White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s threat to “go dark” tomorrow a “stunt,” and said there is no reason that TikTok or any other companies should take any actions under the ban before the Trump administration is sworn in Monday morning, several news outlets are reporting.
“It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday,” MSNBC quotes Jean-Pierre as saying. “We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
The statement comes one day after TikTok threatened to go offline if the Biden administration doesn’t offer reassurance that companies like Apple and Google won’t be held liable for defying the ban, which the Supreme Court upheld yesterday. Company CEO Shou Chew also appealed to Donald Trump, saying the company is “grateful” for his support of the platform.
Trump said that a “90-day extension is something that will be most likely done” during an interview with Meet The Press moderator Kristen Welker for NBC News. That followed reporting earlier this week that the incoming President plans to issue an executive order doing so.
Given that the ban’s deadline is up before he’s sworn in, it’s not clear whether Trump can actually extend it. He can choose not to enforce the ban, just as Biden says he will, but that still leaves Apple and Google to decide if Trump’s word is worth the legal risk that would come with defying the ban by leaving the app available for download.
Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re looking at the impacts of the looming TikTok ban in the U.S., including the “TikTok refugees” moving to Chinese app RedNote, the surge of English speakers learning Mandarin on Duolingo, and more! Let’s get into it. The Supreme Court upheld the law that will effectively ban […]
Canoo announced yesterday it is ceasing operations “immediately” and that it has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Delaware. The EV startup estimates in its filing that its assets are worth $126 million and that it owes over $164 million to its creditors, TechCrunch noted yesterday.
Now, the US will appoint “a Bankruptcy Trustee to oversee the liquidation of the Company’s assets and the distribution of proceeds to creditors,” Canoo writes. The company says it chose to file after failing to get support from either the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office or foreign investors.
Canoo had signaled its dire situation last month when it idled its Oklahoma operations and put its employees on a “mandatory unpaid break.” Before that, it had lost a steady stream of executives, including all of its founders.
“We are truly disappointed that things turned out as they did,” Canoo chairman and CEO Tony Aquila said in the announcement before thanking various government and business entities Canoo has dealt with. Those dealings have included producing shuttles for NASA’s Artemis crew and an agreement to build 4,500 electric delivery vans for Walmart.
Bang & Olufsen announced its new $499 premium earbuds, the Beoplay Eleven, back in November, touting among other things their replaceable batteries “for sustainability” and alignment with the EU’s impending device repairability requirements. But an iFixit teardown tells a more complicated story about actually replacing those batteries, describing the process of just getting the case open as “a very onerous and labor intensive task… even for a trained technician.” And inside, the battery is affixed to other components in ways that require heat to remove it, which in itself wouldn't comply with the EU's upcoming rules. Given all the work involved, the earbuds scored an abysmal 1/10 on iFixit’s repairability scorecard.
Bang & Olufsen said the earbuds’ design “allows for battery replacement by service,” which, as iFixit notes, suggests that this isn’t meant to be a repair you can do yourself at home. It did ultimately turn out to be possible to take one of the earbuds apart without damaging any of the electronics inside, but the laborious teardown calls into question how feasible — and sustainable — battery replacement would be even when carried out at a B&O service center. After opening up the case and finding “a plastic weld mark barring access to the battery,” iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari notes in the video that, “at a minimum, any battery replacement service would need to dispose of the plastic housing completely.”
“I’d love to see B&O’s process for changing these batteries out,” Mokhtari wrote in the blog post. “I’m willing to bet it’s neither cheap nor waste-free but I would love to be proven wrong.” The teardown also revealed the Beoplay Eleven to be a “carbon copy” of the 2022 Beoplay EX internally. “Even the peel-away film on the rear of each earbud says ‘Beoplay EX’ — not ‘Beoplay Eleven,’” Mokhtari wrote. Yikes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/bang-and-olufsens-new-earbuds-with-replaceable-batteries-dont-seem-to-be-very-repairable-174949894.html?src=rss
Instagram will now let you upload Reels that are up to 3 minutes long, doubling the 90-second limit the platform had in place before, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced today.
He credits today’s change to users’ feedback saying that the 90 seconds “is just too short.” That’s a big turnaround for Mosseri, who said in July last year that the platform wouldn’t pursue longform videos because it could compromise the platform’s “core identity to connect people with friends.”
