Technology

Microsoft is adding a free built-in virtual private network (VPN) service to its Edge browser in a bid to improve security and privacy, a Microsoft support page revealed. Called ”Edge Secure Network,” Microsoft is currently testing the Cloudflare-powered VPN service and says it will roll it out to the public as a part of a security upgrade. When turned on, Edge Secure Network should encrypt users’ web traffic so internet service providers can’t collect browsing information you’d rather keep private, like, say, health-related searches or just plain bizarre queries. The new feature will also let users hide their location by making it possible for them to browse the web using a virtual IP address. That also means users could access content blocked in their countries like, for instance, Netfli...

After initially debuting in 2020 as a somewhat timely lampooning of the United States Space Force, Netflix’s Space Force workplace sitcom is being canceled. Deadline reports that Netflix has decided to scuttle the Jeff Daniels and Steve Carell-created series, likely in response to Space Force netting somewhat less-than-stellar ratings over the course of its short run. Space Force’s second season debuted this past February and followed as its characters struggled to weather a change in presidential administrations. Though Space Force’s cancellation may be a sore spot, from Netflix’s perspective, it’s likely yet another cost-saving measure the streamer ultimately felt was necessary to take as it continues to figure out its long-term future.

Samsung has reported its first-quarter profits, with chip sales surging from the previous year. The South Korean tech company documented revenue jumping approximately 51% from the same quarter last year. For its Device Experience division, the quarter marked its highest revenue since 2013, while the Device Solutions division hit an all-time high for quarterly revenue. All divisions reported a yearly increase. Meeting its previous predictions, Samsung garnered 77.8 trillion Korean won ($61.3 billion USD) in profit and 14.1 trillion Korean won ($11.1 billion USD) in operating profit. Samsung attributed its sales to its new roster of smartphones, led by the Galaxy S22 Ultra, as well as tablets and watches. The company plans to expand on the rollout of these products overseas and work on meeti...

California will investigate whether fossil fuel companies have broken the law by perpetuating myths about plastic recycling, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced yesterday. The investigation marks a fresh attempt to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for downplaying the harm their products inflict on the planet. California will be looking into whether companies have misled consumers into thinking that recycling keeps plastic out of landfills and ecosystems — and whether they’ve broken any laws in the process. The reality is that the vast majority of plastic — more than 90 percent of all plastic ever made — never gets recycled. “Enough is enough” “Enough is enough,” Bonta said in a press release. “For more than half a century, the plastics industry has engaged in an aggressive campai...

Activision Blizzard is facing another complaint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that it’s trying to keep employees from talking about their working conditions, despite their legally protected rights to do so. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) has filed an unfair labor charge against the company, alleging that it told workers “they could not discuss issues related to the sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by state of California against the company,” according to a press release from the union. According to the complaint, an employee was threatened by a manager after posting an article about the lawsuit in Slack and discussing holding Activision Blizzard accountable with other co-workers. According to former Blizzard senior test analyst Jessica Gonzalez...

Ahead of Pachinko’s season 1 finale, Apple has just renewed its adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel for a second season. Today, Apple announced that it’s moving forward with more of series creator Soo Hugh’s multigenerational story about a family of Korean immigrants surviving and thriving in Japan throughout the 20th century. In a press release about the renewal, Hugh was mum about what’s next for Pachinko, but she called out the show’s fandom for having been vocal about its desire for more. “Words cannot express my joy in being able to continue telling the extraordinary story of this indomitable family,” said Hugh. “I’m grateful to the amazing team at Apple and Media Res studio for believing and supporting this show, and to our passionate fans who have cheered us on. It’s an h...

In its latest notice to shareholders, Thomson Reuters announced that it would align with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and conduct an independent, company-wide human rights impact assessment of its products and services, including contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The announcement comes after years of criticism over data brokerage services provided by the Canadian media conglomerate to ICE, which uses a Thomson Reuters database service known as Clear to track, arrest, and deport undocumented migrants in the US. Currently, Thomson Reuters has more than $100 million in contracts with ICE and provides the immigration agency not only with raw data gathered from cellphone records, license plate recognition, and other public...

Apple has released its revenue results for the second quarter. This March marked the company’s best yet, with $97.3 billion USD in revenue, a 9% jump from this time last year. On an earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook deemed Q2 earnings “better than we anticipated.” The quarter also landed with an all-time high for Apple’s Services, which charges monthly subscriptions to TV+, Music and other content. While Apple Music has been popular for a while now, Apple TV+ has been on the rise with hit shows such as Coda and Ted Lasso. The company’s hardware sales continued to increase from the previous year. Mac and iPhone sales both increased, while iPad slowed only slightly, dropping from $7.8 billion USD to $7.6 billion USD. Wearables, meanwhile, made Apple $19.8 billion USD this quarter, up from $1...

A few years back, I was working as a freelancer for a company that was trying to develop a US market for its rather obscure hardware products and needed a native English speaker to tweak the text on its site. Everything was going swimmingly until my second week on the job, when I went to the site — and found that I was suddenly getting weird ads flashing across my screen and had lost the ability to access my security software. I needed to get rid of whatever had invaded my system — hopefully, without the need to reset my PC (and lose more time reinstalling all of my apps and files). Here’s what I used: System Restore. System Restore is a handy feature that takes a sort of snapshot of your PC’s software, registry, and driver configuration at a specific point in time; this snapshot is called...

We’ve been seeing a lot of good deals on Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox Series S console recently, but today’s BuyDig deal stands out because it comes bundled with an extra Xbox wireless controller from Microsoft in addition to the one that’s already included. You can currently nab this bundle for $294.99 instead of $363.99 when you apply promo code DIGAPRIL5 at checkout. In comparison, you can buy the console by itself with one controller included for $289.99 from Amazon, which, while a new all-time low at Amazon, isn’t even the best price we’ve seen. While the Xbox Series X is becoming more readily available these days, the Xbox Series S is an affordable alternative that retails for less than half the price. It also plays the same games as the Series X, is backward compatible with original Xb...

You don’t need to speak Finnish to understand what sort of social media presence the influencers at the center of director Hanna Bergholm’s psychological body horror Hatching have created for themselves. It’s blonde, blue-eyed, and fixated on performing “tradition” in a way that makes you wonder what their whole deal is — especially when the ring lights are off and the cameras are away. Hatching’s glad to let you in on its ideas about what makes these sorts of personalities tick and how living for one’s follower count is deeply unhealthy. But the movie does so with the express intent of leaving you disturbed by how grisly its portrayal of dysfunction is. Hatching tells the tale of Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), a 12-year-old gymnast working every bit as hard as her unnamed mother (Sophia Heikkil...

Animatronics designer Gustav Hoegen has worked on some of the biggest film franchises around. He’s helped bring to life the likes of the adorable mechanic Babu Frik from Rise of the Skywalker and the towering engineer from Prometheus. But some of the most stressful experiences in his career came on the set of Hatching, a Finnish body horror movie that debuted at Sundance and premieres in theaters and on-demand today. Unlike those productions, Hatching is a smaller-scale film, with only one creature to make — and Hoegen’s team was responsible for every aspect of its creation. “It’s definitely not good for the nerves doing this on your own,” he tells The Verge. Hatching tells the story of Tinja, a young girl in a seemingly picture-perfect family of vloggers who stumbles across a strange egg....