Technology

Logitech has announced a wireless version of its 2019 Pro X gaming headset called the Pro X Lightspeed. It’s almost identical to the wired version, complete with the same aluminum and steel design, but there are a few key differences. Going wireless isn’t even the biggest perk; it’s actually the USB-C charging. No other wireless gaming headsets that charge via USB-C come to mind, so in this regard, the Pro X Lightspeed in a league of its own. The other perk, of course, is being wireless. The audio and chat are delivered through its included 2.4GHz USB Type-A wireless receiver, and Logitech claims the headset can remain connected up to 13 meters away — if, for some reason, you find yourself 42 feet away from your PC or gaming console. Like the wired Pro X, Logitech includes a set of velour-...

Spotify’s Mac and Windows apps can now start streaming to Chromecast devices, 9to5Google reports. Previously these apps have been able to control pre-existing Chromecast streams, but they couldn’t start them directly. Instead, you had to start a Chromecast stream on iOS or Android, before it could be controlled through the desktop app using Spotify Connect. You can start a Chromecast stream on the desktop apps the same way as a Spotify Connect stream — by clicking the “Devices Available” button on the bottom right of the interface. From there you can select between your streaming devices, which now include Google Cast as well as Spotify Connect-enabled speakers. The functionality, which arrives with version 1.1.38 of the desktop app, is something users have been asking for for years. There...

Staffers from Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential campaign must remove TikTok from personal and work phones, a campaign official told The Verge. That’s because of security concerns around the popular app. TikTok can access users’ clipboard content on iOS — potentially a problem for anyone using a password manager to log into secure accounts. Some politicians are particularly wary of TikTok because the video-sharing app is owned by Chinese internet company Bytedance. The White House is threatening a ban too The Biden campaign’s policy — first reported by Bloomberg — echoes that of other US government officials. The US departments of State and Homeland Security, the US Army, and the US Navy have already banned TikTok on government issued-devices, and the Democratic and Republican national comm...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General has opened an investigation into its own agency’s role in the Trump administration’s replacement of an Obama-era rule that curbed greenhouse gas emissions in cars. The Inspector General’s office will examine whether there were any “irregularities” during the process of crafting the new rule — dubbed the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient Vehicles rule, or SAFE — which holds automakers to weaker fuel economy standards through 2025. Those potential “irregularities” were flagged in May by Sen. Tom Carper (DE), who asked for an investigation in a letter to the EPA Inspector General at the time. “I’m pleased that the EPA Inspector General is opening an investigation into this rule, which was the product of the most procedurally problematic pr...

On the list of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s most-pressing problems right now, porn is nowhere near the top. But that doesn’t mean the agency, which operates New York City’s subway and bus systems as well as its commuter rail systems, isn’t irked that obscene language keeps showing up in its search results on Google. The problem was first noticed by the Queens Daily Eagle newspaper, which published its findings in an article titled “The MTA has a porn problem.” It turned out that if you searched for a Metro-North station name in Google, you’d get some, shall we say, less-than-delicate-sounding language among your results. And the description kept showing up for at least 13 stations along Metro-North’s Hudson line. This was no isolated incident. As you can see, as of Monday, J...

Years before the July 15th attack on Twitter that let hackers compromise some of the social network’s most high-profile accounts to tweet Bitcoin scams, Twitter contractors apparently were able to use Twitter’s internal tools to spy on some celebrities, including Beyoncé, according to a report from Bloomberg chronicling longtime security concerns at the company. The tools in question typically allow certain Twitter staffers to do things like reset accounts or respond to content violations, but they could apparently also be used to spy on or hack an account, according to Bloomberg. “The controls were so porous that at one point in 2017 and 2018 some contractors made a kind of game out of creating bogus help-desk inquiries that allowed them to peek into celebrity accounts, including Beyonce’...

The executive in charge of almost all of Intel’s hardware, chief engineering officer Dr. Venkata (Murthy) Renduchintala, is leaving the company on August 3rd, Intel announced on Monday. His departure comes on the heels of Intel’s announcement that its next-gen 7nm chips are delayed until at least 2022, and after years of delays for the company’s 10nm processors as well, which bottlenecked advancements for much of the laptop industry. Intel did not cite a specific reason for Renduchintala’s departure. Intel poached Renduchintala from Qualcomm in February 2016, and put him in charge of everything from the design to engineering to manufacturing of Intel’s chips — and other hardware bets — under one group, the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group. That division will now be split u...

It didn’t take long for the long-awaited successor to Suikoden to get funded on Kickstarter. Today, just a few hours after the crowdfunding campaign launched, Eiyuden Chronicle managed to surpass its funding goal of $500,000. The game is being helmed by a new studio called Rabbit & Bear, founded by some of the key creative minds behind the classic PlayStation-era roleplaying series, including Yoshitaka Murayama, director and writer on the first two Suikoden games. The studio describes Eiyuden Chronicle as a game that aims to celebrate classic JRPGS, with features like sprite-based characters, turn-based combat, and a large, fantastical world to explore. There are also cats — lots and lots of cats. Aside from Murayama, the creative team also includes Junko Kawano, the lead artist on Sui...

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet will skip the United States for its initial release because of ongoing safety concerns surrounding the pandemic. It will instead roll out to several international territories weeks before the US gets it. Warner Bros. is gearing up to release Tenet in 70 international territories, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United Kingdom on August 26th, according to a press release. Tenet will then roll out into select theaters in the United States beginning September 3rd. The studio does not have plans currently to release Tenet in China right now, Variety reported. Tenet’s staggered release is something executives talked about last week during AT&T’s earnings call, but it’s not an ideal situation. Releasing the film int...

Qualcomm has introduced Quick Charge 5, the company’s latest fast-charging standard, and it’s bringing some big promises: more than 100W charging speeds on a smartphone, with the ability to charge a device from 0 to 50 percent in five minutes or fully charge a phone in 15 minutes. It’s been a few years since Qualcomm introduced its last major quick-charging standard, Quick Charge 4 (which also had an enhanced version, Quick Charge 4+), but the new version represents the biggest leap yet for the company — at least where sheer charging speed is concerned. Qualcomm isn’t being shy about how big of an improvement this is: the company says that Quick Charge 5 is up to 70 percent more efficient than Quick Charge 4, up to 4 times faster at charging, while still running 10 degrees Celsius cooler t...

It’s official: Samsung’s next big product launch is happening on August 5th at 10AM ET, and it’ll be a virtual event as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The main product reveal is almost certainly going to be the next phone in Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, its top-of-the-range smartphone lineup that pairs some of the most powerful phone hardware around with a big, beautiful screen and its signature S Pen stylus. Alongside it, however, we’re expecting to see anything from new earbuds to wearables and even foldables. Samsung hasn’t been shy about teasing additional product reveals. And since we originally published this article, Samsung said in a blog post that it plans to unveil five devices at the event, and more recently, it used a teaser trailer to show off five silhouettes. To...

Here is the first honorable use of venture capital: using the funds to design, prototype, test, and then build a rubber chicken pipe to smoke weed out of. The first time I saw Puff The Squeaky Chicken in real life, I can honestly say I was floored. What incredible stoners, I thought. After I used it for the first time, with a couple of friends in a basement, I was convinced: I was inhaling the future — or at least toking a vision of it. Earlier that day, I had visited the chicken’s creators at their non-office office nestled in the heart of Williamsburg. It was November then, and there was no hint of what was lurking just around the corner. While the ongoing pandemic has sent the world into lockdowns and mass quarantine, the internet has flourished in its way: people around the world have ...