Fox News spent the better part of 2021 telling its viewers blatant lies about the covid-19 pandemic. The network has claimed covid-19 vaccines are dangerous, that masks don’t help slow the spread of the virus, and that immigrants are worsening the pandemic in the U.S. Tucker Carlson, the most popular host on Fox News,…
Source: Gizmodo – Fox News’ Worst Lies About Covid-19 From 2021
Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)
Tesla is recalling over 475,000 of its vehicles because of a pair of safety issues. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 356,309 Tesla Model 3s covering model years 2017-2020 are being recalled due to problems with the rearview cameras. The 2017-2020 Model S is the other target with 119,009 of those BEVs due to a problem with the front hood latch.
For the Model 3, the NHTSA says that the problem comes from a cable harness for the rearview camera, which “may be damaged by the opening and closing of the trunk lid, preventing the rearview camera image from displaying.”
On the Model S, problems with the latch for the front hood may cause the “frunk” to open while the vehicle is in motion and without warning, which would obstruct the driver’s visibility, increasing the risk of a crash.”
Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Tesla is recalling over 475,000 Model 3 and Model S vehicles
Don’t worry if you didn’t get (or give) the latest iPad this holiday season — you can still score one at a discount. Amazon is once again selling the 64GB standard iPad for $299, or $30 off its usual price. You can also buy the 256GB version at an all-time low price of $449. You may have to wait a while when the 64GB model isn’t due to ship until mid-February, but it could be worthwhile if you’re not in a rush to grab Apple’s most affordable tablet.
The 2021 iPad is another modest update to a core design that hasn’t changed for years, but those changes could make all the difference in some cases. The wide-angle front camera is much better-suited to video calls. The A13 Bionic chip is still very fast for this class of tablet, and the 10-plus hours of battery life is more than enough for typical tablet uses. There’s even a headphone jack — imagine that.
This isn’t the iPad for you if you insist on Apple’s latest technology: you won’t find USB-C, thin bezels or second-gen Pencil support. You’ll want an iPad Air (or mini, or Pro) for that. If all you want is a big screen for games, reading and TV marathons, though, this base iPad is an easy choice at a price like this.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Source: Engadget – Apple’s 2021 iPad is back to 9 at Amazon
Speaking of “play-to-earn” games, Paul Butler, writing in a blog post: In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo. The book cites ample anecdotal evidence that people perceive their own jobs as completely disconnected from any sort of value creation, and makes the case that the ruling class stands to lose from the proletariat having extra free time on their hands. It’s a thoughtfully presented case, but when I read the book a few years back, I was skeptical that any mechanism to create bullshit jobs could arise from a system as inherently Darwinian as capitalism.
I’ve recently been exploring the themes around web3 to see if there’s a “there” there, and Graeber’s book has been on my mind again. One of the most apparently successful examples of web3 that people point to, aside from art NFTs, is so-called play-to-earn games. The most successful of these is Axie Infinity, a trade-and-battle game reminiscent of Pokemon. In a crypto economy crowded with vapourware and alpha-stage software, Axie Infinity stands out. Not only has it amassed a large base of users, the in-game economy has actually provided a real-world income stream to working-class Filipinos impacted by the pandemic. Some spend hours each day playing the game, and then sell the in-game currency they earn to pay their real-world bills. That’s obviously a good thing for them, but it also appears to be a near-Platonic example of Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job.
[…] In contrast to other games in which in-game economies have developed, Axie Infinity puts players’ opportunity to make an income and transfer it to the real world at the forefront. As they put it in their FAQ, what sets Axie Infinity apart is an ethos: “We believe in a future where work and play become one. We believe in empowering our players and giving them economic opportunities.” These “economic opportunities” are essentially a wealth transfer from new players to established ones. Gameplay requires the purchase of three Axies, which currently cost in the hundreds of US dollars each. […] By blurring the line between “player” and “worker,” the game has effectively built a Ponzi scheme with built-in deniability. Sure, some users will be net gainers and other users will be net losers, but who am I to say the net losers aren’t in it for the joy of the game? The same could be said about online poker or sports betting, to be sure, but we would rightfully recoil if those were positioned as a way to lift people out of poverty.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – ‘Play-to-Earn’ and Bullshit Jobs
Files are an essential part of working with computers, thus using Python to write to and read from a file are basic skills that you need to master. In this comprehensive article, you’ll learn how to open a file in Python, read a file with Python (both at once or line-by-line), write to a file, and lots more, like moving files, deleting files, copying files, and so on. This tutorial has interactive example code that you can run right from your browser.
