemies, and making politics more vulgar with every tweet. Millions of people around the world were shocked and alarmed on Election Day in 2016, but even the alarmists could not have predicted that the president-elect would someday be meaningfully responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of American lives and the needless prolonging of economic destruction. The Whi...