Technology

T-Mobile launched its 5G home internet service around this time last year with the promise of a low $50 monthly rate, easy setup, and data speeds at least as good as traditional broadband internet. In reality, it’s kind of a mixed bag. This year, it’s hoping to tempt more people away from traditional internet providers with some new offers, starting with a 15-day trial period for the service. Customers who cancel within 15 days of starting the service will get a refund as long as they return the provided internet gateway. The company is also offering to cover early termination fees if you leave your current internet provider for T-Mobile — up to $500 by way of a prepaid Mastercard. Home internet subscribers are also now included in the company’s T-Mobile Tuesdays promotions, and T-Mobile s...

Volkswagen’s CEO, Herbert Diess, says that the company is “basically sold out on electric vehicles in Europe and in the United States” for the year, according to a report from the Financial Times. This means that anyone hoping to get an EV from VW, Audi, or any of the group’s other brands may have to wait until 2023, as the company tries to navigate the chip shortage and production issues from COVID shutdowns in China. According to the report, VW expects its backlog of orders to keep growing. It currently has plenty of people on the list waiting to get an EV and expects to add more throughout the year. But supply chain issues will make those difficult to fill. Almost every automaker has had to halt or slow down production thanks to a lack of chips. Some have even resorted to stripping out ...

Last year, Stack Overflow collaborated with mechanical keyboard manufacturer Drop on The Key, a bizarre miniature 3-key keyboard designed to copy and paste text. It did exactly that, but with a level of polish that was surprising for a $29 novelty that started out life as an April Fools’ gag. Now Drop, Stack Overflow, and designer Cassidy Williams are back with a follow-up — The Key V2. The Key V2 is a very similar product to its predecessor. It costs $29, it has just three keys that are dedicated to Ctrl, C, and V out of the box, and you can still customize these buttons to do pretty much anything else. But The Key V2 is also RGB enabled this time around, so you can have it light up like a Christmas tree along with your other gamer gear. Its case is made of acrylic rather than aluminum to...

Employees at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland have officially filed a request to hold a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to Dave DiMaria, an organizer with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). The store is the second to do so. In April, employees from an Apple Store in Atlanta filed their own petition to hold a union election, which Apple recently agreed to. That vote is set to start on June 2nd. On Tuesday, organizers at the store announced their intentions to unionize with the IAMAW. The group of employees calls itself AppleCORE, with CORE standing for Coalition of Organized Retail Employees. According to a report from The Washington Post, they want to have a greater say in decisions about their pay...

If you are in an older home and want to upgrade to smart switches, I have good news. This week, lighting control company Leviton released two smart switches that don’t require a neutral wire. The Decora Smart No-Neutral Dimmer ($49.99) and Switch ($44.99) both work with the plug-in Decora Smart Wi-Fi Bridge ($19.99). Both are compatible with Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa for smart home and voice control, as is Leviton’s entire Decora Smart Wi-Fi line. Most smart light switches require a neutral wire to work. As they weren’t standard in most home wiring until the mid-1980s many houses have very limited options for upgrading to smart switches. While there are choices — the popular one being Lutron Caseta — the selection is limited in terms of style and functionality. It ...

Marvel’s Moon Knight has taken a meandering path to its big, boisterous finale. Over the first five episodes, there have been detours into the afterlife, the fractured psyche of a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder, and locales ranging from the great pyramids of Egypt to a museum gift shop in London. It’s been about as confusing and disjointed as you’d expect for a show about a mercenary possessed by the spirit of an ancient, vengeful god. After all, the show has had to explain a lot: the history behind the multiple personalities; the motivations of two competing, powerful deities; the machinations of a cult-like militant organization. There’s even a backstory for a seemingly innocuous catchphrase. If you stuck it out, though, the finale moves past most of that to focus on s...

Of all the corporate climate hype floating around this spring, ExxonMobil’s secret project to cut down its pollution by mining Bitcoin has to rank up there as one of the strangest. Exxon launched a pilot project in 2021 to mine Bitcoin in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, according to reporting by CNBC in March. The US’s biggest oil and gas company is also thinking about doing the same in Alaska and parts of Nigeria, Argentina, Guyana, and Germany, Bloomberg reported. And it’s not alone. Other oil companies, including ConocoPhillips in North Dakota, see the energy-hungry cryptocurrency as a way to offload some of their climate footprint and maybe make some cash in the process. The US has become the biggest hub for Bitcoin mining globally, so this could be a growing trend. A persistent gas ...

The upcoming budget soundbar from Sonos will be marketed as the Sonos Ray, according to internal documents and people familiar with the company’s plans. Expected to cost around $249 and go on sale in a matter of weeks, the Ray will be the cheapest soundbar from Sonos yet and serve as an entry-level option beneath the pricier Beam and flagship Arc. The Verge previously spilled the full details and design of the new device, which is model S36 and internally known by the codename Fury. The images included here are 3D recreations of genuine photos seen by The Verge. To reach the lower price, Sonos has omitted features like built-in mics, Dolby Atmos, and HDMI connectivity; the Ray also has fewer speakers than the company’s existing soundbars. However, owners of the more expensive Sonos Arc or ...

Amazon-owned online pharmacy company PillPack agreed to pay nearly $6 million after admitting to giving patients more insulin at a time than Medicare and Medicaid allow, according to a settlement announced by the Department of Justice on Monday. Government healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid put limits on the supply of drugs they’ll cover at one time, which restricts the amount of the drug a pharmacy can distribute to a patient. According to the settlement, PillPack would give patients a full box of insulin pens (which contains 300 units of insulin), an amount that exceeds the limits. It would then falsely report the supply of insulin given to patients in its reimbursement claims submitted to the health programs. Patients then received refills on their prescriptions too early. “...