Новости за 06.01.2021

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has pledged to spend more than $2 billion over the next five years to build tens of thousands of affordable housing units in three of the e-commerce giant’s major employment hubs, underscoring the ongoing housing crises affecting parts of the US where large, high-paying tech employers reside. Amazon’s pledge, announced on Wednesday, follows similar commitments from Apple, Facebook, and Google, all of which previously promised between $1 billion... Читать дальше...

With 2020 consumed almost entirely by the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of US residents turned to video games to fill the time. According to Nielsen company SuperData’s 2020 year in review, 55 percent of people picked up video games — out of boredom, to escape the real world, to socialize — during the first phase of lockdowns.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook has been ordered to pay €3.83 million (around $4.72 million) in damages to an Italian developer over the social network’s “Nearby” feature. Reuters reports that the Milan-based appeals court upheld a 2019 ruling saying Facebook had copied the feature from developer Business Competence’s Faround app.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is finally starting to roll out history and tab sync for its Edge browser. After nearly a year since its initial release, some Microsoft Edge users now see the full web history and tab sync features available in their browsers. The roll out is gradual, but you can check to see if it’s available in your country by navigating to settings > profiles > sync and enabling “history” and “open tabs” in the options.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is developing a new Alexa-powered device that can track and monitor for signs of sleep apnea using radar, according to a new report from Business Insider. The palm-sized device is reportedly designed to sit on a bedside table and use millimeter-wave radar to sense your breathing, keeping an eye out for interruptions associated with the apnea sleeping disorder.

The charging stand can also store its accessories. | Image: LG

LG’s new vacuum cleaner, the ridiculously named LG CordZeroThinQ A9 Kompressor Plus, should be a little easier to empty than most cordless vacuums. Its charging station is equipped with a “fully-automated dust removal system,” which sucks the contents of the vac’s dustbin into a dust bag as the device charges.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The Nest Cam IQ Outdoor is no longer available to buy, Google has confirmed to 9to5Google, after the site noticed that the camera was out of stock in most countries around the world. The company says, however, that “Nest will keep investing in new innovations” including a “new lineup of security cameras for 2021.”

Photo by: Cristiano Minichiello/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Gabe Teninbaum, a professor at Suffolk University Law School, is calling on ExamSoft to fix a serious bug with its test-taking software: failure to recognize faces. It’s a problem that can delay test takers — or bar them from starting their exams altogether — and per reports, it disproportionately impacts people with dark skin tones.

The Apple Watch’s ability to act as a camera remote for your phone got a mention in its announcement keynote, so it’s been around a while, but I’ve only ever used it once or twice to take group pictures. Twitter user @PeterSciretta, however, has pointed out that you can also use it as a vlogging aid.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Trump has signed a new executive order prohibiting transactions with the companies behind eight Chinese apps, including Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s QQ and WeChat Pay. Transactions will be prohibited in 45 days. Reuters was the first to report the news.

A photo from the CIA’s Corona spy satellite program. | National Reconnaissance Office

US spy satellites inadvertently collected vital environmental data at the height of the Cold War. This trove of photos and data from the Central Intelligence Agency has become crucial to the study of Earth’s environmental changes, as detailed in two fascinating stories in The New York Times this week. One story details the life of a scientist who analyzed them for years, another follows the history of the spy satellites that provided them. Читать дальше...

Apple’s MagSafe charging system offers a whole new way to charge iPhones, and third-party companies like Anker are jumping at the chance to make their own magnetic chargers — both official ones that work with Apple’s system and unofficial ones that just take advantage of the magnetic setup.