And so, it’s come to this—the end of another long and winding year. It’s had ups and downs, things we loved and things we didn’t, and, frankly, Too Much Content. Speaking of which, should you find yourself wanting to look back at io9's 2021, here’s a nice big list of all our year in review pieces from throughout the…
When the clock strikes midnight to ring in 2022 on the east coast, NBC Sports Network will shut down. NBCUniversal will shift much of its sports coverage, including Premier League matches, over to the USA Network.
Assuming more games aren't suspended due to teams having too many COVID-19 cases, Premier League coverage will get off to a flying start on USA Network with three matches on New Year's Day. Arsenal will square off against league leaders Manchester City at 7:30AM ET before Watford host Tottenham and Crystal Palace take on West Ham. Sunday brings a match between Everton and Brighton, before Chelsea host Liverpool in a clash between title contenders.
The shift to USA Network shouldn't change much for Peacock users, though. Overflow games and streaming-only matches will remain on that platform, including three matches that are scheduled to stream on Peacock Premium on Sunday. Some of the bigger games will still air on the main NBC network, and NBCU will continue to broadcast every Premier League match across its multitude of platforms.
It's not clear as yet whether there are plans to broadcast overflow games on other NBCU networks. On the last day of the 2020-21 season, when all 10 matches kicked off at the same time, USA Network, CNBC and the Golf Channel each aired one game.
I have spent, I would say, a distressing amount of the last month with my eyes streaming tears—not for work obligations, personal reasons, or even really “still in that Global Pandemic” reasons. If anything, I’ve been doing it for fun, as I’ve worked my way through Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, and the reasons it’s…
Many of us know at least one person who plays games for hours on end, perhaps tiring their hands out in the process. To help soothe their weary mitts, Japanese company Bauhutte has created a hand massager for gamers.
The MSG-01H-BK hand massager, which works on either hand, has a 15-layer airbag for each finger and a shiatsu plate for the palm. There are two main options: a Shiatsu mode for the entire hand, and one that focuses on stretching fingers.
There are a few intensity settings, as well as an optional hand warmer that's said to improve circulation. You'll need to slide in your hand sideways to massage your thumb. The hand massager automatically shuts off after 10 minutes. Bauhutte suggests using the device before gaming sessions to warm up your hands, when taking breaks and afterward to cool down.
While some might scoff at a hand massager for gamers, it's not too ridiculous of an idea. Many esports competitors use hand warmers between rounds to absorb moisture, keep their fingers toasty and improve circulation. Some esports organizations employ a masseuse to keep players in top condition.
Other companies have made hand massagers, though it makes sense that Bauhutte is marketing its version to gamers. It caught attention last year for its gaming bed, and the company sells a wide range of furniture and accessories with gamers in mind, such as a portable foot massager.
Bauhutte's hand massager is only available in Japan for now and it costs around $150. As Kotaku notes, the company has an English-language site, so it might offer the device elsewhere too.
We’re at episode four of The Expanse’s six-episode final season, which means all the drama that’s been simmering is about to start boiling over. Thanks to a pair of exclusive clips io9 debuted this week, we know Amos and Naomi are going to confront Holden about one of the biggest shocks in episode three, “Force…
Forget quitting booze or starting an exercise regime—the only New Year’s resolution worth making (because it’s the most fun to stick with) is “read more books.” io9's got you covered with a robust list of sci-fi and fantasy releases coming in January, including new titles from James Rollins, Charles Stross, Nnedi…
It feels like forever since we all were able to look back on the last 12 months and not say “good riddance, you garbage fire hellscape of a year.” 2021 kicked off with riots at the Capitol and though things seemed to quiet down a little after, all was not well in tech.
There are companies that are obvious additions to this list, like Meta (formerly Facebook) with its repeated transgressions this year. Activision Blizzard faces multiple lawsuits and investigations over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace, revealing that despite all the growth we hoped we’d made in the last few years, the gaming industry remains toxic.
But there are other businesses that made the lives of workers and consumers miserable on a daily basis, too. And all major companies in Big Tech have to share in the blame. When we put together this roundup of the worst players in tech this year, it’s clear that we’re overdue a reckoning. Let’s hope that in the years to come, the people with the most influence learn how to treat people better.
For the company now known as Meta, 2021 went sideways from the very beginning.
For all its talk about safeguarding the 2020 presidential election, Facebook was ill-prepared for the insurrection that followed on January 6th. The company failed to recognize the danger posed by the “Stop the Steal” movement until after a violent mob stormed the Capitol. Then COO Sheryl Sandberg downplayed the role Facebook had played in the insurrection, only to be promptly proven wrong. In the end, the events of January 6th ultimately forced the platform to do something it had studiously avoided for most of the Trump presidency: Enforce its rules for his account. (Sort of. Trump’s Facebook ban isn’t permanent.)
Elsewhere, the arrival of coronavirus vaccines only highlighted Facebook’s poor track record at combating vaccine misinformation, which surged throughout the pandemic. After years of dragging its feet, the company finally banned misleading or inaccurate vaccine content. But enough damage had already been done. The US Surgeon General said viral health misinformation was an “urgent threat” to public health. President Joe Biden went a step further: saying that Facebook was “killing people.”
This year was also the first time the Oversight Board, created so Facebook could outsource its thorny content moderation decisions, was operational. The body has pushed the social network to change some policies and has repeatedly criticized the company for a lack of transparency and ability to enforce its rules evenly.
