Technology

The Department of Energy kicked off a new $8 billion program yesterday to develop a network of hubs for producing hydrogen as a clean fuel. It’s a milestone for one of the Biden administration’s most contentious strategies for tackling climate change. Hydrogen has the potential to slash emissions from some of the industries that are the hardest to clean up. It might replace coal used in making steel or fossil fuels that power diesel trucks and cargo ships. When burned, it produces water vapor instead of greenhouse gas emissions (although it can still contribute to nitrogen oxide pollution in the air). The tricky part is that not all hydrogen is created the same way The tricky part is that not all hydrogen is created the same way and can come with different benefits and pitfalls. At the mom...

While most children grow up simply thinking of figures like Cinderella as fictional people, in Netflix’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil, fairy tales are very real accounts of historical events that everyone should know. Agatha and Sophie, the story’s heroines know that there’s a reason everyone in their village insists that kids learn the lessons woven into tales about the fae folk and warn them to steer clear of the nearby menacing forest. But, in The School for Good and Evil’s first teaser trailer that dropped as a part of this year’s Netflix Geeked Week, Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) discover that the truth that’s been looming over them their whole lives is wilder than they ever could have imagined. In Chainani’s n...

Apple’s WWDC 2022 announcements lacked big, splashy new features, and Siri was largely MIA. But in the absence of Apple’s virtual assistant, we got a lot of small but potentially meaningful software updates centered around a very real individual: you. And me. Developers know us as “end users,” but we’re otherwise known as humans. Humans are different from end users, because we forget words, make typos, and accidentally hit send on an important email before it’s ready. Humans also have individual personalities and strong opinions about typefaces, and we’d like it if the devices we carry around 24/7 reflected that a little more. Historically, Apple has preferred to keep a tight grip on every aspect of its devices, from how they look to the way humans are allowed to interact with them. This y...

Anyone who’s been in a text message group chat with participants spread across iOS and Android probably knows about the annoying reaction texts coming from iPhone users, usually formatted as: Person A Liked/Disliked “Person B’s message.” But now, after Google implemented a workaround inside its text message app on Android, Apple is doing something about it with iOS 16. After the update, it will hide those written messages and output them as the expected bubble icon next to the message it was in reaction to (via 9to5Mac). Google’s fix on the Android side earlier this year worked a similar way, by adding iOS-friendly emoji reactions to the Google Messages app. Apple’s iMessage Tapbacks have since appeared as proper emoji icons on Androids using Google Messages, but the issue largely persiste...

The Google Pixel 6 Pro, a behemoth smartphone with a brilliant telephoto lens (along with wide and ultrawide lenses), is $100 off in time for Father’s Day. Normally $899, it’s $799 at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store through June 19th. What kind of person surprises their dad with a $799 phone? Someone who’s very giving, obviously, but also someone who wants their dad to be able to take pretty spectacular photos wherever they go. But back to that 48-megapixel telephoto lens with 4x optical zoom, which makes the Pixel 6 Pro worth getting if you or your dad is into taking intimate, close crop shots — whether portraits or landscapes. One of the biggest gripes we had in our review of this phone, however, was the price you have to pay to get the telephoto lens perk. Compared to the slightl...

TikTok is launching a new feature that lets users turn themselves into custom animated avatars in the style of Apple’s Memoji, Snapchat’s Bitmoji, and Meta’s Avatars. The feature is rolling out globally today and is accessible from the app’s camera alongside TikTok’s various other effects. To use the feature on yourself, open the app, flip the camera to selfie mode, tap effects, and select the avatar effect. You can then either use a preset look or hit “new” to create a custom avatar. This lets you customize your avatar’s face shape, skin tone, hairstyle, and accessories, including makeup and piercings. You can then record a video with the avatar following your movements and facial expressions. The new avatar feature is accessible from the video effects select. It’s in the far right of the...

Waymo and Uber, former legal foes and bitter rivals in the autonomous vehicle space, are teaming up to speed up the adoption of driverless trucks. Waymo is integrating Uber Freight, the ride-hail company’s truck brokerage, into the technology that powers its autonomous big rigs. This “long-term strategic partnership” will enable fleet owners to more quickly deploy trucks equipped with Waymo’s autonomous “driver” for on-demand delivery routes offered by Uber Freight, the companies said. The announcement represents a convergence between two of the companies’ major side projects. Waymo divides its autonomous projects into two divisions: Waymo One, its consumer ride-hailing service, and Waymo Via, which is focused on goods delivery in both trucking and local delivery formats. Uber Freight, whi...

I’m irrationally excited about a new feature coming to Apple’s Screen Time, the company’s gentler term for parental controls. When my kid wants that extra 15 minutes on her favorite app, her plaintive request will come through iMessage as well as a pop-up notification on my Apple devices. Why is this exciting? Well, it’s a small thing, but if you miss that Screen Time notification, which is currently the only alert you get, you have to dive into the Settings app to manually address the request. This is fiddly and time-consuming, especially when you’re in the middle of making dinner, as it involves passcodes and multiple taps. With the request sitting handily in my Messages app with a dropdown menu that presumably will give me the same four options — approve for 15 minutes; an hour; all day...