Innholdsfortegnelse for #575 i Techlife News

When NBC canceled the sci-fi family drama “Manifest” last year after three seasons, fans were devastated: The central mystery about a commercial plane that disappeared for more than five years — only to land with crew and passengers that hadn’t aged a day — was nowhere near solved. The cancellation following several cliffhangers also left the cast, led by Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh, bereft. The actors and crew had grown close and were invested in the story, in addition to being reliant on a steady job. Enter Netflix, where the first half of a 20-episode final season is set to start streaming Nov. 4. Dallas said the opportunity to give the fans an ending to the story is nothing short of a blessing. “It would have been cruel to…

The ordinary brown brick building, tucked within a nondescript block on a street in Delaware, would probably not garner much attention if it weren’t for the razor wire and armed guards outside — hints that something important lay inside, possibly even precious. Fort Knox it is not. But the stash of collectibles the building holds is undoubtedly worthy of guarding. There’s a rare Pikachu card and a century-old one of baseball great Honus Wagner, which recently sold for $7.25 million in a private sale. In addition to the trading cards, there are baseball bats and basketball shoes, including a pair of sneakers worn and signed by the late NBA great Kobe Bryant. In all, $200 million in collectibles are stored in two vaults inside the building, equipped with some of…

Employee benefits are one of the most attractive things about a prospective job and can determine whether you take an opportunity or leave it. When you do decide to take the job, do you maximize the benefits? If not, you may be leaving money on the table. And in this time of high inflation, you need all the cash you can get to offset rising prices. In the spirit of focusing on what you can control, let’s talk about employee benefits and how you may be able to use them to your advantage during these uncertain times. KNOW YOUR BENEFITS Before you can maximize your employee benefits, you have to know what they are, says Samantha Gorelick , a certified financial planner at Brunch and Budget, a financial consulting firm…

Facebook parent company Meta has been ordered to pay $10.5 million in legal fees to Washington state atop a nearly $25 million fine for repeated and intentional violations of campaign finance disclosure laws. King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued the legal-fee order, two days after he hit the social media giant with what is believed to be the largest campaign finance fine in U.S. history, The Seattle Times reported. North ordered the company to pay by wire transfer, check or money order within 30 days. The money is to go to the state Public Disclosure Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws. North imposed the maximum fine allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, passed by voters in 1972 and later strengthened by the…

Shares of Uber surged after the company said there is little evidence that Americans are pulling back on hailing rides or ordering food deliveries despite soaring inflation. “Cities are reopening, travel is building, and more broadly a continued shift of consumer spending from retail back to services,” said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “We’ve seen these trends continue into the fourth quarter with October tracking to be our best month ever for mobility and total company gross bookings.” The company expects fourth-quarter gross bookings to rise 23% to 27% from last year, totaling $30 billion to $31 billion. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc., down almost 30% this year, jumped 15% at the opening bell to $30.57. In the most recent quarter, gross bookings increased 26% to $29.1 billion, or 32% on a…

Fresh off one of her biggest album launches of her career, Taylor Swift announced a new U.S. stadium tour starting in 2023, with international dates to follow. The 27-date Eras Tour will kick off on March 18 in Glendale, Arizona, and wrap up with two nights in Los Angeles on Aug. 4-5 at SoFi Stadium. Tour openers will include Paramore, beabadoobee, Phoebe Bridgers, girl in red, MUNA, HAIM, Gayle, Gracie Abrams and OWENN. “I can’t WAIT to see your gorgeous faces out there. It’s been a long time coming,” Swift said on Instagram, describing the tour as “a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!).” Fans who receive a special code after registering will have exclusive access to buy tickets on Nov. 15. The rest of…

