Technology

One of the more hopeful developments at tech platforms this year has been their investment in removing misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter were all relatively quick to acknowledge the threat that COVID hoaxes represent, and have worked to purge it from their networks. Enforcement of those misinformation policies has sometimes lagged behind the companies’ public statements, though. A piece of anti-vaccination agitprop catchily titled “Plandemic” racked up millions of views before it was spotted and taken down by the platforms in May. More worryingly, a new piece of propaganda pushing a phony COVID cure was seen by 20 million people on Facebook alone before the company got it under control. On Monday, the misinformation researcher Ben Decker warned...

In a new opinion piece for the New York Times, Tim Wu, Columbia University law professor and outspoken promoter of the free and open internet, writes an interesting defense of President Trump’s ban on the Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat in the US. Despite calling Trump “the wrong figure to be fighting this fight,” Wu argues that the threatened bans are “an overdue response, a tit for tat, in a long battle for the soul of the internet.” It’s an interesting counterpoint to the myriad, valid issues that have been raised about the ban, and it’s well worth a read. Core to Wu’s argument is that China has banned TikTok and WeChat competitors like YouTube and WhatsApp for years. Foreign companies are effectively blocked from fully and independently competing in the Chinese market, while Chinese ser...

Yesterday was a three and I felt that. The day before was an eight and unmistakably so. It just had that eight feeling, you know? Where you’re looking out the window, and everything pauses, just for a second, and you’ve got a mug of coffee in one hand and a glazed donut in the other, and you stand there and you think to yourself … eight. Right? Knowing the numbers is half the battle these days, and if you’re anything like me you’ve found it hard to keep up. There are just a tonne around right now. Uncountable! I see them all the time: on the news, on my phone, in rainclouds, and stamped on the faces of strangers in the street. Fifty! 63! Seven hundred and seventy seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy seven! Two and a half! … -365. [Ed’s note: Keep it clean, buddy!] That’s w...

Some of the first credible reporting about the “Apple iWatch” I remember reading described it as being “made of curved glass.” The eventual Apple Watch did use curved glass to an extent, of course, but it wasn’t really a defining feature of the product. After all, in 2013 The New York Times said Apple’s watch was expected to “stand apart from competitors based on the company’s understanding of how such glass can curve around the human body.” I was imagining something a little more futuristic than what we got. Something that looked more or less like the Nubia Watch, as it happens. Nubia’s new smartwatch is essentially a bracelet dominated by a large flexible OLED screen that curves halfway around your wrist, which is technically pretty impressive. After wearing it for a couple of weeks, I t...

In 1996, a 2.5-minute short sandwiched between a bunch of other shorts premiered in an episode of The Simpsons. No one thought much of it at the time, but over the last couple decades, “Chalmers vs. Skinner” — rebranded to “Steamed Hams” — would go on to become one of the most iconic Simpsons moments. A new oral history of the short published on Mel Magazine by Brian VanHooker dives into how it came to be, featuring interviews with then-showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The oral history does a wonderful job of tracing how this short came to be where it is now, an incredibly popular meme that got its start in a Facebook group before moving to YouTube and other social media platforms. It’s a rise that surprised Oakley considering that during the initial table read, the sketch didn’...

Does your Netflix home screen — you know, the one with your user profiles — now have a “Shuffle Play” button? That’s because Netflix is actually planning to bring a shuffle feature to its collection of streaming movies and TV shows, letting you avoid yet another argument with your spouse/housemate/partner/etc about what you’ll be watching this evening. The company tells us it’s actually been running this test since July. The company is already testing a few potential ways the feature might look, including the “Play Something” variant that my colleague Julia Alexander snapped a quick picture of below. But it sounds like it’s not just an experiment: “The hope is to absolutely productize something,” a spokesperson told Variety. The company tells us it’s only available so far on “TV devices.” ...

US President Donald Trump, belatedly realizing that the US Postal Service is far more popular than he will ever be, has been publicly distancing himself from his administration’s efforts to cut costs at the post office. Today, he told Twitter that actually, it was all Amazon’s fault: .@Amazon, and others in that business, should be charged (by the U.S. Postal System) much more per package, and the Post Office would be immediately brought back to “good health”, now vibrant, with ALL jobs saved. No pass on to customers. Get it done! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2020 This is well-trod ground for the president, who appears to be frightened by Jeff Bezos. In 2018, President Trump apparently wanted to double the amount that Amazon paid in shipping. He’s also called the post of...

Instagram is bringing QR codes to the app. Users can now generate QR codes that’ll be scannable from any supporting, third-party camera apps. It first launched the product in Japan last year. The idea is that businesses can print their QR code and have customers scan it to open their Instagram account easily. From there, people can see store hours, buy items, or just follow the account. To generate your QR code, go to the settings menu on your profile and tap QR code. You might still see Nametag there, but eventually, it’ll become QR code. You can then save or share the image. Instagram previously deployed a similar system called Nametags, which were internal QR-like codes that could only be scanned from the Instagram camera. It’s now deprecating the feature entirely. Multiple other apps e...

For a period of time starting in 2005, Apple allowed two US government contractors to work in its offices to develop a custom version of the iPod — but exactly what that iPod would do was a mystery, and remains so today, as shared in this fascinating story by former iPod engineer David Shayer that you should go read. The story starts off like a novel: It was a gray day in late 2005. I was sitting at my desk, writing code for the next year’s iPod. Without knocking, the director of iPod Software—my boss’s boss—abruptly entered and closed the door behind him. He cut to the chase. “I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn’t know about it. You’ll help two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a special iPod. Report only to me.” That first paragraph sets the tone for the w...

EV startup Canoo is going public at a valuation of $2.4 billion in an effort to raise enough money to help bring its first vehicle, a VW microbus-style van that was first revealed last year, to market. The company announced Tuesday that it was merging with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, a so-called “blank check” special purpose acquisition company. As a result, Canoo will become a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker “CNOO.” Another SPAC It’s the same type of “reverse merger” move that hydrogen trucking company Nikola pulled off earlier this year to go public and that EV startup Fisker is currently trying to execute. Canoo is also the latest company to cash in on a sudden funding frenzy in the electric vehicle startup space, which has seen fresh money go to ...

Two games more games originally set to release later this year have been pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Deathloop and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe are now slated to launch sometime next year as the coronavirus continues to disrupt the development of both titles. Both Arkane Studios, and Crows Crows Crows addressed their respective communities in separate update posts shared on Twitter, commenting that due to multiple development challenges — including COVID-related impacts — both games would have to be delayed to a new 2021 release window to ensure they have enough time to develop the games. Deathloop is a new intellectual property by Arkane’s Lyon studio, the developer of Dishonored series and the 2017 version of Prey. Players control either Colt or Julianna; ...

Does the idea of having your work meetings on the biggest screen in your house seem appealing? Google Meet is adding Chromecast support to let you do exactly that. You can now cast your meeting to the company’s Chromecast streaming sticks, Android TV, and smart displays. “Earlier this year, we launched Google Meet on Nest Hub Max, and it just felt right to expand Meet to even more screens in your home,” Google’s Grace Yang wrote on the Chromecast support forum. “We recognize that many schools are moving to distance/remote learning, and we wanted to support this new learning environment for teachers and students,” Yang said. “Meet on Chromecast will let you host or join meetings giving you the opportunity to connect with classmates, collaborate on projects, and even attend lectures.” When c...