Source: LXer – How To Open, Read, And Write Files with Python
Enlarge (credit: Jason Persoff / Getty Images)
Recently, a network of climate modeling groups showed that it will cost more to overshoot the Paris Agreement temperature goals than it will to stay on a low-temperature trajectory. On the same day, that collaboration also published work showing that additional risks of overshooting come in part via ensuing increases in extreme weather.These studies are two of four published this year; together they provide the most comprehensive projections of the requirements and implications of the path we take to reach our end-of-century temperature targets.
The article focused on the economic aspects of meeting the Paris temperature targets—specifically how much mitigation actions will cost and the impact on the global GDP—wasn’t designed to project environmental impacts. In fact, most economic models don’t include this level of complexity and, as a result, they underestimate the overall costs. But this additional analysis projects not only how much extreme weather will increase, but also how that will effect crop yields around the world.
“The decarbonization scenarios reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the last assessment reports do not account for the climate impacts’ feedback. The main reason is that [there are] many uncertainties surround the geophysical and economic impacts of climate change, making their integration difficult in the design of decarbonization pathways,” wrote first author Dr. Laurent Drouet in an email to Ars Technical. Drouet is a researcher at the RFF-CMCC European Institute of Economics and the Environment, in Milan, Italy. “But, now, [our] research focuses on improving the representation of these impacts and producing results that are easier to integrate into mitigation models.”
Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Extreme weather could be as expensive as investing in cutting carbon ASAP
Einstein famously established the relativity of time. But even his elegant theory and the refinements that have followed perhaps fail to capture time’s true elasticity. There is no truer test of what we are tentatively calling the Unified Theory of Relativity than 2021, a year where moments stretched and collapsed…
Source: Gizmodo – What the Hell Just Happened?
We already shared a clip from “Redoubt”—the upcoming fourth episode of The Expanse’s sixth and final season—revealing how Amos (Wes Chatham) reacted to finding out the truth about a certain very big moment in episode three. Now it’s time for Naomi (Dominique Tipper) to hear what happened directly from the guy…
Source: Gizmodo – The Expanse’s Power Couple Faces New Conflict in This Exclusive Clip
You can start a new fitness habit right now, if you want. You can come back to your favorite activities after years away. You can even turn your living room into a gym if you want to work out without leaving the house. And here, with some of our favorite fitness posts from 2021, we’re going to help you do that.
Source: LifeHacker – Our 13 Most Motivating Fitness Posts of 2021
A deal that has been over a year in the making between Intel and SK Hynix has been consummated, at least for the initial portion. That being the first closing of the sale of Intel’s NAND flash memory and solid state drive (SSD) business to SK Hynix for $7 billion, the companies announced. The deal was first announced in October 2020.
As
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Sells SSD Business And Dalian Fab To SK Hynix, Here’s What Will Happen Next
Xiaomi’s looking to put a big smile on shutterbugs’ faces with a new, monstrous smartphone camera. On Wednesday, the Chinese company announced the Xiaomi 12 Pro, the first product to use Sony’s massive 1/1.28-inch IMX707 sensor.
For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has a 1/1.33-inch type sensor for its wide rear camera and a 1/2.55-inch sensor for its ultrawide rear camera.
The 12 Pro’s IMX707 sensor is a refresh of Sony’s IMX700, according to Gizmochina, and uses 1.22 μm 4-in-1 pixels. A bigger camera sensor combined with the lens aperture can bring in more light, allowing for less blur and artifacts. Overall, the 12 Pro’s large camera “improves light capturing capabilities by 49 percent compared to the previous generation,” Xiaomi’s announcement claimed. According to The Verge, the phone’s main camera lens has an f/1.9 aperture.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Say cheese for the Xiaomi 12 Pro smartphone’s monstrous camera
South Korea’s government wants Google and Apple to block new and existing play-to-earn (P2E) games, saying such games should not receive an age rating to get listed on their respective app stores. From a report: The country’s Game Management Committee in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism said in an official letter called its request “reasonable” as money gained from P2E games could be considered prizes. In Korea, prizes from gaming are allowed to be only around US$8.5 at a time. The ministry’s move comes after game developer SkyPeople’s P2E title, Five Stars for Klaytn, was blocked from getting a rating it required to get listed in April this year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – South Korea Pushes Google, Apple To Pull Play-to-Earn Games From App Stores
Guillermo Del Toro draws parallels between Nightmare Alley and his new take on Pinocchio. Moon Knight could have bagged a very interesting director for an episode. Todd Helbing teases the villains to come in Superman & Lois’ second season. Plus, more looks at Cobra Kai’s return. Spoilers now!
