Technology
- I tried replacing Twitter with Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon: Here's what I found November 21, 2024More and more ex-Twitter/X users are seeking new online homes. I kicked the tires on these three nascent services. Here's what you need to know about them.
- Did you play Pokémon Go? You didn't know it, but you were training AI to map the world November 21, 2024If you played this popular mobile game, your location data and photos helped build an AI map.
- Threads lets you create your own custom feeds now, just like Bluesky – here's how November 21, 2024With custom feeds, you can add and follow specific accounts and topics that interest you. Here's how it works.
- This retro-looking Bose speaker brings the boom (and an immense amount of style) November 20, 2024The Bose SoundLink Home combines a 70s-inspired design with modern audio technologies, offering an enjoyable and stylish Bluetooth speaker for at-home listening. It's also on sale ahead of Black Friday.
- This Breville Espresso Machine is $89 off ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024With Black Friday just over a week away, you can already get this fancy espresso machine on Amazon at a hefty discount.
- This HP laptop is $900 off ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024Black Friday is a week away, and early deals are showing up. Over on B&H Photo Video, the HP Envy has received a big discount, dropping down to $1,100.
- This absurdly simple trick turns off AI in your Google Search results November 20, 2024There are several workarounds to avoid Google Search AI summaries, but this may be the easiest.
- This Nespresso machine brews barista-quality coffee at home, and it's 30% off ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024With this machine, you can skip the coffee shop and save hundreds of dollars, and it's $60 off.
- 8 Bluesky tips every new user should know November 20, 2024Freely available to anyone, Bluesky offers key advantages over X, Threads, and other social networks. Here are 8 ways to achieve social nirvana.
- Apple's iPad 9th Gen is $130 off ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024One of our favorite iPads is on sale for nearly 40% off with this early Black Friday deal at Best Buy.
- Apple fans will dig this stylish 3-in-1 charger from Nomad – and now it's $45 off November 20, 2024The Nomad Base One Max can charge up the latest iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods while looking fantastic on your tabletop. It's heavily discounted ahead of Black Friday.
- The best note-taking apps for iPad of 2024: Expert tested November 20, 2024Ditch your pen and paper. These top note-taking apps for iPad digitize your notes while keeping them all in one place.
- One of the best budget smartwatches I've tested provides a ton of health data (and it's on sale) November 20, 2024The Amazfit BIP 5 provides an exhaustive list of health and fitness metrics through Zepp, the same app that much more expensive smartwatches use. Right now, it's on sale for $69.
- Save up to 56% on Amazon Fire TV Sticks ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024Amazon's flagship Fire TV Stick lineup is seeing discounts of up to 56% ahead of Black Friday, including on the newest Fire Stick HD.
- These durable bone-conduction headphones sound just as good models twice its price November 20, 2024Although Raycon's bone-conducting headphones aren't the best-sounding devices on the market, they offer solid water resistance, a good battery life, and three EQ settings.
- Apple's new M4 MacBook Pro is already $250 off ahead of Black Friday – and I highly recommend it November 20, 2024Apple released the MacBook Pro M4 less than a month ago, but an early Black Friday deal is already live at B&H Photo Video.
- Get the Nanoleaf Skylight smart ceiling lights on sale through Black Friday November 20, 2024Nanoleaf's new Skylight panels can get plenty bright and colorful with a tap of a button. Just make sure to set them up properly.
- Your Meta Quest 3 is getting a free Windows PC upgrade – and it could change how you work November 20, 2024It seems likely that support for other headsets is also on the way.
- This smart floor lamp is one of my favorite smart home accessories and it's 20% off November 20, 2024Aesthetically pleasing and easy to set up, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro brings many new features I didn't know I needed, made even better by this Black Friday deal.
- The Sandisk Extreme Pro 2TB Portable SSD is $82 off ahead of Black Friday November 20, 2024Amazon has some sweet storage deals leading up to Black Friday next week. You can get the Sandisk Extreme Pro 2TB SSD or the Sandisk Extreme 2TB SSD, both for under $170.
