Technology

If you’ve recently managed to secure a PlayStation 5, you can enjoy your new console while saving on a number of titles thanks to Sony’s Summer Sale promotion in the PlayStation Store, which lasts until August 3rd. Some highlights from the sale include PS5 and PS4 deals on the new teen-horror game The Quarry and martial arts title Sifu, both of which we don’t often see discounts on. PS4 owners can pick up the standard edition of The Quarry for $40.19 ($19.80 off), while the PS5 version is on sale for $46.89 ($23.10 off). In addition, both the PS4 and PS5 versions of Sifu, a challenging kung fu game wherein you must eliminate the martial arts masters who killed your father, are on sale for $31.99 instead of $39.99. Read our Sifu review. Other notable games from the sale include PS5-optimize...

President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, the White House announced today. Biden is experiencing mild symptoms and has started taking Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment. The news comes amid a wave of COVID-19 infections sweeping the country, driven by the highly transmissible BA.5 variant. Biden spent part of yesterday traveling and gave a speech about the administration’s clean energy goals in Massachusetts. In the week before the positive test, NPR reports that the President had also “lingered for extended conversations, posed for pictures and gave hugs at the Congressional Picnic on the White House South Lawn.” During a four-day trip to the Middle East, he shook hands with leaders in the region, and attended meetings and other events without wearing a mask, NPR said. A letter ...

TikTok is making it easier for users to watch videos with auto-generated captions, the company announced today, updating a feature it introduced in 2021 that had a number of shortcomings. The previous caption feature required creators to enable auto-generated captions on their video before posting, meaning the availability of captions depended on whether the video creator remembered to click a button. If a creator forgot to enable captions, there was no way to add them after publishing the post without deleting and starting over, and deaf and hard-of-hearing users regularly had to ask others to turn on closed captions. This new update adds the ability for viewers to turn on closed captions in addition to creators. TikTok is also introducing a translation tool, allowing viewers to translate...

Activision Blizzard employees will participate in yet another walkout today, this time over concerns about employee safety in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Organized by A Better ABK, Activision Blizzard’s internal employee rights advocacy group, the walkout will take place at four of the publisher’s North American offices: California, Texas, Minnesota, and New York, where a new QA worker’s union was just organized. “We are calling for protection of several communities of marginalized workers,” tweeted A Better ABK on July 6th as they announced the walkout. “Employees are actively facing state legislation that is putting women, LGBTQ+ employees, and their families at risk, with other vulnerable groups on the horizon.” In light of the Supreme Court’s rulin...

A new feature that lets you extract a short audio clip from a Twitter Space is getting a widespread release on iOS and Android, Twitter has announced. Anyone in a Space is able to make a clip, which then expires after 30 days. Although the feature isn’t currently available to Twitter web users, the platform says support is “on the way.” Clips are designed to make content from Twitter’s live audio feature more easily sharable on the platform, by serving up the best bits of an audio livestream without asking listeners to sit through the whole thing. The widespread rollout of the feature follows a more limited test that started in March. At the time, the ability to clip a Space was only available to a small number of users on iOS, and even then it was limited to the hosts of a Space rather th...

Microsoft is bringing a new taskbar overflow feature to Windows 11, designed to make it easier to find your open apps once you run out of taskbar space. It’s perfect for power users or people who love to keep all of their apps open all the time. The new taskbar overflow is a three-dot menu that appears once you’ve run out of taskbar space, and neatly hides all the apps that can’t fit on the taskbar all at the same time. Currently, if you open too many apps in Windows 11 and Windows 10, then the taskbar creates an overflow area that only shows the most recent app that has been used or open. This means that if you’re an app connoisseur, it can get difficult to navigate between lots of programs on smaller laptop screens (especially if you don’t use alt+tab and other multitasking features). Th...

An installation-art called META (also known as Meta.is) announced that they will be suing Meta (also known as Facebook) for trademark infringement. META is seeking a permanent injunction preventing Facebook from using the name “Meta” and an undisclosed amount in damage. The company stated that Facebook knowingly ripped off Meta’s entire business and added that it is impossible to do business as customers believe they are affiliated with Facebook. “Facebook seized our META mark and name, which we put our blood, sweat, and tears into building for over twelve years,” reads META’s website. “Today, after eight months of trying to negotiate with Facebook in good faith to no avail, we were left with no choice but to file a lawsuit against them. The lawsuit alleges that Facebook infringed META’s f...

Instagram has just announced its new feature “Boost” that allows businesses to boost their Reels into ads to target new audiences. Boosted reels will appear in feed, Stories, the Reels tab, and the explore tab. Reels must be under 60 seconds to be eligible. In addition, they will have to follow a 9:16 aspect ratio format. Instagram also noted that Reels consisting of third-party intellectual property rights will not be eligible for boosting. Boosted reels cannot contain any copyrighted music, GIFs, camera filters, or interactive stickers. “Keep boosting your reels to connect with your audience and attract potential new customers,” says a blog post. “Instagram Reels are a fun, entertaining way to tell your brand story and get discovered by new audiences. Reels is our fastest-growing format ...

Smart home company Eve continues its transition to Thread this week with the release of the second generation of its motion sensor. A wireless sensor that works over Thread and Bluetooth Low Energy, the Eve Motion is the first standalone motion sensor to use the Thread wireless protocol, which is a pillar of the new Matter smart home standard. Today, the motion sensor will work with Apple HomeKit to trigger automations such as turning on connected smart lights or opening smart window shades. But when Matter arrives later this year, Eve says the motion sensor and all Eve’s Thread-based products will receive an over-the-air firmware update to be compatible with Matter. This will open the device to other Matter ecosystems, including Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. With Thr...

Ten years after launching a pioneering combination of Linux preinstalled on a commercial laptop with Project Sputnik, Dell and Canonical announced that the XPS 13 Plus is the first OEM PC certified for Ubuntu 22.04 Long-Term Support (LTS). That makes this a straightforward route to having a PC that just works without worrying about whether or not each component is ready to work with Linux. Linux-equipped Developer Edition models of the laptop were already available, with prices starting at $1,289.00, but currently ship with the older 20.04 LTS software. Long-term support releases deliver what it says on the tin, with the end of standard support for this version scheduled in 2027 and the end of life in 2032. Certified devices are lab tested to check the compatibility of each component, whic...