Booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine will be available for everyone in the US from September, President Biden announced today, with the third injection intended to counter fading protection in the face of new coronavirus variants like Delta. Word of the plan broke earlier this week, with the White House confirming its ongoing pandemic strategy in an address by Biden … Continue reading
As expected, today’s Pokemon Presents brought us some new details about Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, which are upcoming remakes of the fourth-generation Pokemon games. Today we got a look at some new gameplay footage from Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, along with the confirmation of new features that weren’t in the original games. In addition, the Pokemon … Continue reading
This week the folks at Marvel and Disney and whomever else is in charge of this sort of business made the name change official for Boba Fett’s ship. Earlier this year, LEGO detailed a new set of bricks that’d make what they might’ve earlier called Slave-1. That was the official name for Boba Fett’s ship in earlier LEGO sets, and … Continue reading
While Facebook and Twitter are already struggling to handle vaccine misinformation and extremism, there’s an increased focus on how social networks are handling Taliban-related content, following America’s sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan. The militant group has swiftly overtaken Afghanistan’s civilian government, taking control of the capital Kabul in only a few days, far sooner than intelligence analysts expected. Just like every modern organization, the Taliban relies heavily on social media to spread its messaging and communicate with followers, which puts the onus on technology companies to secure their platforms.
“The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under US law and we have banned them from our services under our Dangerous Organization policies,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “This means we remove accounts maintained by or on behalf of the Taliban and prohibit praise, support, and representation of them.” They went on to note that the company will be following the situation closely with the help of native Dari and Pashto speakers, who serve as local experts. Facebook isn’t making any additions to its existing policies, which cover its core app, Instagram and WhatsApp, but it’s clear that it’s making the Taliban’s uprising a priority.
Still, that statement doesn’t mean much if Facebook can’t actually see what’s happening on its platforms. Vice reports that the Taliban has been spreading its message on WhatsApp, which uses end-to-end encryption to secure conversations. The company could technically ban specific accounts, but it won’t be able to easily search and remove content like it can on Facebook proper and Instagram.
Twitter, meanwhile, wouldn’t say if it would ban notable Taliban accounts like spokesperson Suhail Shaheen’s. CNN reported yesterday that he had 347,000 followers on the platform, but now he’s amassed over 361,000, a clear sign of growing influence. Twitter noted that people were using its service to seek help in Afghanistan, and that it would continue to enforce its existing rules around things like the glorification of violence and hateful conduct. The company also introduced the ability to report misleading tweets yesterday.
While Twitter is shying away from any definitive stances against the Taliban, a spokesperson noted: “Our enforcement approach is agile and we will remain transparent about our work as it continues to evolve to address these increasingly complex issues.” Basically, the rules could change at any moment.
YouTube is taking a stronger stance, telling CNN that it would be terminating accounts run by the Afghan Taliban because the group appears on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
Moving forward, it’s unclear how social media companies will recognize the Taliban as it takes control of Afghanistan. As the Washington Post reports, it’s up to social media firms to determine who maintains official state accounts like the Afghanistan President’s Twitter, which now has over 926,000 followers.
Audio-Technica is giving its wireless M50x headphones a refresh after three years, and the new over-ears include some welcome upgrades that bring them into the modern era. The just-introduced ATH-M50xBT2 maintains the familiar design and 45mm drivers we liked so much, but notably adds a built-in Alexa voice assistant and multi-point Bluetooth pairing. It’ll be easier to both ask for help and switch from your computer to your phone, to put it another way.
There are more functional improvements regardless of quality. A low latency mode helps with games and streamed video. Codec support has widened to include AAC, LDAC and SBC, although there’s curiously no mention of AptX. The updated USB-C connection gives you three hours of listening with a 10-minute charge, although you won’t be plugging in too often when Audio-Technica claims 50 hours of use.
There’s still no active noise cancellation, but you do get a cable for wired listening, control over common voice assistants and Fast Pair setup on Android.
The ATH-M50xBT2 is available today for $199. That’s slightly higher than the original headphones’ $180, but that still makes them a bargain if you’re more interested in pure sound quality than ANC or other common frills for over-ear headphones.
After Samsung president TM Roh told Korean newspaper Yonhap that it would be pruning ads from some of the company’s default pre-installed apps, Samsung has now confirmed that it will begin removing the annoying promotions later this year.
Strangely, here’s a good piece of news about the work humanity has done to save the world. A major international agreement to phase out ozone-harming chemicals has also helped the world avoid a whopping extra 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) of global warming by the end of this century, according to a new…
Paleontologists have found a bed of ancient mammal bones amid the dry, brush-covered landscape of Southern Wyoming. Three of those fossil finds belong to previously unknown species, and all the animals on the site paint a different picture about mammalian evolution in the wake of the dinosaurs’ demise after the…
One of Sidney Powell’s conspiracy-promoting pals deserves a fat paycheck—she thinks. A star “expert” for Powell’s election fraud argument before the Supreme Court—supposed former intelligence contractor, self-described “trained cryptolinguist,” podcaster, QAnon promoter, and alleged con artist Terpsichore Maras—has…
Despite playing one of DC Comic’s most famous superheroes and one of Marvel’s iconic villains, Michael Keaton is not versed in the finer points of either companies’ cinematic universe. It’s not for lack of people trying to explain it though. Luckily for him—and for audiences—it doesn’t matter, because Keaton knows…
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