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28.11.2022 16:20 If you're still searching for the ideal machine to be your next laptop, you're in luck. Cyber Monday laptop deals have discounted a number of our favorite notebooks, including those from Apple, Microsoft, ASUS and others. Shopping directly with these brands will give you the best customization options, so that's the best option if you're very particular about the amount of memory you want in your next laptop or you absolutely want a specific kind of display panel on the thing. But if you're willing to pick up a pre-configured notebook, you'll have even more discount options available from Amazon, Walmart and other retailers. Here are the best Cyber Monday laptop deals we found for 2022.Apple MacBook Air M1Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetApple's M1-powered MacBook Air is down to $799 for Cyber Monday which is the best price we've seen. Although the M2 laptop is available now, the M1 machine remains a good option if you're upgrading from an aging Intel model. We gave it a score of 94 for its blazing fast performance, lovely Retina display and lack of fan noise.Buy MacBook Air M1 at Amazon - $799Apple MacBook Air M2Devindra Hardawar/EngadgetThe latest MacBook Air with the M2 chipset is down to $1,049 for Cyber Monday. While we still like the M1 air, the M2 is the notebook to get if you want the best performance possible in Apple's thinnest and lightest laptop. We gave it a score of 96 for its updated, even sleeker design, gorgeous 13.6-inch display, excellent performance and lack of fan noise.Buy MacBook Air M2 at Amazon - $1,049Apple MacBook ProDevindra Hardawar/EngadgetThe 14-inch MacBook Pro is on sale for $1,600 right now, or $400 off its usual price. There's an even steeper discount on the 16-inch MacBook Pro — $500 off, bringing it down to $2,000. Both of these are powered by Apple's M1 Pro chipset, and we gave them both scores of 92 for their powerful performance, stunning Liquid Retina XDR displays, numerous ports and solid battery lives. Buy 14-inch MacBook Pro at Amazon - $1,600Buy 16-inch MacBook Pro at Amazon - $2,000ASUS ZenBook DuoDevindra Hardawar/EngadgetThe 14-inch ZenBook Duo is $300 off for Cyber Monday, bringing the model with a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SDD down to $800. This laptop is unique because it has a secondary 12.6-inch touchscreen above its keyboard that offers new ways to multitask while you also use its main, 14-inch FHD touch display. We gave this model a score of 84 for its improved dual-screen software, excellent build quality and strong performance. If you like this design and want something a bit more powerful, the ZenBook Pro Duo with a 15-inch OLED display, a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is $670 off and down to $1,730 for Cyber Monday.Buy ZenBook Duo at Amazon - $800Buy ZenBook Pro Duo at Amazon - $1,730Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2Sam Rutherford/EngadgetMicrosoft's Surface Laptop Go 2 is back down to $600 for Cyber Monday for a configuration with a Core i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. We gave this 12.4-inch notebook a score of 86 earlier this year, and it earned a spot in our guide to the best cheap Windows laptops. It impressed us with its slick design, bright screen, good battery life and USB-C charging.Buy Surface Laptop Go 2 at Amazon - $600Microsoft Surface Laptop 5Sam Rutherford/EngadgetThe 13-inch Surface Laptop 5 with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is on sale for $1,000, which is the best price we've seen. We gave this machine a score of 83 for its elegant design, bright display, Thunderbolt 4 support and solid performance. We weren't as impressed by its 720p webcam and its non-backlit keyboard, but this notebook is definitely a step up from the Surface Laptop Go 2 and the better pick if you want a stronger machine as a daily driver.Buy Surface Laptop 5 at Amazon - $1,000Samsung Cyber Monday dealsSamsungSamsung has extended its Black Friday deals into Cyber Monday, so you can still save hundreds on some of the brand's newest laptops. Machines in the Galaxy Book 2 series are up to $500 off depending on the model you choose, with one of the most affordable configurations being the 13-inch Galaxy Book 2 360 with a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for only $650.Shop Samsung Cyber Monday dealsMicrosoft Cyber Monday dealsDevindra Hardawar/EngadgetA number of Surface laptops and bundles are on sale for Cyber Monday direct from Microsoft. The new Surface Pro 9 and the Surface Laptop 5 are up to $200 and $300 off, respectively, while you can save more than $600 on Surface Laptop 4 bundles. We recommend checking out all of Microsoft's discounted bundles, because they are some of the best ways to get all of the things you'd need — like keyboard attachments, styluses and more — to make a Surface machine truly your own.Shop Microsoft Cyber Monday dealsHP Cyber Monday dealsHPHP's Cyber Monday offerings knock up to 71 percent off its doorbuster deals on laptops and other devices, plus you'll get