Then came Frances Haugen, the former employee turned whistleblower who left the company with thousands of pages of internal research and other documents that have since become known as the “Facebook Papers.” Her disclosures paint a picture of a company that is unwilling or unable to adequately tackle some of its biggest problems, particularly outside the United States and Europe. She also revealed internal research about the effect of Instagram on teens, which was immediately seized on by lawmakers in Congress.
Amid all that, Zuckerberg announced not an overhaul of the company’s policies, nor a review of its internal research, but… a new name: Meta. It’s meant to symbolize the company’s newfound commitment to a metaverse that no one can fully explain. Will the company change its content moderation policies when it comes to the metaverse? Will it invest more in safety for non-western countries? How will it address hate speech in the metaverse? Facebook, er Meta, has yet to meaningfully address any of those questions. But if recent history is a guide, we all have a lot to worry about.
— Karissa Bell
You’d be forgiven if, amidst the news of actual importance in 2021, you forgot about TRUTH Social — the upcoming site built by disgraced former president Donald J. Trump. Trump spent most of his presidency fear-mongering and spouting lies on Twitter and other social platforms, which finally resulted in him being banned from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and most other services of note. While Trump is wrongfully convinced that this is an unlawful witch hunt, he’s also decided to say “who needs ‘em?” and launch his own.
TRUTH was announced in October, with a limited beta planned for November before a full public launch in 2022. Immediately, dedicated internet pranksters found a test version of the site in the open and signed up for a slew of high-profile accounts (including, naturally, donaldjtrump and mikepence). (The donaldjtrump account had a profile picture of a defecating pig, for good measure.)
The test was quickly shut down, but not before it was revealed to be basically a Twitter clone running on the open-source software Mastodon. But since TRUTH Social didn’t properly cite its usage and didn’t share the source code with users, the site was in violation of Mastadon’s open-source license agreement.
TRUTH’S terms of service were also revealed, and we learned that it was essentially hoping to be protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently states that services like Twitter and even TRUTH aren’t responsible for what their users post. This shields companies from liability for the awful things those users might share.
We blissfully haven’t heard much about TRUTH Social since its disastrous first few days in the public spotlight; the company missed the November beta launch date and there’s no update on when the promised full launch might happen. Based on these early struggles, it’s easy to call TRUTH Social a loser of 2021 – but the citizens of the internet who didn’t have to deal with the ugly reality of a Trump-backed social network are all undoubtedly winners.
— Nathan Ingraham
The rise in demand for PCs, gadgets and cars couldn't keep up with the slowing production in global chip supply. That's why it's still tough to find a PlayStation 5 a year after its launch, and why used car prices have gone absolutely bonkers. This is our new reality for the next few years, at least until chip suppliers can ramp up production and start spinning up new fabrication plants. Basically, be prepared to use all of your gear for a bit longer without upgrading.
— Devindra Hardawar
There are far too many stories of sexual harassment and discrimination in the video game industry. Over the past few years, reports of systemic misogyny and abuse have poured out of Riot Games, Ubisoft and many other studios large and small, and the problems date back decades.
Among all this trash, Activision Blizzard stands out as one of the worst.
Activision Blizzard was accused of fostering a culture of sexual harassment by California’s fair-employment agency in July, and multiple organizations have since launched investigations into the studio, uncovering years of mismanagement in the process. According to the California lawsuit, leaders at the studio cultivated a frat house-style environment where sexual harassment was commonplace and gender discrimination was systemic. The fair employment agency found that all of Activision Blizzard’s top leadership positions were held by white men, just 20 percent of all employees identified as women and reports of harassment were routinely ignored.
In December, an employee named Christine went public with her experience at Blizzard, saying she was inappropriately touched by male coworkers, propositioned for sex by her superiors and subjected to crude comments about her body. After reporting the abuse to management, she said she was demoted and told to “get over it.”
Activision Blizzard’s response to these accusations has been tragic. Back in July, CEO Bobby Kotick sent an email to employees dismissing the California lawsuit, but he signed a female employee’s name to it. The response was roundly and loudly criticized, with employees calling it “insulting” and “abhorrent.” Kotick let Frances Townsend, one of the few women executives at Activision Blizzard, take the heat for that letter for months, losing her spot on the studio’s women’s network in the process. Publicly, Kotick called the email “tone-deaf.”
Blizzard head J. Allen Brack lost his job shortly after the lawsuit was filed, and Kotick offered a co-leadership role to Mike Ybarra and Jennifer Oneal, who became the first woman to hold a president title since the studio’s founding in 1979. Oneal left the company shortly after this promotion, reportedly because she was being paid less than Ybarra, and she felt “tokenized, marginalized and discriminated against” at the studio.
Activision Blizzard employees have walked out multiple times this year, calling for a culture shift. Major business partners, including PlayStation and Xbox, have said they’re reevaluating their relationships with the studio. Shareholders and media outlets alike are calling for Kotick to resign.
At this point, investors, employees, analysts, major gaming companies and multiple government agencies agree that Activision Blizzard is a hotbed of discrimination and sexual harassment, and it’s in urgent need of restructuring. In his 30 years as CEO of Activision Blizzard, this is the closest Kotick has come to actually being ousted from his position of power.
From that angle, it almost feels like a good year for the company. Almost.
— Jessica Conditt
I’m so disappointed with 5G. If, like me, you’ve watched the networking standard since at least 2014, you’ll likely agree. The promises about downloading feature films in seconds were really mostly advantages of mmWave technology, which as of today still hasn’t broadly rolled out. The sub-6 network that’s more widely available today on carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T offer a barely noticeable speed boost, and the reported latency improvements it was supposed to bring haven’t been delivered in the real world.
