Technology

Starting Saturday, people in a mental health crisis will be able to call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). It’ll connect people with mental health counselors 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Lifeline is a network of over 200 local call centers. If local centers are busy, callers are redirected to a national backup center. Officials have billed the new number as the “911” for suicide prevention and mental healthcare. It replaces the old National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number — 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). One goal is to reduce the number of mental health crisis calls that go to 911, which often sends people to busy emergency rooms or puts them in contact with law enforcement unprepared to handle the situat...

Starting Saturday, people in a mental health crisis will be able to call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). It’ll connect people with mental health counselors 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Lifeline is a network of over 200 local call centers. If local centers are busy, callers are redirected to a national backup center. Officials have billed the new number as the “911” for suicide prevention and mental healthcare. It replaces the old National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number — 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). One goal is to reduce the number of mental health crisis calls that go to 911, which often sends people to busy emergency rooms or puts them in contact with law enforcement unprepared to handle the situat...

This morning Apple announced Apple Music Sessions, a series of live performances that will be available exclusively to subscribers of the company’s music service. Carrie Underwood and Tenille Townes are the first two artists to be featured, and for now, the sessions will mostly be geared toward country. That’s likely because they’re being recorded from Nashville, Tennessee, in what Apple describes as a “state-of-the-art” studio. The company plans to tap into other genres (and other recording studios around the world) “in the future,” according to today’s press release. For each session, artists will perform original songs as well as “creative” covers. Carrie Underwood went with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” with Townes opting for Etta James’ “At Last.” Tenille Townes also releas...

This morning Apple announced Apple Music Sessions, a series of live performances that will be available exclusively to subscribers of the company’s music service. Carrie Underwood and Tenille Townes are the first two artists to be featured, and for now, the sessions will mostly be geared toward country. That’s likely because they’re being recorded from Nashville, Tennessee, in what Apple describes as a “state-of-the-art” studio. The company plans to tap into other genres (and other recording studios around the world) “in the future,” according to today’s press release. For each session, artists will perform original songs as well as “creative” covers. Carrie Underwood went with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” with Townes opting for Etta James’ “At Last.” Tenille Townes also releas...

This morning Apple announced Apple Music Sessions, a series of live performances that will be available exclusively to subscribers of the company’s music service. Carrie Underwood and Tenille Townes are the first two artists to be featured, and for now, the sessions will mostly be geared toward country. That’s likely because they’re being recorded from Nashville, Tennessee, in what Apple describes as a “state-of-the-art” studio. The company plans to tap into other genres (and other recording studios around the world) “in the future,” according to today’s press release. For each session, artists will perform original songs as well as “creative” covers. Carrie Underwood went with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” with Townes opting for Etta James’ “At Last.” Tenille Townes also releas...

A payload making its way to the International Space Station could help researchers back on Earth finally solve a climate mystery that’s stymied scientists for years. NASA launched a key instrument for its climate research, called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Thursday night from the Kennedy Space Center. Dust is a surprisingly powerful force up in the atmosphere, which is why NASA is determined to better understand it. The tiny particles waft up from deserts and other arid regions, and depending on many different factors, they can have a cooling or heating effect on our planet. Which scenario is actually playing out across the globe, however, continues to elude scientists. “An unknown element” “EMIT is studying mineral dust be...

A payload making its way to the International Space Station could help researchers back on Earth finally solve a climate mystery that’s stymied scientists for years. NASA launched a key instrument for its climate research, called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Thursday night from the Kennedy Space Center. Dust is a surprisingly powerful force up in the atmosphere, which is why NASA is determined to better understand it. The tiny particles waft up from deserts and other arid regions, and depending on many different factors, they can have a cooling or heating effect on our planet. Which scenario is actually playing out across the globe, however, continues to elude scientists. “An unknown element” “EMIT is studying mineral dust be...

A payload making its way to the International Space Station could help researchers back on Earth finally solve a climate mystery that’s stymied scientists for years. NASA launched a key instrument for its climate research, called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Thursday night from the Kennedy Space Center. Dust is a surprisingly powerful force up in the atmosphere, which is why NASA is determined to better understand it. The tiny particles waft up from deserts and other arid regions, and depending on many different factors, they can have a cooling or heating effect on our planet. Which scenario is actually playing out across the globe, however, continues to elude scientists. “An unknown element” “EMIT is studying mineral dust be...

Microsoft is changing how it releases major versions of Windows again, and it could mean we see a Windows 12 release in 2024. Windows Central reports that Microsoft is shifting back to a three-year release cycle for Windows, which means the next major version of Windows is now due in 2024. It’s another big change to how Microsoft develops Windows. Microsoft originally moved away from its three-year cycle with the release of Windows 10 in 2015, prioritizing the idea of Windows as a service. Instead of a big release of features every three years in a new Windows release, Windows 10 was updated twice a year with big new features. For years, many Windows watchers thought Windows 10 would be the last big bang release of Windows, after a Microsoft employee described Windows 10 as “the last versi...

So it was a troll after all. Look, I was willing to believe I’d called it wrong after the merger agreement went through. Maybe Elon Musk was serious for a change! Maybe he really did want to own an also-ran social network! Maybe Musk was really looking forward to giving himself ulcers dealing with content moderation issues! People have done weirder shit for power, and I think we can all agree that Elon Musk is deeply interested in power. Why else would he be busy testing how well Americans enforce their laws? A quick recap: Musk is attempting to do a runner on the Twitter acquisition, and Twitter isn’t having it. Twitter lawyered up in the rudest possible fashion: with the firm that came up with the poison pill. That firm then filed a lawsuit against Musk to try to force the merger to go t...

Six years ago, Apple introduced the touch bar, a thin touchscreen strip that replaced the usual row of function buttons on its MacBook Pros. To say it has been controversial would be an understatement. Among tech media’s elite, it’s one of the most widely and consistently bemoaned gadget features in recent memory. “In several years it’ll just be a useless appendage, like the last protohuman with a tail,” Engadget wrote in its review of the most recent MacBook Pro. “Apple’s Touch Bar was an expensive gimmick, and I hated it as much as the disastrous butterfly keyboard,” CNET wrote in a column last year. Different Verge reviewers have referred to the little touchscreen strip as “hopelessly confused”, “baffling”, “dreaded,” “aggravating”, and “infinitely worse than a hard button” at various p...