free shipping sitewide. A number of solid laptops have been discounted, including the HP Pavilion 15 with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which you can grab for only $580. There's also the HP Chromebook x360 with an Intel Pentium processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage that's only $290.Shop HP Cyber Monday dealsDell Cyber Monday dealsEngadgetDell has discounted a bunch of machines for Cyber Monday, including Alienware gaming gear and XPS laptops. Most of Dell's deals are available in "limited quantities," so it's a good idea to shop early today if you see something you like. This Alienware x15 R2 laptop with a Core i9 processor, NVIDIA RTX 3070 graphics, 32GB of RAM and 2TB of storage is down to $2,500, while this XPS 13 laptop with a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is down to $999.Shop Dell Cyber Monday dealsYour Cyber Week Shopping Guide: Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter. Also, shop the top Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals on Yahoo Life. Learn about Black Friday trends on In the Know, and our car experts at Autoblog are covering must-shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday auto deals.

28.11.2022 16:20 WhatsApp has introduced a new feature that lets you send messages to yourself like reminders and shopping lists, parent Meta has confirmed with TechCrunch. Called "Message Yourself," the feature was first spotted by WaBetaInfo several weeks ago as part of a beta test, but is now being rolled out globally to iOS and Android users in the coming weeks.Once you get the update, you'll be able to see yourself at the top of the contacts list when creating new messages. Once you click on that, you'll be able to send yourself notes, reminders, shopping lists and anything else you might need to remember. The resulting notification, if enabled, could help make sure your self-note doesn't go unheeded. Users can also pin their Message Yourself chats to the top of a conversation list for easier access.Until now, you could only message yourself by creating a group with just you as a member or by using the apps "click to chat" feature, both inelegant solutions at best. Rival platform Signal already offers a feature called "Note to Self" that does much the same thing, though it's buried in your contacts list rather than being available at the top. As mentioned, you should see the feature in the next couple of weeks whether on Android or iOS.

28.11.2022 16:20 Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts is calling on Congress to pass new legislation to rein in tech companies after Twitter boss Elon Musk ignored an information request. “Elon Musk could respond to my tweets but failed to respond to my letter by yesterday’s deadline and answer basic questions about Twitter verification,” Markey tweeted on Saturday.The senator sent a letter on November 11th about Twitter’s paid account verification feature. Following the initial rollout, trolls could impersonate celebrities, politicians and company brand accounts, the latter leading to real-world effects on stock prices.Musk addressed one of Markey’s questions when he announced Twitter’s new verification system on Friday. It’ll feature manual authentication and different colored check marks for different types of users. "Gold check for companies, gray check for government, blue for individuals and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates," Musk said. He’s also said sign-ups have hit an all-time high.– Mat SmithThe Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.The biggest stories you might have missedHitting the Books: Social media's long, pointless war against sex on the internet ‘Half-Life: Alyx’ mod adds four hours of single-player content‘Slow Horses’ settles into a familiar but welcome grooveFerrari’s Vision hybrid race car arrives in ‘Gran Turismo 7’ on December 23rdThe Internet Archive’s PalmPilot Emulation project lets you relive tech historyFCC bans telecom and video surveillance gear from Huawei and ZTEThe agency is implementing the rules from the 2021 Secure Equipment Act.Getty ImagesThe FCC announced it's officially implementing the Secure Equipment Act, which means some future equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua won't be authorized for sale in the US. Existing equipment from those companies, all listed under the FCC's Covered List, aren't affected by the law. Last year, the Biden administration signed into law the Secure Equipment Act, which aimed to block the authorization of network licenses from several Chinese companies whose hardware has been deemed a national security threat.Continue reading.NASA’s Orion spacecraft breaks Apollo 13 flight recordThe capsule traveled farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans had before.NASAThe Artemis 1 Orion crew vehicle has set a record for a NASA flight. On Saturday, Orion flew farther than any spacecraft designed to carry human astronauts had ever before, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 back in 1970 – not that it was the aim of the mission. Funnily