Technology
- Q&A with Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora about the role of the tech industry in Trump's administration, AI, the future of cybersecurity, and more (Reed Albergotti/Semafor) November 21, 2024Reed Albergotti / Semafor: Q&A with Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora about the role of the tech industry in Trump's administration, AI, the future of cybersecurity, and more — The Scene — While Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and his firm are more under the radar than Silicon Valley's consumer companies …
- A look at biometric ID company Clear, as it works to expand its face-based line-cutting service at retailers, banks, doctor's offices, and other places (Eileen Guo/MIT Technology Review) November 21, 2024Eileen Guo / MIT Technology Review: A look at biometric ID company Clear, as it works to expand its face-based line-cutting service at retailers, banks, doctor's offices, and other places — If you've ever been through a large US airport, you're probably at least vaguely aware of Clear. Maybe your interest (or irritation) …
- London-based Lighthouse, which offers tools to help hotels analyze market demand and rates, raised a ~$370M Series C led by KKR, sources say at a $1B+ valuation (Swetha Gopinath/Bloomberg) November 21, 2024Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg: London-based Lighthouse, which offers tools to help hotels analyze market demand and rates, raised a ~$370M Series C led by KKR, sources say at a $1B+ valuation — Lighthouse, a startup that helps hotels analyze market demand and rates, has raised about $370 million in a funding round led by private […]
- Google says the US DOJ's "wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision", would hurt US consumers and jeopardize US' global tech leadership (Kent Walker/The Keyword) November 21, 2024Kent Walker / The Keyword: Google says the US DOJ's “wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court's decision”, would hurt US consumers and jeopardize US' global tech leadership — President, Global Affairs & Chief Legal Officer, Google & Alphabet — As part of its lawsuit over how we distribute Search …
- Four former Google executives say innovation by rivals is key to breaking Google Search's dominance, and ChatGPT-like tools will one day supplant Google Search (Paresh Dave/Wired) November 21, 2024Paresh Dave / Wired: Four former Google executives say innovation by rivals is key to breaking Google Search's dominance, and ChatGPT-like tools will one day supplant Google Search — Despite shared concerns about Google's power, critics of the company and former executives express little agreement on what …
- Jensen Huang says "foundation model pretraining scaling is intact" and models like OpenAI's o1 could play a larger role in Nvidia's business moving forward (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch) November 21, 2024Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Jensen Huang says “foundation model pretraining scaling is intact” and models like OpenAI's o1 could play a larger role in Nvidia's business moving forward — Nvidia raked in more than $19 billion in net income during the last quarter, the company reported on Wednesday …
- A look at OpenScholar, an LLM for scientific research built by the Allen Institute for AI and the University of Washington that outperforms GPT-4o on accuracy (Michael Nuñez/VentureBeat) November 21, 2024Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat: A look at OpenScholar, an LLM for scientific research built by the Allen Institute for AI and the University of Washington that outperforms GPT-4o on accuracy — Scientists are drowning in data. With millions of research papers published every year, even the most dedicated experts struggle …
- Filing: the US DOJ's proposal requires Google to allow websites more ability to opt-out of its AI products and provide more ad placement controls to advertisers (Leah Nylen/Bloomberg) November 21, 2024Leah Nylen / Bloomberg: Filing: the US DOJ's proposal requires Google to allow websites more ability to opt-out of its AI products and provide more ad placement controls to advertisers — – Antitrust officials propose options in historic lawsuit — Google says government pushing ‘radical agenda’ beyond case
- As part of its proposed remedies, the US DOJ says Google should be required to syndicate its US search results to other rival search engines for the next decade (Brian Fung/CNN) November 21, 2024Brian Fung / CNN: As part of its proposed remedies, the US DOJ says Google should be required to syndicate its US search results to other rival search engines for the next decade — The US government formally proposed a partial breakup of Google on Wednesday, urging a federal judge to force a sale …
- Filing: DOJ asks judge to force Google to sell Chrome, restrict Android from favoring Google's search engine, ban default search deals on iOS and other devices (Michael Liedtke/Associated Press) November 21, 2024Michael Liedtke / Associated Press: Filing: DOJ asks judge to force Google to sell Chrome, restrict Android from favoring Google's search engine, ban default search deals on iOS and other devices — U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through …
- OpenAI releases a free online course for K-12 teachers to integrate ChatGPT into their classrooms, but some educators remain skeptical about the technology (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch) November 21, 2024Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: OpenAI releases a free online course for K-12 teachers to integrate ChatGPT into their classrooms, but some educators remain skeptical about the technology — OpenAI envisions teachers using its AI-powered tools to create lesson plans and interactive tutorials for students.
- Australia introduces a bill in Parliament to ban children younger than 16 from social media; companies would face fines of up to AU$50M for violations (Rod McGuirk/Associated Press) November 21, 2024Rod McGuirk / Associated Press: Australia introduces a bill in Parliament to ban children younger than 16 from social media; companies would face fines of up to AU$50M for violations — Australia's communications minister introduced a world-first law into Parliament on Thursday that would ban children younger than 16 from social media …
- Neuralink receives approval from Canada to launch clinical trials of its brain implants and plans to run its first non-US trial with Toronto Western Hospital (Sarah McBride/Bloomberg) November 21, 2024Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: Neuralink receives approval from Canada to launch clinical trials of its brain implants and plans to run its first non-US trial with Toronto Western Hospital — The billionaire's brain device company is currently recruiting patients in the US, UK and Canada.
- Google researchers introduce AlphaQubit, a machine-learning decoder that surpasses existing methods in identifying and correcting quantum computing errors (Matt Swayne/The Quantum Insider) November 21, 2024Matt Swayne / The Quantum Insider: Google researchers introduce AlphaQubit, a machine-learning decoder that surpasses existing methods in identifying and correcting quantum computing errors — – Google researchers introduced AlphaQubit, an AI-powered decoder that improves quantum error correction, reducing errors by 6% compared …
- Adtech company The Trade Desk announces Ventura, a smart TV operating system, and plans to partner with TV manufacturers for its rollout, expected in H2 2025 (Sara Fischer/Axios) November 21, 2024Sara Fischer / Axios: Adtech company The Trade Desk announces Ventura, a smart TV operating system, and plans to partner with TV manufacturers for its rollout, expected in H2 2025 — – “We're looking at a concentration around a handful of players that lack objectivity,” Green said.