Georgetown, Saint Vincent & The Grenadines, 7th January 2025, Chainwire
The post R0AR NFT Public Sale Live: 2,700 Minted On First Day as DeFi-NFT Narrative Gains Traction first appeared on Tech Startups.
The 21st century has not been kind to RadioShack. The once-dominant electronics component retailer simply couldn’t compete with big box stores like Best Buy and online retail juggernaut Amazon. February 2015 saw the company delisted from the New York Stock Exchange before declaring bankruptcy the same month. Later that year, RadioShack began the process of […]
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The data centers will primarily support AI and cloud technologies, the president-elect said.
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Meticulous is showcasing its smart espresso maker, which it says is the world’s first robotic lever espresso machine, at CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week. The prototype has raised nearly $5 million in funding on Kickstarter and another $1.6 million million on Indiegogo. The company’s first batch of espresso machines is set to ship […]
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Employer.com has offered to acquire Level, a fintech startup that just last week abruptly shut down after failing to find a buyer, according to The Information. But Level is still mulling over the offer, its Employer.com CMO Matt Charney told TechCrunch. “It’s with legal,” he said. Founded in 2018 by early Square employee Paul Aaron, […]
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Longevity is becoming a key point for Android smartphones nowadays, with Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices offering 7 years of support, leading the industry. With its new OnePlus 13 and 13R, OnePlus is also upping its software update commitment, but not quite to the same level.
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The CES 2025 reveals roll on, alongside this deal on Samsung’s affordable Galaxy Tab A9+ Tablet at $150, but there’s a whole lot more than that on the slate today. Joining the launch deals now live on Anker’s all-new display-equipped 140W wall charger and power bank that just debuted at CES, we also have some solid offers on Android gaming controllers from Razer and Backbone as well as a new all-time lows on Amazon’s new Dolby Atmos Fire TV Soundbar Plus and Bose’s latest 2nd-gen SoundLink Flex Bluetooth speaker, not to mention some portable SSD offers and a host of charging accessories. Head below for a closer look.
more…Nomad is back at it again, bringing the glow to your wrist with their new limited edition Glow in the Dark Icy Blue Sport Band. This fresh twist on their best-selling Glow 2.0 delivers a clean, pale blue-white look during the day and a bold, striking glow by night. Whether you’re out for a night jog or just want to stand out in a crowd, this band brings both style and functionality to your Apple Watch.
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The CES 2025 gadgets are rolling in like crazy now, holiday pricing on the continues, and we have even more deals to scope out today. First up, you’ll find the 16GB M3 MacBook Air with a 512GB SSD down at $1,099, or $400 off the price it fetched before Apple upgraded to 16GB RAM configs. Next is the return of the official Doorbuster pricing we tracked on Apple Watch Ultra 2 alongside a new all-time low on the latest second-generation Bose SoundLink Flex Bluetooth speaker and launch deals on Anker’s brand new display-laden chargers from CES. All of that and more awaits down below.
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I lived in New York City for many years and absolutely loved it, with one major caveat. Packages got stolen, like a lot. This was especially frustrating for a tech reporter waiting on review gadgets and the like. Hyve Security is looking to solve this problem with its self-named smart lockbox, which it brought to CES 2025 in Las Vegas.
The Hyve is being advertised as “the first branded smart lockbox” and can be secured to the front of a house or apartment via a quarter-inch carbon fiber tether. Carbon fiber is notoriously difficult to cut, so that’s one security measure.
The lockbox also ships with an accelerometer and a “shrieking” alarm that will go off if the device is moved or tampered with. The box’s owner will receive an alert in this instance. Neighbors, friends and family will also receive alerts if they opt-in to the community service. The Hyve app will integrate with many current smart home security systems for even more protection.
It’s weather-proof, which is handy for something that will likely be housed outside, and includes a photo window for drivers to snap a picture of the package nestled safely inside the pod. This is also useful for retailers, as they can be relatively certain that a package was successfully delivered to its intended owner. The app can even be used to send out pings to nearby delivery trucks in the case of a pending return.
