Новости за 26.05.2022

Obi-Wan Kenobi premieres on Disney+ tomorrow, but Lucasfilm is already offering peeks at other Star Wars shows that are on the way to the streaming service. One of those is Andor, in which Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor. The series takes place five years before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Based on the trailer Lucasfilm released today, it looks like Andor leans into the grittier side of the Star Wars universe, given the tone and muted color palette. The show will debut on August 31st with two episodes. Читать дальше...

Disney+ is finally ready to share more details of its Willow revival. The streamer has revealed that the TV series (simply titled Willow) will premiere November 30th. The accompany teaser trailer doesn't show much, but it has an older Willow Ufgood returning to save a future empress from the clutches of evil. He'll join an eclectic band of adventurers, but this time he's clearly more experienced than in the 1988 movie.

Elon Musk is facing yet another lawsuit over his planned Twitter acquisition. Reutersreports investors have sued the Tesla CEO for allegedly manipulating stock prices ahead of his $44 billion takeover bid. As in an earlier suit, Musk supposedly saved $156 million by failing to disclose that he'd bought more than a 5 percent stake in Twitter by March 14th, violating SEC rules. The investors said Musk only disclosed his investments in early April, when he revealed that he owned a 9.2 percent slice of the social network. Читать дальше...

Along with bolstering production of the PlayStation 5, Sony is will bring another next-gen product to market: an upgraded virtual reality headset. PlayStation VR2 (PSVR 2) may not have a release date yet, but Sony clearly has big plans for it. At an investor briefing, the company revealed that there will be at least 20 "major" PSVR 2 games available at the jump.

Residents of Maryland can now add their driver’s license or state ID to Apple Wallet on iPhone and Apple Watch. Users there will be able to verify their identity digitally, though there are limited use cases for the Maryland Mobile ID program for now.

If you're looking to up your homemade pizza game, investing in an Ooni oven is a good way to do so. We've recommended them in numerous outdoor guides and now you can pick one up for 20 percent off. Ooni's Memorial Day sale has discounted all of its pizza ovens, bringing the most affordable of the bunch, the Ooni Fyra 12, down to $280. The newest version, the Karu 16, is nearly $160 off and down to $640.

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat: a $200 pepper mill is an inherently ridiculous product. I mean really, we're talking about a device designed to turn dried berries (yes, peppercorns are technically a stone fruit) into a powder you can sprinkle on food. You can buy a totally decent pepper mill for under $20 from brands like OXO. Or if that's too much, you can simply buy your pepper pre-ground (please don't though) or opt for one of those pre-filled disposable grinders.

Novation already makes five different versions of its venerable Launchkey series of MIDI controllers, ranging from the travel-friendly Launchkey Mini all the way up to the studio centerpiece Launchkey 61. But for some, 61 keys isn’t enough. And a serious piano player might balk at the unweighted keys. But now Novation offers the Launchkey 88 with a semi-weighted keybed.

Sony had a lot to discuss during its annual investor briefing, including plans to boost PlayStation 5 production and get the console into the hands of more people who want one. One of the more intriguing nuggets of news came during the Q&A, when the company confirmed it's adapting three more of its gaming properties into TV shows.

One of the best places to start when building a smart home ecosystem is smart lights. Not only are they relatively affordable compared to other IoT gadgets, often costing between $10 and $50 a bulb, but they can also completely change the feel of your home. You can go from boring and analogue to colorful and automated within minutes, and there are endless possibilities when it comes to creating funky-colored light scenes, setting schedules and more.

Now that Top Gun: Maverick is finally reaching theaters, the matching Microsoft Flight Simulator expansion is launching as well. Microsoft and Asobo Studio have released the free add-on to both hype up the Tom Cruise movie and give you a taste of the US Navy's real-world flight training. You'll get a "Maverick Edition" livery for the F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet, but you'll also learn how to land on an aircraft carrier, perform combat maneuvers and navigate challenging terrain at low altitude. Читать дальше...

Oura, the startup that's pushing the limits of how small a wearable can be, just announced a collaboration that could boost its profile considerably. It's teaming with fashion house Gucci on the Gucci x Oura Ring, crafted in black synthetic corundum and adorned with the famous interlocking "G" and a braided torchon pattern, both in 18 carat yellow gold. It comes with Oura's latest Generation 3 tech, letting users monitor live heart rate, sleep, activity and more. 

Broadcom isn't done attempting major acquisitions. The chip giant is buying cloud- and virtualization-focused software developer VMware for the equivalent of $61 billion in cash and stock. The move would fold Broadcom's software division into VMware and create a theoretical powerhouse that helps companies run apps in all sorts of environments, including "any" cloud service.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has launched a second investigation into Google's ad tech practices. This probe, in particular, will look into the role Google plays in the "ad tech stack," or the set of services that facilitate the sale of online advertising space between advertisers and sellers like online content providers. The organization explained that Google has strong positions at various levels of the ad tech stack and charges fees to both publishers and advertisers. 

The NFL's rumored streaming service could debut in JulyDyson, the company that’s recently branched out into hair curlers, air-purifying headphones and not cars, has revealed it has an entire division secretly developing robot prototypes for household chores.

Apple will start paying its corporate and retail employees more likely in hopes that they won't leave the company to find better prospects. According to CNBC and The Financial Times, the company will also raise its starting wage for new employees to $22 an hour, up from $20. Further, it will start giving some annual increases in salary starting in July instead of in the autumn. The tech giant didn't discuss specific details on how it will change its compensation structure, but it told the publications:

"Supporting... Читать дальше...

Boeing's Starliner has returned to Earth safely after docking with the International Space Station for the first time. The six-day Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 mission came to an end when the spacecraft landed at the US Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It's the first American capsule to touch down on land instead of in the ocean. Starliner undocked from the ISS at 2:36PM ET and by 6:05PM, it was firing its thrusters to drop out of orbit. 

Twitter has paid a $150 million fine to the FTC over its"deceptive" use of user data for targeted advertising. The fine stems from the company’s admission in 2019 that it had for years used Twitter users’ phone numbers and email addresses provided for two-factor authentication to also serve targeted ads. 

Move over Discord, Niantic has its own messaging solution in mind for Pokémon Go players: a social AR app called Campfire. It'll let you organize for events, discover new locations and share content with other players. Think of it like a hyper-local social network built entirely for AR—it's "the 'homepage' of the real-world Metaverse," as Niantic says (as if that makes things any clearer). Campfire is already live in Ingress, the company's first AR game, and it'll be headed to all of its titles starting this summer. Читать дальше...