Yes, the telecom industry did meet its target launch date of 2020 for an initial rollout of the new standard. But 5G is still too confusing for the average consumer. Any time a company says in a briefing that a new product is 5G-ready, a guaranteed follow-up question is “Does that mean sub-6 or mmWave?” And with the recent addition of mid-band spectrum to the mix, the layers of compatibility are only going to make things more tedious.
I’ve been more than forgiving in the last couple of years, but it’s been difficult to ignore the complete mess that is the state of 5G in the US today. Sure, we’ve had more pressing issues to deal with, but if consumers are going to embrace the new standards (and be convinced to spend money for the privilege of 5G on their devices), the industry needs to get its act together and either commit to a more coherent message or more consistent rollout.
— Cherlynn Low
For a long time, working at a tech giant like Google or Apple was an enviable position. But 2021 pulled back the curtain a bit on some of these companies, exposing deep-rooted issues with how employees are treated. While not everyone at these massive organizations may be dealing with sexual harassment or poor working conditions (to name just a few issues), the many employees speaking out across the industry are indicative of an underlying trend that need to be confronted by tech’s most powerful leaders.
Amazon’s poor treatment of its warehouse workers is well-known, and reports persisted in 2021. At the same time, the company pushed back hard against unionization efforts in Alabama. While the union drive was defeated in a vote, a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board recently ordered a new election, effectively invalidating the results of the earlier one. The union had filed a formal objection right after the election, and while there’s no word on when a new election will take place, it’s clear that Amazon will be under intense scrutiny when it does. The same should hold if New York City Amazon workers hold a union vote; reports have indicated that could happen soon.
Apple workers also exposed issues within the company this year. In late August, a call went out for current and former employees to share stories of discrimination, harassment and retaliation that they had experienced. This led to the start of the #AppleToo website, where these stories are regularly published.
As Jess already explained in detail above, employees at Activision Blizzard spoke up about a misogynistic culture rife with sexual harassment, as well. Reports indicated male executives groped female colleagues while other employees joked about rape or ignored women for promotions. The revelations have been so damning a lawsuit was filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment, though somehow Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick still has his job.
Google isn’t free from sin, either – employees led a massive walkout back in 2018 around how it dealt with sexual harassment (among other concerns). It hasn’t dealt with things on the same scale as other companies this year, but Google’s recent decision that it wasn’t raising pay to match inflation has certainly rankled workers. These are just a few high-profile examples, but together they paint a dark picture of the environment at some of tech’s biggest corporations. Perhaps the only upside here is that these hopefully put pressure on those in charge to clean house and improve things as quickly as possible.
— N.I.
Oculus
Meta didn't even give Oculus a proper funeral. Instead of a celebratory news announcement, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth pushed out a quick post to announce that the Oculus brand was being retired. What a sad fate for a company directly tied to the rise of consumer VR. (But perhaps this was the best way for Meta to separate itself from the legacy of Oculus's controversial founder Palmer Luckey.)
— D.H.
2021 was a massive year for the burgeoning private spacelift industry. Firsts were made, records were achieved and billions of dollars worth of government contracts were awarded. It should have been a surefire win for all three of the industry’s leading companies — SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin — but then one of them managed to repeatedly shoot itself in the proverbial landing strut more than the other two combined.
Now, that’s not to say Blue Origin didn’t enjoy its share of success this year. CEO Jeff Bezos put his money where his oversized stetson is and made a historic trip out to the Karman line along with both the oldest (at least at that point) and youngest people to ever venture into space. This past November, the company even won financial backing from NASA to help build out its bonkers Orbital Reef commercial space station design.
However, those achievements were often overshadowed by the company’s public pettiness and truculence. For example, ahead of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic making its own historic first successful flight into space this past July, Blue Origin took to Twitter to talk a little trash. This is a little rich from the company that has reportedly become a toxic workplace.
More embarrassing still was Bezos’ repeated, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to secure Blue Origin a lucrative NASA contract. See, back in April, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion (yes, with a B) Artemis lunar lander contract.
Blue Origin immediately protested to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) over NASA’s “fundamentally unfair” decision against it, bringing work on the lunar program to a standstill until July, when the GAO kindly told Blue Origin to take its $2 billion and get out. Blue Origin did not.
Instead, the space lift company doubled down, suing NASA in open federal court, "in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System," per a Blue Origin representative in August. The court was not at all convinced and ruled against the plaintiffs, proving SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s jab true. Blue Origin really can’t sue its way to the Moon.
— Andrew Tarantola
Microsoft finally managed to make its Edge web browser a solid competitor to Chrome, Safari and Firefox by integrating the Chromium open source framework. And then, inexplicably, it began to pile on bloat, like a predatory "buy now pay later" feature and cringey anti-Chrome warnings. All of a sudden, Edge seems more like a way to trap and commodify its users, instead of delivering a solid web experience. It's as if Microsoft made it harder to change your default browser in Windows 11 on purpose (thankfully, it's testing out a simpler method, following plenty of industry criticism).
— D.H.
We’re back from the holidays and gearing up to (virtually) cover CES 2022. Cherlynn and Devindra chat about some of the most interesting new tech we expect to see, like Quantum Dot OLED displays and new CPUs. And they discuss what the global chip shortage could mean for CES and the rest of 2022. (Prepare to wait a lot longer for all your near gear!)
Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!
Our second pandemic CES is going to be a little weird – 1:41
What is Quantum Dot OLED? – 14:23
What we expect from new PC CPUs and GPUs – 24:37
What will wearables look like at CES? – 28:05
Cars and CES – 31:18
Pop Culture Picks – 39:07
Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low, Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
A team of archaeologists and geoscientists just found victims of an ancient tsunami on the Turkish coast. The victims—a human male and a dog, now just skeletons—were likely killed in the aftermath of a gargantuan volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago.