It operates via a combination of battery and solar power. The company claims it can run for 18 months without requiring a charge.
The obvious use case here is to prevent porch-based theft, which is great. However, Hyve Security says that wide adoption of these lockboxes can eventually allow retailers to ship items without so much wasteful packaging. The Hyve costs $300 and officially goes on sale in June.
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© Hyve Security
I’m not a fan of those TVs sold in picture frame surrounds that companies tell you are good for displaying art in your homes. There’s something unconvincing about using a powered, backlit screen for things you’re meant to stare at for quite a while. Can you really appreciate Turner’s Norham Castle Sunrise if you’re struggling with eyestrain after five minutes or so? Perhaps the cure for my dourness is to be found in PocketBook's new device, InkPoster. It uses a big, color e-paper display to do the same job, giving your eyes a better chance of seeing the brush strokes up close and personal.
InkPoster is a series of color e-paper displays equipped with battery packs that can be hung in your home for up to a year on a single charge. There’s no power cable, and it can be mounted in portrait or landscape orientation, depending on your taste. You’ll be able to access a library of curated art, put together by a team of “professional art consultants” and select what you want to see inside the InkPoster companion app. You’ll also be able to use it as a regular old digital photo frame, ideal for when you want to pull a masterpiece from online and display that instead.
There are three display sizes based on two different technologies, Spectra 6 and Sharp’s IGZO. The former is found in the 13.3-inch model with a 1,200 x 1,600 resolution, which packs a 14,000mAh battery pack. There’s a 28.5-inch edition with a 2,160 x 3,060 display which uses a hybrid of both display technologies. Finally, there’s a 31.5-inch model with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution that uses Spectra 6 and is designed to be a real focal point in your home. The two larger models both pack a 20,000mAh battery, with the same promise of a year or so of running.
PocketBook hasn’t mentioned pricing yet for either the hardware or how much it'll cost to access its catalog of artwork, not to mention any sort of timeframe for when you'll be able to hang this on your wall.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/inkposter-uses-an-e-paper-display-to-bring-art-to-your-home-170016899.html?src=rss
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© PocketBook
Peacock will start testing mini games and short-form vertical videos on its iOS and Android apps, per TechCrunch. These experimental features were available for preview at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The company intends to start testing them with users this month.
A Peacock spokesperson told TechCrunch that during the testing period, some users will see the games and shorts, while others only see one or the other. The remainder won’t be able to play games or watch shorts.
There are five planned games for the test: Daily Sort, Daily Swap, Predictions, What The, and Venn. These games are simple and don’t take up too much time, and some are even tied to various shows and sports. Players can predict outcomes of a series and come back later to see if they were correct, enhancing their streaming experience.
As for the shorts, they’re curated from content from Peacock’s library. They can be from TV shows or news and will be updated weekly and daily. Users can even tap on them to enter the program’s page and watch the real thing.
Both YouTube and Netflix opted to compete with TikTok quickly, and YouTube especially has more than 100 games. Netflix doesn’t have that many, but a Squid Game spinoff game did arrive on the app last month. Peacock may be competing against giants, but the possible TikTok ban does give it a better fighting chance.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/peacock-is-testing-mini-games-and-vertical-short-videos-164012685.html?src=rss
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© REUTERS / Reuters
Here at Ars, we're judicious about which of the many, many Switch 2 rumors we decide to highlight on this page. For every report on hardware power or magnetic Joy-Cons that we share, there are probably five others we see and decide are too lightly sourced, too unlikely, or just too plain obscure to spread here.
But when we started hearing reports that the Switch 2's Joy-Cons could be cradled on their sides and manipulated like a full-fledged gaming mouse, we knew the concept was one you'd want to hear about.
Rumor: More images of Switch 2 Joy-Cons have immerged from China.
