New submitter pele writes: Captain Kirk alias William Shatner has just safely completed his first trip to space and back, and in the process has become the oldest person ever to have been to space. More news and coverage at BBC and Evening Standard. Bl…
Computer Space Launched the Video Game Industry 50 Years Ago
In an article for The Conversation, Noah Wardrip-Fruin writes about how Computer Space marked the start of the $175 billion video game industry we have today when it debuted on Oct. 15, 1971 — and why you probably haven’t heard of it. From the report:…
Netflix Calls Squid Game Its ‘Biggest Ever Series At Launch’
Netflix’s hugely popular series Squid Game has become its biggest title ever at launch, the company said Monday. The Verge reports: The company’s Netflix Geeked account tweeted Monday that Hwang Dong-Hyuk’s survival thriller reached 111 million global …
Solar Panels On Half the World’s Roofs Would Power the Planet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: Our new paper in Nature Communications presents a global assessment of how many rooftop solar panels we’d need to generate enough renewable energy for the whole world — and where we’d need to …
Google Cloud Will Now Show Its Users Their Carbon Footprint In the Cloud
Google Cloud today announced a new (and free) feature that will provide its users with custom carbon footprint reports that detail the carbon emissions their cloud usage generates. TechCrunch reports: “Customers can leverage this data for reporting as …
Study Reveals Android Phones Constantly Snoop On Their Users
A new study (PDF) by a team of university researchers in the UK has unveiled a host of privacy issues that arise from using Android smartphones. BleepingComputer reports: The researchers have focused on Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, and Huawei Android devic…
Robotics Engineer Adds a Working USB-C Port To An iPhone
Ken Pillonel, a robotics engineer on YouTube, replaced an iPhone’s Lightning port with a working USB-C port. AppleInsider reports: In a YouTube Short titled “World’s First USB-C iPhone,” Ken Pillonel claims to have installed the component into the iPho…
Best Buy’s New $200/Yr Membership Locks PS5, Hot Holiday Items Behind Membership
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If you’re still searching for a PS5 and are a Best Buy customer, your ship may have just come in — that is, if you’re willing to spend an extra $200 a year for access. That’s because the big-box e…
The Intercept Reveals Facebook’s Secret Blacklist of ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organizations’
Sam Biddle writes via The Intercept: To ward off accusations that it helps terrorists spread propaganda, Facebook has for many years barred users from speaking freely about people and groups it says promote violence. The restrictions appear to trace ba…
Stripe Is Hiring a Crypto Team 3 Years After Ending Bitcoin Support
Payments company Stripe has begun assembling a crypto engineering team to chart its future in digital assets. CoinDesk reports: The team — described in LinkedIn posts and job listings — will be run by Guillaume Poncin, Stripe’s former head of enginee…