Technology

From time to time a really bad post on a social network gets a lot of attention. Say a head of state falsely accuses a journalist of murder, or suggests that mail-in voting is illegal — those would be pretty bad posts, I think, and most people working inside and outside of the social network could probably agree on that. In my experience, though, average people and tech people tend to think very differently about what to do about a post like that. Today I want to talk about why. When an average person sees a very bad post on a social network, they may call for it to be removed immediately. They will justify this removal on moral grounds — keeping the post up, they will say, is simply indecent. To leave it up would reflect poorly on the moral character of everyone who works at the company, ...

Sony and Naughty Dog showed off nearly 24 minutes of new footage for the highly anticipated The Last of Us Part II in a State of Play video today. The Last of Us Part II seems to share a lot of similarities with the first game — you’ll still be spending a lot of time crawling behind cover to hide from people or the zombie-like Infected. But today’s video showed off some new features, including swinging on a rope to cross a chasm, riding a boat through a flooded area, and some improvements to crafting (including visual upgrades to your weapons). The video also showed Ellie swimming — something the character didn’t know how to do (and was actively scared of) in the first game. Image: Sony The video also shed some light on The Last of Us Part II’s story and where you’ll go while playing throu...

Google will soon let businesses add additional descriptors to their listings that appear in Google Search and Maps results to better help potential customers understand what a business offers at a glance. The company is adding these new descriptors and announcing a number of other features today to help businesses better surface important information for customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new descriptors, which Google calls “attributes,” are short notes that show up under other business information on a listing. A yoga studio that offers virtual lessons could add an “online classes” attribute, for example. Business owners can add one attribute, though their businesses will have to be verified by Google to use the feature. Here’s a screenshot from Google to give you an idea of what...

Facebook’s experimental app division has a new product out today called Collab that promises to deliver a new approach to collaborative music making. The app, launching as an invite-only beta on iOS, is from Facebook’s NPE division (short for new product experimentation). If it already in that brief description sounds like another swing at the cultural and creative juggernaut that is TikTok, that’s because it is. Collab’s primary pitch is that you can create short-form videos split into three simultaneous sources, so you can perform a single song by playing three different instruments and stitching it all together. Or you and one or two other friends can collaborate together by each supplying one of three parts. Collab will let you edit together three parts into one short-form music videos...

In today’s digital age, it sometimes feels like hardware has taken a back seat to the software that drives our devices. Button of the Month will look at what some of those buttons and switches are like on devices old and new to appreciate how we interact with them on a physical, tactile level. Apple’s butterfly keyboard switches are some of the worst buttons to grace a modern device: unreliable, prone to breaking after coming in contact with a tiny bit of dust or grime, and incredibly difficult and expensive to replace. But the deeper issue isn’t that the butterfly switches often break; it’s the flawed design goals that led Apple to make a bad button in the first place. Apple chose to make an entire keyboard full of buttons that resulted in a more aesthetically pleasing design with shorter...

Just like nearly everything else on the internet, streaming services are ruled by recommendation algorithms that are designed to predetermine what people want before they ask for it. WarnerMedia is trying to accomplish the opposite with HBO Max. The company’s new streaming service, which will allow for three concurrent streams, is positing itself as a human-first platform — the opposite of Netflix’s strategy. As streaming becomes more of a centerpiece in people’s homes and more platforms find their way to people’s television sets, focusing on improving the actual curation system subscribers use is just as important as available content, Sarah Lyons, senior vice president of product experience, told The Verge. Lyons walked The Verge through a demo of HBO Max prior to the service’s launch an...

Tesla has reduced the price of the Model 3, Model S, and Model X in North America, Electrek reports. The Model S and X both saw $5,000 price cuts to $74,990 and $79,990 respectively for their entry-level Long Range Plus versions, while their more expensive Performance versions have also been cut by $5k. The Model 3 has received a smaller $2,000 price cut across all versions, with the online entry-level Standard Range Plus Model 3 now starting at $37,990. Pricing for the Model Y, Tesla’s newest car, is unchanged. A Weibo post from Tesla’s official account confirmed that the company will also reduce the prices of the Model S and Model X cars sold in China. However, the Chinese price of its Model 3 cars, which it produces domestically in the country, will not be cut as part of the changes. Th...

YouTube says it’s begun fixing an error in its moderation system that caused comments containing certain Chinese-language phrases critical of China’s Communist Party (CCP) to be automatically deleted. The issue meant that comments containing the phrases “共匪” (“communist bandit”) and “五毛” (“50-cent party”) were removed from the site in a matter of seconds. The former phrase is an insult dating back to China’s Nationalist government, while the latter is derogatory slang for internet users paid to defend the CCP from criticism online. It originates from the claim that these users are paid 50 Chinese cents per post. YouTube told The Verge that the issue that caused comments containing these phrases to be deleted had been fixed for a number of these terms, but that it was still investigating th...

Sadly, the time has come for me to write about Rich Communication Services again. There have been a few pieces of news about it in the past week or so and I find myself vaguely optimistic that by this time next year Google will be offering properly encrypted messaging to Android users with a relatively simple, seamless experience that’s well on its way to being universally available. Plus, Google is finally starting to transition users from Hangouts to Google Chat in a real way under new management that is motivated to finally get it right because everybody is paying way more attention during the pandemic. But let’s stick with RCS for the moment. Google has me at the spot where Charlie Brown is at his most tragically hopeful and Sisyphean: right before he resolves to run at the football an...

Texas Instruments has removed the ability for some of its most popular calculators to run programs written in assembly or C, Cemetech reports. Hobbyists are not happy with the changes. In addition to being used as educational tools, TI calculators are also relatively simple and cheap programming devices. According to a customer support email posted on TI-Planet (via Linus Tech Tips), affected calculators include the popular TI-84 Plus CE, as well as the TI-83 Plus CE-T, and the TI-83 Premium CE. The functionality is disappearing in the devices’ latest firmware update, and there’s currently no way to roll back the software. The popular TI-84 Plus CE is one of the calculators affected The change is being made to try and stop students from circumventing the calculators’ exam mode restrictions...

Many true wireless earbuds now let you “find” them by either playing a sound (if they’re powered on, out of their case, and nearby) or pulling up the location where they were last paired to your phone. But what if you could track your earbuds even when they’re powered down? That’s the appeal that has led an increasing number of brands to build Tile’s tracking technology into their devices — including laptops, suitcases, and headphones from Bose and Sennheiser — and now Skullycandy is joining in. Today the company is announcing several models of true wireless earbuds, and all of them offer Tile integration, letting you pinpoint their location just like the company’s standalone tracking tags. If the earbuds are somewhere close, the Tile app will let you know that they’re nearby. For cases wh...

Zipline’s drones are delivering medical supplies and personal protective equipment to a Novant Health Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, the two companies announced today. Importantly, considering the COVID-19 pandemic, the deliveries are entirely contactless. Zipline says this is the first emergency drone logistics operation to help hospitals respond to the pandemic, and it’s also the longest-range drone delivery service that’s been approved in the US. “We’re likely in for a long-term fight against COVID-19,” Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo said in a statement. “Using contactless drone logistics will be an important tool in that effort. The work underway here in North Carolina will provide the rest of the country with a blueprint for how to build the most resilient and responsive hea...