Source: https://t.co/MplOUwKhRi pic.twitter.com/5ZdFmVlggl
— Stealth (@Stealth40k) January 5, 2025
The rumors of mouse-like functionality on the Switch 2's included controllers got supercharged over the weekend when a Reddit poster shared detailed photos of purported Switch 2 Joy-Cons, sourced from an unnamed Chinese social media user. In between the longer shoulder buttons along the Joy-Con's inner edge (SL and SR) and a new central connector port, eagle-eyed viewers noticed what looks suspiciously like the optical sensor that sits on the bottom of practically every mouse these days.
© Reddit / RNOWRONG
The Pixel 4a, a well-regarded release in Google's line of budget-minded phones with nice cameras and decent stock software, was not supposed to get any more updates. This week, it will receive a rather uncommon one—one that intends to lower its reported battery life.
The Pixel 4a, released in the summer of 2020, was discontinued at the end of 2022. It received its last official software update in the summer of 2023, followed by a surprise security update in November 2023. Throughout 2024, there were no updates. This week, owners of the 4a (and likely many former owners) are getting a new update, along with an email titled "Changes coming to your Pixel 4a."
The email addresses "an upcoming software update for your Pixel 4a that will affect the overall performance and stability of its battery." The automatic software update to Android 13 "introduces new battery management features to improve the stability of your device," which will "reduce your battery's runtime and charging performance."
© Ron Amadeo
GE unveiled several new smart home products at CES on Monday, including new Matter-compatible Cync smart switches, non-Matter Cync lighting, and upscale smart shades. All of this will be rolling out over the next few months, starting with the new smart switches in March.
GE’s new Cync switches — the Smart Keypad Dimmer ($44.99) and Smart Paddle Dimmer ($25.99) — won’t use the usual quirky Cync design. The keypad dimmer, pictured at the top of this story, is more utilitarian, with programmable buttons for scenes or group control and up-and-down buttons for dimming at the bottom. The paddle dimmer looks, well, like a paddle switch with a dimming slider on the side. Here’s a picture of that one:
Image: GE
As both of the new dimmers have Matter support, you can expect them to work with any major smart home platform.
GE says “the entire family has been enhanced” so that when you install a Cync switch on a three-way circuit, you don’t have to replace the dumb switch on the other end to keep smart control. That means you can turn the circuit off with the dumb switch, but still use voice commands or scheduled automation with Cync smart bulbs that the switch controls.
The company also announced café lights and outdoor strip lights for its “Cync Dynamic Effects” category of lights that offer 16 million colors, tunable white light, music syncing, and addressable LEDs. The company says the café lights will have reinforced eye holes for hanging and come in 24-foot ($39.99) and 48-foot ($69.99) versions starting in March. The strip lights are coming in April and measure 16 feet ($79.99) or 32 feet ($129.99). They’ll lack Matter support and will only work with Google Home or Amazon Alexa.
Finally, GE is releasing smart shades as part of its Proseo line. They require professional installation and are controllable through the Savant app. The company says they’ll feature “modern architectural aesthetics, performance fabrics and unmatched control interface options to complement any luxury space.” They’re designed to hide wires and screws and to cover large areas like full-wall windows and floor-to-ceiling corner windows. These are custom jobs, “and priced as such,” according to Savant.
After several attempts, OnePlus made a great high-end phone.
Meta’s HR team is deleting internal employee criticism of new board member, UFC president and CEO Dana White, at the same time that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that Meta will “get back to our roots around free expression,” 404 Media has learned. Some employee posts questioning why criticism of White is being deleted are also being deleted.
Monday, Zuckerberg made a post on a platform for Meta employees called Workplace announcing that Meta is adding Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to the company’s board of directors (Zuckerberg’s post on Workplace was identical to his public announcement). Employee response to this was mixed, according to screenshots of the thread obtained by 404 Media. Some posted positive or joking comments: “Major W,” one employee posted. “We hire Connor [McGregor] next for after work sparring?,” another said. “Joe Rogan may be next,” a third said. A fourth simply said “LOL.”