enough, it’s fitting that Artemis 1 was the one to do it. As Space.com points out, Apollo 13’s original flight plan didn’t call for a record-setting flight. It was only after a mid-mission explosion forced NASA to plot a new return course that Apollo 13’s Odyssey command module set the previous record at 248,655 miles from Earth.Continue reading.Charles Darwin's full correspondence is now available onlineYou can read over 15,000 letters from the evolutionary science pioneer.The University of Cambridge has published all the evolutionary scientist's surviving correspondence online, including 400 letters that have either surfaced or are newly "reinterpreted." The searchable collection now covers over 15,000 letters written between 1822 and 1882, ranging from his influential time aboard the HMS Beagle to On the Origin of Species and his end-of-life reflections. The internet archive may even be the only way to see a fuller picture of Darwin's life. The university notes a print edition of his correspondence, due in early 2023, doesn't include letters that arrived too late to reach physical copies.Continue reading.UK aims to ban non-consensual deepfake pornCritics say other aspects of the proposed legislation pose dangers to privacy and security.The UK government will amend its Online Safety Bill with measures designed to prohibit abuse of intimate images, whether or not they're real. If the bill becomes law as is, it will be illegal to share deepfake porn without the subject's consent. This would be the first ban on sharing deepfakes in the country, and if the law comes into effect, violating this rule could lead to a prison sentence. Critics have pushed back against certain aspects of the bill, including a revived plan to verify a person's age before permitting them to access adult content online.Continue reading.

28.11.2022 16:20 If you've been waiting for the best possible deal on an Xbox Series S console, today is the day. For Cyber Monday, Amazon is offering a $60 discount plus a $40 coupon that can be applied to future purchases. That effectively gives you a $100 discount off the regular $300 price for today only — a great deal on a very good console. Buy Xbox Series S at Amazon - $240 When the Series S came out, we called it the "next-gen starter pack" and gave it a solid 85 score. Even though it doesn't support gameplay in 4K, it plays incredibly smoothly and has a svelte look that will fit into any decor. Thanks to the FPS boost technology added to the Series S and X, older games, including many made for Xbox One, will look and perform better with faster frame rates.Unlike the Series X, the Series S only plays digital titles, with no slot to insert physical game media. It's a great option if you have an Xbox Game Pass membership, though, which costs $10 per month for the Console tier, and $15 per month for the Ultimate tier. Either level unlocks a library with hundreds of game to download and play, while also granting discounts to many titles you might want to buy outright.Another caveat is that the Series S has less SSD storage, with 512GB on-board compared to the 1TB for the Series X. If you like to keep plenty of titles on hand, you'll either need to shuffle them between the main disk and USB-C storage, or purchase Seagate's $200 expansion card. All told, though, it's a great option for casual console gamers, particularly considering all the backward-compatible Game Pass games — just keep in mind that the sale ends today.

28.11.2022 11:10 Earlier this year, Twitter confirmed that the private user data for 5.4 million users was stolen due to an API vulnerability, but the company said it had "no evidence" that it was exploited. Now, all of those accounts have been exposed on a hacker form, BleepingComputer has reported. On top of that, an additional 1.4 million Twitter profiles for suspended users was reportedly shared privately, and an even larger data dump with the data of "tens of millions" of other users may have come from the same vulnerability.The owner of hacking forum called Breached told BleepingComputer that it was responsible for exploiting the weakness and dumping the user records. It said that it also obtained 1.4 million Twitter profiles for suspended accounts, obtained via another API, but only shared those privately among a few individuals.On top of all that, security expert Chad Loder has revealed that tens of millions more Twitter records may have been collected using the same API. Once again, data collected may include private phone numbers along with public information. Loder posted a redacted sample on Mastodon, as he was banned on Twitter several days ago for unknown reasons. It could contain over 17 million records, BleepingComputer was told.The breaches leaked users' private phone numbers and email addresses, which could be used for phishing and other scams. That information could also be exploited to uncover identities from private Twitter accounts. As usual, be very wary of any suspicious emails or texts claiming to come from Twitter — and if you're thinking about using two-factor authentication, now would be a good time.