Get another look at Rob Zombie’s Munsters reboot. Star Trek: Discovery teases its return in February. Plus, a new clip from the latest season of Cobra Kai, and what’s coming on Outlander for Brianna, and an adorable new clip from We Baby Bears. It’s the last spoilers of 2021!
It turns out 2021 wasn’t the mental reprieve we’d all been hoping for after the challenges of 2020, and unfortunately, the finalists of this year’s Best Illusion of the Year Contest aren’t going to leave your brain feeling any less raddled, confused, or exhausted as we quickly approach the new year. As they do every…
If you’ve spent even a minute on the internet this week, you have surely seen something about Don’t Look Up. The Adam McKay-directed flick is Netflix’s top movie. It’s also perhaps the top reason for people shitting their pants online recently.
We review a lot of gadgets here at Gizmodo, and honestly, many of them are good. We detailed our favorites here. But we also see a lot of really bad products—some are just plain bad, while others are capable and well-designed but fatally flawed in one way or another (usually when it comes to privacy). Still others…
Happy almost new year! We’re wrapping up 2021 with some of the big winners of the last twelve months, whether that was NFTs (ugh), the metaverse (double ugh), Apple’s change of direction on device repair or the boom in home workout tech.
We also mention Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3, which makes the most compelling case for foldables so far. Samsung has noticed the same. It said the Flip 3 motivated more people to switch than its flagships, leading to four times more foldable devices sold in 2021 compared to 2020. The argument for buying your first folding smartphone strengthens year by year.
-Mat Smith
BlackBerry has announced that from January 4th, devices running BlackBerry OS 7.1 or earlier, as well as OS 10, will lose key services. And by key, we mean it. It’ll include losing the ability to make phone calls, texting, data and even emergency 911 access. You can also expect to have issues with WiFi and apps like BlackBerry World and Desktop manager.
Yukai Engineering, the maker of the Qoobo robotic cat tail pillow, has revealed a soft robot that nibbles on a user’s fingertip. Amagami Ham Ham has an algorithm called a “Hamgorithm” that selects one of two dozen nibbling patterns, designed to replicate the feeling of a baby or pet nibbling on one’s finger. Pricing hasn't been determined, but there are plans to run a crowdfunding campaign in the spring.
According to a report by security firm VPN Overview, a major breach in one of Sega's servers appears to have been closed. The misconfigured Amazon Web Services S3 bucket contained sensitive information which allowed researchers to arbitrarily upload files to a huge swath of Sega-owned domains, as well credentials to abuse a 250,000-user email list.
The domains impacted included the official landing pages for major franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Bayonetta and Total War, as well as the Sega.com site itself.
Did you just pick up a new phone? Did you stick with iOS and Android or make the transition to the rival? Are you in need of some new productivity apps or time killers? We’ve got you covered.
Samsung says it shipped four times more foldables in 2021 than it did in 2020. Further, it took only one month after they were released for the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 to exceed the total accumulative sales of their predecessors last year. The company also said that it saw a "massive increase" in consumers who jumped brands specifically for its foldable phones — in fact, more people switched to Samsung for the Flip 3 than for its flagship Galaxy S devices.
Free game promos are easy to find, but Epic is going one step further by offering an entire game trilogy for no charge. The Epic Games Store is offering all three Tomb Raider reboot titles (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider) for free between now and January 6th at 11AM.
JLab's latest $20 earbuds are designed to complement your skin tone
Tesla recalls nearly half a million cars over camera and trunk defects
New York City orders 184 Mustang Mach-E cars for police and government use
Apple's 2021 iPad is back to $299 at Amazon
Unfinished 'Halo Infinite' cutscene hints at a future storyline
Tumblr blocks tags for 'sensitive content' in order to stay on the App Store
Telegram adds iMessage-style reactions and hidden text for spoilers
Tesla is facing its second major U.S. recall in as many months. The EV maker was forced to recall 356,309 Model 3 sedans and 119,009 Model S vehicles this week over potentially dangerous functionality issues with the vehicles’ rearview camera and the front hood according to two National Highway Traffic Safety…
While they say most myths are based somewhat in fact, almost all of them have been embellished, exaggerated, and evolved over time to be something more than the original story. So it’s honestly kind of refreshing to hear that the long-standing rumor of how young up-and-coming director James Cameron managed to land the…
What could have been a damaging breach in one of Sega's servers appears to have been closed, according to a report by security firm VPN Overview. The misconfigured Amazon Web Services S3 bucket contained sensitive information which allowed researchers to arbitrarily upload files to a huge swath of Sega-owned domains, as well credentials to abuse a 250,000-user email list.
The domains impacted included the official landing pages for major franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Bayonetta and Total War, as well as the Sega.com site itself. VPNO was able to run executable scripts on these sites which, as you can imagine, would have been quite bad if this breach had been discovered by malicious actors instead of researchers.
An improperly stored Mailchimp API key gave VPNO access to the aforementioned email list. The emails themselves were available in plaintext alongside associated IP addresses, and passwords that the researchers were able to un-hash. According to the report, "a malicious user could have distributed ransomware very effectively using SEGA’s compromised email and cloud services."
So far there's no indication that bad actors made use of this vulnerability before VPNO discovered and helped Sega to fix it. Sega Europe was not available for comment.
Misconfigured S3 buckets are, unfortunately, an extremely common problem in information security. Similar errors this year have impacted audio company Sennheiser, Senior Advisor, PeopleGIS, and the government of Ghana. Sega was the target of a major attack in 2011 which led to the exfiltration of personally identifiable information pertaining to 1.3 million users. Thankfully, this misconfigured European server didn't result in a similar incident.