But other employees criticized the decision and raised the point that there is video of White slapping his wife in a nightclub; White was not arrested and was not suspended from UFC for the domestic violence incident. McGregor, one of the most famous UFC fighters of all time, was held liable for sexual assault and was ordered by a civil court to pay $260,000 to a woman who accused him of raping her in 2018. McGregor is appealing the decision.
“Kind of disheartening to see people in the comments celebrating a man who is on video assaulting his wife and another who was recently convicted of rape,” one employee commented, referring to White and McGregor. “I can kind of excuse individuals for being unaware, but Meta surely did their due diligence on White and concluded that what he did is fine. I feel like I’m on another planet,” another employee commented. “We have completely lost the plot,” a third said.
Several posts critical of White were deleted by Meta’s “Internal Community Relations team” as violating a set of rules called the “Community Engagement Expectations,” which govern internal employee communications. In the thread, the Internal Community Relations team member explained why they were deleting content: “I’m posting a comment here with a reminder about the CEE, as multiple comments have been flagged by the community for review. It’s important that we maintain a respectful work environment where people can do their best work. We need to keep in mind that the CEE applies to how we communicate with and about members of our community—including members of our Board. Insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or Board members is not aligned with the CEE.” In 2022, Meta banned employees from discussing “very disruptive” topics.
One employee posted “Why do critical comments of this announcement keep getting deleted?”
“LOL my comment got CEE’d too. Good stuff,” a second posted. A third said “I think it’s particularly fascinating that none of the comments I have seen disappear contained any specifically prohibited content under the CEE and must have fallen under ‘disruptive content’ - and if any criticism of company decisions falls under the ‘disruptive content’ bucket, the future of the company is looking bleak.”
Tracy Clayton, a Meta spokesperson, told 404 Media that no changes to the CEE have been made and stressed that some criticism has been left up. “There are also several comments that have expressed criticism that didn’t violate the CEE that remain up,” Clayton said. “Our CEE is very nuanced and it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
The hypersensitive moderation of employees internally criticizing major public figures is particularly notable given that Tuesday morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would get rid of many of its content moderation rules on its platforms. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression and giving people voice on our platforms. Here’s what we’re going to do,” Zuckerberg posted. “Replace fact-checkers with Community Notes, starting in the US. Simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse.” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new President of Global Affairs and the former Republican political operative who served in the George W. Bush administration, posted about the changes internally on Workplace, saying the policies were intended to foster “more speech and fewer mistakes.”
One employee brought up this apparent disparity: “Given Zuck’s message this morning on decreasing content moderation on our platforms, is that also going to apply internally?”
The rules for employees, the internal content moderator responded, are different than the rules for the public: “The CEE, which is focused on mitigating the potential for disruption and allowing us the space to work, ensuring a respectful work environment, and protecting company information, is different from our external content policies.”
“Curious to know if we can expect a similar shift to ‘more speech’ in internal Workplace posts/groups,” another employee asked. “CEE is quite chilling,” another said. “Basically any large scope critical post I make gets at least one message from ICR [Internal Community Relations].”
In a comment that has not yet been deleted, an employee posted “since my other comment was taken down, I’m just gonna let everyone know that I for one love my wife and daughter, and to top it off I also respect other people.”
“Our CEE has nothing to do with the announcements made today, internal and external moderation are separate, and I’ll repeat that it would be inaccurate to report that we’re loosening restrictions externally, while tightening internally,” Tracy Clayton, a Meta spokesperson, told 404 Media. “It’s important to note here that these comments were as you see there ‘flagged by the community for review.’ Further background our CEE is designed to help minimize disruption, so employees can focus and remain productive.”
Hackers claim to have compromised Gravy Analytics, the parent company of Venntel which has sold masses of smartphone location data to the U.S. government. The hackers said they have stolen a massive amount of data, including customer lists, information on the broader industry, and even location data harvested from smartphones which show peoples’ precise movements, and they are threatening to publish the data publicly.