Instagram has been slow to bump the length of Reels — it’s been more than two years since it started allowing minute-and-a-half videos. The company has tested extending the limit to as much as 10 minutes but has held off on rolling that out, leaving the ability to post long videos to non-Reels posts.
Many proptech startups, born and funded during the low-interest-rate heydays, are in the throes of struggle. With investments into U.S.-based real estate startups falling from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $3.7 billion last year, according to PitchBook data, some are selling themselves off, while others are closing shop. The two most recent examples are the […]
It remains unclear whether TikTok will still be available in the United States on Sunday, with the company claiming that President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration needs to offer “definitive” assurances that it won’t enforce a ban. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the US if the app’s […]
Donald Trump has launched a new meme coin, according to posts from his X and Truth Social accounts last night. The posts, which have come just days before Trump’s inauguration, were initially met with suspicion by many that his accounts had been hacked.
Skeptics highlighted by Decrypt last night pointed to several red flags, such as that the millions of dollars seeding the project came from Binance and Gate, which only serve overseas customers. The coin’s website credits the project to the same group behind Trump’s NFTs, as noted by Cointelegraph, whichreports that sources close to Trump’s family confirmed the announcements’ legitimacy.
Both posts remain up as of this morning.
Screenshot: X
Trump’s official X account announced a new meme coin on Friday.
The idea that Trump would debut a meme coin is no big surprise, given his multiple NFT collections and his introduction of a crypto platform last year. He has made cryptocurrency a big part of his new agenda and has assembled a crypto and AI-focused tech policy team led by “crypto czar” David Sacks. Trump also plans to issue an executive order naming crypto a “national imperative or priority” after he’s inaugurated next week, Bloomberg reported ahead of the weekend.
Adam Scott in Severance’s season 1 finale. | Image: Apple
After a long wait, Severance is back. Season 2 premiered on Apple TV Plus on January 17th, more than two years after the first season wrapped up. The wait was particularly hard because of how the season 1 finale ended — a massive cliffhanger that would completely upend the lives of almost everyone in this sci-fi thriller. Cliffhangers are a tricky business. They can help keep viewers interested in whatever comes next, but they can also be frustrating, seeming to withhold information purely for the purpose of keeping people hooked.
Severance has managed this balancing act well so far, and I had the chance to talk to some of the creative team behind the show — creator Dan Erickson, director Ben Stiller, and star Adam Scott — about how they’ve pulled it off. “Honestly it’s just sort of guessing in your mind,” Stiller tells The Verge. “You try to think about what the stakes are that we’ve established, and hopefully you’ve earned it by the end.”
One of the trickiest parts for Severance, at least early on, was that the team wasn’t really sure how audiences would react. It’s a weird show that follows a group of office workers who have their brains surgically altered to separate their...
The Google Pixel Watch 3, one of our favorite smartwatches for Android users, is $50 off for a limited time. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The clock is ticking if you want to save on the Pixel Watch 3, the Fitbit Charge 6, and other Google gadgets. The company kicked off the year with a solid New Year’s sale, which is set to expire at 11:59PM PT today, January 18th. Other retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy, are currently matching Google’s pricing in some instances, though we anticipate the matching promos will expire at the same time.
On the smartwatch front, both the Pixel Watch 2 and the Pixel Watch 3 — the latter of which remains our favorite “Fitbit” —are down to their second-best price to date. The Wi-Fi-enabled Pixel Watch 2 is available for $199.99 ($50 off) from Google, Best Buy, and Target, while the 41mm Pixel Watch 3 starts at $299.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store.
Both wearables sport Google and Fitbit-powered features, including FDA-cleared EKGs, automatic workout tracking, and support for Google Assistant, Gmail, Calendar, and Wallet. However, the last-gen Pixel Watch 2 only comes in a single size — 41mm — while last year’s Pixel 3 is also available in a larger 44mm configuration.
The Pixel Watch 3 features a host of other welcome improvements, too, including offline Google Maps, slightly better battery life, AI-generated workout suggestions, and deeper integration with other Google devices. You can view a Nest Doorbell or Nest Cam feed with the Pixel Watch 3, for instance, or control your Google TV directly from your wrist — neither of which is possible on the Pixel Watch 2.