It wouldn’t be CES season without at least a couple of offbeat robots showing up. Yukai Engineering, the maker of the Qoobo robotic cat tail pillow, has revealed a soft robot that nibbles on a user’s fingertip. The company hopes the "somewhat pleasing sensation" will brighten up your day.
Amagami Ham Ham has an algorithm called a “Hamgorithm” that selects one of two dozen nibbling patterns, so you’ll never be sure exactly what you’ll feel when you shove your digit into the robot’s maw. Yukai designed the patterns — which include Tasting Ham, Massaging Ham and Suction Ham — to replicate the feeling of a baby or pet nibbling on one’s finger.
“Amagami” means “soft biting” and “ham” means “bite” in Japanese. Yukai based the look of the robot on a character from Liv Heart Corporation’s Nemu Nemu stuffed animal series. There’ll be a couple of finger-munching models to choose from: Yuzu (Calico Cat) and Kotaro (Shiba Inu).
“Most people like the nibbling sensation but know they need to teach their children or pets to stop it, because kids and animals will otherwise bite them with full force eventually," said Yukai Engineering CMO Tsubasa Tominaga, who invented the robot at a hackathon earlier this year. "Amagami Ham Ham is a robot that frees humankind from the conundrum of whether ‘to pursue or not to pursue’ the forbidden pleasure.”
Pricing hasn't been determined, but Yukai and Liv Heart plan to run a crowdfunding campaign in the spring. In the meantime, those braving CES can check out Amagami Ham Ham at the show, and perhaps leave Yukai's booth with a slightly more tender finger.
Among the other devices Yukai will show off at CES is Bocco Emo. The company has updated the original Bocco robot to act as a smart medical device. Yukai says hospitals in Japan are using it to monitor patients' vitals (via connected sensors like pulse oximeters and thermometers) and notify nurses about a patient's condition.
During a pilot period, Bocco Emo was used to inform patients' families about how they're doing. It can also communicate with patients using sound effects, facial expressions and gestures while they wait for a nurse to arrive.
Building a motherboard, it turns out, requires the same precision as defusing a bomb—one seemingly small, stupid mistake and the entire thing goes up in smoke.
Fox News spent the better part of 2021 telling its viewers blatant lies about the covid-19 pandemic. The network has claimed covid-19 vaccines are dangerous, that masks don’t help slow the spread of the virus, and that immigrants are worsening the pandemic in the U.S. Tucker Carlson, the most popular host on Fox News,…
Don't worry if you didn't get (or give) the latest iPad this holiday season — you can still score one at a discount. Amazon is once again selling the 64GB standard iPad for $299, or $30 off its usual price. You can also buy the 256GB version at an all-time low price of $449. You may have to wait a while when the 64GB model isn't due to ship until mid-February, but it could be worthwhile if you're not in a rush to grab Apple's most affordable tablet.
Buy iPad at Amazon - $299The 2021 iPad is another modest update to a core design that hasn't changed for years, but those changes could make all the difference in some cases. The wide-angle front camera is much better-suited to video calls. The A13 Bionic chip is still very fast for this class of tablet, and the 10-plus hours of battery life is more than enough for typical tablet uses. There's even a headphone jack — imagine that.
This isn't the iPad for you if you insist on Apple's latest technology: you won't find USB-C, thin bezels or second-gen Pencil support. You'll want an iPad Air (or mini, or Pro) for that. If all you want is a big screen for games, reading and TV marathons, though, this base iPad is an easy choice at a price like this.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
We're somehow just about to roll into 2022, which means Sony will soon refresh the lineup of games PlayStation Plus members can claim at no extra cost. Starting on January 4th, you'll be able to snag Persona 5 Strikers, Dirt 5 and Deep Rock Galactic.
Persona 5 Strikers follows the events of Persona 5 (which PS5 owners can snag through the PS Plus Collection). The action RPG, which was released in the West earlier this year, pulls in elements from the Dynasty Warriors series too. It's the only one of January's PS Plus games that doesn't have a native PS5 version.
Dirt 5 is the latest game in the long-running Dirt series. The off-road racing title, which emerged in November 2020, includes features like four-player splitscreen and the Playground creative mode. You can race across more than 70 routes in 10 global locations.
Deep Rock Galactic, meanwhile, is debuting on PlayStation as a PS Plus game. The co-op first-person shooter arrived on PC and Xbox in May 2020. You'll play as a space dwarf and there are four classes you can choose from: engineer, gunner, driller and scout. Players explore procedurally-generated destructible cave systems and take on waves of aliens as they search for resources.
PS Plus subscribers will until February 1st to claim those titles. Meanwhile, you have until January 3rd to snag the six games in the current lineup. You can snag Godfall: Challenger Edition, Lego DC Super Villains and Mortal Shell, as well as PS VR titles The Persistence (which you can also play without a headset), The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners and Until You Fall.
LG is having a busy CES 2022 and the show hasn’t even started. The company already revealed two bizarre OLED concepts and a pair of odd TVs, but today it made its most significant announcement yet by debuting OLED EX, the next generation of its OLED display technology.
A team of scientists modeling the Venusian atmosphere found data that could help explain the perplexing chemistry of the planet’s clouds. The findings further the possibility of life existing in Venus’s atmosphere, a still-controversial idea that will be investigated by several planned missions to the scorching planet.