Do some shopping for a new midsize sedan and you’ll find that just about every model provides high levels of comfort and the latest in technology and safety. But what if you also want it to be stylish and engaging to drive while also still being practical? Consider the Volkswagen Arteon and Kia Stinger. The Volkswagen Arteon tends to fly under the radar of most shoppers, but it’s notable for its premium interior, athletic handling and comfort. It also has a hatchback-style trunk that’s easy to load and has plenty of space. For 2022, the Arteon addresses one of its prior shortcomings, as it gains a more powerful engine, upping the horsepower by 12%. The Kia Stinger is another sleek and sporty sedan with a hatchback. Like the Arteon, it…

Conspiracy theories about mail ballots. Anonymous text messages warning voters to stay home. Fringe social media platforms where election misinformation spreads with impunity. Misinformation about the upcoming midterm elections has been building for months, challenging election officials and tech companies while offering another reminder of how conspiracy theories and distrust are shaping America’s politics. The claims are fueling the candidacies of election deniers and threatening to further corrode faith in voting and democracy. Many of them can be traced back to 2020, when then-President Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the election he lost to Joe Biden and began lying about its results. “Misinformation is going to be central to this midterm election and central to the 2024 election,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, who studies technological change and society…

Emerson is selling a majority stake in its climate technologies business to Blackstone in a deal valued at $14 billion including debt. The standalone climate technologies unit includes the Copeland compressor business and the entire portfolio of products and services across all HVAC and refrigeration end-markets. The division serves both commercial and residential clients and in its last fiscal year booked $5 billion in sales. Emerson, based in St. Louis, has sought to refashion itself into a pure-play global automation company, while Blackstone sees an opportunity for growth as businesses and households seek out more energy efficiency through new technologies. Emerson Electric Co. will receive about $9.5 billion in cash proceeds and keep a non-controlling ownership interest in the new standalone joint venture. The company posted fourth-quarter earnings, including a…

A small company called Sila has contracts with most major automakers to research or provide a promising new battery chemistry that can let electric vehicles travel farther with a smaller battery. The Alameda, California, company began more than a decade ago as a startup out of Georgia Tech, and co-founder and CEO Gene Berdichevsky says its chemistry can store more energy than current lithium-ion batteries. In current batteries, lithium ions move from anode to cathode, generating electricity by splitting into charged ions and electrons. Graphite stores lithium atoms inside a battery until needed. Instead of graphite, Sila uses silicon, which can store more lithium. Berdichevsky, who was an early employee at Tesla, talked about the future of electric vehicles. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Q: What…

Days after taking over Twitter and a week before the U.S. midterm elections, billionaire Elon Musk has positioned himself as moderator-in-chief of one of the most important social media platforms in American politics. Musk has said he won’t make major decisions about content or restoring banned accounts before setting up a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints. But his own behavior as a prolific tweeter has signaled otherwise. He’s engaged directly with figures on the political right who are appealing for looser restrictions, including a Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state who credits Musk with enabling him to begin tweeting again after his account was briefly suspended Monday. Musk even changed his profile to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” — with a photo of himself when he was a toddler…

Boeing officials vowed this week to significantly increase airplane production and cash flow in the next few years as the company seeks to recover from years of mistakes in its airline and defense businesses. The aircraft maker said it expects to boost revenue to $100 billion and generate $10 billion in annual cash flow by 2025 or 2026. That upbeat forecast is based on raising production of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max, from 31 to 50 per month and moving beyond billions of losses in fixed-price contracts for the Pentagon. Boeing is chasing European rival Airbus for supremacy after two deadly crashes involving Max planes, production flaws with a bigger plane, the 787, bad military contracts and other missteps. “Do I think we’ve given up leadership in this industry?…

Elon Musk has given assurances to Ukraine that he will keep funding its access to a crucial satellite network providing Kyiv with battlefield and humanitarian communications in its war with Russia, a senior Ukrainian official said. Elon Musk “told me personally that he will continue to support Ukraine and continue to provide Starlink to Ukraine,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, told. “There are no problems for now with Starlink,” Fedorov said through an interpreter. Doubts arose last month about whether Musk would continue to offer the SpaceX Starlink system to Ukraine. Its more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites provide a broadband internet service to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. But Musk tweeted in mid-October that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to…