Source: Gizmodo – Updates From The Walking Dead, Friday the 13th, and More
Though this year is by no means one to celebrate, there were still some bright spots in the world of tech. It’s with plenty of loathing that we admit this: NFTs somehow won this year. They’ve taken over. Reddit’s day traders also deserve recognition for the way they’ve managed to manifest GameStop’s slogan, “Power to the players.”
Also (and this might be the most painful to acknowledge), the Metaverse (sorta) took off this year. At least in terms of our lexicon, with mentions of the word skyrocketing since Mark Zuckerberg uttered it while announcing plan for a richer VR and AR-focused world. Maybe people were confused between “metaverse” and “multiverse” as in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness?
Besides the things we love to hate, there are some products this year we genuinely liked as well. Apple continued to impress with its M1 chips and, more importantly, gave users a way to repair their own devices (kinda). Google’s first-ever mobile chip powered clever experiences on the latest Pixel phones and showcased the company’s AI and software prowess at a competitive price. As we continue to be bombarded by depressing news every day, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on the wins this year, no matter how tiny.
2021 has not been a quiet year, so NFTs deserve something approaching praise for securing a spot in the highlights reel. NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are an attempt to create an immutable digital asset in an environment where such a thing has historically been tricky. For the industry’s proponents, it’s a way of imposing some form of scarcity on digital artifacts that you can’t easily make scarce. Anyone can right-click and save a picture of a monkey wearing sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt after all. But only the person who paid a lot of money for the NFT can go around calling themselves the “owner” of the same. As Nietzche didn’t say, NFTs are the lie agreed upon, suggesting that people respect the owner of the certificated copy of something over everything else.
So far, the biggest and most notable moves in the NFT space have happened in the art market, with pieces being bought and sold for eye-watering numbers. On March 11th, digital artist Beeple sold Everydays: The First 5,000 Days at Christie’s auction house for $69,346,250. Those hefty sums are, in some people’s minds, justified because they believe that NFTs will become the new crypto, with everyone trying to get aboard the bandwagon before it goes big. After all, there are lots of folks who got rich during the Bitcoin boom that want to further enhance their fortunes, while some who were left behind now hope to get in on the ground floor on the next big thing. Others, meanwhile, think that the big craze in NFTs right now is to help folks move large quantities of money around away from the auspices of, you know, regulators.
The NFT market is so awash with speculator cash that it’s normal to have… questions. A recent Harvard Business Review article talks about how commerce can’t work without “clear property rights,” which NFTs help to impose. There’s also the matter of whether NFTs could better enable more reliable and secure ticketing and permission systems? I’ll be honest, I’m personally unconvinced by the argument that NFTs offer rights of ownership, since they don’t necessarily confer upon the buyer the proper rights of ownership.
These issues are, however, going to be worked out over the next few years, and it will only be when the speculation has died down that we’ll see if NFTs have any residual worth. And, hey, not every deeply-technical cryptographic ownership record gets their own SNL sketch shortly after they broke into the mainstream, do they.
— Daniel Cooper
Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invent the term, but by rebadging Facebook as “Meta,” he helped kick off a wave of interest in the metaverse. While it was originally a dystopian view of cyberspace via Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the metaverse now represents the next big online goldrush. You can think of it as the logical step forward from the mobile internet, a world where our online experiences can easily transition between multiple devices. And eventually, it could be something we interact with via AR and VR glasses.
To be clear, we still don’t have an exact idea of what the metaverse will be. The Meta renaming could easily be seen as a way for Zuckerberg to avoid his responsibilities as the leader of a fundamentally broken social media company. But other companies have been exploring this idea for years: Microsoft’s HoloLens has proven to be surprisingly useful for commercial and front-line workers, and it’s also core to Mesh, the company’s ambitious solution for virtual meetings. The Borg-like Google Glass was widely ridiculed, but its failure hasn’t stopped Google from thinking about its role in the metaverse, either.
Maybe it’ll take a killer new device, like Apple’s fabled AR glasses, to bring the metaverse into focus. Or maybe it’ll go the way of wearables — a category of devices that’s useful for some people, but not necessarily essential for everyone. Either way, it’s something that will forever be tied to 2021.
