Enlarge Google and Samsung want to work together on smart home compatibility. The two companies put out dueling press releases today, saying that Google Nest devices would work better with Samsung SmartThings, ending a war between the SmartThings community and Nest/Google/Alphabet that has been going on for years. Samsung says that “Google Nest devices, including thermostats, […]
Automation and Jobs Read our latest special issue. Open Now Even if you occasionally worked from home before the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a good chance you weren’t prepared for the challenges of doing so five days a week — especially if your partner and/or children share your newly combined living and working space. A house […]
Apple is asking some of its retail staff to work from home as the coronavirus pandemic causes the ongoing closure of many of its stores. The tech giant closed all of its outlets outside of China in mid-March as the pandemic worsened. In early May it started to tentatively reopen some of its sites, but […]
Economists, business leaders and labor experts have warned for years that a coming wave of automation and digital technology would upend the work force, destroying some jobs while altering how and where work is done for nearly everyone. In the past four months, the coronavirus pandemic has transformed some of those predictions into reality. By […]
The pandemic has impacted all of us, including the game industry. Sure, many publishers are reporting record engagement and increased revenues as players flock to games for entertainment and distraction. But what about the people who make these games? Over the past couple of months, I’ve talked to some of the studios, creators, and software […]
In late 2019, The Atlantic published a piece titled Don’t Play the Goose Game, by game designer and critic Ian Bogost. Discussing “Untitled Goose Game’s” success as a meme, Bogost pessimistically concluded that the trendy indie title found favor online because partaking in the meme culture around the game was genuinely more fun than actually […]
Over the years I’ve worked as a technology journalist, I’ve been lucky enough to watch multiple product categories evolve from their earliest days to maturity and sometimes sunsetting — a cyclical process that is rarely identical between different types of products, but often has similarities from category to category. One common thread I’ve noticed is […]
It seems inevitable that Apple will someday release a set of AR glasses, and today we have a set of rumors from YouTuber Jon Prosser of the “Front Page Tech” YouTube channel. Prosser is a fairly new leaker, but AppleInsider has a good roundup of things he has gotten right in the past. He claims to […]
LONDON — On April 23, I started work at 8:49 a.m., reading and responding to emails, browsing the news and scrolling Twitter. At 9:14 a.m., I made changes to an upcoming story and read through interview notes. By 10:09 a.m., work momentum lost, I read about the Irish village where Matt Damon was living out […]
Enlarge / The TrueDepth sensor array on the iPhone. Samuel Axon Apple’s Face ID method for authenticating on recent iPhones offers a number of security benefits, and it’s a neat trick to boot. But in a pandemic-stricken world where many people either opt to or are even required to wear protective masks, users have discovered […]
The high point of the year for any Apple fan is the release of a brand spanking new iPhone. Despite all of our current stresses, the prospect of a shiny new phone like Apple’s newly released iPhone SE, or the upcoming iPhone 12, serves as both a welcome distraction and an opportunity. The iPhone SE (2020), […]
None of us are ever going to be Superman, beings from another planet in possession of astonishing birth-given superpowers. However, we could be Iron Man, able to slip into a special assistive suit that augments our natural abilities with the use of some smart high-tech components. That’s the appeal of the powered exoskeleton or exosuit, […]
The $ 250 base system (with 4GB of RAM) doesn’t include either of these two controllers. The “one button” joystick has an extra button on the shoulder. Note the red highlights that call back to the old Atari one-button joystick. The version with black walnut paneling on the front is exclusive to AtariVCS.com. This black […]
NASA is suspending work on its troubled James Webb Space Telescope due to the coronavirus pandemic. “The James Webb Space Telescope team, also in California, is suspending integration and testing operations,” NASA announced in a statement. “Decisions could be adjusted as the situation continues to unfold over the weekend and into next week. The decision […]
SAN FRANCISCO — It was just after 11 a.m. last Wednesday when Jaime Maldonado, 51, pulled his rented Nissan into a lot outside San Francisco International Airport. He figured he had a long wait ahead — about two hours — before Lyft would ping him to pick up a passenger. Occasionally, jets roared overhead — […]