Every year I try to have a little “holiday gaming café” gathering at my apartment, where I invite friends over to play board and card games. While last year’s party was understandably cancelled, this year I invited a small group over and we indulged in tabletop titles like We’re Doomed and Parks. Inevitably we reached the point in the evening where people’s attention started to stray so it seemed like a good idea to switch to party video games. But instead of the old standby Jackbox, I remembered that Oink Games had just released a board game collection and decided to give that a spin.
We discovered that Let’s Play! Oink Games was not like Jackbox Party Packs at all, as it did not work with phones and required separate copies of the game on separate consoles. Pass. So we turned off the Switch, hooked up my laptop and started up Jackbox Party Pack 8 instead.
If you live in a friendless cave and aren’t familiar with Jackbox, it’s a pretty great series: Each “Party Pack” has five party games that anyone can join in with their phone (or any web browser) by going to Jackbox.tv and inputting the special room code. The narrator explains how to play and walks the group through each round — which makes it pretty great for those guests who aren’t paying attention or are super, super drunk. Most of the games involve drawing, trivia or writing silly words. (My particular favorite is ‘Mad Verse City’ from Jackbox Party Pack 5, a rap game.)
After everyone left, I decided to give Let’s Play! Oink Games another try. And, while it isn’t an alternative to Jackbox (it’s more like Clubhouse Games, if anything), it is still a somewhat fun experience, though not worth the $22 I spent.
There are only four games included with the set: Startups, Deep Sea Adventure, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, and‘Moon Adventure. They’re all computerized versions of Oink’s tabletop games, which come in little card-deck-sized boxes and usually cost $20 each. In that respect, the video game version does seem like a good deal. You have a choice to play online with either people you know or strangers, offline with people you know, or offline with CPU opponents.
Offline with friends wasn’t happening since, as I pointed out earlier, you all need your own copy of the game and a console. I tried to find an online match, only to discover there weren’t any going on. So my only choice was offline with CPU opponents.
Unfortunately, A Fake Artist Goes to New York can’t be played with CPU opponents, as it’s a drawing game where all the players but one are given a prompt, and you have to figure out who the “fake” artist is. I also discovered that Moon Adventure can have multiple players, but the user is tasked with playing them all since it’s a cooperative game. So it’s really a battle with resource management as you attempt to gather supplies before your oxygen runs out. I found this one the toughest of all, even after looking at the helpful instructions and videos the game builds in. For all my qualms with the title, the instructions are really well-done.
However, the instructions didn’t get me any closer to winning Startups, one of the two games where CPU players can participate. And man, are they merciless. The idea is to gather as many “shares” in a company as possible, but if you don’t have the most you end up having to pay out to the person who does. It’s like a modern version of Monopoly where you land on Boardwalk all the time. At least this one plays a lot quicker.
The last game, Deep Sea Adventure, is my favorite. It’s sort of competitive and sort of cooperative, as all the players must share the same oxygen supply and diving too deep will deplete it quickly. Once I got into the rhythm of gathering treasure and running back to the sub as soon as possible I mastered the game and was regularly kicking CPU butt.
While it was perhaps unfair of me to expect Let’s Play: Oink Games to be a Jackbox replacement, there’s still a lot of room for growth in what they have. I’d like to see a mode where users who don’t own the game can play on their own systems with a person who does, similar to how Mario Kart used to work on the DS. And I do hope they add more games, if only because this is an easier way to learn how to play instead of trying to puzzle out badly translated print instructions from Japanese, which is what you deal with in the physical versions.
When Boba Fett returned from the dead in The Mandalorian’s second season, it offered him up as an archetype his own legacy had helped establish: the template that the entire Mandalorian culture was built upon for decades of stories. The Book of Boba Fett begins by diving a little further into its titular protagonist’s…
Announcing a vehicle is one thing, actually following through and building that vehicle at a factory and then selling it, that’s an almost impossible feat for a new company. But like Tesla before it, Rivian has pulled it off and in doing so has built one of the best trucks on the road today, EV or otherwise.
The all-electric Rivian R1T starts at wallet-busting $67,500, but for that money, owners will get the latest technology out there in a truck that’s at home on the highway, around town, and crawling over rocks, and navigating muddy trails. We put one to the test in the rain in Northern California.
As usual, LG has unveiled its latest smart appliances for CES 2022, but this time they come with an unusual twist: a recipe service. The ThinQ Recipe app will let users choose from up to 10,000 recipes, with the app adding ingredients to your grocery list for delivery from Walmart or Amazon Fresh.
LG has partnered with SideChef on the app, letting you cook up anything from a single recipe to a weekly meal plan. It also uses the Scan and Cook feature from Foodspace Technology that scans a bar code on certain frozen and ready-to-cook meals, automatically sending cooking instructions to compatible LG ThinQ ovens.
The new feature is designed to work with LG's latest InstaView Double Range oven and Over-the-range microwave. The former uses LG's InstaView tech that lets you see inside the appliance by knocking twice on the glass. It also uses LG's ProBake convection tech with Air Fry and Air Sous Vide modes, while the microwave offers LG's Steam Cook tech to keep foods moist when cooking.
The new appliances with ThinQ recipe will be shown at LG's virtual exhibition booth at CES 2022 starting on January 5th, though LG didn't say when the app and appliances would go on sale. CES 2022 is still scheduled to proceed next week in Las Vegas, with LG, Samsung and Sony still committed as of this writing. Other companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Lenovo have backed out of real-world involvement, however.
Samsung is giving you one last chance to grab the Galaxy Buds Pro at a discount from Amazon before the year ends. The earbuds, which we called Samsung's best ones yet when we reviewed them in January, are currently available for $125. That's $75 less than their original retail price of $200 and only $5 more than their all-time low on Amazon-owned Woot. The main Amazon website has return policies Woot doesn't offer — plus, the model isn't available right now on the deals site anyway.