— Devindra Hardawar
As the pandemic kept many of us indoors and out of gyms, companies like Peloton, Apple, Tonal and even Amazon were able to pull us into new fitness habits and equipment.
Meanwhile, major fitness studios and gyms like Equinox, Soulcycle, OrangeTheory and F45 have modulated (while some created from scratch) their online services. Many companies expanded replayable class options or added live lessons, leaderboards and more in a bid to keep members fit – and keep those membership dues coming in.
COVID-19 offered a chance to shift our workout habits and reduce gym costs. Why pay $50 for a high-intensity interval training gym membership when I can track myself in Apple’s Fitness Plus classes, SharePlay with my friends and jump in my own shower, all for just $10 a month?
Of course, the comparison isn’t oranges for oranges, and despite cheerleading Peloton trainers and form corrections from gym coaches over video livestreams, it’s very hard to get the degree of attention gained from in-person training. That’s likely one reason why at-home exercise injuries have never been higher. The Wall Street Journal reported that emergency room visits after home workouts increased by more than 48% from the end of 2019 through the end of 2020, according to a survey by Medicare Advantage.
However, just like traditional gyms did when the pandemic first hit, these businesses have to figure out how to hold onto their customers.
Tonal is a ‘Peloton for weight training’ product that Engadget tested back in 2018. When our usual bench-press machines and squat racks were locked inside gyms over the last year and a half, Tonal saw demand for its resistance-training system rocket. Sales grew more than eight times year-over-year. In a bid to hold onto these new customers, the company recently introduced live classes for Tonal owners, with direct feedback from coaches and classes reportedly calibrated for each user.
Meanwhile, Peloton, arguably the most recognizable at-home fitness company, faces more competition from (and litigation with) rivals and a tougher business outlook. After a rough earnings report in November, the company said it didn’t expect to be profitable again until 2023. Worse, its Bike was involved in the death of an important character in the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That. But the company has plans (and cheeky responses). It’s integrated into many corporate fitness plans, launched its first exercise game, announced a fitness camera for strength training and finally — added a pause button.
The challenge will be keeping many of us from returning to our old gyms, cycling commutes, or our old, less healthy habits when things eventually return to normal.
— Mat Smith
Apple continued to impress the industry with its M1 Pro and M1 Max chips this year, putting them in new MacBooks that garnered rave reviews. And though the iPhone 13 Pro is just catching up to Android phones with its 120Hz screen, it’s an undeniably good device with solid cameras and excellent performance. The Apple Watch Series 7 isn’t much different from its predecessor, barring its larger display, but it’s still the best smartwatch around. Plus, Apple TV+ gained much more credibility in 2021 with the giant pile of awards its original series Ted Lasso brought home.
But the biggest thing that Apple did this year was to start selling DIY iPhone and Mac repair kits to consumers. After it was discovered Face ID on an iPhone 13 would stop working if a third party replaced its screen, the company first issued a software fix for this specific issue and announced the repair kits shortly after. The move was hailed by activists as a victory for the right-to-repair movement, given the company’s history of making it obnoxiously difficult for you to get your Apple products fixed by anyone else.
Of course, Apple could still do better — activists say the company’s plans could be more comprehensive, for example. But this is a major reversal of policy that shows the company is opening up, ever so slightly. Last year, it allowed users to set third-party browsers and email apps as their default on iPhones and iPads. This year, it introduced FaceTime on the web as a means to allow PC and Android users to join calls that they had previously been excluded from. The company may never fully embrace integrating different ecosystems into its walled garden, but it seems they’re at least listening to what people want and taking small steps towards giving users what they deserve.
— Cherlynn Low
At the start of 2021, Gamestop’s share price was $17.25. As of this writing, it’s $136.88. This year has been so long that it’s easy to forget many things that happened in January, including the Reddit-driven short squeeze that pushed Gamestop’s stock price to as high as $500 at its peak. Despite subsequent criticism, calls for better regulation, a congressional hearing on what happened and multiple class-action lawsuits having been filed against parties like brokering app Robinhood, here we are 12 months later with the company’s stock still higher than it’s ever been before 2021.
Of course, a company’s share price isn’t a true indicator of its overall performance and health. But this is a far cry from 2019 when GameStop was posting tens of millions in losses and planning to shutter up to 200 stores. In 2020, its main challenges were around trying to keep its outlets open in the face of stay-home mandates and making sure it had enough consoles to sell.
