Technology

Twitter just announced an crackdown on QAnon, the far-right wing conspiracy theory movement, by banning 7,000 accounts and taking several specific actions that could prevent the spread of their propaganda from as many as 150,000 more, reports NBC News. The company confirmed the numbers to The Verge. In addition to flagging QAnon-specific content for bans under its existing rules (see embedded Tweets below), Twitter says it will block QAnon-related links from even being shared on Twitter and no longer recommend QAnon-related accounts. It will also no longer promote the accounts in search or conversations and will cease highlighting them as trending topics. Here’s part of the company’s Twitter thread on the subject: In addition, we will: 1⃣ No longer serve content and accounts associa...

Samsung’s Note 20 Ultra, which is expected to launch on August 5th at the next Samsung Unpacked event, may be highly optimized to stream Xbox games over xCloud, according to a new report from WinFuture. While that might come as a surprise, Samsung and Microsoft have actually gotten pretty cozy over the past year. Last August, at the last Galaxy Note launch event, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared onstage to recognize an increased partnership between the two companies, and the two companies announced that Samsung would preinstall Microsoft’s Your Phone app, Office apps, LinkedIn, and OneDrive on the Galaxy Note 10. Samsung and Microsoft already announced they would be partnering on a game streaming service The two companies also announced they would be partnering on a cloud-based game st...

The US Justice Department has charged two alleged Chinese hackers with stealing trade secrets and other valuable data from companies worldwide, including firms working on COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. Prosecutors claim some of the hacks were carried out on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security, while others were done for personal profit. The pair are currently wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Li Xiaoyu (who goes by the handle “Oro01xy”) and Dong Jiazhi have allegedly been active since 2009. The Justice Department says it encountered the hackers after they compromised computers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, which is home to a decommissioned nuclear production facility. In addition to this breach, they’re accused of infiltrating a wide swathe of softwar...

Three of TikTok’s biggest stars announced deals outside of TikTok yesterday, giving the creators another way to make money off their immense popularity on the shortform video app. Charli D’Amelio (TikTok’s most followed creator) and Dixie D’Amelio (who rivals Will Smith in TikTok followers) announced a makeup line in partnership with Morphe, and Addison Rae (TikTok’s second most followed creator) announced a Spotify-exclusive podcast that’ll be co-hosted by her mom. YouTubers have taken these exact same steps to make money TikTok largely doesn’t offer creators a way to make money from their popularity on the app. Creators can receive tips during live streams, but live-streaming is a very small part of TikTok. The short dance videos that receive millions of views don’t make creators anythin...

More than 70 demos of unreleased Xbox One games are now available to play as part of Microsoft’s Summer Game Fest Demo Event. You’ll be able to check them out until July 27th. You can see the full list of demos available right here. Two games that catch my eye include Destroy All Humans!, a remake of the alien invasion game first released in 2005, and SkateBird, where you play as an adorable skateboarding bird. Image: Glass Bottom Games With the big summer gaming trade shows canceled or shifted to online-only events, Microsoft’s demo event could be a great way to check out some upcoming games from the comfort of your own couch. With more than 70 games to try, you’ll have a lot of potential demos to play between now and the 27th. And if you’re wondering about games coming to the Xbox Series...

The pandemic hasn’t been too terrible for Snap. The company behind Snapchat announced its second quarter earnings today, detailing how its business has fared during the COVID-19 outbreak around the world. Its user base is up by 9 million people daily over last quarter, and its revenue is up 17 percent year over year, at $454 million. Snap is positioning the growth as a win, especially given that advertiser budgets are shrinking amid a global economic downturn. “The economic environment has become challenging for many of our advertising partners and this has had an impact on the rate of growth in our business,” says Derek Andersen, Snap CFO, in prepared remarks. The pandemic took an obvious hit on the company’s business. Year-over-year growth in January and February was approximately 58 per...