28.11.2022 11:10 Slow Horses was something of a slow-burning surprise when its first season launched back in April. It was yet another Apple TV hit whose marketing hadn’t done well enough to connect with audiences, relying instead on word of mouth. What viewers found, however, was a low-stakes spy drama with the sort of pulpy, throwback thrills that you rarely see in our more self-serious age. Mixed with a shot or two of black comedy, and it made for a surprisingly gripping package I felt compelled to rave about back in April.The show’s second season, which returns to Apple TV+ on December 2nd, carries on in that vein, albeit with less of the show’s trademark humor. It focuses, once again, on the staff members of Slough House, the closest thing MI5 has to purgatory for disgraced intelligence officers. Led by the “colorful” Jackson Lamb, the Slow Horses are often left doing administrative donkeywork nobody else thinks is worth doing. Of course, you wouldn’t have a series if the misfits weren’t frequently embroiled in the grander machinations of the intelligence community.Season Two is based on Dead Lions, the second in Herron’s series of Slough House novels, and focuses on Lamb’s investigation of the death of a former officer. Apple’s usual ban on spoilers means that, of the plot, I can only say that it features “long-buried Cold War secrets” which “threaten to bring carnage to the streets of London.” Oh, and that “when a liaison with Russian villains takes a fatal turn, our hapless heroes must overcome their individual failings and raise their spy game in a race to prevent a catastrophic incident.”We pick up shortly after the first season, with the Horses frustrated that their heroics haven’t led to better things. Instead, the team has been bolstered with Shirley Dander and Marcus Longridge and put back on regular duties. That has, understandably, left River Cartwright in something of a funk. But when a former agent is found dead on a bus, it suddenly piques Jackson Lamb’s interest enough to return to work in the field.Given that the first two six-episode seasons were shot in a single run, it’s no surprise that the show expects you to recall much of what happened in the first run. But, despite the continuous production, there’s a big tonal shift here, with the show getting darker and dropping some of its trademark wit and humor. And, I’ll be honest, the running gag about Jackson Lamb’s lack of personal hygiene and non-stop farting starts to get a bit thin by the end.Fans of the books will already know why the series takes a darker turn, although I found some of the twists were initially a bit lightweight. Maybe years of watching series where nothing we see can be believed meant I was always waiting for a non-existent second shoe to drop. None exist here in the Slow Horses universe, and when you see some beloved characters go, uh, to places you might not expect, be mindful that none of it is for show.It’s not a show that you can watch with one eye on your phone, but it’s so briskly paced that if you blink, you might lose your place. I’d consider myself a close watcher of things, but even I found myself having to pause to work out which sinister Russian emigre was which. It doesn’t help that while you can see where all of the various plotlines are heading, their collision is a little predictable. But I’m nitpicking, and this isn’t the sort of show you need to unpick for hours on end on Reddit – just repeat to yourself it’s just a show, and you should really just relax.And Slow Horses’ second season really belongs to Rosalind Eleazar and Saskia Reeves , who are both given time and space to grow their characters. The former carries much of the major narrative this time around, while the latter again shows how much steel is buried underneath Standish’s downtrodden personae. But the show is democratic enough to give every character a grace note or two during the explosive, and gripping, finale.Slow Horses season two will launch on Apple TV+ on Friday, December 2nd, with two new episodes, with subsequent episodes appearing every Friday through December 30th. A third and fourth season has already been greenlit.

28.11.2022 01:41 Since 2013, Gran Turismo’s Vision project has seen some of the world’s largest automakers, including Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, imagine what their cars could look like without real-world constraints. Over the weekend, GT series developer Polyphony Digital announced the latest addition to the Vision stable, an entry from Ferrari, would arrive in Gran Turismo 7 on December 23rd.Like its predecessors, the Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo features capabilities that would put any production vehicle to shame. Ferrari outfitted the concept car with “a more extreme version” of the V6 engine found on the 499P hypercar the automaker plans to field at next year’s Le Mans endurance race. In-game, the single-seat hybrid will produce more than 1,000 horsepower, with three electric motors providing additional power.“We wanted to create a vision of the future designed without constraint, but born from Ferrari’s unrivalled understanding of engineering, aerodynamics and future technologies, and deliver it into the digital world for a whole new audience to experience,” said Ferrari Design Director Flavio Manzoni. Ferrari fans should keep their eyes out for an in-game quiz. Completing it before anyone else will grant early access to the Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo.

