Technology

The text that arrived at 3:51PM on Monday, March 28th, seemed innocent at first. “Mr. Steven,” it read, “I am very sorry, after our communication and understanding during this period of time, I feel that we are not suitable in some ways.” That’s odd, I thought, must be a wrong number. But who was this mysterious Mr. Steven? What was the nature of the disagreement? What the heck did Mr. Steven do to offend this person? I was intrigued — but not enough to respond. Several weeks later, I received another text, this time from someone named “Amy” asking about “a location for coffee.” A couple days after that, “Irene from Vietnam” reached out to ask if I was still living in New York. And then “Sophia” texted, calling me “Laura” and asking about a party we both attended over the weekend. And then...

I don’t think I’ve ever played something that blends genres quite like Neon White. Let me try to summarize the game: you play as a demon hunter who destroys baddies in heaven by using cards that serve as either guns or special movement abilities, and the goal is to get through each level as fast as you possibly can. It’s part first-person shooter, part first-person platformer, part puzzler, part card game, part time attack, and even part visual novel. I’ve struggled to come up with a better description, but in an interview, Neon White creative director Ben Esposito finally gave me one: “a really gamey game.” “It’s a really unlikely game,” he said. “It’s a really gamey game that’s full of gamey things. But the combination of elements is something that no one asked for.” I think he’s got a p...

I don’t think I’ve ever played something that blends genres quite like Neon White. Let me try to summarize the game: you play as a demon hunter who destroys baddies in heaven by using cards that serve as either guns or special movement abilities, and the goal is to get through each level as fast as you possibly can. It’s part first-person shooter, part first-person platformer, part puzzler, part card game, part time attack, and even part visual novel. I’ve struggled to come up with a better description, but in an interview, Neon White creative director Ben Esposito finally gave me one: “a really gamey game.” “It’s a really unlikely game,” he said. “It’s a really gamey game that’s full of gamey things. But the combination of elements is something that no one asked for.” I think he’s got a p...

It’s no mystery why Sony made a PC gaming monitor that can also work well with the PS5. The PC gaming business is simply too big to ignore, and it’s just money on the table that’s otherwise up for grabs by other monitor makers. Sony didn’t say those exact words, but it didn’t have to for me to know that it’s one of the reasons why it decided to announce two gaming monitors this week. Another reason is because Sony’s growing focus on services means that PS Plus will eventually go beyond the console. Getting its games in front of more people instead of locking them down as exclusives has, in the past few years, become a welcome change in strategy. Sony is late to this particular party, though. Nintendo’s Switch and Valve’s Steam Deck can be played anywhere by design, and while you don’t see ...

It’s no mystery why Sony made a PC gaming monitor that can also work well with the PS5. The PC gaming business is simply too big to ignore, and it’s just money on the table that’s otherwise up for grabs by other monitor makers. Sony didn’t say those exact words, but it didn’t have to for me to know that it’s one of the reasons why it decided to announce two gaming monitors this week. Another reason is because Sony’s growing focus on services means that PS Plus will eventually go beyond the console. Getting its games in front of more people instead of locking them down as exclusives has, in the past few years, become a welcome change in strategy. Sony is late to this particular party, though. Nintendo’s Switch and Valve’s Steam Deck can be played anywhere by design, and while you don’t see ...

Cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in a bid to protect its US assets from creditors in the country, as reported earlier by Bloomberg and CNBC. Representatives for the Singapore-based company made the filing in a Southern District New York court on Friday, which legally protects the US assets of insolvent foreign debtors from creditors in the US. Founded in 2012 by Kyle Davis and Su Zhu, 3AC managed about $10 billion in assets as recently as March, later sinking to $3 billion in April. Like several other crypto firms, including the lending giants Celcius and Babel Finance, 3AC’s turn in fortunes is part of the so-called crypto “winter” that’s brought down stablecoins and sent Bitcoin’s value plunging. Earlier this week, reports emerged that ...

Tesla announced it had delivered 254,695 vehicles during the second quarter of 2022, about an 18 percent drop from the previous quarter. The report, which was published on Tesla’s site, signals an end to a nearly two-year-long run of record quarterly deliveries for Elon Musk’s company, which can mostly be attributed to lengthy COVID-related shutdowns of its factory in Shanghai. Tesla said the Model 3 and Model Y vehicles made up 238,533 of these deliveries, while 16,162 were for the Model S and Model X vehicles. On the production side of things, Tesla said it managed to build a total of 258,580 vehicles. China has been crucial to the company’s rise to its status as one of the most valuable automakers in the world. But Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory has been caught in a seemingly endless loop...

For the last few years, I’ve chosen one weekend day a year to undertake what I’ve come to call a Feeds Reboot. I try to systematically go through every subscription, every follow, every algorithmically or chronologically generated thing I see on social platforms, streaming services, and news apps, and reset or at least review the way it works. I can’t recommend this enough. Every time I do a Feeds Reboot, I notice a huge uptick in how interesting and relevant I suddenly find the internet. Does it then spend the next 364 days slowly degrading back into a morass from which I will try and extricate myself next year? Yep! But I’m still making progress. The point of a Feeds Reboot is to be more intentional about the internet. It’s not the same as a privacy audit, which is also a good thing to d...

Meta’s ending the pilot for Novi, the company’s digital wallet and the last remaining piece of its troubled cryptocurrency project, as first reported by Bloomberg. On Novi’s website, Meta says the wallet is shutting down on September 1st, 2022, and asks users to withdraw their funds “as soon as possible.” Users will lose access to their accounts come September, and will no longer be able to add money to Novi starting July 21st. If someone forgets to withdraw their remaining balance, Meta says it will “attempt to transfer” their funds to the bank account or debit card added to the service. Meta rolled out the “small pilot” of Novi to users in the US and Guatemala last October. Novi was originally built to support fast and free transactions using the Meta-backed cryptocurrency, Diem, but reg...

After two years of Fourth of July celebrations without fireworks during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California resort community of North Lake Tahoe is ready to light up the sky again. But instead of traditional fireworks, more than 100 drones will take off for a light show choreographed to music. Like an increasing number of communities throughout the region, city planners chose fire safety and sustainability over nostalgia as California copes with a cruel megadrought. “Fireworks come with their own list of known environmental impacts—including noise pollution, impacts to the lake, and increased risk of fire at a time when the wildfire risk is already so high,” Katie Biggers, executive director of the Tahoe City Downtown Association, said in a press release earlier this year announcing the ...

Virgin Orbit launched a rocket carrying seven satellites from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port early Saturday morning at 1:49 AM ET (10:49PM local), marking the small satellite launcher’s first successful night mission. The company brought the satellites into low Earth orbit with the help of its Boeing 747 carrier aircraft called Cosmic Girl, which had the LauncherOne rocket attached beneath one of its wings. The mission, called Straight Up after a 1988 Paula Abdul song, involved seven research satellites as part of NASA’s Space Test Program. Like its previous missions, Virgin Orbit propelled the satellites into space by having Cosmic Girl carry the LauncherOne rocket 35,000 feet above the ground, giving it a headstart before the rocket detaches and launches its payload into orbit. V...