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Volvo says it will only sell electric cars by 2030

Swedish automaker Volvo says it will only sell electric cars by 2030, phasing out all diesel, petrol, and hybrid options in an effort to reduce global carbon emissions. The company previously aimed for half of its cars sales to be electric by 2025, but says the new strategy is an “acceleration” of this goal driven… Read more

Clue gets FDA clearance for digital birth control

Clue, best known for its period tracking app, announced that it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for a digital birth control function, which it says can help users prevent pregnancy based only on the start date of a user’s period. It calculates the window where someone could get pregnant based on statistical… Read more

All-in-One Device Combines Condenser Mic, Webcam, Ring Light

Home News (Image credit: Movo) Having all your telecommuting equipment in one dedicated device is an enticing promise, which is probably why ring-light equipped webcams like the Razer Kiyo exist. But as someone who still attends work meetings with a headset, even the best webcams still leave me wanting a separate microphone. That leaves demand… Read more

How Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine could narrow equity gaps

All three COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States will help save lives and reduce hospitalizations. But the newly authorized Johnson & Johnson shot has some key advantages that experts say could help make the vaccination campaign more equitable. Unlike the first two vaccines, produced by Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech, the Johnson & Johnson… Read more

Go read this report about how selling safe masks online is surprisingly hard

A new report from The New York Times’ Andrew Jacobs digs into how mask policies on tech platforms that have allowed novelty masks like scrunchie masks to flourish while some mask-makers making high-filtration masks have had trouble selling their wares. Even if you’re vaccinated, wearing a mask is still recommended. It seems like a problem,… Read more

The next Dragon Age will reportedly be single-player only amid other shifts at EA

The next Dragon Age game will no longer have multiplayer aspects, according to a new Bloomberg report. The game, made by EA-owned studio BioWare, had reportedly “been designed with a heavy multiplayer component,” but it has been turned into a single-player game “in recent months.” However, we still haven’t seen much of the game since… Read more

Oxford lab studying the coronavirus was victim of a cyberattack

Oxford University disclosed on Thursday that one of its research labs dedicated in part to studying COVID-19 suffered a cyberattack, following an investigation from Forbes indicating external access to a number of the lab’s systems. The lab is part of Oxford’s Division of Structural Biology, known as “Strubi.” There’s no indication the lab or its… Read more

DS Audio is sharing its optical phono cartridge secrets for free

Home News (Image credit: DS Audio) DS Audio has decided to share its niche expertise in optical phono cartridge technology with the world for free. Why? The Japanese company has pioneered what has largely been an eight-year solo effort in implementing optical tech in its development of phono cartridges. Now, it wants others to join… Read more

The House’s three big ideas to take on tech power

Last year, House Judiciary Committee lawmakers topped off a yearslong investigation into anti-competitive behavior in the tech industry by bringing in some of the most powerful chief executives in the market. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai headlined one of the biggest must-watch hearings… Read more

Amazon’s head of Fire TV and Luna cloud gaming has left for Unity

Amazon’s head of Fire TV, Kindle, and its new Luna cloud gaming service departed the company this month. Marc Whitten has joined Unity as an executive on the company’s Unity Create business. Unity is a cross-platform game engine that many developers use to get their games running across multiple devices. Whitten’s departure, spotted by Matthew… Read more

Apple Music will never get a free tier, Apple music publishing head confirms

Home News (Image credit: Apple Music) Hoping for a free Apple Music tier in light of Spotify’s recently-voiced concerns over people turning to music piracy should streaming giants raise their prices? It may come as no surprise to learn that Apple’s senior director of music publishing, Elena Segal, has confirmed that there will never be… Read more

Spotify voices fears over price rises encouraging music piracy

Home News (Image credit: Spotify) Spotify fears raising its monthly subscription above £9.99 ($9.99) could “push users into piracy”, it told MPs at a parliamentary select committee inquiry on Tuesday, despite suggestions from record labels that an increase could help struggling musicians. The chief legal officer for the popular music streaming service, Horacio Gutierrez, claimed that… Read more

Nickelodeon creates Avatar Studios to create new Avatar, Legend of Korra content

ViacomCBS has announced a new studio based entirely around Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. Avatar Studios will create “original content spanning animated series and movies,” according to a press release. Avatar and Korra original creators, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, are joining Nickelodeon as co-chief creative officers of Avatar Studios. The… Read more

Showtime’s live-action Halo TV show is now a Paramount Plus exclusive

Showtime’s upcoming Halo TV series is getting a new home — the live-action adaptation of the popular sci-fi shooters will now debut exclusively on the relaunched Paramount Plus streaming service when it arrives at the beginning of 2022, Deadline reports. There have been a few attempts at adapting Halo to live action (including the less-than-stellar… Read more

GameStop stock just jumped 100 percent, and WallStreetBets is ecstatic

GameStop is up… again, by a lot. Before market close on Wednesday, the video game retailer’s shares started to soar, and GME just closed at $91.71 — up nearly 104 percent for the day. It’s the highest the stock has been since it fell back down to Earth at the beginning of the month following… Read more