Technology

SwitchBot, the company that makes tiny robotic fingers to press your switches for you, is branching further into the smart home. The new SwitchBot Lock ($99.99) sticks to your door and turns the thumb turn automatically to lock and unlock it. This is the simplest retrofit smart lock solution I’ve ever seen. SwitchBot says it can be installed in seconds since there’s no need to remove any part of your existing door lock. But it does look a bit odd. The SwitchBot Lock will be available starting June 20th at Amazon and the SwitchBot store along with two compatible keypads — the SwitchBot KeyPad ($29.99) and the SwitchBot KeyPad Touch with a fingerprint reader ($59.99). There are two versions of the SwitchBot KeyPad, one with a fingerprint reader. They’re sold separately from the lock.Image: S...

Amazon’s annual shopping event, Amazon Prime Day, will officially kick off at 3AM ET / 12AM PT on Tuesday, July 12th, and run through Wednesday, July 13th, the company announced today. We knew it was going to be July, thanks to a prior earnings call, but now Amazon Prime subscribers know when to set their clocks for. This year’s Prime Day is a few weeks later than it occurred last year, but it’s maintaining its summer timing, as opposed to during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when Amazon delayed the event until October. And if you’re in the market for toys, tech, home goods, or pretty much anything else, it may be one of the best times to save money outside of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday holiday shopping season. It’s almost a guarantee that we’ll see some of the lowest prices to d...

YouTube is introducing new seasonal recaps that allow users to view their top artists, songs, albums and playlists on YouTube Music, similar to that of Spotify Wrapped. Like the yearly review, Google has just rolled out a Spring Recap for 2022. In 2021, YouTube Music introduced a “Year in Review” roundup similar to Spotify’s Wrapped. Spotify’s annual recaps allow users to look back throughout the year to see what songs they have listened to the most. It makes a fun experience for users to share with their friends and comment on their music tastes. Certain users have seen a banner on YouTube Music displaying the words “Spring Recap is here.” A set of six cards pops up by tapping it, displaying a wide range of stats ranging from artist to song count. An official statement by YouTube des...

First, there was Samsung Wallet. Then it became Samsung Pay. Now, because time is a flat circle, Samsung is bringing the Wallet app back — basically, bringing a lot of existing Samsung services into one app. And this time, there’s crypto! The new Samsung Wallet is available today, and it will take the place of the current Pay and Pass apps, which currently handle payment cards and passwords, respectively. It also integrates with SmartThings to store certain digital home and car keys. And, of course, the new Samsung Wallet integrates with the existing Samsung Blockchain Wallet app, so you can easily check the value of your cryptocurrency portfolio. Or maybe don’t. Samsung also plans to add some features it teased at its Unpacked event earlier this year, including the ability to store your d...

YouTube is introducing new seasonal recaps of your top artists, songs, albums, and playlists to YouTube Music, starting first with the Spring Recap. YouTube rolled out a Spotify Wrapped-style annual recap at the end of last year, but now YouTube owner Google is taking the concept further with seasonal rundowns. “Similar to the 2021 Recap, you’ll find your personalized content in the Spring Recap landing page on the YouTube Music app along with your personalized Spring Recap playlist,” YouTube product manager Ayshaw Khan wrote in a blog post. “Want to tell your friends about your favorite songs of the Spring? Easily share your Spring Recap playlist and stats by simply tapping the arrow at the bottom of your stats card.” YouTube’s screenshot showing off what the recap looks like.Image: YouTu...

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has received unanimous approval to expand its system of tunnels beneath downtown Las Vegas. The expansion will add stops at landmarks like the Stratosphere and Fremont Street, letting customers hop aboard a Tesla and travel from one part of the city to the next. The network of tunnels, called the Vegas Loop, is supposed to span 29 miles and have 51 stops when finished. But for now, only 1.7-mile tunnels are operational beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), turning what would be a 25-minute walk across the convention center into a two-minute ride. The system uses human-controlled Model X and Y vehicles to transport passengers, despite Musk’s previous statements about using sleds to carry cars through the tunnels. Image: The Boring Company This year’s CES...

Panicking because Father’s Day is just around the corner and you have yet to pick up your dad something special? Fret not because we’ve got your back. We did a bit of digging and found a variety of excellent gadgets Dad will love, all of which you can still order today and receive in time for Father’s Day. You don’t necessarily need to be an Amazon Prime member to receive some of these in time for the holiday either, nor do you need to pay extra for expedited shipping at places like Best Buy, Target, or Walmart. Also, if you still can’t decide what to buy after looking through our list, be sure to check out our Father’s Day 2022 gift guide. And if you really can’t make up your mind and end up leaving things until the last minute, we’ve curated a list of digital gifts toward the end of this...

Sony has released a cool update for its free Share Factory Studio photo and video editing app on PS5 that lets you easily overlay doodles, visual filters, and more onto your saved gameplay captures called Bits. This update is meant to make it easy for beginners to share a video that has some more personality and context. But it seems to go pretty deep, offering a range of customizable effects, including filters, text, sound effects, music, voiceover, doodles, and other visual effects like stickers and camera effects. Once you save your creation to your console’s storage, you can upload it to Twitter or YouTube straight from the PS5. Or, if you have the PlayStation app on your phone or tablet, these Bits can show up in the Game Captures section. From there, you can download them to share or...

Spotify is reducing its new hiring by 25 percent as recession fears mount, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. It is unclear which parts of the business will be most affected. Spotify is far from the only tech company to reevaluate its staffing as the stock market tumbles. Twitter and Meta each announced some degree of hiring freeze last month, and Netflix made headlines in April for its layoffs, particularly at in-house fan site Tudum. During Spotify’s investor presentation last week, CEO Daniel Ek emphasized the company’s growth not only in subscriptions but in verticals beyond music like podcasting and, soon, audiobooks. But chief financial officer Paul Vogel did hint at the event that staffing could be affected by economic conditions. “We are clearly aware of the incre...

When Glen Schofield left Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games back in 2018, he needed a break. The game designer, best known as the creator of the seminal sci-fi horror series Dead Space, decided to head out to the desert in Arizona for a little R&R — which for him meant coming up with lots of new game concepts. “I would go out there and draw,” he says. “And while I was drawing, I was coming up with ideas.” He came back with a 40-page book that would ultimately turn into his return to the survival horror genre: a game called The Callisto Protocol. The game — which is being developed by Striking Distance Studios, a new team under the umbrella of PUBG company Krafton — was first announced in 2020, and last week, a gruesome new trailer was unveiled at Summer Game Fest. (It was loving...