Technology

At the start of the pandemic, demand for talk therapy apps skyrocketed. Prominent players, like BetterHelp and Talkspace, saw their downloads nearly double throughout the first few months of lockdown in 2020. Now, lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are demanding details on how these companies protect the privacy of their users. In letters to BetterHelp and Talkspace executives on Thursday, Warren — along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) — called on the mental health companies to explain how their apps collect and use data obtained from their patients. Specifically, lawmakers requested information on the apps’ relationships with online advertisers, data brokers, and social media platforms like Facebook as well as how those relationships are disclosed to users. Law...

During Amazon’s annual re:Mars event, the company announced a new feature that can synthesize short audio clips into longer clips. According to TechCrunch, a scenario featured at the conference was the voice of a deceased loved one; specifically, a grandmother is used to read a bedtime story to a grandson. Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa at Amazon, Rohit Prasad, stated that using the new technology, Amazon can just turn one minute of speech into endless possibilities. “This required inventions where we had to learn to produce a high-quality voice with less than a minute of recording versus hours of recording in the studio, the way we made it happen is by framing the problem as a voice conversion task and not a speech generation path. We are unquestionably livin...

Epic Games has finally introduced a ratings system to its online store, and it’s designed in a way that’s intended to prevent waves of negative user reviews from happening all at once, a practice more commonly known as review bombing. Instead of allowing anyone to review a game they own, random players who have played a game for more than two hours will be asked to review it on a five-star scale, according to an Epic Games blog post. Those scores will then be collected to create the “Overall Rating” for each game. Occasionally, review-bomb campaigns can point out legitimately harmful consumer practices, but they’re often used in bad faith to protest a creator taking a political stance or if the media in question features people from marginalized backgrounds. Movie sites like Rotten Tomatoe...

Epic Games has finally introduced a ratings system to its online store, and it’s designed in a way that’s intended to prevent waves of negative user reviews from happening all at once, a practice more commonly known as review bombing. Instead of allowing anyone to review a game they own, random players who have played a game for more than two hours will be asked to review it on a five-star scale, according to an Epic Games blog post. Those scores will then be collected to create the “Overall Rating” for each game. Occasionally, review-bomb campaigns can point out legitimately harmful consumer practices, but they’re often used in bad faith to protest a creator taking a political stance or if the media in question features people from marginalized backgrounds. Movie sites like Rotten Tomatoe...

Though Kamala Khan’s powers were significantly reworked for the MCU, the latest episode of Disney Plus’ Ms. Marvel series might be setting up a reveal that connects its hero and her abilities to the original Captain Marvel of Marvel’s comic books. Kamala doesn’t initially think all that much of the vintage bangle she receives in a gift package from her grandmother Sana (Samina Ahmad) in Ms. Marvel’s first episode. But when she actually puts it on, she immediately realizes that there’s much more to the heirloom than meets the eye. In addition to transporting Kamala (at least mentally) to another plane bathed in neon light, the bangle unlocks her power to generate glowing constructs made out of an unidentified energy that comes from within her. In the short time since Kamala got her hands on...

FedEx will soon take pictures of packages delivered to your doorstep for items that do not require a signature. In a press press release, FedEx’s chief customer officer Brie Carere stated that this service was frequently requested from e-commerce merchants and customers. Over the past years, package theft has increased, also known as “porch pirate,” costing businesses and consumers over $9 USD billion a year. “Receiving visual confirmation that the package has arrived gives peace of mind to both merchants and consumers, and we are thrilled to give them that confidence,” said Carere. Oftentimes, when a customer reports a package missing, there is confusion on who’s at fault. Introducing a proof of delivery will benefit all parties if a package gets ever lost. It comes in as a protectio...

Altria Group Inc.’s stock — 35% owners of JUUL — has taken a 9% tumble as it has just been announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could be putting a stop to the sales of Juul Labs’ popular JUUL e-cigarette. On top of its initial $12.8 billion USD investment into JUUL, the vaping company has continued to face challenging times, first with the removal of its flavored pods, then with the heavy fines and lawsuits, all added to the increased scrutiny due to the large number of teens using its products — it is estimated that there are over two million adolescent vape users in the United States. This news comes after a two-year review by the FDA where all vaping products sold in the U.S. were reviewed to determine if they could be sold in the country. There’s no news yet on why the ...

The Hundreds has just released its collaborative hard wallets with Ledger. Going hand in hand with Bobby’s push for Web 3.0 initiatives and his NFT community built via the Adam Bomb Squad, this release ensures that all holders with digital assets are protected from those looking to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of soft wallets. Seen in four colorways — Adam Bomb Squad holders with Red, Blue, and Green Sticker traits were gifted their respective colors — each Ledger Nano X features an allover print of the Adam Bomb mascot across its stainless steel cover. Priced at $170 USD, The Hundreds x Ledger Nano X is available now at Ledger’s web store. In other tech news, the FDA could be banning the sale of JUUL E-cigarettes in the United States. Read Full Article

FedEx will soon take photos of packages at your doorstep to provide proof of delivery when they don’t require a signature. “This is something e-commerce merchants and customers have been asking for, and we are proud to be the first to announce this service will be available to residential customers,” Brie Carere, FedEx’s chief customer officer, said in a press release announcing the program today. The free service will be available for both FedEx Express and FedEx Ground delivery customers with and without a login to the FedEx Delivery Manager, the company’s free portal. The new program will obviously be a good source of protection for FedEx, and it should also help business owners whose customers report that their package hasn’t been delivered. It will also be a good resource for customer...

Can gene-editing technology CRISPR create new crops that help fight climate change as they grow? That’s what a group of researchers hopes to do with $11 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The funding will go toward efforts to enhance plants — starting with rice — and soil so that they’re better at trapping carbon dioxide. The effort, which was announced last week, is being led by the Innovative Genomics Institute, which was founded by Nobel laureate and co-inventor of CRISPR Jennifer Doudna. “[Jennifer] and I saw eye to eye on climate and how big of a problem it is in the world. And we just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore,” says Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) executive director Brad Ringeisen. “We just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore” Clima...