Technology

In the latest instance of unrest at the company, several thousand Amazon workers walked off the job Friday. The occasion was International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day, and the Amazonians joined workers at Instacart, FedEx, Target, and Walmart demanding better conditions for work that the government has deemed essential, and their own employers have frequently called heroic. The protests to date have drawn attention to widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 in Amazon warehouses, the lack of protective equipment for warehouse personnel, and the low pay and draconian sick-leave policies that workers in fulfillment centers have endured for years. And they’ve been effective in at least two ways. One, Amazon increased pay and expanded sick leave as the pandemic spread. And two, as I noted here...

Nest will start enabling two-factor authentication by default for its accounts in May, the company has announced. When a user tries to log in using their username and password, they’ll now also have to enter a six-digit code sent to them over email as an extra security measure. In a help page spotted by Engadget, Nest says that the change will apply to any users who haven’t already set up two-factor authentication via a phone number, or who haven’t migrated to a Google account. The changes were announced earlier this year in response to reports that Nest’s security cameras were being “hacked” across the US. Google was quick to respond to confirm it hadn’t suffered a security breach, and that what had actually happened was that users were re-using passwords across services, and that the hac...

Tumblr on Monday announced an update to its hate speech policy, announcing on its blog that it would start cutting down on the reach of posts considered hate speech by removing all reblogs of terminated content. Tumblr says it’s specifically targeting speech from Nazis and other white supremacist groups, which it says still be amplified on its platform through reblogs even after the original post was removed for violating its hate speech policies. “Many of you have called on us to further reevaluate how we deal with hate speech, particularly hate speech from Nazis or other white supremacist groups. Today we’re letting you know that we heard you, and we are taking further action,” Tumblr, which is now owned by WordPress creator Automattic, writes. “In our own research, and from your helpful...

When a tsunami slams into a coast, parks with rolling hills could provide about as much protection as towering seawalls, according to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These tsunami mitigation parks, as they’re called, are designed to combine the protective qualities of an engineered landscape with the benefits of a more natural setting. The hybrid approach is especially appealing to less-affluent countries that are looking for alternatives to building pricey seawalls that also preserve coastal economies and ways of life. “The wall doesn’t require any understanding.” “You can build a wall against anything. You can build a wall against a dog. You can build a wall against water,” says Jenny Suckale, a senior author of the stu...

Apple’s seventh-generation iPad with 32GB of storage is $80 off at a couple of retailers, including Best Buy and Amazon. This price drop puts it at $250 instead of $330. This model has seen a discount like this before, but it’s a rare enough discount that you might want to know about it. Cyber Monday 2019 had a slightly better deal for $230, but given that this is just a regular day in May, it’s a fantastic time to buy. This version of the iPad is similar in a lot of ways to Apple’s sixth-generation model, though you’re getting a lot more for your money with this tablet. Inside, it has the same A10 processor, but its screen size has increased from 9.7 inches to 10.2 inches. Additionally, it has an extra gigabyte of RAM (3GB compared to 2GB in the sixth-gen iPad) and a Smart Connector, whic...

Verizon has its own exclusive version of the OnePlus 8, the “OnePlus 8 5G UW,” designed specifically for its network with additional mmWave radio features to support Verizon’s 5G network (which only operates in the mmWave band). But as discovered by Reddit user /u/bud-dho, the changes to the phone to fit the additional radio technology mean that the Verizon version has its volume buttons moved lower than the unlocked and T-Mobile models, so standard OnePlus 8 cases won’t fit (via 9to5Google). An analysis from PhoneArena of the FCC documents for the two variants makes the issue clear: the Verizon model has several extra mmWave modules, one of which is directly located where the volume switches are. It likely won’t affect all cases — ones with cutouts for the volume buttons can probably just...

Samsung’s new Galaxy Book laptops are now available for purchase in the United States. All three laptops — the Galaxy Book Flex, Flex Alpha, and Ion — are equipped with the latest 10th Gen chips from Intel. The Flex and Ion are also certified as part of Intel’s Project Athena program. That means if you purchase one of these two models, you should get up to nine hours of battery life, which is ideal if you are a professional working from home or a college student (who will, eventually, be on the go). You can read first impressions of the laptops from The Verge’s Chaim Gartenberg when he checked them out last October. The trackpads on the Galaxy Book Flex and Ion double as wireless chargers The Galaxy Book Flex and Ion were announced back in October, but Samsung did not give a release date o...

Google has wasted no time integrating its Meet videoconferencing into Gmail, with some users already seeing a link to launch Meet in the left sidebar of the Gmail interface. Formerly available only to its enterprise and education customers via G Suite, the company said last week that it was making Meet free to anyone with a Google account and allow meetings of up to 100 people with no time limits. Putting Meet front and center is Google’s latest attempt to go head-to-head with Zoom, the ubiquitous videoconferencing app that has so far ruled the stay-at-home era. Meet will have some privacy controls that Zoom has lacked (resulting in instances of “Zoombombing”). You can’t just click a link to join a Meet; you’ll have to log in to your Google account. If the meeting host (Meet host?) has not...

Felix Kjellberg, the YouTuber better known as PewDiePie, has signed an exclusive live-streaming deal with YouTube. The move comes almost exactly one year after Kjellberg announced that he was streaming exclusively on DLive, a small blockchain-based live-streaming site. According to the press release, Kjellberg is excited to head back to his home pastures. “Live streaming is something I’m focusing a lot on in 2020 and beyond, so to be able to partner with YouTube and be at the forefront of new product features is special and exciting for the future,” he said. Kjellberg’s acquisition is the latest big name joining YouTube for live-streaming; recently, the platform has been throwing its weight (and money!) around to grab exclusive deals with streaming stars like CouRage, Typical Gamer, and Va...

Taika Waititi will direct and co-write a new Star Wars movie for theatrical release, Disney announced today. It won’t be Waititi’s first brush with the Star Wars universe; he directed the season finale of The Mandalorian. He also earned an Academy Award for his screenplay for Jojo Rabbit and directed Thor: Ragnarok. Rumors of a Waititi-helmed Star Wars movie first surfaced in January, though it’s unclear if this movie is the one that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is reportedly developing. Krysty Wilson-Cairns, who co-wrote the screenplay for 1917, which won the British Academy Film Award for Outstanding British Film earlier this year, will join Waititi in co-writing the new Star Wars film. She will be the second woman to co-write a Star Wars movie; Leigh Brackett was the first, co-w...

People are doing a lot more video conferencing now that they’re stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These sessions can be a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, conduct business with colleagues, and keep up with schoolwork. Sometimes, though, you may want to save a recording of the meeting so you can revisit it later. That could let you listen to a teacher’s lecture again, use the audio for a podcast, or even relive the announcement of a family pregnancy (which is something that actually happened to me on a recent family video call). Many services offer ways to record video meetings, even on their free versions. We’ve outlined here how to set up recordings for three well-known services: Zoom, Google Meet, and Skype. Zoom Zoom lets you record calls whether you’re a fr...

Intel moved deeper into the world of smart mobility and autonomous driving by announcing Monday its plan to acquire Israel-based urban transit data startup Moovit for $900 million. Moovit’s principle product is an urban mobility app with a particular focus on public transportation, which is used by hundreds of millions of customers. It uses public transit data to provide route planning in the vein of Google’s and Apple’s mapping apps, as well as scooter- and bike-sharing services and ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. But because it relies partly on crowdsourced data, Moovit can also provide routing for areas where no publicly released data is available. The app is used by 800 million customers and services 3,100 cities across 102 countries, Intel said. “a complete mobility provide...