Stellantis and the U.S. government are warning owners of 276,000 older vehicles to stop driving them after Takata air bags apparently exploded in three more vehicles, killing the drivers. The company, formerly Fiat Chrysler, is telling people to stop driving Dodge Magnum wagons, Dodge Challenger and Charger muscle cars and Chrysler 300 sedans from the 2005 through 2010 model years. Stellantis says it confirmed the driver’s air bag inflators blew apart in two cases, killing two drivers. The company suspects an inflator rupture in another case that also killed a driver. All three deaths were in warm-weather U.S. states and happened in the past seven months in 2010 model year vehicles, the company said. The fatalities bring the death toll from exploding Takata air bags to at least 32 worldwide,…

Apple managed to boost both its sales and profit during a summertime quarter that depressed the fortunes of most other major tech companies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the iPhone maker will be immune to a potential recession. Even though Apple fared reasonably well, the July-September results signaled that the world’s most valuable company is facing some of the same economic headwinds that hammered the profits of Microsoft and the corporate parents of both Google and Facebook. Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter revenue rose 8% from the same time last year to $90.1 billion. That was an improvement from the scant 2% uptick in revenue during its April-June quarter when supply problems caused by pandemic-related factory shutdowns dinged its sales. The Cupertino, California, company’s profit for the most recent quarter totaled…

A plan to redevelop a rural swath of northern Virginia into data centers has received approval after a marathon public hearing that stretched through the night. The Prince William County Board of Supervisors voted 5-2 Wednesday morning in support of the plan over the opposition of environmentalists and conservationists. Data centers that provide the backbone for the rapid increase in cloud computing have proliferated in northern Virginia, which has long been a technology hub. The data centers have proven to be a revenue boon to local governments, but neighbors have complained about noise and environmentalists have expressed concern about the massive amounts of electricity that data centers consume. In Prince William County, concern also centered around the viewshed for nearby Manassas National Battlefield Park. Supporters of the plan said it…

Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform. Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He’s also testing the waters on asking users to pay for verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it’s really them. Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.” Critics have derided the mark, often granted to celebrities, politicians, business leaders and journalists, as an elite…

Workers who assemble Apple Inc.’s newest iPhone walked away from a factory in central China following virus outbreaks and complaints of unsafe working conditions, highlighting the clash between the disease’s enduring risks and efforts to restore the global flow of goods. Employees started leaving the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou after some fell ill in mid-October and received no treatment, according to an employee who asked not to be identified by name. He said Foxconn has begun requiring face masks and disinfects the workplace daily but work continues normally. “There are still people getting infected at the assembly lines, and they are still worried about going to work,” the employee said by phone from Zhengzhou. He said he had left the factory and planned to return to his hometown. As other…

Amazon Music is gearing up for a massive content expansion: The streaming giant will offer a full catalog of music with more than 100 million songs for members. The streaming service told that members will gain hundreds of millions of songs — a huge increase from 2 million — in shuffle mode without any advertisement at no additional costs. It will also include most top podcasts ad-free including Wondery’s catalog of premium shows along with series like “MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories” and Keke Palmer’s new original podcast “Baby, this is Keke Palmer.” “We can’t wait for members to experience not only a massively expanded catalog of songs, but also the largest selection of ad-free top podcasts anywhere, at no additional cost to their membership,” said Steve Boom,…

Since the first iPhone launched 15 years ago, consumer shopping habits have slowly but relentlessly shifted toward mobile devices. According to a survey of 3,250 U.S. consumers from Pymnts.com, a website dedicated to analyzing the role of payments in new tech, the majority of travel service purchases (51.4%) were made on a mobile device in February 2022. The trend is even starker among younger shoppers. About 48% of millennials ages 25-40 prefer using mobile phones for online shopping, compared with only 34% of all shoppers globally, according to a 2021 survey of 13,000 shoppers from Klarna, an online payment company. So, it seems that shopping for travel on an old-fashioned computer will eventually go the way of the horse and buggy. Indeed, some travel shopping services, such as the travel…