28.11.2022 01:41 Two years after its release, Half-Life Alyx remains the definitive VR experience. So it’s no surprise a lot of people want more. Until Valve announces a sequel , it’s up to the modding community to provide new content. Thankfully, Levitation, a new single-player mod for Half-Life Alyx, not only extends the story of Valve’s latest but is also earning praise for its gameplay.The free mod features three to four hours of additional story content, complete with new voice acting and animations. As of the writing of this article, Levitation has a perfect five-star rating across 627 reviews, with many praising the work of level designer FMPONE. The positive response is especially noteworthy considering Levitation was only announced earlier this year. Without sharing too much of the story, the mod sees the player sent to City 17’s mysterious Section X to investigate a levitating building where two members of The Resistance went missing.You can download Levitation by subscribing to the mod through its Workshop page. Once you’ve installed Part One, Steam will automatically download the remaining four parts as you play through the mod. Note that you will need a copy of Half-Life Alyx and a compatible VR headset to play through the experience.

27.11.2022 20:40 A month after completing his takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk says new user signups are at an “all-time high.” On Saturday evening, the billionaire shared a slide deck that details the current state of Twitter and his vision for the platform. As of November 16th, Twitter was adding more than 2 million new users per day over the last seven days, according to one of the graphs Musk shared. He added daily signups are up 66 percent compared to the same seven-day period in 2021. Slides from my Twitter company talk pic.twitter.com/8LLXrwylta— Elon Musk November 27, 2022Musk said user active minutes were also at an all-time high, with Twitter’s userbase averaging nearly 8 billion active minutes per day over the last seven days as of November 15th – representing a 30 percent increase from the same period last year. He also used a graph to claim hate speech impressions recently decreased.Even if the data Musk shared is accurate, what it means is very much up for discussion. For instance, the graph about hate speech presents, at best, an incomplete picture of the situation. For one, note that the small print states the data only covers tweets in English. Second, there’s evidence to suggest Twitter recently stopped enforcing its hateful conduct policy as it applies to targeted harassment of trans people.Just as important is the data Musk decided not to share. Not a single graph offers insight into Twitter’s financials, yet according to multiple reports, Musk recently told employees the company was losing so much money that bankruptcy was "not out of the question.” A more recent report suggests Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Musk took the platform over.On early Sunday, Musk told Jordan Peterson he sees “a path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months.” Meeting that goal will require Twitter to dramatically increase signups. Assuming the company continues to add 2 million users per week, that’s only 104 million new users by the end of one year. Twitter has approximately 450 million monthly active users as of 2022.

27.11.2022 20:40 From the moment that people started getting nasty with Johannes Gutenberg's newfangled printing press, sexually explicit content has led the way towards wide-scale adoption of mass communication technologies. But with every advance in methodology has invariably come a backlash — a moral panic here, a book burning there, the constant uncut threat of mass gun violence — aiming to suppress that expression. Now, given the things I saw Googling "sexually explicit printing press," dear reader, I can assure you that their efforts will ultimately be in vain. But it hasn't stopped social media corporations, advertisers, government regulators and the people you most dread seeing in your building's elevator from working to erase sexuality-related content from the world wide web. In the excerpt below from her most excellent new book, How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: An Unexpected History, Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole discusses the how and why to Facebook, Instagram and Google's slow strangling of online sexual speech over the past 15 years.Workman PublishingExcerpted from How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: An Unexpected History by Samantha Cole. Workman Publishing © 2022How Sex Is Repressed OnlineHuman and algorithmic censorship has completely changed the power structure of who gets to post what types of adult content online. This has played out as independent sex workers struggling to avoid getting kicked off of sites like Instagram or Twitter just for existing as people—while big companies like Brazzers, displaying full nudity, have no problem keeping their accounts up.Despite Facebook’s origins as Mark Zuckerberg’s Hot-or-Not rating system for women on his Harvard campus, the social