Technology

Audio company Sennheiser received between $2 million and $5 million as part of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to newly released US Department of Treasury data. It’s one of many privately held tech companies to receive support through the program, which offers small businesses forgivable loans that can be spent on payroll, rent, or utility costs. Treasury data indicates that the loan is intended to help Sennheiser retain 128 jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. (The German company employed a total of 2,800 employees in 2019, approximately 10 percent of whom were based in the Americas.) While we don’t know the precise dollar number, it’s one of the PPP’s larger payments — single loans top out at $10 million, and the average loan size is listed as approximately $100,000. It...

Bird, the beleaguered e-scooter company, received a loan worth between $5 million and $10 million from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in late April. The company said in its application to the Treasury Department and the Small Business Association that the loan would help it retain 341 jobs. But less than a month later, Bird laid off over 400 employees, or about 30 percent of its staff. But Bird contends that it should not be included in the government’s list. “Bird was erroneously listed as a company that filed for a PPP Loan,” a company spokesperson said. “We did not apply for nor did we receive a PPP Loan. We decided as a company not to file an application as we did not want to divert critical funding from small and local businesses.” Bird CEO Travis VanderZan...

Microsoft will hold its Xbox Series X games event on July 23rd at 9AM PT / 12PM ET. The company is planning on showing games made by its Xbox Game Studios, including Halo Infinite. 343 industries briefly teased Halo Infinite in a trailer a couple of weeks ago, revealing that The Banished antagonists are returning for the next big installment in the Halo franchise. There will be more than just Halo, though. Microsoft has been steadily acquiring game studios, and the company now has 15 Xbox Game Studios in total. Xbox fans are now hoping to see what those studios are working on for the Xbox Series X. Microsoft recently created a Fable placeholder Twitter account, leading fans to wonder if the game might make a return during July’s Xbox event. Microsoft also recently extended its Fable tradem...

HyperJuice’s 100W gallium nitride (GaN) USB-C charger — which the company says is the first of its kind — is now available to buy for $99.99, following a successful Kickstarter campaign last fall. The new charger is only about the size of a deck of cards (the brick itself measures 3.36 x 2.39 x 1.14 inches), thanks to the gallium nitride technology that’s far more energy-efficient than traditional silicon, allowing for smaller chargers that waste less energy. Hyper’s new brick offers a total of four ports: two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports. The USB-C ports support the USB-C PD 3.0 specification and can output the full 100W between them. (For example, you can change a USB-C laptop at the full 100W with a single plug or divide it between a laptop and an iPad at 60W and 30W, respectively.) ...

Microsoft is planning to launch its xCloud game streaming service later this year as part of Xbox Game Pass, and accessory makers are getting ready. 8BitDo, a company that specializes in retro and modern alternative gamepads, has adapted its retro NES controller for Microsoft’s Project xCloud service. The tiny Bluetooth controller is designed to be compatible with all Android smartphones and tablets, and it’s officially licensed as a compatible xCloud and Xbox controller. The built-in battery should last for around 18 hours, and there’s a USB-C port for charging. The controller even ships with a clip to attach to phones, with adjustable positioning. 8BitDo has worked with Microsoft to license this Xbox controller and ensure it’s fully functional with xCloud. There’s even separate software ...

I spend a lot of time trying to personalize every aspect of my laptop: pasting stickers on the top, separating all of my icons into folders on my desktop, and, thanks to a little trick I learned on TikTok, using my favorite GIFs as backgrounds on Google Chrome. It’s a super simple process that makes using Google Chrome feel a little more personalized. All it takes is a few seconds and you go from having a dreary white non-background like this: to this very good GIF of Marceline performing a song in Adventure Time. To customize your own Google Chrome page, here’s what to do: Find any GIF you want to use. Right-click to bring up the drop-down menu. After selecting the “Save As” option, make sure to add “.PNG” after the name Under “Format,” change it from GIF to “All Files.” It should look so...

Facebook is testing Instagram’s Reels feature in India, Business Insider reports. Reels is a video editing tool designed to let people create TikTok-style 15 second videos that can be shared on their Instagram Stories, sent via DM, or posted to a section of the Explore tab called Top Reels. The news emerged just days after the Indian government banned TikTok along with 58 other China-based apps. Business Insider reports that some Instagram users in India have already started receiving Instagram’s new feature in an update, and a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the company plans to release the feature more widely. “We’re planning to start testing an updated version of Reels in more countries” “We’re planning to start testing an updated version of Reels in more countries,” a Facebook spo...

The UK may reverse its decision to allow Huawei as a supplier for the country’s 5G network buildout after a report concluded that US sanctions would make the Chinese telecom giant’s equipment less safe. The report from GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, leaked by The Telegraph and corroborated by Bloomberg, claims that the restrictions on Huawei’s operations “will force the company to use untrusted technology that could increase the risk to the UK.” The report “is likely to force Boris Johnson to abandon the company entirely,” according to The Telegraph. A source told Bloomberg that the British prime minister is preparing to phase out Huawei as soon as this year, although the exact timetable is reportedly yet to be confirmed. “We are considering the impact.” “We are considering the imp...

Reddit says it’s releasing a fix for a piece of code that copied contents from users’ clipboards. Users in a beta version of iOS 14, which sends an alert when an app tries to copy clipboard information, reported receiving the alerts with each keystroke in Reddit’s iOS app. “We tracked this down to a codepath in the post composer that checks for URLs in the pasteboard and then suggests a post title based on the text contents of the URL,” a Reddit spokesperson wrote in an email to The Verge. “We do not store or send the pasteboard contents. We removed this code and are releasing the fix on July 14th.” User Donald Morton posted a video of the issue to Twitter: UPDATE: Seems like Reddit is capturing the clipboard on each keystroke as well Seeing the notification come up just as much. pic.twitt...

Like seemingly everyone else right now, I watched back through Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time in years (actually, just the second and third seasons since my wife got through most of the first one without me) because it’s come back to Netflix. It’s been really wonderful seeing such a brilliant, funny, epic, and deserving show suddenly getting this widespread recognition. On (what is probably my fourth) rewatch, what really stood out to me is the incredible attention the show gives to building out vibrant, fascinating cultures throughout its world. The show’s protagonists are constantly traveling, yet even towns and characters that only show up for an episode get distinct traits and humanizing moments. It adds up to a fantasy world that feels uniquely rich and complete. One ex...

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has been restored in India after being unreachable for many users there since July 1st, Android Police reported. Reports about what was causing the outage have varied. Some users reported the Indian government appeared to be behind the block, and others said they were getting what appeared to be DNS lookup errors, according to Android Police. DuckDuckGo tweeted that the service appeared to be restored in India as of Saturday morning. We’re seeing our services being broadly restored in India. Thank you for all of your reports, bringing attention to this issue. If you’re still having trouble accessing DuckDuckGo Search, please report it to @internetfreedom using this form: https://t.co/jVYFgXTiV7 — DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) July 4, 2020 On June 2...

Rocket Lab’s 13th mission ended in failure on Saturday, after the company’s rocket experienced “an anomaly” after launching to space. As a result, Rocket Lab lost its rocket, as well as all the satellites it carried on board. The company’s Electron rocket successfully took off at 5:19PM ET from Rocket Lab’s primary launch facility on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The launch seemed to proceed just fine for the first crucial minutes, but about six minutes into the launch, live video from the rocket stalled. At that point, Rocket Lab’s livestream indicated that the rocket started to lose speed, and the vehicle dropped in altitude. Rocket Lab eventually cut the livestream. Afterward, the company revealed that the Electron rocket had been lost during flight. The company said in a statemen...