Buy Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro at Amazon - $125We have the Galaxy Buds Pro a score of 85 in our review and praised them for their comfortable fit, thanks to Samsung combining the Live's curves with the original Buds' small form factor. The company said the model has "the most comprehensive sound" among its true wireless earbuds, and we did find its sound to have real depth and solid clarity. The buds have active noise cancellation and their ear tips are effective enough in sealing off the ear canal to block out constant background noise. Further, the model uses Dolby Head Tracking tech to create more immersive sound with Dolby Atmos content, so long as it's paired with a Galaxy device that supports the feature.
We also found voice calls to have better quality than other models due to the buds' three microphones and Wind Shield technology. When it comes to battery life, we found that it matches the company's estimates of five hours with ANC and Bixby and eight hours without them.
All the colors of the Galaxy Bud Pro are on sale at the moment, so you can choose between White, Phantom Black, Phantom Silver and Phantom Violet.
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Hyundai only just released its first ground-up electric car, but it's apparently ready to leave combustion engines behind. As Electrekreports, Korea Economic Dailysources claim Hyundai shut down its research center's engine design unit sometime this month. There will still be some workers left to refine existing engines, but the rest will move to EV-related work.
The company is understood to be converting buildings for EV development at the same time. The powertrain development center is becoming an electrification test facility, and the performance development center is now dedicated to electrified machines. There's also a new battery development center, while researchers are now sourcing raw battery and chip components.
The aim is simple, according to the leak. Hyundai wants to accelerate the transition to EVs, and that means devoting much more of its energy to the newer technology. Electrification is "inevitable," new research chief Park Chung-kook reportedly said in email, and the transition will help produce cars that "dominate the future market."
We've asked Hyundai for comment. The change in priorities would make sense, at least. Many countries and individual states intend to ban combustion car sales in the 2030s. Hyundai's home of South Korea, for instance, has a climate plan that would ban combustion-only sales by 2030 and all combustion vehicle sales by 2035. Hyundai is already phasing out diesels. There wouldn't be much point to designing new engines that would only have a brief time on the market, and the company is likely to significantly expand its EV lineup long before any government cutoffs.
“If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from,” says Luke Skywalker in response to C-3PO’s query about where he and R2-D2 have landed. The first time we watch Star Wars: A New Hope, we have no reason to disbelieve him: The desert planet of Tatooine is almost nothing but sand…
Fresh off the Christmas holiday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance on how long people should isolate away from others if they’ve been infected by or exposed to the coronavirus. The change effectively cuts the waiting period in half for many people, particularly those without…
A series of winter storms in California over the Christmas weekend dumped snow all over the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is good water news for the upcoming year following a bone-dry summer that set several worrying new records for water scarcity.
While the world was busy trying to fight off supply chain delays for their holiday presents, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sealed the deal on an expensive year-end purchase of his own: a $17 million plot of land in Hawaii’s Kauai island. That land grab, first reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, adds to the…
There’s a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on the scene, and just like the one that was trying to buy a copy of the United States Constitution at Sotheby’s last month, this one has its eyes on an equally lofty, prestigious prize: the defunct movie rental chain Blockbuster.
As it does every year around this time, Samsung has unveiled its C-Lab incubator projects for CES 2022, with the aim to gauge customer response and further advance the most promising ideas. The star of the show this year is ZamStar, a guitar and app combo designed to make collaboration and learning easier. Other notable projects include an AI solution to help kids develop good smartphone habits and a nursery mobile that can allow for early detection of infant strabismus (eye crossing).
ZamStar consists of an app and a custom guitar called ZamString. The idea is that you can play a part on the guitar, add effects and then sync it up with other musicians around the world. It's clearly a riff on the COVID-19 TikTok trend of musical collaborations (remember all those sea shanties early this year), with the idea of making it easy to sync up your music. Meanwhile, the ZamString guitar has a fretboard that lights via input from a song, making it easy to figure out where to put your fingers. It's not a new concept, but perhaps the first to marry both the learning and collaboration aspects.
Piloto, meanwhile, is what Samsung calls an "AI solution that helps children develop proper smartphone usage habits." The aim is to teach kids "self-regulation skills" on smart devices to help them make good choices. Finally, Innovision is "a daily life eye-care system with a nursery mobile to catch suspicious symptoms of the strabismus and monitor visual ability development status for babies." That seems like a smart idea, since babies gaze natural towards mobiles.
Along with its inside incubators, Samsung's C-Lab Outside is backing nine startups, including an AI-based biometric recognition solution for pets called Petnow. All of these projects will be on display with their own booths at CES 2022. So far, Samsung still appears to be planning to attend the event and has not followed the lead of other exhibitors (Google, Lenovo, Intel, Amazon, Meta, T-Mobile) by cancelling.
Warner Bros. has given fans a belated Christmas present by releasing a new trailer for Matt Reeves’ The Batman, as stuffed with new footage as the proverbial Christmas goose. There’s plenty of Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, plenty of Robert Pattinson’s Batman beating the hell out of people, and plenty of Paul Dano’s Riddler…
Xiaomi has unveiled its latest lineup of flagship smartphones and wearables. The Xiaomi 12 Series, which is only available in China for now, includes two sizes of phones: Xiaomi 12 and Xiaomi 12 Pro.
Both are among the first devices to run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset and they boast LPDDR5 RAM. The Xiaomi 12 has a 4,500mAh battery, while the 12 Pro has what the company claims is the first single-cell 120W, 4,600mAh battery. Xiaomi says it offers an increased capacity of 400mAh over dual-cell batteries without having to increase the size.