network’s policies on sexuality and nudity are incredibly strict. Over the years, it’s gone through several evolutions and overhauls, but in 2022 forbidden content includes “real nude adults,” “sexual intercourse” and a wide range of things that could imply intercourse “even when the contact is not directly visible,” or “presence of by-products of sexual activity.” Nudity in art is supposedly allowed, but artists and illustrators still fight against bans and rejected posts all the time.That’s not to mention “sexual solicitation,” which Facebook will not tolerate. That includes any and all porn, discussions of states of sexual arousal, and anything that both asks or offers sex “directly or indirectly” and also includes sexual emojis like peaches and eggplants, sexual slang, and depictions or poses of sexual activity.These rules also apply on Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook. As the number one and two biggest social networks in the US, these dictate how much of the internet sees and interacts with sexual content.In the earliest archived versions of Facebook’s terms of use, sex was never mentioned—but its member conduct guidelines did ban “any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.” This vagueness gives Facebook legal wiggle room to ban whatever it wants.The platform took a more welcoming approach to sexual speech as recently as 2007, with Sexuality listed as one of the areas of interest users could choose from, and more than five hundred user-created groups for various discussions around the topic. But the platform’s early liberality with sex drew scrutiny. In 2007, then–New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo led a sting operation on Facebook where an investigator posed as teens and caught child predators.As early as 2008, it started banning female breasts—specifically, nipples. The areola violated its policy on “obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit” material. In December 2008, a handful of women gathered outside the company’s Palo Alto office to breastfeed in front of the building in protest .As of 2018, Facebook lumped sex work under banned content that depicts “sexual exploitation,” stating that all references and depictions of “sexual services” were forbidden, “includ prostitution, escort services, sexual massages, and filmed sexual activity.”A lot of this banned content is health and wellness education.In 2018, sexuality educator Dr. Timaree Schmit logged in to Facebook and checked her page for SEXx Interactive, which runs an annual sex ed conference she’d held the day before. A notification from Facebook appeared: She and several other admins for the page were banned from the entire platform for thirty days, and the page was taken down, because an “offending image” had violated the platform’s community standards. The image in question was the word SEXx in block letters on a red background.The examples of this sort of thing are endless and not limited to Facebook. Google AdWords banned “graphic sexual acts with intent to arouse including sex acts such as masturbation” in 2014. Android keyboards’ predictive text banned anything remotely sexual, including the words “panty,” “braless,” “Tampax,” “lactation,” “preggers, “uterus,” and “STI” from its autocomplete dictionary. Chromecast and Google Play forbid porn. You can’t navigate to adult sites using Starbucks Wi-Fi. For a while in 2018, Google Drive seemed to be blocking users from downloading documents and files that contained adult content. The crowdfunding site Patreon forbids porn depicting real people, and in 2018 blamed its payment processor, Stripe, for not being sex-friendly. Much of this followed FOSTA/SESTA.This is far from a complete list. There are countless stories like this, where sex educators, sex workers, artists, and journalists are censored or pushed off platforms completely for crossing these imaginary lines that are constantly moving.Over the years, as these policies have evolved, they’ve been applied inconsistently and often with vague reasoning for the users themselves. There is one way platforms have been consistent, however: Images and content of Black and Indigenous women, as well as queer and trans people, sex workers, and fat women, experience the brunt of platform discrimination. This can lead to serious self-esteem issues, isolation, and in some cases, suicidal thoughts for people who are pushed off platforms or labeled “sexually explicit” because of their body shape or skin color.“I’m just sick of feeling like something is wrong with my body. That it’s not OK to look how I do,” Anna Konstantopoulos, a fat Instagram influencer, said after her account was shut down and posts were deleted multiple times. Her photos in bikinis or lingerie were deleted by Instagram moderators, while other influencers’ posts stayed up and raked in the likes. “It starts to make you feel like crap about yourself.”In spite of all of this, people project their full selves, or at least a version of themselves, onto Facebook accounts. Censorship of our sexual sides doesn’t stop people from living and working on the internet—unless that is your life and work.