This year, in possibly the most 2021 combination of words ever, GameStop announced it’s working on an NFT platform based on Ethereum. It also signed a lease for a new 530,000 square-foot fulfilment center in Nevada and opened a new customer care center in Florida. It made $1.18 billion in the second quarter compared to $942 million in the same period in 2020. That could partly be due to the fact that Sony and Microsoft launched their consoles after the second quarter in 2020. Basically, 2021 has been a great year for GameStop, and not just for its business.
Discovery+ is even working on a documentary (narrated by “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort) on the entire fiasco titled GameStop:The Wall Street Hijack. Nine other films based on these events are reportedly in the works, according to Vulture. Gamestop wasn’t the only company that Reddit’s day traders flocked to in their nostalgia-driven frenzy, either. Companies like BlackBerry and AMC also saw their share prices surge, with the latter’s stock jumping 480 percent at its peak. GameStop’s slogan uncannily sums up the situation: “Power to the players.”
— C.L.
If you had told me in January that Microsoft had its Windows 10 successor primed and ready for release by the end of the year, I would have laughed in your face. But Windows 11 is actually here, and it’s a pretty solid step forward aesthetically (despite some clunky usability issues). I’d bet even Microsoft was surprised it managed to make that happen.
Windows 11 rose from the ashes of Windows 10X, an OS variant that was originally supposed to focus on dual-screen devices, but was eventually canceled in May. That would explain why Windows 11 feels more like a fresh coat of paint on its predecessor. But despite that inauspicious start, it’s still a worthwhile update: there’s more of an emphasis on security, and the facelift brings some Mac-like pleasantries into the typically stark world of Windows.
It’s not a complete success — upgrading is an annoying process if you’ve got a self-built PC, and very old computers won’t be able to upgrade at all (at least, not without going through a manual ISO installation). But at the very least, Microsoft managed to keep most of what made Windows 10 such a successful operating system, while also delivering a more mindful experience for PC users.
— D. H.
The Pixel 6 Pro is my favorite Pixel yet. Yes, I wish Google offered a smaller handset in its latest flagship series, but that complaint aside, there’s plenty to love. The company’s first-ever mobile chip Tensor powers the phone’s impressive AI features like live translation in messages and captions, as well as smarter voice typing features.
Most of all, I adore the Pixel 6 Pro’s cameras. If I’m headed out somewhere that I have the slightest sense might warrant some sort of picture-taking, I make sure to bring the 6 Pro with me. Its portrait mode, which I abuse for my food photos, is superior to every other phone I’ve used, and frankly, I’m partial to Google’s colors and clarity.
Plus, bonus features like Magic Eraser, Face Unblur and Action Pan give me the option to add fun effects or clean up my shots. Everyone I’ve taken pictures of has been impressed by the quality. Of course, the Pixel 6 is not without its flaws. Setting aside my complaint about its size, the Pixel 6 Pro also has a finicky in-screen fingerprint sensor. Google has also had to issue several fixes in recent weeks to address bugs that themselves were caused by over the air updates. Still, as a showcase for Google’s strengths in software and AI, the Pixel 6 Pro fully delivers. Best of all, it does so for hundreds of dollars less than rival flagships.
— C.L.
In an admittedly niche industry, Samsung has pulled far ahead. Sure, it was one of the first to try its hand at foldables, but it’s also arguably the last one standing. The foldable phone race really kicked off when relative unknown Royole showed off the first working prototype at CES 2019. Soon after, Huawei and Samsung announced their own devices. The original Mate X and Galaxy Fold made the rounds at various press events after, but only Samsung eventually sold its first-gen foldable to the general public (outside of China, anyway).
Motorola jumped on the trend, capitalizing on the sheer nostalgia value of its Razr Flip phone. Alas, all these initial attempts were doomed to fail. Foldables, it turns out, with their soft, vulnerable displays and damage-prone hinges, are hard to nail. Worse, the Razr Flip’s screen just felt weird and flimsy, and its hinge would make a cracking sound when you open or close the phone.
