After nearly three decades of focusing on console gaming—both set-top and handheld—Sony PlayStation is taking aim at mobile phones. This week, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst announced in a post on the company’s official blog that it will dedicate some of its business efforts to the newly created PlayStation Studios Mobile Division. Sony’s move also… Continue reading PlayStation Studios Is Getting Into Mobile Games
Author: Wired Magazine
The Best iPad to Buy (and a Few to Avoid)
Buying an iPad should be simple. You just get whatever’s new, right? If only. Apple sells four main iPad models, each with its own strengths. In addition, a growing number of older iPads are floating around the eBays of the world. Since all of these devices look pretty much the same, it’s important to know… Continue reading The Best iPad to Buy (and a Few to Avoid)
TikTok Users Were Vulnerable to a Single-Click Attack
Microsoft said on August 31 that it recently identified a vulnerability in TikTok’s Android app that could allow attackers to hijack accounts when users did nothing more than click on a single errant link. The software maker said it notified TikTok of the vulnerability in February and that the China-based social media company has since… Continue reading TikTok Users Were Vulnerable to a Single-Click Attack
Could Climate Change Alter the Length of the Day?
Let’s consider an example with an imaginary planet. In this solar system, the planet completes one orbit around its sun in 8.6 solar days, instead of 365 days, as the Earth does. (I’m using a shorter year because it magnifies the difference between solar and stellar days, so you can see it more easily.) Here… Continue reading Could Climate Change Alter the Length of the Day?
Twitter Finally Gets an Edit Button
Another issue naysayers are likely to have with Twitter’s edit feature as currently designed is that it initially hides the context of what was changed from other users. Twitter’s short, snappy style of conversation means users often don’t fully take in the content of posts they share—as evidenced by the platform’s June 2020 introduction of… Continue reading Twitter Finally Gets an Edit Button
Behind Google Worker Protests of an Israeli Government Cloud Deal
Ariel Koren, a Google employee who became a face of worker protests against the company’s contract with the Israeli government, announced her resignation yesterday. The Jewish marketing manager says she faced retaliation from management and some colleagues for expressing pro-Palestinian views within the company. In October she joined other Google and Amazon employees in public… Continue reading Behind Google Worker Protests of an Israeli Government Cloud Deal
Is the Psychedelic Therapy Bubble About to Burst?
In April 2021, a widely anticipated paper in the field of psychedelics dropped. The study, a small trial run at Imperial College London and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, investigated the use of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, to treat depression. Led by Robin Carhart-Harris, who now directs the Neuroscape… Continue reading Is the Psychedelic Therapy Bubble About to Burst?
The FTC May (Finally) Protect Americans From Data Brokers
On August 29, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had filed a landmark lawsuit against data broker Kochava for “selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices” that can be used to trace individuals’ time-stamped movements to sensitive locations. These include reproductive health clinics, places of worship, addiction recovery centers, and shelters for… Continue reading The FTC May (Finally) Protect Americans From Data Brokers
A US Freight Rail Crisis Threatens More Supply-Chain Chaos
Unions have also disputed how railroads have used new congressionally-mandated automated emergency braking systems to justify plans to remove conductors from trains, which would leave the engineer the sole human in charge of up to 3 miles of rail cars moving at up to 70 miles an hour. While the new braking system automatically stops… Continue reading A US Freight Rail Crisis Threatens More Supply-Chain Chaos
NASA Delays the Launch of Its Giant Moon-Bound Rocket
NASA has pushed back the launch of its Artemis 1 mission to the moon due to an issue with one of the engines of the giant SLS rocket. With 40 minutes left on the countdown clock at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Mission Control announced an unplanned hold as technicians investigated a problem that… Continue reading NASA Delays the Launch of Its Giant Moon-Bound Rocket