If you prefer a cheap fitness tracker over a smartwatch, the Fitbit Charge 6 is also on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store for $129.95 ($30 off), which is about $30 more than its all-time low.
Like its predecessor, the fitness band offers a wide range of sensors for keeping tabs on your health, along with built-in GPS and a vibrant OLED display. Unlike its predecessor, though, the Fitbit Charge 6 boasts an improved heart rate algorithm and can be paired with certain gym equipment over Bluetooth. It doesn’t support as many Google services as a Pixel Watch 3, sure, but you can take advantage of Google Wallet and turn-by-turn navigation via Google Maps.
Along with fitness trackers and smartwatches, Google is discounting several pairs of wireless earbuds. Right now, you can buy the Pixel Buds Pro 2 from Amazon, Google, and Best Buy for $199 ($30 off), which remains their second-best price to date. Google is also selling them as part of a bundle with the Pixel Watch 3 for $441.99 ($58 off), or with the Fitbit Charge 6 for $130.95 ($29 off).
Google’s latest set of wireless earbuds are our top choice for Pixel phone owners. They offer powerful noise cancellation and a lighter design than the previous model, which makes them more comfortable to wear. They also offer some great Google-specific perks, allowing you to directly access Google’s Gemini AI assistant and keep track of the charging case via the company’s recently improved Find My Device network. The earbuds continue to support a number of Pixel-exclusive features as well, including head tracking spatial audio.
If the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are outside your budget, the Pixel Buds A-Series are also available from Amazon, Best Buy, and Google for $79.95 ($20 off), which is $20 shy of their all-time low. They don’t offer active noise cancellation or some of the more advanced features found on the Pro model, but they do deliver impressive sound for the price and a secure fit thanks to an assortment of comfortable ear tips. The last-gen earbuds also integrate well with Pixel phones and support Google Assistant for hands-free voice control.
Last but not least is the Pixel Tablet, which can pick up in the 128GB configuration at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store for $299 ($100 off), which is just $20 shy of its lowest price to date. You can also get the step-up 256GB model with a speaker dock for $479 ($120 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store.
It’s a shame Google reportedly canceled its next-gen Pixel tablet — after all, the original showed a lot of promise. The snappy Android tablet is great for carrying out typical tablet tasks, like video chatting and streaming, thanks in part to a sharp 11-inch display and an excellent speaker array. What makes the tablet really stand out, though, is the optional magnetic charging dock, which bolsters the tablet’s sound and turns it into an ad hoc smart display. That means you can use the tablet as a digital photo frame, check in on your Nest Doorbell feed, or control a range of smart home devices via Google Assistant.
This week, we’re going to the movies. For 77 hours straight. At the end, we’ll know whether we are doomed to villainy or driven to heroism. These are the only two options!
Then, you’re not going to believe this, but the global trade for exotic ornamental plants is a bit sus. Next, OCTOPUS BRAINS! Last, scientists solve the mystery of the missing Moon craters, which has been a cold case for about four billion years.
Losing parents. Survivng genocide. Having your home planet explode. Superheroes and supervillains sure go through a lot of trauma. Now, this emotionally manipulative trope has undergone scientific scrutiny in a new study that assessed whether traumatic experiences in childhood predict heroism or villainy in superhero movies.
Put another way, researchers devised a professional justification for watching 33 films from the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, totaling 77 hours and 5 minutes. By scoring 28 characters—19 men, 8 women, and a gender-fluid Loki—the team established that trauma has no impact on whether a character becomes a hero or a villain.
“No one is doomed to be a villain just because of early childhood experiences,” concluded researchers led by Julia Wigmore of the University of Calgary.
In other words: Magneto, no more excuses, dude. Stop murdering people with metal. Go touch grass.
Naturally, characters like Harley Quinn and Loki were head-scratchers, given that they can swing both ways (I’m officially coining the term: bimoral). The team categorized Harley as a hero, because she has a redemption arc after dumping the Joker. Loki is classified as a villain because he spends most of his screentime making mischief. I don’t get the distinction here and think it should be contested in future academic literature.
The study includes some interesting context about how therapists use superhero stories to help children process grief and trauma, and other Serious Stuff. But mostly, I’m here for the authors’ cheeky little flourishes, letting us know that they really got away with this one.
