Technology

In some ways, yesterday’s announcement of Pokémon Unite felt a few years too late. There was once a period of time when it seemed every major publisher was experimenting with the then-burgeoning MOBA trend, trying to emulate the newfound success of League of Legends and Dota 2. That was years ago. Yet, here was The Pokémon Company teaming up with Tencent, announcing its own competitive 5 vs. 5 strategy game in the year 2020. It was a blast from the past. But while it’s easy to be cynical about the announcement, there’s no denying a simple fact: Pokémon Unite has the potential to be absolutely massive when it finally launches and open up the world of competitive gaming to a whole new audience. For one thing, while the flood of new MOBA games has slowed significantly, the genre is still incr...

After five years as the dominant solution for photo storage across platforms, Google Photos is getting a big new redesign. The refreshed look, which includes fresh ways to navigate the app and a simplified pinwheel icon, is designed to better highlight your favorite old pictures, Google said. It also answers the top feature request Google says it’s received: a map view that lets you explore the photos and videos that you’ve taken by location. “A lot of people really love the product, and the reason they love it is a little bit different than what we initially designed it for,” said David Lieb, product lead for Google Photos. “The thing they really love it for is this idea of nostalgia, and reminiscing, and looking back on your photos. So in this redesign, we decided to really lean into tha...

NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are keeping track of how COVID-19 has changed the economy and environment. The three space agencies brought together satellite observations to create a new dashboard that was unveiled today. The COVID-19 Earth Observation Dashboard lets users explore how the ongoing pandemic has affected airport and shipping traffic, city night lights, and agricultural production in locations across the world. It also includes data on greenhouse gases, air quality, and water quality. “The pandemic was not only leaving a staggering toll of human suffering. It was having a global impact that we could document from space,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a video rel...

The deals are a little slower today than we’ve seen so far this week, but there are still a few that we want to tell you about. In case you missed out, Best Buy’s $100 off sale on the latest MacBook Air laptop ends later today. Instead of paying $1,000 for the base model with 256GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and a 10th Gen Intel Core i3 processor, you can get it for $900. It’s available in silver, gold, or space gray, and unlike the maligned butterfly key switches used in the previous generation, this keyboard is far better. Image: LG If you’re on the hunt for another monitor for your desk, or your first one, LG’s 27-inch G-Sync-compatible IPS monitor at Costco is down to $180 (usually $250). It’s tough to find a 27-inch FHD monitor for under $200, let alone one that has an IPS panel with a 1...

Lately a question I have been asking myself is: how worried do we need to be about the Boogaloo groups? The Boogaloo movement, if you’ve been sitting this one out so far, refers to a loosely knit group of right-wing extremists, some of whom advocate for second civil war. (The name derives from the camp classic breakdancing movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. In the delightfully dry phrasing of Wikipedia authors, “2: Electric Boogaloo became a verbal template appended to a topic as a signal of pejorative parody.”) While the use of the term in this way dates to at least 2012, it has gained new prominence after a series of violent incidents linked to its adherents. An Air Force staff sergeant was charged with the murder of a Federal Protective Service officer and a Santa Cruz sheriff’s serge...

Apple is greatly improving its gaming support in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS. The biggest additions are support for controller button remapping, haptics, rumble, motion, and even the ability to properly use a keyboard and mouse for iPad gaming. Game developers and players have long been asking for zone-based rumble and haptics support, and it’s finally coming later this year. Developers will be able to program feedback into their games, so players can feel specific things like the recoil from guns or explosions. Apple is also planning to support some controllers with motion inputs, like Sony’s DualShock 4 controller. This includes support for the Lightbar, allowing Apple developers to change the color of the light on the controller when a health bar decreases for example. The touchpad surf...

JD Power scored Tesla vehicles the worst among 32 major brands in its annual quality study. It’s the first time that Tesla’s cars have been ranked by the influential customer survey now in its 34th year. According to the JD Power Initial Quality Study, which measures vehicle quality in the first 90 days of ownership, Tesla cars suffered 250 problems per 100 vehicles as reported by customers, compared to an industry average of 166 problems. Land Rover was the second-worst-performing brand with 228 problems per 100 vehicles. Dodge and Kia were tied for the top-rated brand with just 136 issues per 100 vehicles. The new study is based on responses from 87,282 purchasers and lessees of new 2020 model-year vehicles. It was fielded from February through March 2020. Concerns that Musk prioritizes ...

AI has become an integral part of every tech company’s pitch to consumers. Fail to hype up machine learning or neural networks when unveiling a new product, and you might as well be hawking hand-cranked calculators. This can lead to overpromising. But judging by its recent WWDC performance, Apple has adopted a smarter and quieter approach. Why blind them with science when you can charm them with convenience? Sprinkled throughout Apple’s announcements about iOS, iPadOS, and macOS were a number of features and updates that have machine learning at their heart. Some weren’t announced onstage, and some features that almost certainly use AI weren’t identified as such, but here’s a quick recap of the more prominent mentions that we spotted: Facial recognition for HomeKit. HomeKit-enabled smart c...

A new bipartisan Senate bill is taking aim at the liability protections enjoyed by internet platforms like Facebook and YouTube. The Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act, introduced by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and John Thune (R-SD) on Wednesday, would require online platforms like Facebook and Google to reveal their content moderation practices through a range of mandatory disclosures. The bill would also create a new avenue for holding these companies responsible for hosting illegal content by making changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bill is a combination of measures that encourage platforms to remove bad content and measures that keep those moderation systems in check, hoping to draw support from both sides of the ongoing debate over p...

FuboTV announced that it signed a multiyear distribution deal with Disney to bring ESPN to its service, filling in the missing link that could make it one of the best over-the-top live TV streaming services available for sports fans. It was already great for watching the Super Bowl and other live sporting events (especially since it has a free trial). But starting this summer, subscribers to FuboTV’s $54.99 standard subscription plan will get ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3, ABC, along with access to many other Disney Television Studios channels. Here’s the complete list of channels being added to the standard plan: ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN 3 SEC Network, ACC Network ABC, ABC News Live FX, FXX Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD Freeform National Geographic With ESPN now part of FuboTV’s offering, the...

California is seeking to force Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers as employees, in a dramatic escalation of the state’s months-long war with the gig economy companies. In May, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, sued Uber and Lyft, arguing that their drivers were misclassified as independent contractors when they should be employees under the state’s AB5 law that went into effect on January 1st. Now, Becerra plans to file a motion for a preliminary injunction that would compel the ride-hailing companies to reclassify drivers as employees within weeks, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A spokesperson for Becerra didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. “Californians who drive for Uber an...

Apple will start switching its Macs to its own ARM-based processors later this year, but you won’t be able to run Windows in Boot Camp mode on them. Microsoft only licenses Windows 10 on ARM to PC makers to preinstall on new hardware, and the company hasn’t made copies of the operating system available for anyone to license or freely install. “Microsoft only licenses Windows 10 on ARM to OEMs,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. We asked Microsoft if it plans to change this policy to allow Boot Camp on ARM-based Macs, and the company says “we have nothing further to share at this time.” Apple has been working closely with Microsoft to ensure Office is ready for ARM-based Macs later this year, but the company didn’t mention its lack of Boot Camp support at WWDC. It’s...