Technology

The COVID-19 pandemic made personal computers more important than ever, and sales exploded two years in a row. But the good times for PC and chipmakers now seem to be fading fast. Last quarter’s slump in Chromebook sales has made way for an even bigger decline that’s hitting Windows manufacturers as well, and today, chipmaker Intel has revealed a 25 percent decline in consumer chip sales. It says that a “near-term cyclical slowdown” is shrinking the total market for PCs by approximately 10 percent this year. “Some of our largest customers are reducing inventory levels at a rate not seen in the last decade,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said on today’s earnings call. Earlier this month, Gartner reported that the global PC market had already declined 12.6 percent compared to last year. And today,...

Apple narrowly outperformed Wall Street expectations with its Q3 earnings on Thursday afternoon, reporting a slight year-over-year increase in iPhone revenue and a 12 percent jump for its services division. But elsewhere, the company’s numbers sagged: Mac revenues were down by 10 percent — a drop that CEO Tim Cook attributed to supply chain constraints and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. But it also matches an industry-wide trend of PC sales being on the decline. Earlier this month, Apple released a redesigned MacBook Air powered by the company’s M2 chip — but that didn’t factor into this quarter’s results. The new Air followed the launch of the upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro in June. The Mac Studio desktop, Studio Display, M1-powered iPad Air, and the latest iPhone SE went on sale back ...

Blizzard is facing another walkout of sorts; this time, it’s players in the regional Overwatch Contenders tournament. After a competitive ruling ended a match prematurely, players in the European Overwatch Contenders Summer Series tournament refused to play. In the off-week of the Overwatch League as teams rest up from the beautiful chaos of the Midseason Madness tournament last week, Blizzard ran an Overwatch Contenders tournament to fill the time. Just like Midseason Madness, the Overwatch Contenders Summer Series is a double-elimination tournament with a winner’s bracket and a loser’s bracket. Today’s European winner’s bracket final — the game that would determine which team would go on to the grand final and which team would fall to the loser’s bracket final — was between 01 Esports an...

Democrats are recharging the fight for net neutrality by introducing a new bill on Thursday that would codify the deeply divisive open internet rules. Led by Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act would reclassify broadband internet service as an essential service, authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to enforce rules banning discriminatory practices like blocking and throttling certain lanes of internet traffic. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA) is spearheading bicameral legislation in the House. “We need net neutrality so that powerful social media companies can’t step on their competition by cutting deals with big broadband providers,” Markey said during a Thursday press conference. “We need net neutrality so users can always freely...

It might get cheaper and easier to buy popular tech products, like gaming consoles and graphics cards, after Congress approved $52 billion in funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. In a 243-187 vote on Thursday, the House passed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act to strengthen US science and technology innovation. The bill, a Biden administration priority, includes $52 billion in subsidies to encourage chip manufacturers to build out semiconductor fabrications plants, or “fabs,” in the US. After months of negotiations between the House and Senate, Thursday’s approval resolves the looming threat of chipmakers reconsidering plans to build US plants. Earlier this month, the groundbreaking ceremony for a $20 billion Intel foundry was delayed while the funding remained stalled. “...

Google is trying to cut down on annoying, unskippable ads in Android apps and overall bad behavior in the Play Store (via TechCrunch). The company announced wide-ranging policy changes on Wednesday that update rules across several categories to be more specific, clamping down on loopholes developers may have used to skirt existing rules. One of the changes that will impact your everyday phone usage the most is for ads. Google says its updated guidelines, which will go into effect on September 30th, help ensure “high quality experiences for users when they are using Google Play apps.” The new policy tells developers that apps can’t pop up a full-screen ad that won’t let you close it after 15 seconds. There are some exceptions — if you voluntarily choose to watch an ad to get some sort of re...

The Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2022 took a somewhat different approach to the video game publisher summer showcase format. Instead of a fire hose of trailers, sizzle reels, and gameplay videos, Annapurna slowed it down a bit, doing all of the above while also taking time to show off the people who are making some of the best indie games in the industry. Here are the highlights of this year’s show. [embedded content] Thirsty Suitors Thirsty Suitors from Outerloop Games features a skateboard-loving South Asian woman named Jala, who, after leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, must now duel the owners of those hearts while trying and failing to live up to her parents’ expectations. We get our first in-depth glimpse of gameplay, highlighting all the ways Jala will fight, cook, and rail ...

Sometime this weekend, a massive booster from a Chinese rocket will begin an uncontrolled fall back to Earth from space — and because of its considerable size and weight, parts of it may survive the descent through our planet’s atmosphere and hit the ground. The chances of the rocket hitting anyone and killing them are exceedingly rare, but a similar falling Chinese rocket last year sparked major concern worldwide, which means this rocket will probably do the same. The booster is part of a Long March 5B rocket, which launched on July 24th, sending a new module into orbit for China’s growing Tiangong space station. After the giant rocket reaches space, it sheds a fairly massive part of itself: its core booster. This booster sticks around in orbit, lapping the planet before eventually fallin...

Spotify’s purchase of Findaway, a platform that allows users to create, distribute, and monetize their own audiobooks, cost it €117 million, or around $123 million USD, the company revealed today. Findaway will provide the infrastructure for what will become the third pillar of Spotify’s business. The streaming service first announced the acquisition last November. “We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek told investors at a presentation last month. “And just as we’ve done in podcasting, expect us to play to win.” Audiobook features are coming “quite imminently” Spotify’s acquisition of Findaway is reminiscent of when it bought Anchor in 2019. Like Anchor, Findaway is focused on DIY content and could potentially bring...

We’ve all done it: sent a text message and then instantly regretted it. Whether it was a text to your parent with a spelling error that they’d never let you live down, a message with a wrong word in it (“I don’t want to come to the party!” instead of “I want to come to the party!”), or a sudden realization that you just sent your message to the wrong person — it can be embarrassing at the least and disastrous at the worst. While messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Viber all have some version of “delete for everyone,” until now, there was nothing you could do about it on iMessage except to follow it up with an “I didn’t mean that!” message. In the iOS 16 beta, Apple introduced a feature to its iMessage chat app that allows you to unsend and edit a sent message — with some rules in pla...

Sony has enlisted accessory company Backbone to make a PlayStation-ified version of the excellent Backbone One mobile controller for iPhone. It gives off PS Vita vibes, except somehow, Sony was okay with Backbone keeping its Xbox-like analog stick arrangement. The $99.99 controller, which can be pulled open to fit iPhones as small as the 13 Mini and as big as the 13 Pro Max, comes in a new mix of white and black, just like the PS5’s DualSense controller. Sure, this is a pricier workaround than strapping one of Sony’s controllers to your phone, but it’s a more elegant-looking way to play PlayStation games via Remote Play, Sony’s mobile app that streams games from your PS4 or PS5 console. It’s identical in price and design to the all-black 2020 Backbone One that’s still on sale, save for one...