“No superheroes or villains were involved in this research study,” the team said, presumably while winking in synchronous harmony. “If anyone could connect us with them, we would be happy to conduct a follow up study to overcome this limitation.”
The next time you decide to order an ornamental plant from overseas, a thing I assume we are all constantly doing, make sure to check it for hitchhikers. A study this week revealed that the multi-billion dollar trade in ornamental plants—including olive trees, cut roses, and exotic shrubs—is opening up new vectors for invasive species, such as insects, frogs, geckos, and snakes.
“Given the number and diversity of vertebrates, including fragile ones such as tropical frogs, reported live in imported products, the number of imported invertebrate pests is likely underestimated, and more consistent measures are needed to provide an accurate understanding of the true implications of trade and how they might be managed,” said researchers led by Amy Hinsley of the University of Oxford.
People are straight-up bagging plants that still have a bunch of creepy crawlies still on them, and flying them out to customers in other continents. The authors of the study outline a range of actions to help mitigate the risks, including introducing “plant passports.”
Ultimately, though, we might have to break out the big guns and get Samuel L. Jackson to reprise his role as the globetrotting FBI agent Neville Flynn, who could solve this problem, like all others, with eruptive profanity. Because I, for one, have had it with these (bleep) biosecurity risks due to (bleep) under-regulated industries in this (bleep) complex integrated global economy.
Scientists have confirmed once again, and to the surprise of nobody, that octopuses are epic. While it’s well-established that these charismatic mollusks basically have prehensile brains, a team has now zoomed in on the axial nerve cords that animate the tentacles, revealing some of the mechanics behind their coordination of such segmented anatomy.
“The octopus has a motor control challenge of enormous complexity,” said researchers led by Cassady Olson of the University of Chicago. “Each of its eight arms is a muscular hydrostat, a soft-bodied structure that lacks a rigid skeleton and moves with near infinite degrees of freedom.”
“Even with this complexity, octopuses control behaviors effectively along the length of a single arm, across all eight arms and between suckers,” the team said. “The neural circuits underlying these behaviors have been unexplored with modern molecular and cellular methods.”
By studying the nervous system of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) the researchers discovered that axial cords nerves “form a spatial topographic map” for each sucker, which they call “suckerotopy.” In other words, octopuses generate topographic maps of their own suckers, which helps them coordinate the immense motor and sensory input from these appendages.
Bonus points to the authors for including video footage of octopuses doing neat stuff, like playing with a baseball and emerging from what looks like ancient Greek pottery. Mother Nature gets a 10/10, would evolve eight-limbed intelligent molluscs again.
The Moon was born in the cataclysmic fallout of a crash between Earth and a Mars-sized object—and that was the easy part. Earth and the Moon were bombarded with a heavy flux of space rocks for hundreds of millions of years after they formed (talk about a traumatic childhood!).
Earth has erased most craters from this time because it moisturizes daily, but the Moon is an airless inactive world that should have preserved an estimated 300 craters with diameters greater than 185 miles. Yet there are only about 40 ancient crater basins on this massive scale on the lunar surface. What gives? Who ate all the craters?
This week, scientists presented a new explanation for the mysterious discrepancy: Viscous relaxation. It sounds like something Gwynth Paltrow wants to sell you, but it is actually a geological process that smooths out terrestrial surfaces over time. In the case of the Moon, the team found that viscous relaxation from high temperatures in the crust, fueled in part by radioactive elements, could have obliterated hundreds of impact basins.
This scenario offers “a realistic explanation for the low number of basins observed on the Moon,” said Meng-Hua Zhu of the Macau University of Science and Technology. “The substantial relaxation of early basins suggests that terrestrial planets…may have suffered far more impacts than the basin records indicate” but those “early epochs are obliterated.”
And with that, it’s time for all of us to experience the substantial relaxation of the weekend. Obliterate responsibly.
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Keeping with the trend of mid-cycle updates, Apple’s releases of OS 18.2 and macOS Sonoma 15.2 bring some new enterprise-focused features that make managing Apple devices even easier – especially around Apple Intelligence. Here’s a breakdown of what’s new for IT teams with iOS 18.2 and macOS Sonoma 15.2.
