Новости за 15.02.2022

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Search chips, a feature that’s supposed to make it easier to search for files in Google Drive, is becoming available to all Workspace users, including G Suite Basic and Business users. It was first released as a beta in November and should let you narrow down your search results by location, file type, date modified, people, tasks, and shared label.

The feature is still in beta but will be available to many more people. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is significantly expanding the beta of its Safety Mode feature, the company announced Tuesday. Safety Mode, which initially rolled out in September, lets you temporarily autoblock accounts that send you harmful or abusive tweets.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Today, Nvidia’s Shield TV got some software fixes with the rollout of Shield Experience Upgrade 9.0.1 (via 9to5Google), a much-needed patch to last month’s buggy 9.0 release based on Android 11. Nvidia posted release notes on its forum today that detail some more fixes and details in another post some known issues that still lurk in the update.

Photo courtesy Stewart Volland for Blizzard Entertainment.

In light of Activision Blizzard’s pending acquisition by Microsoft, flagging interest, sponsorship troubles, a global pandemic, uncertainty regarding Overwatch 2, and talent layoffs and departures, the Overwatch League has had a giant question mark hanging over its head. Today, in a community update, the League confirmed its fifth season is indeed happening, with an opening day set for May 5th.

The Polaris Dawn crew (from L to R): Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman, and Sarah Gillis | Image: Polaris Program/John Kraus

Yesterday, billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman announced his plans to fly to space again on another SpaceX mission. His next flight, targeting the end of the year, will take him even deeper in space than his last flight with the company. It will also be the first in a series of three human spaceflight missions he’s funding with SpaceX, called the Polaris Program. Читать дальше...

Anyone who watched WandaVision could tell you how Wanda Maximoff became the villain of her own story, but in the latest trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the newly diademed Scarlet Witch steps back into the spotlight with a bit of a bone to pick about how her reputation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been shifting as of late.

Disney’s getting serious about the metaverse. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney is appointing an executive to head up its metaverse plans, according to a memo CEO Bob Chapek sent to employees (via Reuters and CNBC). Mike White, who previously held the title of SVP of consumer experiences and platforms, will now be SVP of next generation storytelling and consumer experiences.

Image: Creative Electron via iFixit

Valve’s $400-and-up Steam Deck handheld is less than two weeks away from launch, but you can already see its guts spread across a table in no fewer than four teardown videos, including a new one published today by our friends at iFixit. What’s more, Valve has announced today that it’s making good on its promise to sell replacement parts for the Steam Deck so you can repair it yourself, and it has made iFixit the first authorized seller of parts for both... Читать дальше...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Discord has recovered from a brief outage, after many users experienced connectivity issues. “We’re looking into issues with people sending messages, logging in, streaming videos, etc.,” reads a Discord status message, before the service was back online 30 minutes later.

The owl is cute, though. | Illustration by Alex Castro/The Verge

Last year, I decided to start learning Korean. It was entirely on a whim — I don’t live in Korea and have no reason I’d ever need to go there. Nonetheless, it’s been an incredibly rewarding experience, and I’ve gotten to a point where I can speak, read, and write comfortably much faster than I ever thought I could.

Image: NASA

On Monday, NASA released the first science images from its new Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE. A look at the Cassiopeia A supernova — the bright remnants of a star that exploded in space in the 17th century — the image provides a first glimpse of what the space agency’s new X-ray mission will teach us about some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, like supernova explosions and cosmic collisions.

A monkey in Neuralink’s in-house facility. | Neuralink

Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has denied claims that university researchers abused monkeys in experiments backed by the brain-computer interface startup. In a statement posted online, Neuralink responded to a federal complaint from the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which alleged that Neuralink and its partners at the University of California, Davis conducted inhumane tests on animals.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The San Francisco Police Department includes DNA collected from rape kits in the database it uses to identify crime suspects, District Attorney Chesa Boudin said on Monday. The practice likely is illegal under the California Constitution, Boudin told The Washington Post.

Illustration by Danica Novgorodoff / The Verge

Workers at a Tesla supplier say they can’t get enough food or water on the job

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Tackling tech’s diversity problem with Bärí Williams

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity gliding to a runway | Image: Virgin Galactic

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic announced its plans to open up ticket sales to the general public on Wednesday, February 15th, giving people an opportunity to buy a ride on the venture’s spaceplane that takes customers to the edge of space and back.

Microsoft Teams is getting new 3D emoji today. The software giant has started refreshing its more than 1,800 emoji in Microsoft Teams with new Fluent design ones. The 3D emoji design is available in preview today in Teams, and it’s the same as Microsoft announced last year for both Windows and Teams.

Intel has announced that it’s buying Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli chipmaking company that focuses on specialty products like radio frequency (RF) chips, CMOS image sensors, and power management parts, for $5.4 billion.

Image by Audio-Technica

Audio-Technica’s new pair of wireless earbuds (ATH-CKS50TW) cost $200 and stand out by claiming to have impressive battery life, offering up to 20 hours of audio playback and 15 hours when using the buds’ active noise cancellation feature. With the charging case, Audio-Technica says battery life can reach up to 50 hours.

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Wordle’s acquisition by The New York Times has already stirred up controversy, from broken streaks to accusations the game has become harder. But here’s a big change the NYT isn’t shouting about: it’s altered Wordle’s solutions. As of today, February 15th (game number 241), the New York Times version of Wordle and the original version hosted at powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle have diverged and will now continue forever out of step. Читать дальше...

Lego is teaming up with Guerrilla Games on a Horizon Forbidden West set, which transforms the overgrown wildernesses and robotic dinosaurs of the games into a new, Lego form.

Epic Games is bringing gyro-based motion controls for Fortnite to the PS4, PS5, and PC today. Gyro controls have existed on the Nintendo Switch and Android previously, and this new expansion to PlayStation and PC includes more robust gyro controls and a new flick stick option.

The neckband looks a lot like a plastic lanyard. | Image: Motorola

Motorola has a new wearable 5G neckband that is designed to power lightweight VR and AR headsets (collectively known as XR headsets) such as parent company Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 smart glasses, the company announced today. The neckband looks a lot like a large plastic lanyard, and is equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, a 5,000mAh battery, a touchpad, SIM card slot, speakers, and a range of sensors including a gyroscope and accelerometer, Engadget reports. Читать дальше...

OM Digital Solutions, the new company formed after Olympus sold off its camera business to a Japanese investment fund, has announced its first camera. The OM System OM-1 is a flagship Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera that serves as a successor to previous high-end Olympus models like the O-MD E-M1 Mark III.

Japanese industry titans are teaming up for a new cinematic universe based on iconic properties. Toho, Toei, Khara, and Tsuburaya Productions have announced the upcoming launch of the Shin Japan Heroes Universe, which will include representation from the Godzilla, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Evangelion franchises.