After a slew of reports of broken review units, Samsung returned with updated iterations of the Fold. It also released the Flip series, a smaller, Razr-like version that received its share of early complaints. Yet, today, Samsung not only continues to produce these foldables, but at cheaper prices, too. The Z series is now in its third generation, and Samsung said it shipped four times more foldables in 2021 than in 2020. While Huawei also unveiled a third version this year, its foldables haven’t been available in most places outside of China. We’ve also yet to see a new version of the Razr this year, although Motorola did roll out a 5G-capable update in 2020 that we never got to test. Companies like Oppo and Xiaomi have also unveiled their own foldables recently, but they’re relatively new to the game.
By bringing the price of the Z Flip 3 down to a more competitive $999 while continuing to improve the durability and usefulness of its products, Samsung has shown it may be the only company with the resources and expertise to continue to deliver foldable phones, even if they may never gain mainstream popularity.
— C.L.
Source: Engadget – Here are the winners in tech for 2021
The Discord platform does nearly everything you might need to communicate with friends, family and coworkers, including voice calls, instant messaging, chatrooms, and media sharing. So it’s no surprise that the service has exploded in popularity. But most new users don’t realize that Discord bots can make the platform…
Source: Gizmodo – How to Make a Discord Bot
Tesla’s recall-filled 2021 isn’t over quite yet. Bloombergreports Tesla has issued recalls for just over 475,000 vehicles to fix defects in camera systems and trunks. To start, the automaker has recalled all Model 3 cars in the 2017 to 2020 model years over a concern repeated use of the trunk may wear down a coaxial cable for the rearview camera — too much use and you may lose the signal entirely.
The other recall covers 119,009 Model S sedans in the 2014 to 2021 model years. A factory misalignment of the front trunk (aka frunk) latch assembly can prevent a secondary latch from working properly, increasing the chances the trunk will pop open mid-drive.
The Model 3 flaw doesn’t exist in 2021 and newer production runs, while Model S drivers are safe if their EVs were built after December 23rd, 2020. You’ll have to visit Tesla to get a fix, but the company will compensate anyone who paid for relevant repairs before the recalls took effect.
None of the defects led to crashes or injuries, Tesla said. However, the recalls cap a series of issues that include an NHTSA investigation over Autopilot safety, recalls for components like touchscreens, and complaints about build quality problems like panel gaps. Simply speaking, the company developed more of a reputation for less-than-stellar reliability in 2021, and it’s not clear when that situation might improve.
Source: Engadget – Tesla recalls nearly half a million cars over camera and trunk defects
Amazon’s leading position in U.S. e-commerce is well-documented, but the latest global rankings for app installs show the potential for newer brands to upend the online shopping juggernaut. From a report: The tech giant ranked fourth globally in shopping app installations for 2021, according to new data from Apptopia. Amazon topped the worldwide ranking last year, as measured by the real-time competitive intelligence platform. Three e-commerce companies leapfrogged Amazon in the global rankings: Shopee, based in Singapore, which serves Southeast Asia and Latin America; Shein, based in China, a leader in “fast fashion;” and Meesho, based in India, which specializes in social e-commerce for categories including fashion and home products. Amazon is still first in Apptopia’s U.S. rankings for shopping app installs in 2021. Responding to regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere, Amazon executives have repeatedly made the case that the company’s small share of the global retail market, including online and offline sales, falls short of the market power that would warrant aggressive antitrust action. However, as of a few months ago, Amazon was expected to account for more than 40% of U.S. e-commerce sales in 2021, according to eMarketer.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Amazon Slips To 4th in Global Shopping App Installs Amid Rise of International Brands
Gather around kiddies for a tale of the bad old days. You see, once upon a time, PC gaming wasn’t as unified as it is now. Graphics card vendors (and even individual graphics cards) had their own proprietary APIs, and sometimes games shipped as special versions for a given graphics card, complete with custom assets and wildly varying visual
Source: Hot Hardware – Modder Pairs 3dfx And PowerVR Chips On One Board For The Ultimate Retro Graphics Card
How many New Year’s resolutions have you made over the course of your life? And how many have you kept? We all know that most grand resolutions, unless accompanied by deep commitment and accountability, stay where they began: in our heads. I don’t know about you, but after two years navigating work, family life, and…
Source: LifeHacker – Why You Should ‘Resolve’ to Only Make Tiny Self-Care Changes This Year
Its ease of use, end-to-end encryption, and cross-platform support have helped WhatsApp rack up a ton of users, and if you use it on the web, there are a growing number of browser extensions you can install to help you get more out of the platform. All of these add-ons are compatible with both Google Chrome and…
Source: Gizmodo – The Best WhatsApp Extensions You Should Be Using