LG’s Velvet will be available in the US starting tomorrow, July 22nd, following its launch in South Korea and several European countries. The midrange phone will debut online at AT&T with support for its 5G network, costing $20 per month for 30 months (totaling $600). For a limited time, the carrier is offering the phone for half that monthly cost if you buy one on an installment plan with a new line of service. AT&T will carry the Velvet in stores starting on August 7th. T-Mobile and Verizon will support it later this summer. LG noted in its press release that the Velvet is compatible with Verizon’s mmWave ultrawide band 5G network as well as its sub-600Hz network, which Verizon currently plans to have ready later this year. There’s just a single configuration of the Velvet that h...

An upcoming primary in Kansas has been upended by billionaire Peter Thiel, who is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into a PAC supporting the hard-line anti-immigration candidate. While traditional Republican Party organizations have backed Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) for the open Senate seat, Thiel has put his resources into a PAC backing Kris Kobach, a figure in the extreme anti-immigration wing of the Republican party, who has been linked to Trump’s Muslim ban and is currently involved in a private crowdfunded effort to build a wall along the southern border. Much of Thiel’s support for Kobach has come through the Free Forever Political Action Committee, an independent group funded almost entirely by Thiel. Thiel has donated a staggering $850,000 to the group, with the PAC only re...

1More’s ColorBuds True Wireless Headphones are a new pair of earbuds that focus on design and affordability over top-of-the-line specs. At just $99, they’re half the price of 1More’s recent pair of noise-canceling earbuds, the 1More True Wireless ANC, and they’re also a lot lighter at just 4.1g per earbud compared to 7.9g with the previous model. In terms of performance, 1More doesn’t appear to have sacrificed too much to slim these earbuds down. You still get up to six hours of battery life from the earbuds, plus 16 more from the charging case, and they also support a range of audio codecs over Bluetooth 5, including AptX and AAC. The ColorBuds True Wireless are available in black, gold, pink, and green.Image: 1More Despite their lower price point, the ColorBuds have an official IPX5 cert...

Ubisoft is again under fire for allegations of sexual harassment, misconduct, and endemic problems of sexism and racism across the company. In a report published today, Bloomberg extensively details inappropriate behavior by top executives and managers, particularly around chief creative officer Serge Hascoët. The games industry is once again experiencing an outpouring of #MeToo stories. Over the past few weeks, Ubisoft in particular has been a hotbed for stories of systemic abuse. Several employees have already come forward publicly on Twitter to discuss harassment they endured at Ubisoft. A previous report from Kotaku pointed to top executives Tommy François and Maxime Béland, among others, as perpetrators of grossly over-the-line behavior, including one instance during which Béland alle...

LG has launched a repair program for some of its OLED TVs sold in South Korea since 2016, Yonhap News reports. The issue is related to components in the TVs’ power boards, which LG said could cause current increase leading to potential overheating as performance degrades over time. A spokesperson for the company said that the issue only appears to be affecting TVs sold in South Korea for now, but added that LG is “investigating other markets” for potential issues. “The overheating issue occurred only in very few models out of the total that used the component, but we will provide free component swaps for all of them for customer safety,” LG said in a statement, ZDNet reports. A total of around 60,000 TVs are believed to be affected, and LG has already swapped out the affected components in...

Amazon unveiled its six-wheel delivery robot, Scout, in January 2019, but has only been slowly expanding its field tests. After launching in a single neighborhood in Snohomish County, Washington and then adding a larger site in Irvine, California last August, Scout is now undergoing trials in Atlanta, Georgia and Franklin, Tennessee, Amazon announced today. It’s unclear how many robots are on the road and how many customers Scout is serving. But it seems the bots are very much still prototypes, and are being treated with the caution appropriate for a company that’s built its reputation on speedy and reliable delivery. Amazon says it has a “small number of Amazon Scout devices” operating in both Atlanta and Franklin, which will be delivering “Monday through Friday, during daylight hours.” T...