The base model's camera array includes Sony's 50MP IMX766 as the main camera, a 13MP ultra-wide angle lens and a 5MP telemacro sensor. The 12 Pro, meanwhile, has the new Sony IMX707 sensor, an ultra-wide camera with a 115-degree field of view and a 2x telephoto camera for portraits. All three sensors are 50MP, while the main camera improves light capture by up to 49 percent over the previous model, according to Xiaomi.
On the front, each device has a 32MP sensor. The front-facing holepunch camera was positioned on the left on the Mi 11 series, but, as with the 11T devices, it's in the center this time.
Xiaomi noted that Night Mode is available on both devices, each of which is said to have a camera that works well in low-light scenarios. The company says it's introducing a new imaging computing algorithm, which it claims improves capture speed and shutter lag.
The Xiaomi 12 has a 6.28-inch flexible OLED display with a 2,400 × 1,080 resolution, 1,100 nits of brightness and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The 12 Pro offers a 6.73-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 3,200 x 1,440 and 1,500 nits of brightness. Xiaomi says the display uses micro-lens tech, which it claims improves the "viewing experience while increasing smart energy-saving capability." Both devices have HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support.
On the audio side, both handsets have symmetrical dual speakers and Dolby Atmos support. The 12 Pro features a customized mid-woofer and tweeter.
The devices will go on sale on December 31st, starting at RMB 3,699 (around $580) for the Xiaomi 12 and RMB 4,699 (approximately $738) for Xiaomi 12 Pro. The company also said it will release a lower-cost version of the Xiaomi 12 on the same day. The Xiaomi 12X has a Snapdragon 870 chipset and starts at RMB 3,199 ($500).
The phones will use MIUI 13, an OS based on Android 12 that's also coming to Mi 11 series handsets, Xiaomi 11T and other phones and tablets. Xiaomi's smart watches, speakers and TVs will also harness the OS to help unify the ecosystem. A feature called Mi Smart Hub will allow users to share things like their screen, music and apps with multiple nearby devices using a simple gesture.
In addition, Xiaomi revealed its latest smartwatch. The Xiaomi Watch S1 has a 1.43-inch AMOLED screen with a sapphire glass display and stainless steel frame. It will offer detailed health stats and has support for 117 fitness modes. The device has a 5ATM water resistance rating too. Xiaomi says the device has a 12-day battery life and up to 24 days of standby time.
Like the new phones, the Xiaomi Watch S1 will only be available in China for the time being. It starts at RMB 1,099 ($172).
Also new are the Xiaomi Buds 3, which have dual-magnetic dynamic drivers. The earbuds offer up to 40dB noise cancellation and three active noise cancellation modes. Xiaomi says owners will get up to seven hours of playback on a single charge and up to 32 hours of total use with the charging case. The Xiaomi Buds 3 will cost RMB 449 ($70).
While these devices are geared toward the Chinese market, they could make their way elsewhere at a later date. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun hinted as much on Twitter.
You might want to unplug your Amazon Alexa speaker before it has a dangerous influence on your children.
Valve has once again given some insight into the highest-earning games of the year on Steam. The sixth annual Top Sellers list splits the top 100 games into a few categories, and the titles within each are randomly ordered. The 12 games in the Platinum category raked in the most cash.
There are several free-to-play games at the top, since Steam has factored in microtransactions and paid expansions. The Platinum tier is dominated by old favorites, including Apex Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dead by Daylight, Destiny 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Dota 2 and Grand Theft Auto V.
It's the sixth straight year that Dota 2, CS:GO and Grand Theft Auto V have made it into the top tier. PUBG: Battlegrounds and Rainbow Six Siege each made the cut for the fifth time as well. Destiny 2, meanwhile, has featured in the Platinum tier every year since it hit Steam in 2019.
Battle royale title Naraka: Bladepoint and Battlefield 2042 are among the four releases from this year that made it into the top 12. Valheim, a survival sandbox game made by just five people, is also among the biggest money makers, as is New World, showing that after years of trying and failing, Amazon has finally made a hit game.
The newcomers that landed in the second group of 12 games, Gold, are FIFA 22, Back 4 Blood, Forza Horizon 5 and It Takes Two, which won game of the year honors at The Game Awards. The older titles in that section are Final Fantasy XIV Online (which Square Enix has temporarily stopped selling due to overloaded servers), Red Dead Redemption 2, Rust, Sea of Thieves, Warframe, The Elder Scrolls Online, War Thunder and Forza Horizon 4.
The Silver section, meanwhile, includes 2021 releases such as Halo Infinite, Outriders, Resident Evil Village and Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Cyberpunk 2077, which was released in December last year, is in that category, as are The Sims 4, Monster Hunter: World and the bot-plagued Team Fortress 2.
Some key takeaways include the fact that EA, which brought its games back to Steam in 2019, had four titles among the top 24 earners, including three new releases: Apex Legends, Battlefield 2042, FIFA 22 and It Takes Two. Microsoft also had several games in the top few tiers, despite them all being available on PC Game Pass. Forza Horizon 5, its predecessor and Sea of Thieves are all in the Gold category. Halo Infinite made it into Silver even though the multiplayer is free-to-play and the paid campaign had only been out for a week before Steam stopped tracking earnings for the list.
Many of these games — including New World, Battlefield 2042, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and Sea of Thieves — have been discounted for the Steam Winter Sale. Cyberpunk 2077, Valheim and Back 4 Blood are also included in the sale, which runs until January 5th.
