Technology

A group of US lawmakers has signed off on a letter to Google that urges the company to reevaluate its treatment of search results that direct users to anti-abortion crisis centers rather than legitimate clinics, as first reported by Reuters. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) are leading the initiative, while several other Democratic lawmakers have signed the letter in support. The letter cites research published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which focuses on Google search results in “trigger law states” — or the 13 states where abortion will become illegal if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Research indicates that 11 percent of Google searches in trigger law states for “abortion clinic near me” and “abortion pill” bring users t...

It’s exceedingly rare that a product actually gets better months after it was released. But Microsoft’s oft-forgotten Surface Duo 2, which launched back in October 2021 with a steep price tag and a laundry list of bugs and issues that made it very frustrating to use, has bucked that trend. In fact, the Duo 2 has improved so much that it’s now one of my favorite mobile devices, even if it’s still weird and unique enough that I can’t exactly recommend it to most people. In case you’ve forgotten, the Surface Duo 2 is a folding phone with two big screens joined by a hinge. Unlike Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3, which takes a single tablet-sized display and folds it in half to fit in your pocket, the Duo 2’s two screens make it feel more like two large phones attached together and running the same s...

Frederic Gemus still remembers the first time he played the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. There was something about the experience, with its big expressive characters and approachable gameplay, that sucked him right in. “Playing that game was so mind blowing because it was just like playing the cartoon,” he tells me over Zoom (with a huge collection of retro games behind him). “It was so different from the Nintendo back in the days.” So, when Gemus, now a designer at Montreal-based studio Tribute Games, had a chance to work on a modern take on TMNT, it was pretty much a dream project. “That was pretty awesome to learn about,” he says of being put on the project. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is out now, and it comes from some proven experts in the fi...

Kick off the weekend with a steep discount on the latest, fastest iteration of the Apple TV 4K. The 32GB model normally retails for $179.99 (it’s usually one of the pricier streaming devices out there), but you can grab one for a much more reasonable $129.99. This deal debuted earlier this week, and we can’t get enough of it. If you want to double the internal storage to 64GB, that model is just $20 more at $149.99 instead of $199.99. This Father’s Day-timed deal ends on June 20th, and it might be a good idea to take advantage of if you want a speedy, feature-packed streaming box for your TV. The Apple TV 4K supports all of the major streaming services, plus support for games, along with Apple’s core services. Compared to the previous model, this 2021 edition has a faster A12 Bionic chipse...

Pixar and Disney have hyped director Angus MacLane’s Lightyear up by making it out as a mysterious reworking of Toy Story’s canon that reveals all-new details about Andy Davis’ favorite space explorer. Though a new version of Buzz anchors the film, its story about how reaching for the stars can lead to people losing hold of the important things right in front of them is actually more about taking its titular astronaut off a pedestal and unpacking why we tend to frame people like him as heroes. Lightyear tells the story of Buzz (Chris Evans), one of the headstrong Galactic Rangers of Star Command who’s committed his life to the organization’s exploration of deep space. After years of working closely only with his commanding officer Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), Lightyear’s left convinced th...

On Friday, SpaceX fired a group of employees involved in crafting an open letter to corporate leaders that criticized CEO Elon Musk — and labor lawyers now say the firings may have violated US labor law. The letter circulated Thursday calling for stronger anti-harassment policies at SpaceX and a more restrained Twitter presence from Musk. At least five employees were fired shortly after the letter was published. It’s unclear whether any of the fired employees will try to file suit with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But if they do, lawyers say they will have a strong case. “To be covered, an action has to be concerted (certainly the case here) and it has to relate to working conditions,” says Charlotte Garden, a law professor at Seattle University who wrote about employee speec...

On Friday, SpaceX fired a group of employees involved in crafting an open letter to corporate leaders that criticized CEO Elon Musk — and labor lawyers now say the firings may have violated US labor law. The letter circulated Thursday calling for stronger anti-harassment policies at SpaceX and a more restrained Twitter presence from Musk. At least five employees were fired shortly after the letter was published. It’s unclear whether any of the fired employees will try to file suit with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But if they do, lawyers say they will have a strong case. “To be covered, an action has to be concerted (certainly the case here) and it has to relate to working conditions,” says Charlotte Garden, a law professor at Seattle University who wrote about employee speec...

Puget Systems offers a number of different benchmarks to test out your PC using automated real-world tasks in the Adobe Creative Cloud. Some of them (such as the one for Premiere Pro) are somewhat complicated and can take a while to get up and running. But one of them — PugetBench for Photoshop — is very simple. PugetBench for Photoshop measures how fast your computer can perform various tasks, including mask refinement and gradients as well as filter tasks like lens correction and noise reduction. Unlike some of Puget’s other benchmarks, the Photoshop benchmark only requires one quick plug-in to set up. Note: this benchmark is not yet supported for the M1-native version of Photoshop. In the Creative Cloud Desktop app, go to Stock and Marketplace > Plugins. Search for PugetBench for Pho...

Puget Systems offers a number of different benchmarks to test out your PC using automated real-world tasks in the Adobe Creative Cloud. Some of them (such as the one for Premiere Pro) are somewhat complicated and can take a while to get up and running. But one of them — PugetBench for Photoshop — is very simple. PugetBench for Photoshop measures how fast your computer can perform various tasks, including mask refinement and gradients as well as filter tasks like lens correction and noise reduction. Unlike some of Puget’s other benchmarks, the Photoshop benchmark only requires one quick plug-in to set up. Note: this benchmark is not yet supported for the M1-native version of Photoshop. In the Creative Cloud Desktop app, go to Stock and Marketplace > Plugins. Search for PugetBench for Pho...

It took less than a day and a half for more than 400 SpaceX employees to sign onto an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk after it was posted and shared by some of their co-workers in an internal chat. Just 32 hours after it was shared, the internal landing page for the document was taken offline, around the same time that a group of employees was fired for their involvement in crafting and sharing the letter, a move that may have been a violation of labor law. The open letter first went live on an internal landing page at noon Eastern, and then it was shared by a handful of employees to roughly 10 chat rooms in Microsoft Teams as well as one email list. The contents were bold: the employees asserted that Musk’s behavior in recent weeks had become a source of embarrassment and a distract...

It took less than a day and a half for more than 400 SpaceX employees to sign onto an open letter criticizing CEO Elon Musk after it was posted and shared by some of their co-workers in an internal chat. Just 32 hours after it was shared, the internal landing page for the document was taken offline, around the same time that a group of employees was fired for their involvement in crafting and sharing the letter, a move that may have been a violation of labor law. The open letter first went live on an internal landing page at noon Eastern, and then it was shared by a handful of employees to roughly 10 chat rooms in Microsoft Teams as well as one email list. The contents were bold: the employees asserted that Musk’s behavior in recent weeks had become a source of embarrassment and a distract...

If you’ve ever thought, “I would like my digital avatar to wear poorly rendered designer clothing,” I have excellent news for you. Meta is launching an online store where Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger users can purchase digital clothing for their avatar. The first brands on the store are Prada, Balenciaga, and Thom Browne, and clothes include a motocross outfit, a logo hoodie, and suits. In a Facebook post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said more brands would be added soon. “Digital goods will be an important way to express yourself in the metaverse and a big driver of the creative economy,” he says. Luxury fashion houses are increasingly partnering with technology companies to create branded digital garments. Last year, Fortnite introduced Balenciaga skins so players could purchase garmen...