27.11.2022 01:50 Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts is calling on Congress to pass new legislation to rein in Big Tech companies after Elon Musk ignored an information request. “Elon Musk could respond to my tweets but failed to respond to my letter by yesterday’s deadline and answer basic questions about Twitter verification,” Markey tweeted Saturday. “Congress must end the era of failed Big Tech self-regulation and pass laws that put user safety over the whims of billionaires.”Musk had until November 25th to answer a letter the senator sent on November 11th about Twitter’s paid account verification feature. The initial rollout of the new Twitter Blue saw trolls use the service to impersonate celebrities, politicians and brands. Markey sent Musk a list of questions about the launch after The Washington Post created a “verified” account impersonating him. One day after Markey shared a copy of the letter on Twitter, Musk attacked the senator..@elonmusk could respond to my tweets but failed to respond to my letter by yesterday’s deadline and answer basic questions about Twitter verification. Congress must end the era of failed Big Tech self-regulation and pass laws that put user safety over the whims of billionaires. https://t.co/BEn6n9EitW— Ed Markey November 26, 2022“Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody,” Musk tweeted. “And why does your pp have a mask!?” he added a few hours later, referring to Markey’s profile picture, which shows the policymaker wearing a face covering. The exchange prompted Markey to chastise the billionaire. “One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online,” the senator said. “Fix your companies. Or Congress will.”As of the writing of this article, Musk has yet to respond to Markey’s latest tweet. It’s hard to say whether the senator’s call will translate to legislative action, particularly with a split between the House of Representatives and Senate. Musk did appear to answer at least one of Markey’s questions when he announced Twitter’s new verification system on Friday. The latest iteration of the program will feature manual authentication and different colored check marks for different types of users. "Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates," he said.

27.11.2022 01:50 Fifteen years after the release of the iPhone, it’s easy to overlook the role early innovators like Palm played in popularizing the smartphone. By the time HP unceremoniously shut down the company in 2011, Palm had struggled for a few years to carve out a niche for itself among Apple and Google. But ask anyone who had a chance to use a Palm PDA in the late ‘90s or early 2000s and they’ll tell you how fondly they remember the hardware and software that made the company’s vision possible. Now, it’s easier than ever to see what made Palm OS so special back in its day.This week, archivist Jason Scott uploaded a database of Palm OS apps to the Internet Archive. In all, there are about 560 programs to check out, including old favorites like DopeWars and SpaceTrader. Even if you don’t have any nostalgia for Palm, it’s well worth spending a few minutes with the collection to see how much – or, in some cases, little – things have changed since Palm OS was a dominant player in the market.Hey, so, don't tell anyone, but I'm announcing PalmPilot emulation at Internet Archive for the holidays, probably next week. All the currently-working items need descriptions, so it's not quite ready. Don't tell anybody, OK? https://t.co/ye9z4iTPsxpic.twitter.com/0SNRVJw0Kp— Jason Scott November 24, 2022For instance, there’s an entire section devoted to shareware and it’s interesting to see just how much some developers thought it was appropriate to pay for their software. Want to use the full version of StockCalc? Just send $15 by post to DDT Investments in Plaistow, New Hampshire.In an interview with The Verge, Scott said it took about six months to get the CloudpilotEmu emulator to work with the Internet Archive. There’s still some work to be done. Specifically, some of the more obscure apps are missing descriptions and metadata. Scott also hopes to write instructions for each program. Still, short of buying an old Palm device off of eBay, this is the best way to experience a bygone computing era. That's because CloudpilotEmu allows you to navigate through Palm OS. You can even launch the database from your phone and there's full support for Palm's Graffiti handwriting recognition system. If you want to help Scott with the project, contact him on Twitter or Discord.