The news is a crystalizing moment for the location data industry. For years, companies have harvested location information from smartphones, either through ordinary apps or the advertising ecosystem, and then built products based on that data or sold it to others. In many cases, those customers include the U.S. government, with arms of the military, DHS, the IRS, and FBI using it for various purposes. But collecting that data presents an attractive target to hackers.
“A location data broker like Gravy Analytics getting hacked is the nightmare scenario all privacy advocates have feared and warned about. The potential harms for individuals is haunting, and if all the bulk location data of Americans ends up being sold on underground markets, this will create countless deanonymization risks and tracking concerns for high risk individuals and organizations,” Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Silent Push, and who has followed the location data industry closely, told 404 Media. “This may be the first major breach of a bulk location data provider, but it won't be the last.”
In a message posted to two Gravy websites, the hackers wrote that “Personal data of millions users is affected,” according to screenshots posted on Russian cybercrime forum XSS. The forum is typically not publicly accessible but a source with access provided 404 Media with the screenshots and sample data posted by the hackers. “Company have 24h to answer or we will start to publish data,” the message continues.
The samples of data posted by the hackers include the apparent historical location of smartphones. The files contain precise latitude and longitude coordinates of the phone, and the time at which the phone was there. Some screenshots indicate what country the data has been collected from. One alphabetically ordered list mentions Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, and “Palestinian State (proposed).” That is only a snapshot of where Gravy sourced data from; one file includes location data relating to phones in Russia, and U.S. agencies have previously used such data as part of immigration operations on the country's border. (Gravy provides some of its data to subsidiary Venntel, which then works directly with those and other agencies).
Another screenshot shows classifiers that Gravy has added to collected data, such as “LIKELY_DRIVING.”
A file called “users” included in a sample of data posted by the hackers includes multiple well known companies such as Gannett, Uber, Comcast, Apple, LexisNexis, Equifax, and many more. It also specifically mentions Babel Street, which is another U.S. government contractor. This corroborates 404 Media’s earlier reporting on where Babel Street sourced its location data from, at least in part. 404 Media and a group of other outlets previously showed how Babel Street’s Locate X tool can be used to track visitors to out-of-state abortion clinics.
Demonstrating the depth of the alleged compromise, other screenshots posted by the hackers indicate access into Gravy’s infrastructure, including root access on a Gravy-associated Ubuntu server, control over Gravy’s domains, and access to Amazon S3 buckets which are often used to store massive amounts of data. In another posted message, the hackers claimed to have access since 2018.
At the time of writing, Gravy’s website is down. Usually that website redirects to Unacast, which acquired Gravy in 2023. Unacast executives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“For years, this data has been sold to corporate and government interests but it's never been widely available to all the threat actors targeting Western users. This type of data has been used to track visits to abortion clinics, sensitive government locations, and locations which could identify sensitive protected qualities of people like their sexual orientation,” Edwards continued. “This data could tell a threat actor where you take your kids to school, where you work, and where you spend leisure time. It's long overdue for Congress to pass a comprehensive federal privacy bill that puts safeguards on the collection of this type of sensitive data.”
In December, the FTC announced sweeping action against Gravy and Venntel, saying in a proposed order they will be banned from selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data, except in “limited circumstances” involving national security or law enforcement. The FTC also demanded the companies delete all historic location data. The agency alleged that Gravy and Venntel violated the FTC Act by “unfairly selling sensitive consumer location data, and by collecting and using consumers’ location data without obtaining verifiable user consent for commercial and government uses.”
This piece has been updated to include a paragraph about the FTC's recent actions against Gravy and Venntel.
In a shocking development, Meta has decided to end fact-checking across its social platforms. Meta announced Tuesday that it is scrapping its third-party fact-checking program across Facebook and Instagram, signaling a major shift in its approach to content moderation. Instead, […]
The post Meta ends fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, introduces Community Notes in a free speech push first appeared on Tech Startups.
