Technology

Amazon Prime Day is finally upon us, and with it comes a variety of excellent deals on gaming hardware and accessories, not to mention games. This year, you can even grab some cool odds and ends to round out your gaming setup at home, whether you’re looking to personalize your peripherals or elevate the production of your Twitch stream. While it’s still a bit ambitious to expect discounts on next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, we’re definitely keeping our ears to the ground for restocks of the console at Amazon and other retailers. Virtual reality deals We can wholeheartedly recommend picking the Meta Quest 2 for its ease of use and accessibility, but Amazon has also discounted the HTC Vive for anyone planning to keep their headset tethered to a PC. Controller deals...

Kirby’s getting yet another Switch game; this time, it’s a four-player competition to see who can gobble up the most strawberries. The trailer for Kirby’s Dream Buffet has Kirby and friends rolling across food-themed obstacle courses while shapeshifting into desserts, like a cupcake or chocolate bar, that grant him different powers. Kirby’s Dream Buffet looks kind of like Super Monkey Ball, only Dream Buffet swaps bananas for strawberries and a plastic ball for, well… Kirby. As the four players consume more strawberries, they grow bigger to prepare for what Nintendo describes as a final “fruity fight atop a floating platform.” He big. At the end of the trailer, Kirby and his three blue, green, and yellow companions plop down on food scales to see who managed to eat the most. The larg...

It’s a big ol’ Spotify day here at Hot Pod. The company is making moves, acquiring Wordle-inspired music trivia game Heardle, expanding its video podcast reach to new countries, and taking another hit podcast exclusive. Plus, a roundup of the best Prime Day audio deals. Let’s get into it. Spotify acquires music trivia game Heardle Spotify announced Tuesday that it has purchased Heardle, one of the many themed trivia games that cropped up in the wake of Wordle’s blockbuster success. Heardle is Spotify’s first game acquisition, and the company hopes it will play a dual role: in addition to keeping music nerds engaged, it can act as a music discovery tool. You can read all about it here. Spotify expands video podcasts to six more countries As the preference for video podcasts grows, Spotify i...

Researchers successfully transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two recently deceased people connected to ventilators, the New York University team announced today. The surgeries are the latest step forward in the field of animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, which has seen a flurry of successes so far this year — raising hopes for a new, steady supply of organs to ease shortages. The only thing different about these heart transplants from a normal human-to-human heart transplant was the organ itself, the research team said in a statement. “Our goal is to integrate the practices used in a typical, everyday heart transplant, only with a nonhuman organ that will function normally without additional aid from untested devices or medicines,” said Nader Moazami, direct...

We’re on the cusp of a new generation of wireless headphones that are more power-efficient, sound better, and support novel new features like being able to connect an “unlimited” number of devices to a single source. That’s thanks to Bluetooth LE Audio, an umbrella term for a collection of new features for Bluetooth devices that the Bluetooth standards body is officially announcing the completion of today. Bluetooth LE Audio was announced way back at the beginning of 2020, and the Bluetooth SIG had originally hoped that supporting devices would be released before the end of that year. But, after a significant delay due to the pandemic, the completion of the specification today means that manufacturers can now start adding support for the standard to their devices. It means the first compat...

Optics and imaging giant Nikon will stop making new single lens reflex cameras — once the technological mainstay of professional photography — according to a report from Nikkei. The death of SLR cameras has been coming for quite some time, as mirrorless alternatives have increased in image quality while offering consumers the option to use lighter and smaller products. According to Nikkei, Nikon will continue to produce and distribute its existing SLR models, but will focus development of new models entirely on mirrorless. Nikkei notes that Nikon’s SLR cameras were “widely used by professional cameramen for more than 60 years and have come to be seen as synonymous with the Japanese company.” Nikon will continue to sell existing DSLR models Just last month, Nikon announced that it was disco...

Linktree, a popular “link in bio” service, is launching a mobile app on iOS and Android, the company announced on Tuesday. Previously, you’ve had to log into Linktree through a browser on desktop or your phone to manage your profile, but if you prefer an app, that will now be an option. The “majority” of Linktree’s signups and logins from its more than 25 million users happen on a mobile device, according to a Linktree press release, so this new app could prove to be a popular choice for creators. Link in bio services, which generally let you make a simple page with a list of all the links you want to share with the world, have become more and more popular among creators in recent years. Social networks like Instagram and TikTok only let you put a single link in your profile, but link in b...

BMW is now selling subscriptions for heated seats in a number of countries — the latest example of the company’s adoption of microtransactions for high-end car features. A monthly subscription to heat your BMW’s front seats costs roughly $18, with options to subscribe for a year ($180), three years ($300), or pay for “unlimited” access for $415. It’s not clear exactly when BMW started offering this feature as a subscription, or in which countries, but a number of outlets this week reported spotted its launch in South Korea. BMW has slowly been putting features behind subscriptions since 2020, and heated seats subs are now available in BMW’s digital stores in countries including the UK, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa. It doesn’t, however, seem to be an option in the US — yet. A scre...

A long-time coming feature has finally arrived. YouTube is slowly rolling out picture-in-picture mode to more iPhone and iPad users. Google announced last year that they will be releasing the feature to both premium and non-premium YouTube users. “We recognize this has been a slow roll out for a highly requested feature,” the company said in an article, “(we) want to thank everyone who shared feedback during experiments and waited patiently for this moment.” Picture-to-picture mode allows users to continue watching your videos on YouTube while simultaneously working on other stuff on your device. The feature was previously exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers in the United States, but now it is available to all users in the U.S. A premium membership will be needed for users in the U.S....

On Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden publicly unveiled the first official image from NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope which launched in December last year. Crowned as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and the most powerful space telescope ever, Webb’s snapshot is said to be the “deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date.” Appearing in the new image is the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it looked 4.6 billion years ago. The image is both a trip through distant space and a glimpse into a period that predates our planet. The thousands of galaxies in frame, which harbor a countless number of star clusters and planets, are just a small speck in our perceivable universe, covering a patch of sky “approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by so...

Following a filing for bankruptcy, the founders of a Singaporean cryptocurrency hedge fund called Three Arrows Capital have disappeared, with liquidators now unable to reach them. The liquidation is currently handled by Teneo, and when senior directors Russell Crumpler and Christopher Farmer joined a Zoom call with hedge fund founders Kyle Davies and Su Zhu, the duo simply had their cameras turned off and mics muted the entire time, instead relying on a legal agency to represent them even when questions were directly posed to the two. When Farmer tried to physically locate Zhu and Davies at the Three Arrows Capital office in Singapore, the door was locked and there was a pile of unopened mail. Rumors have circulated that Zhu is currently trying to sell his $35 million USD mansion in the co...

Back in May, SpaceX‘s Starlink started supporting those on the go, allowing you to use its satellite internet service while you’re on road trips or taking your camper van out for a short holiday for a little extra added to your monthly subscription fee, but now the company is taking it to the next level, launching what it calls Starlink Maritime. Just as its name suggests, the new service allows you to install a Starlink receiver on your boat or yacht so you’ll be able to access the world wide web even when you’re in the middle of the open seas. Just like its other services, Starlink Maritime taps into SpaceX’s network of satellites orbiting the Earth, so you’ll be able to stay connected anywhere on the globe. More than just a simple connection, you̵...