There’s Hope for American Movie Theaters After All

A year ago it would’ve seemed unfathomable: Over the Memorial Day holiday, a single film had a good opening weekend at the North American box office. After 15 months of Covid-19 theater closures, delayed release dates, and general anxiety about the future of moviegoing, A Quiet Place Part II is projected to bring in north… Continue reading There’s Hope for American Movie Theaters After All

The Best Memorial Day Sales on Tech, Gaming, Home, and More

OnePlus 8T Android Phone for $569 ($180 off): The OnePlus 8T (7/10, WIRED Review) is a capable, nice-looking smartphone that should be fine for those who want an upgrade but not necessarily the latest and greatest. The screen, battery life, and camera are standout features. It’s not a great value at full price, but at… Continue reading The Best Memorial Day Sales on Tech, Gaming, Home, and More

Apple’s M1 Chip Has a Fascinating Flaw

Apple’s new M1 CPU has a flaw that creates a covert channel that two or more malicious apps—already installed—can use to transmit information to each other, a developer has found. Ars Technica This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by… Continue reading Apple’s M1 Chip Has a Fascinating Flaw

The SolarWinds Hackers Aren’t ‘Back.’ They Never Went Away

The Russian hackers who breached SolarWinds IT management software to compromise a slew of United States government agencies and businesses are back in the limelight. Microsoft said on Thursday that the same “Nobelium” spy group has built out an aggressive phishing campaign since January of this year and ramped it up significantly this week, targeting… Continue reading The SolarWinds Hackers Aren’t ‘Back.’ They Never Went Away

Blurred Satellite Images Make Rebuilding Palestine Harder

The latest wave of violence between Israel and Palestine ended on May 20, after the two sides agreed to a ceasefire. The Gaza Strip suffered the bulk of the deaths and destruction, where airstrikes killed more than 230 people, and destroyed more than 1,000 residential and commercial buildings. The New York Times described the landscape as… Continue reading Blurred Satellite Images Make Rebuilding Palestine Harder

The Covid Lab Leak Theory Is a Tale of Weaponized Uncertainty

Does any of that mean, as Washington Post fact-checkers and Wall Street Journal editorialists have written, that the lab leak hypothesis has gained “credibility”? Or, let me ask again: If the virus that causes Covid-19 didn’t jump from animals to people, where did it come from? Was it an animal virus that scientists collected for… Continue reading The Covid Lab Leak Theory Is a Tale of Weaponized Uncertainty

WhatsApp’s Fight With India Could Have Global Repercussions

WhatsApp is fighting for the privacy of citizens of the world’s largest democracy. This week, the Facebook-owned messaging platform sued the Indian government in a bid to challenge new IT rules that ask messaging apps to trace the “first originator” of a message. Doing so could require WhatsApp to weaken its end-to-end encryption, revealing the… Continue reading WhatsApp’s Fight With India Could Have Global Repercussions

A New Antitrust Case Cuts to the Core of Amazon’s Identity

“I founded Amazon 26 years ago with the long-term mission of making it Earth’s most customer-centric company,” Jeff Bezos testified before the House Antitrust Subcommittee last summer. “Not every business takes this customer-first approach, but we do, and it’s our greatest strength.” Bezos’ obsession with customer satisfaction is at the center of Amazon’s self-mythology. Every… Continue reading A New Antitrust Case Cuts to the Core of Amazon’s Identity

Florida’s New Social Media Law Will Be Laughed Out of Court

Florida’s new social media legislation is a double landmark: It’s the first state law regulating online content moderation, and it will almost certainly become the first such law to be struck down in court. On Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop Social Media Censorship Act, which greatly limits large social media platforms’… Continue reading Florida’s New Social Media Law Will Be Laughed Out of Court