Новости за 18.11.2022

Elon Musk is acting on his vow to rethink permanent bans on Twitter users. Twitter has reinstated the accounts of three controversial users, including conservative satire site Babylon Bee, conservative author (and former YouTube personality) Jordan Peterson and comedian Kathy Griffin. A decision about former President Donald Trump has "not yet been made," Musk said, although the CEO previously said he would reverse Trump's ban.

Gamers with prepaid phones can finally play Overwatch 2. An Activision Blizzard community manager announced the changes on Thursday, reversing an overzealous anti-cheating move that had made it harder for new players to check out the game. The reversal came in the first-person shooter’s latest patch and is effective immediately.

The Department of Justice has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into Live Nation, the parent of Ticketmaster, to determine if the company has abused its power in the live music industry. The investigation is said to have been ongoing over the last several months. The New York Times reported on the investigation after Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen fans had an excessively difficult time trying to buy tickets for those artists' tours.

We've been keeping an eye on Samsung to see when their Black Friday deals would hit, and it looks like today's the day. As of right now, all of the latest Galaxy phones are on sale, with the biggest discount going to the Galaxy S22 Ultra. At $300 off the list price, Samsung's most premium (non-folding) Galaxy phone is down to $900. We saw the S22 Ultra drop to this price for a few days earlier this month as a sort of Black Friday preview, but then it jumped back to its usual price. For anyone who missed that window... Читать дальше...

The Bose QuietComfort lineup of headphones is known for its terrific noise cancellation and all-day comfort. In an early Black Friday deal, Amazon has the latest model in that line, the Bose QuietComfort 45, on sale for $249. That’s $80 off the usual price for the high-end wireless cans.

Though Black Friday is technically a week away, we're already seeing a barrage of sales that we expect to carry over into the shopping holiday. Several of Apple's iPads, Apple Watches and MacBooks are available at their lowest prices to date, for instance, as are a plethora of devices from Amazon and Google. PlayStation and Xbox have kicked off their respective Black Friday sales, too, and there are numerous discounts on wireless headphones we like. We expect to see many more deals go live in the coming days... Читать дальше...

Charging is usually one of the least exciting parts of driving an EV, but the FIA thinks it can make these pauses more engaging. As part of updated regulations, Formula E will trial a 30-second "Attack Charge" during some races in the ninth season. New battery technology will give cars 4kWh of energy from the half-minute session thanks to a 600kW booster. The charging stop will be mandatory at a specified point in the race, but drivers will receive two "enhanced" Attack Mode periods later in the race as compensation. Читать дальше...

It's now much simpler to participate in a Microsoft Teams meeting if you have hearing issues. Microsoft has introduced a sign language view that lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as their interpreters, prioritize each other during meetings. Those video feeds will remain in consistent locations, at sizes large enough for sign language to be visible. You'll see as many as two other signers throughout a meeting, and video will remain large even when slides or screen shares are visible. Читать дальше...

There’s another opportunity to pick up Amazon’s Echo speakers at their lowest prices to date as part of the company’s early Black Friday sales. In many cases, they’ve dropped back down to the prices we saw during the fall edition of Prime Day. For one thing, the regular Echo is $50, which is half off the usual price. The latest Echo Dot is down from $50 to $25, and the fifth-gen Echo Dot with clock is a third off at $40. The Echo Dot kids' version is down 50 percent to $30 as well.

Twitter may not be restoring Blue verification for a couple of weeks, but it hopes to be more careful when the feature comes back. The social network has updated its FAQ site to warn that new accounts will have to wait 90 days before they can subscribe to Blue. The company also says it reserves the right to demand waiting periods "at our discretion without notice."

You're not alone if you've waited until Black Friday to scope out deals on the latest MacBooks. Considering these are some of the best (and most expensive) laptops out there right now, plenty of people will be looking for the best MacBook deals over the holiday shopping period. We me be still one week out from Black Friday proper, but we're already seeing some solid deals on machines like the new MacBook Air M2, and even the high-powered 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.

The digitization of the music industry leveled the playing field for artists. An album can be written, recorded and released from a bedroom without an expensive recording studio or predatory record label. This DIY ethic isn’t new. Bands have been recording and releasing albums on their own or out of friendly record stores for decades.

