Technology

At T-Mobile, you can get a free iPhone 11 Pro if you meet all of the carrier’s qualifications. First off, you have to switch from another carrier and trade in your old device, or if you’re an existing customer, you can get one by adding a line to your plan. For either one, you’ll pay for the phone up front, then T-Mobile will pay you back in billing credits each month over a 24-month period. It’s worth noting that Apple is likely a month out from announcing the rumored iPhone 12, and with any new iPhone release, there are usually a bunch of carrier incentives. Still, it’s a free iPhone now, if you want it and meet the criteria. Control Ultimate Edition just launched this week on Steam, following a yearlong exclusive stint on the Epic Games Store. Green Man Gaming is selling the game for ju...

I moved to LA mid-pandemic and furnished my apartment almost exclusively from Facebook Marketplace, a luxurious garden of budget goods that exploits all my weak points: deals, online shopping, haggling with strangers on the internet. One of the first things I bought was a table and four chairs that was not cheap, by my standards ($225!), but did look unique compared to the countless IKEA offerings. When I went to pick it up, however, it was clear this was in fact an IKEA offering — one that had been shoddily hand-painted by the enthusiastic acting student who sold it to me. I no longer wanted to buy it (why spend $225 on old furniture that costs $120 new?), and I probably should have just told the guy I’d made a mistake and apologized for wasting his time, but instead I thanked him profuse...

The scary thing finally happened: someone caught the coronavirus twice and got sicker the second time around. A 25-year-old man in Nevada got COVID-19 in March, got better in April, and got sick again in May. He had worse symptoms on the second bout, bad enough that he had to be hospitalized. Three other cases of confirmed reinfection were also reported this week: one in Hong Kong (the first documented case) and two in Europe. These don’t necessarily make me any more worried about our vaccine prospects, though, and they don’t mean the pandemic will go on forever. We have four documented cases of reinfection. But that’s out of the 24 million cases of this disease so far, and rare shit happens. Most experts expected that we’d see at least a few. For months, there have been occasional, anecdo...

Google took five days to review several ads with misleading information about voting by mail before opting to approve them, The Washington Post reported. The ads were created by Protect My Vote— a group the Post refers to as “shadowy”— and appeared to target people in several US states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, and Texas, showing up in response to searches for “mail-in voting.” One of the ads reads “think mail-in voting and absentee voting are the same. Think again! There are different safeguards for each,” a misleading and inaccurate claim. Google ultimately declined to remove the ads. Spokeswoman Charlotte Smith told the Post “We have zero tolerance for ads that employ voter suppression tactics or undermine participation in elections. When we find those ads, w...

Buying a capable streaming player for your TV is easier and cheaper in 2020 than it’s ever been. So long as you’re willing to spend at least $50, you can buy something that’ll deliver 4K resolution and HDR color from apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. With universal search that spans all of the big services, streaming players make it easy to find something to watch when you finally make it to the couch after a long day. If you’ve got a fairly new 4K TV at home, you might not see the need for a set-top box or streaming stick; it’s probably already got many of your essential apps preloaded and ready to go. If you’re satisfied with what’s there, no one’s forcing you to buy an extra gadget. But app selection can differ between TV brands, so if you want everything under the sun...

Actor Chadwick Boseman has died at 43 after battling colon cancer for four years, according to a statement posted on his Twitter account. “It is with immeasurable grief that we confirm the passing of Chadwick Boseman,” the statement reads. “It was the honor of his life to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.” Boseman worked on a number of films and TV shows over the last two decades, including 42 where he portrayed iconic baseball player Jackie Robinson, James Brown in Get on Up, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, but he was best known for his role as Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Boseman first took on the role as T’Challa in Marvel’s 2016 film, Captain America: Civil War, before starring in his own Black Panther film in 2018. “Chadwick’s passing is absolutely devastat...

A former intern at SpaceX is suing the aerospace company, claiming that SpaceX retaliated against her after she reported experiencing sexual harassment and gender discrimination while on the job, according to a new lawsuit. The suit alleges that the former intern was not extended a full-time job opportunity when she brought up inappropriate comments and actions made by her then manager. The plaintiff, Julia CrowleyFarenga, worked as a summer intern for SpaceX in 2015, 2016, and 2017, according to a lawsuit filed August 21st with Los Angeles County Superior Court and first reported by Business Insider. While at the company, she worked in the propulsion division under the same manager each summer, the suit says. During her last summer at the company, CrowleyFarenga went to human resources ab...

Google Assistant is getting a new feature that makes it easier to donate money to important humanitarian and nonprofit organizations, starting with the Center for Policing Equity, an organization that works to promote police transparency and accountability. The news was announced today to coincide with the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington. The new donation shortcut can only be accessed on mobile phones for now, either by saying “Hey Google, donate to racial justice,” to Assistant (either directly on Android or through the app on iOS) or by using a dedicated card in Google Assistant’s daily Snapshot view. Google says it won’t be taking a cut from donations made through Assistant, with 100 percent of all donations passed directly along to the Center for Policing Equity. The compan...

Bloomberg is reporting that TikTok-rival Triller and Centricus (a London-based global investment firm) are the latest suitors looking to buy TikTok’s US business with a $20 billion bid, joining Oracle and a recently combined Microsoft / Walmart effort to acquire the popular short-form video application. Following Bloomberg’s report, things have gotten a little weird. A spokesperson for TikTok told Reuters it has not received an offer, or ever been contacted about a potential bid. They downplayed the idea to Bloomberg, too, replying “What’s Triller?” and calling a deal “preposterous.” And yet, Triller went on the record to confirm a bid to The Verge, claiming that it made the bid directly to TikTok owner ByteDance and not to TikTok itself. Here’s a cheeky statement from Triller executive ch...

Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink showcased a pig outfitted with the company’s device, at an event livestreamed on YouTube. One pig, Gertrude, had a device recording signals from an area of the brain linked to her snout. She’d had the implant for two months at the time of the demonstration. As Gertrude’s snout touched things, an array of dots and a series of noises indicated when more neurons were firing. Pigs have large parts of their brains that are devoted to the snout, a sensitive sensing instrument. “Like a Fitbit in your skull.” The design of the Neuralink device has changed since it was unveiled last year, rendering the device itself hard to see on Gertrude. It is now coin-shaped, and meant to sit flush with the skull, rather than having a small module resting ne...

Amid the search for a COVID-19 vaccine and launch of a new Mars rover, there is yet another technological breakthrough on its way — at least, according to Elon Musk. Today at 6PM ET, his company Neuralink will demonstrate what may be one of the first “ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers.” Apparently, Neuralink is looking to connect to the human brain using flexible electrodes thinner than a human hair. And it is now willing to show us a working model. Interested? If so, you can watch the demo today and judge for yourself. When is the Neuralink demo? Today, Friday, August 28th, 2020, at 6PM ET (3PM PT). Where can I find the demo? The live stream will be shown here on Neuralink’s YouTube channel. [embedded content] What am I going to see? Your guess ...

In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg addressed the recent shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, both in a seven-minute public address and in a heated series of questions from employees that was subsequently reported by Buzzfeed News. Protests in Kenosha erupted into violence on Tuesday night, as two people were killed by a bystander later identified as Illinois resident Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse has been charged with two murders in connection with the event, as well as reckless endangerment and unlawful possession of a firearm. In the wake of the shooting, Facebook has been criticized for allowing self-proclaimed militia groups to organize on the platform, including a group called the Kenosha Guard, which had solicited armed attendees for an event on the night of the protest...