Jun 22
Japanese Market Cars are known for their dependability. But many models also progress the industry in terms of performance and being fun to drive.
Jun 22
Amazon has taken the wraps off a couple of new robots that are being put to work in its warehouses, ones the company says will help – not replace – humans.
Jun 22
Facebook Pay is now Meta Pay, and hopes to be the metaverse's digital wallet
Posted in: Today's ChiliFacebook Pay is becoming Meta Pay. Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding on Wednesday, calling the change a “first step” toward Meta creating a digital wallet for its vision of the metaverse. In the immediate future, the software won’t change too much. You can still use it to send your friends and family members money over Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as to pay for purchases and donate to charitable causes.
Moving forward, however, Zuckerberg says he envisions a future where Meta Pay will function as a universal wallet for all the digital items you buy or create in the metaverse. “Proof of ownership will be important, especially if you want to take some of these items with you across different services,” he said. “Ideally, you should be able to sign into any metaverse experience and everything you’ve bought should be right there.”
Put another way, Zuckerberg hopes that Meta Pay becomes the de-facto wallet of the metaverse. He admits the kind of interoperability he’s describing is a long way away but claims it would “deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators.” It almost goes without saying, but Meta would almost certainly be the greatest beneficiary of the ecosystem Zuckerberg describes. The company recently confirmed it’s taking a nearly 48 percent cut from digital asset sales in Horizon Worlds. A wallet app is another way for the company to earn money on the back of metaverse creators.
Jun 22
Scientists are investigating how blood splatter-like spots in snow could be connected to climate change. The reddish dots are made up of tiny algae that grow on snowy mountain ranges. The algae is originally green, but when it’s hit with sunlight, it turns red, creating the eerie blush.
Jun 22
In a new interview with Variety, Natalie Portman got candid about how she felt when she was asked to bulk up for her return role as Jane Foster in Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder. “On Black Swan, I was asked to get as small as possible,” she said. “Here, I was asked to get as big as possible. That’s an amazing…
Jun 22
Although as inevitable as death and taxes, yesterday Micron revealed that its new industrial-grade i400 microSD will come in capacities ranging from 256GB to 1TB, and for the first time ever, a never-before-seen 1.5TB option that will undoubtedly be devastatingly expensive.
Jun 22
When we last saw Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) on Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, she was running away from scary government drones and agents, led by Agent Deever (Alyia Reiner) and straight into Kamran’s (Rish Shah) fancy car, where she meets the cute new boy’s mysterious mother Najma (Nimra Bucha). She says she’s been…
Jun 22
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said he injured the little finger on his right hand this past weekend after a boulder rolled over it while he was doing yardwork.
Jun 22
Polestar promised Apple CarPlay support for its EVs two years ago, and it’s finally delivering. As The Vergeexplains, the car brand has released an over-the-air update for the Polestar 2 that makes CarPlay available on the Android Automotive-based sedan. If you’d rather use Apple Maps instead of Google Maps or prefer to talk to Siri in lieu of Google Assistant, you now have that choice as long as you connect your iPhone.
The most fun part about driving a Polestar is driving it, but there’s more to it. Our latest over-the-air update for the Polestar 2 comes with Apple CarPlay, allowing Polestar owners with an iPhone to change music, use apps, and communicate through Siri or the infotainment system pic.twitter.com/mulkjIUR6D
— Polestar (@PolestarCars) June 22, 2022
In 2020, the automaker expected to deliver a CarPlay update in January 2021. It’s not clear what prompted the delay (Polestar cited “various factors” last fall), but the wait isn’t completely surprising. Android Automotive is built around Google’s operating system, and often its services. iPhone support was always going to be a lower priority, particularly when you don’t need an Android phone to use Polestar’s built-in functionality.
You still can’t find CarPlay on numerous other Android Automotive cars, including newer Volvo models as well as Rivian’s R1T. You won’t have to wait long in some cases, though. Volvo expects to add the interface within weeks, and it will eventually support iOS 16’s next-gen CarPlay interface. In that sense, Polestar is just a vanguard for its sibling brand.
Jun 22
More than a million new titles are published annually in the US, far more than even the most bibliophilic secret agent could get through. Even with a weekly publishing schedule, we can only bring you 52 Hitting the Books each year. To help shine a spotlight on all the fantastic stories that can’t be featured in our weekly column, we now bring to you Hitting the Books Quarterly, a semi-semi-annual roundup of books that may not strictly be about tech but we figure you’ll like nonetheless.
This edition’s selection runs the gamut from STEM to Sci-Fi including selections from New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi, UC Berkeley Professor of Sociology Carolyn Chen, and journalist Stephen Witt. We hope you enjoy.
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Princeton University Press
Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley by Carolyn Chen
Silicon Valley may tout itself as the Emerald City at the end of America’s yellow brick road but one need only pull back the curtain to find the oppressive capitalist machinery hidden behind. In her new book, Work Pray Code, UC Berkeley Professor of Sociology Carolyn Chen examines how an industry already primed to worship the Myth of the Founder has steadily imposed itself upon the religious beliefs and practices of its workers, hawking Buddhist-adjacent “wellness programs” in hopes of them achieving productivity enlightenment. What, you thought the company town wouldn’t include a company church?
Penguin Books
How Music Got Free: A Story of Obsession and Invention by Stephen Witt
In the earliest days of social media, just as the popularity of physical media began to wane but long before the emergence of omnipresent streaming services, existed a time of boundless possibilities. It was a time when any song ever made could be yours, free and at the click of a button, assuming that at least one other person on your network had a complete copy. Many a music collection was assembled during the unregulated file sharing era, much to the chagrin of the recording industry. But no one pirated music anywhere near the scale of Dell Glover. In his 2016 book, How Music Got Free, journalist Stephen Witt explains how Glover exploited his position working in a North Carolina compact-disc manufacturing plant to surreptitiously steal and leak more than 2,000 albums over the course of a decade before being apprehended. Someone get that guy a medal.
Macmillan
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Stuck in a dead-end gig job amidst the depths of the first COVID lockdown, Jamie Gray is looking for an out, any out of his dreary cash-strapped existence. Unlucky for him, he’s about to get exactly what he wants in The Kaiju Preservation Society, the latest from John Scalzi, NYT bestselling author of Old Man’s War and Redshirts.
Disney Editions
Women of Walt Disney Imagineering: 12 Women Reflect on their Trailblazing Theme Park Careers
Walt Disney may have held the initial spark of inspiration for what would eventually become one of the world’s largest media empires, but ever since his noggin went into cold storage, the responsibility of bringing those stories, rides, and attractions to life has fallen to the company’s legion of passionate designers, fabricators and builders: the Imagineers. Women of Walt Disney Imagineering assembles first hand accounts of a dozen women who worked behind the scenes and struggled in an overwhelmingly male industry to ensure that Disney’s theme parks live up to their reputations as the most magical places on Earth.
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
In this taut, time-travelling thriller, NCIS special agent Shannon Moss is tasked with uncovering as to why a Navy SEAL murdered his family — and where his teenage daughter disappeared to. Exploiting the world’s “Deep Time” chrono-hopping phenomena, Moss skips along the fourth dimension, flitting between alternate realities in search of clues to the killer’s motivation. That is, until she stumbles upon a near-future event that may end humanity entirely.
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Got a recommendation for a book that you just couldn’t put down? Drop us a line at Tips@engadget.com about it and we might just include it in a future roundup!
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