Technology

Amazon is looking to offset costs to third-party sellers in the US resulting from soaring inflation and fuel prices. The new five percent “fuel and inflation surcharge” for sellers that use Amazon’s fulfillment services will go into effect starting April 28. Since most items purchased off Amazon are from third-party sellers, you can expect these new costs to be passed along to shoppers. 89 percent of Amazon’s over two million third-party sellers use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to leverage the retail giant’s supply chain, warehouses, and shipping operations, reports Jungle Scout research. “We will be employing a fuel and inflation surcharge for the first time” “In 2022, we expected a return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the world eased, but fuel and inflation have presented fu...

When Samsung announced its new Galaxy S22, the biggest Android smartphone launch of the year, Jennifer Larson was ready to finally make some money. On February 9th, she logged into the Ibbu app, where she sells phones to waiting customers at Samsung.com via online chats. Typically, the yearly Galaxy Unpacked showcase is a huge sales event for Samsung and a potentially big payday for her. “They built it up like it was Christmas, I got all pumped up,” Larson says. But on this product release day, Samsung’s website was experiencing widespread glitches; customers couldn’t complete orders, and some were getting blank screens. If they could connect to the chats at all, customers were frustrated. Larson gave up after about two hours and called it a day. And really, why would she stay? She thought...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making his “best and final” offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter in an updated 13D filing filed Thursday. He’s offering $54.20 per share in cash. Musk is offering to “acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share.” The proposal was delivered in a letter to Twitter on April 13th. Musk says Twitter needs to go private to go through the changes that need to be made. “I would need to reconsider my position as shareholder,” says Musk if his offer is not accepted. Twitter shares are up over 13 percent pre-market on the news. Tesla shares are down 1.5 percent on fears of Twitter’s number one fan becoming distracted by his new pet. Developing…

Apple appears to be designing its very own gaming controllers. According to new reports from Patently Apple, the tech giant has now filed several patents revolving around gaming controller designs to be used for both its iPhone and iPad ranges. The patents feature a multitude of designs ranging from a two-piece design that resembles the Nintendo Switch‘s Joy-Cons to a flat, rectangular device that almost looks like an NES controller with four buttons instead of two on the right side. In a patent that came afterward, a third controller was also featured with thumbsticks, reminiscent of a PlayStation controller with two joysticks placed in the center and an accompanying D-pad and action buttons on either side and hand grips extending down. While the former two are expected to work with ...

Facebook and Google‘s parent companies Meta and Alphabet have now joined payment processor Stripe‘s almost $1 billion USD initiative to increase carbon capture. Named the Frontier Program, the initiative is a subsidiary of Stripe that is focused on using the earnings made from transactions to further develop and adopt carbon capture technology. Aside from Meta and Alphabet, e-commerce giant Shopify and consulting firm McKinsey have also joined the program, which sees the group pledging $925 million USD towards the cause through 2030. As CNET points out, carbon capture technology is still in its infancy, and so far the infrastructure has only removed less than 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, far short of the billions of tons required every year to fight climate chang...

Beats Taps A-COLD-WALL* for Special Studio3 Wireless Headphones The limited-edition drop will be available via Apple. Sep 29, 2021 4,047 Hypes    A-COLD-WALL* Officially Reveals Concrete Beats Studio3 Wireless Collaboration Arriving in an industrial slate and chalk color palette. Oct 11, 2021 8,489 Hypes    Ghetto Gastro Reworks the Beats Studio3 Wireless Supporting the collective’s mission of starting discussions surrounding inclusion, race and economic empowerment through food. Aug 26, 2021 1,332 Hypes    Madhappy and Beats Collaborate on Custom Studio3 Wireless Headphones Joining the lifestyle brand’s new Outdoors collection. Dec 7, 2021 2,139 Hypes   

An attack on Ukraine’s power grid was foiled by cybersecurity analysts and officials, as reported by Reuters. After investigating the methods and software used by the attackers, cybersecurity firm ESET says that it was likely carried out by a hacking group called Sandworm, which The Record reports allegedly has ties to the Russian government. The group planned to shut down computers that controlled substations and infrastructure belonging to a particular power company, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (or CERT-UA). The hackers meant to cut off power on April 8th while also wiping the computers that would be used to try and get the grid back online. The attack involved malware that hasn’t been seen in the wild for years This attempted attack involved a wide varie...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now being sued by former Twitter shareholders for his delay in disclosing his stake in the company. According to reports, the shareholders claim that Musk and Twitter should have announced his 9.2% investment in the company much earlier than they had. U.S. securities laws require an announcement to be made within 10 days of the transaction for acquisitions of more than 5% stake, which means Musk would’ve had to announce it by March 24. Instead, the billionaire and Twitter revealed the news on April 5, causing many former Twitter shareholders to lose on the 27% gain in stock price after selling shares early. The class-action lawsuit now claims that Musk made “materially false and misleading statements and omissions,” causing them to sell at “artificially deflated” pri...

Having teamed up with Ray-Ban for their first pair of smart glasses back in September last year, Meta is now reportedly looking to launch its very first pair of augmented reality glasses by 2024. According to new reports, as part of its efforts to flesh out its metaverse, the company is now aiming to release the AR glasses under its Project Nazare initiative by 2024, with a “lighter, more advanced” model following up in 2026. Naturally, there’ll be a third, even more improved model by 2028. Anonymous sources also suggest that the initial product will require a “phone-shaped device” to take care of computing while a CTRL-Labs-derived electrical pulse-based wristband will be used for control. In terms of what it’ll be capable of doing, rumors say it’ll be based on the Android system and prov...