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Blackouts in Taiwan: Foundries & DRAM Makers Unaffected, Chip Packagers Halt Ops

Home News (Image credit: Future) Taiwan started a rotational electricity blackout across the country on Thursday following a major incident at a coal-fired power plant in southern Taiwan that caused its shutdown. The outages have not affected TSMC, the world’s largest contract maker of chips, other foundries, and DRAM makers. However, chip packaging houses had… Read more

World’s largest crypto exchange Binance is reportedly under investigation

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice, Bloomberg reports, with officials who handle money laundering and tax offenses in particular taking a interest in Binance’s business. Founded in 2017, Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It’s incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has… Read more

Framework Adds Specs, Opens Pre-Orders for Repairable Notebook

Home News (Image credit: Framework) Framework, which announced its modular, repairable laptop back in February, now has full specs, pricing and is opening pre-orders for the machine. It will come in three configurations, starting at $999. That base model has an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, a 256GB NVMe, Wi-Fi 6 and… Read more

Vaccinated people can ditch masks and social distancing in most places, CDC says

People who are fully vaccinated can shed their masks and gather indoors or outdoors without worrying about social distancing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today. “If you were fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic. We have all longed for this… Read more

Colonial Pipeline reportedly paid the hackers nearly $5 million, despite suggestions to contrary

After a devastating and deeply embarrassing cyberattack on one of the United States’ largest oil pipelines, one that forced many gas stations to shut down and reportedly saw average national gas prices rise above $3 for the first time since 2014, the oil is flowing again — but Bloomberg is reporting that Colonial Pipeline had… Read more

Instagram blames ‘enforcement error’ for removal of posts about Al-Aqsa Mosque

Instagram removed and restricted posts related to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem after its moderators confused its name with a group designated as a terrorist organization. In an internal company message first obtained by BuzzFeed News, a lead on the company’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy team called the removals “enforcement errors.” Facebook, which owns… Read more

First commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the US gets federal approval

The first commercial-scale offshore wind project in the US just got the green light from the Biden administration. The approval has the potential to dramatically grow the nation’s wind energy sector after years of regulatory limbo for proposed offshore projects. The Interior Department (DOI) granted the Vineyard Wind project permission to install up to 84… Read more

Bose gets into hearing aid business with new FDA-cleared SoundControl hearing aids

Bose announced today that it will begin selling direct-to-consumer SoundControl hearing aids for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss on May 18th. They’ll cost $849.95 and will be sold directly by Bose in five states — Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas — before they’re available nationally. The hearing aids are meant… Read more

Getting hospitals ready for the next pandemic

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The more hospitals cooperate, the better they’ll fare in an emergency As surges of COVID-19 cases spread throughout the United States over the past year, hospitals overwhelmed with patients quickly ran out of everything: masks, gloves, beds, space, doctors, nurses. Hospital workers in New York City, one of… Read more

FDA clears Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 12 to 15

The Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can now be administered to 12- to 15-year-olds, the Food and Drug Administration announced today. Previously, the shot was authorized for people 16 years of age and older. The companies asked the FDA to expand the authorization to include the new ages in early April, just after they released… Read more

Tencent in talks with US authorities to keep investments in Epic Games and Riot

Matthew Wilson 4 days ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming Tencent has invested in a lot of US-based game studios over the years, the biggest of which is ownership over Riot Games and a 40 percent stake in Epic Games. However, depending on negotiations with US authorities, Tencent could be forced to sell its… Read more

Watch Elon Musk play Wario, parody SpaceX, and hype dogecoin on Saturday Night Live

As you’ve surely heard, last night’s guest host on Saturday Night Live was not a charismatic movie actor promoting a new project but instead an endlessly hyped CEO named Elon Musk. Over the course of an hour and a half, SNL had Musk dress up as a misunderstood Wario, mock some of his more questionable… Read more

Chinese rocket falling to Earth this weekend poses ‘extremely low’ risk to people

Another “out-of-control” Chinese rocket stage in orbit has spawned a news cycle. But for people on Earth, there’s not much to worry about. The 100-foot-tall, 22-metric-ton corpse of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket that launched the first chunk of Beijing’s new space station last week will reenter Earth’s atmosphere sometime this weekend, and there’s… Read more

Scrap new gas infrastructure, says UN report

A major new United Nations report makes it extremely clear that relying on natural gas won’t help the world avoid climate catastrophe. Once seen as a “bridge fuel” that could provide a less-polluting alternative to coal and other fossil fuels, growing evidence shows that gas is a bigger culprit in the climate crisis than previously… Read more

IRS Now Seeks Identities of American Cryptocurrency Traders

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) A federal court in the Northern District of California have authorized the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to identify taxpayers that have used a cryptocurrency exchange. In particular, the IRS wants to know about taxpayers who conducted at least $20,000 in crypto transactions from 2016 to 2020. Cryptocurrencies were originally designed to… Read more