YouTube has created own signature launch sound and slick animation just like Netflix's "Tudum" and detailed exactly how it made it in a new blog post. The mini-fanfare has already appeared in the YouTube app on TVs, playing each time you start the app.

If you’re looking for extra peace of mind while away from home, you may want to look at Amazon’s early Black Friday sale on its own Blink security cameras. You can grab a two-pack of the Blink Mini for $30, which matches the lowest price we’ve seen on the indoor camera bundle.

This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with Senior Commerce Editor, Valentina Palladino, about our massive Holiday Gift Guide. If you’re looking for a decent laptop to gift, or maybe some budget gear for yourself, we’ve got you covered! Also, they dig into the FTX debacle (which got much worse than last week!), and Elon Musk’s ongoing fail whale Twitter acquisition. And on a surprising note, we end up having strong feelings about Amazon’s chat-based virtual healthcare service.

Amazon's Black Friday deals have started going live, and its Echo Show displays, Fire tablets and Fire TV devices are already being sold at a discount. Also on sale? Its Kindle e-readers, some of which are now listed for the lowest prices we've seen for them on the website. The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, for instance, is currently priced at $130 or 32 percent off retail, which is an all-time low for what we once called "the best e-reader" in a review. It has a bigger and more responsive... Читать дальше...

The next big VR avatar performance will be the late Notorious B.I.G., East Coast rap legend. Broadcast in Meta's Horizon Worlds, the show will use a virtual recreation of '90s Brooklyn as a backdrop and will have performances by guest artists like Bad Boy Records founder Sean "Diddy" Combs. It will also feature a narrative journey of Biggie's life by music journalist Touré.

Yuji Naka, who co-created Sonic the Hedgehog and headed programming for the original game series, has reportedly been arrested for insider trading. According to Fuji News Network, authorities believe Naka bought 10,000 shares in game development company Aiming for 2.8 million yen ($20,000) before it became public that the developer was working with Square Enix on Dragon Quest Tact. 

Sony's having a big sale at Amazon, with significant discounts on games, wired and wireless Inzone headsets and all-time low prices on its DualSense controllers. The latter are marked down by up to 33 percent to just $50, and we're also seeing discounts of up to 64 percent on games like Returnal, Horizon Forbidden West, and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Sony is also hosting its own Black Friday sale at the PlayStation Store, with numerous other titles on sale.

NASA has expanded SpaceX's role in the Artemis program and has selected the company's Starship lunar lander to ferry the second batch of astronauts to the Moon. If you'll recall, the agency picked SpaceX's human landing system for Artemis 3, which will take humanity back to the Moon decades after the last Apollo mission. 

Amazon's layoffs announced on Wednesday will continue into early 2023, CEO Andy Jassy said in a letter to employees posted yesterday. He said that the company "hired rapidly" over the last few years but "the economy remains in a challenging spot." With annual planning now extending into the new year, "there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments," he added. 

Internet service providers (ISP) will soon have to be a lot more transparent with what their plans come with and how much they truly cost. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has introduced new rules that will require ISPs to display easy-to-read-and-understand labels that show key facts about their products at the point of sale. These labels will resemble the nutrition labels at the back of food products and should include, among other things, the price, speed, data allowances and other... Читать дальше...

Elon Musk is now facing a new crisis at Twitter as a wave of employees seemed to reject his ultimatum of an “extremely hardcore” Twitter 2.0 or leave the company. Hours after a deadline for workers to check “yes” on a Google form accepting “long hours at high intensity, it seems a large number of employees have rejected Musk’s vision.

Elon Musk is changing Twitter’s remote work rules yet again amid deadline for employees to commit to his vision for a “hardcore” company. Musk, who previously banned remote work at Twitter, has now indicated that some remote work is possible, Bloomberg and The Verge report.

US law enforcement isn't just interested in shutting down video pirates. The feds have charged two Russian nationals, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova, for allegedly running the pirate e-book repository Z-Library. The site was billed as the "world's largest library" and held over 11 million titles, many of which were bootleg versions stripped of copyright protections.