26.11.2022 21:10 The Artemis 1 Orion crew vehicle has set a new record for a NASA flight. At approximately 8:40AM ET on Saturday, Orion flew farther than any spacecraft designed to carry human astronauts had ever before, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 back in 1970. As of 10:17AM ET, Orion was approximately 249,666 miles from Earth."Artemis I was designed to stress the systems of Orion and we settled on the distant retrograde orbit as a really good way to do that," said Jim Geffre, Orion spacecraft integration manager. “It just so happened that with that really large orbit, high altitude above the moon, we were able to pass the Apollo 13 record. But what was more important though, was pushing the boundaries of exploration and sending spacecraft farther than we had ever done before."Mission Time: 10 days, 8 hrs, 27 minOrion is 249,666 miles from Earth, 53,687 miles from the Moon, cruising at 2,054 miles per hour.P: V: O: 287º, 140.6º, 135.7ºWhat's this? https://t.co/voR4yGgqXG#TrackArtemispic.twitter.com/w0uFgDqWaQ— Orion Spacecraft November 26, 2022Of all the missions that could have broken the record, it’s fitting that Artemis 1 was the one to do it. As Space.com points out, Apollo 13’s original flight plan didn’t call for a record-setting flight. It was only after a mid-mission explosion forced NASA to plot a new return course that Apollo 13’s Odyssey command module set the previous record at 248,655 miles from Earth.With a limited oxygen supply on the Aquarius Lunar Module, NASA needed to get Apollo 13 back to Earth as quickly as possible. The agency eventually settled on a flight path that used the Moon’s gravity to slingshot Apollo 13 back to Earth. One of the NASA personnel who was critical to the safe return of astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise was Arturo Campos. He wrote the emergency plan that gave the Command and Service Module enough power to make it back to Earth. Artemis 1 is carrying a “Moonikin” test dummy named after the late Arturo.Earlier this week, Orion completed a flyby of the Moon. After the spacecraft completes half an orbit around the satellite, it will slingshot itself toward the Earth. NASA expects Orion to splash down off the coast of San Diego on December 11th.

26.11.2022 16:02 The Roomba s9+ has been around for a couple of years and it's probably overkill for most people. At $999, it's certainly not cheap, but it did earn a spot in our list of best robot vacuums. Right now, you can pick up the high-end machine for $220 less than usual by shopping through Wellbots and using the code ENG220 at checkout. A final price of $779 is the best we've seen on this smart home gadget, and while it's still an expensive device, it's a much easier to recommend when its on sale like this.Buy Roomba s9+ at Wellbots - $779You probably don't need all of the bells and whistles that the s9+ provides, but they are some of the things that make it one of the best robot vacuums available today. It's the most attractive in iRobot's lineup, with a sleek design that can get into room corners more easily than other models, and a tall, slim clean base. It has 40x the suction power of a standard Roomba, making it a great option for households with pets and kids. It's "careful driver" feature uses a 3D sensor to detect objects so it can move around them to clean, and like all Roombas, it will automatically return to its charging base when it's low on power.In our testing, we found the s9+ to be an incredibly capable cleaner, and while on the loud side, it's no more noisy than other robo-vacs in this price range. When emptying its bin into its clean base, it was actually not as loud as the Roomba j7, so it's less likely to scare your pets while doing so. The clean base does use proprietary bags from iRobot, though, so just keep in mind that you'll have to consistently buy those in order to make full use of the s9+. Thankfully, each bag can hold up to 60 days worth of debris.The Roomba s9+ also connects to iRobot's mobile app, from which you can control the machine, set cleaning schedules and more. It's one of the easier robo-vac companion apps we'ved used, so even if you're gifting the s9+ to a loved on who is a novice, they should have no trouble getting the thing set up and using it regularly. If you're willing to splurge this holiday season, the s9+ is one of the best robo-vacs you can get for your money.Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

26.11.2022 06:30 Last year, the Biden administration signed the Secure Equipment Act into law, which aimed to block the authorization of network licenses from several Chinese companies whose hardware has been deemed a national security threat. Today, the FCC announced that it's officially implementing that ruling, which means some future equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua won't be authorized for sale in the US. Existing equipment from those companies, which are all listed under the FCC's "Covered List," aren't affected by the law.“The FCC is committed to protecting our national security by ensuring that untrustworthy communications equipment is not authorized for use within our borders, and we are continuing that work here,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “These new rules are an important part of our ongoing actions to protect the American people from national security threats involving telecommunications.”To be clear, the FCC isn't completely blocking all hardware from these companies. And for some, like Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua, Rosenworcel writes that it's specifically focusing on gear related to "the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes." If those companies can show that they're not marketing that equipment for government use — for example, directing it consumers instead — they may be able get authorized by the FCC.This latest move follows years of conflict between the US and companies closely tied to Chinese governments. That's included placing several notable Chinese companies, including DJI, on the Department of Commerce's "Entity List," which prohibits US firms from selling equipment to them. The FCC is also calling for $5 billion to help US carriers with the massive task of replacing equipment from Huawei and ZTE.