Zoom’s chief product officer explained the company’s massive growth during the pandemic and where it’s going next. How Zoom made video meetings easy for workers, students and all of us in 2020 – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreRohit Prasad / Fast Company: The head scientist for Alexa argues that Turing Test, designed as a thought experiment, is no longer relevant for building AIs that are designed to help humans — This year marks 70 years since Alan Turing published his paper introducing the concept of the Turing Test in response to the
Read MoreThe smaller ATtiny microcontrollers have a limited number of pins, and therefore rely on an internal 9.6 MHz oscillator rather than an external crystal. This oscillator lacks the accuracy of a crystal so individual chips can vary over a significant tolerance from the nominal figure. Happily the resulting timing inaccuracies can be mitigated through a
Read MoreThe Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccinations will begin in early 2021. Oxford COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use in UK – CNET Source: CNet
Read More2020 was a good year for space exploration. 2021 could be better. 2021 could be a huge year for space. Here’s what’s to come from NASA, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. Source: Washington Post Tech
Read MoreThis article was written by Tiffany Hale and originally published on Built In. Failure is more than a rite of passage when working in technology — it’s a guarantee. The failure designers and developers are comfortable with, however, usually falls into the cozy iteration cycle where it’s “OK” to fail. Do users hate your proposed process flow? (No big
Read MoreJason Del Rey / Vox: eMarketer: US e-commerce sales, up 12%-16% in recent years, will have grown by 30%+ in 2020 and Amazon’s US retail business grew an estimated 39% YoY in 2020 — When we look back at 2020 in the business world, we’ll remember it as the year online shopping stopped being the
Read MoreThis year, technology firms big and small stepped up to help with the Covid-19 pandemic and other thorny challenges. The 2020 Good Tech Awards Source: NY Times Tech
Read MoreIt’s unclear if Samsung’s existing TVs will be updated to support the feature. | Image: Samsung HDR10+ Adaptive is a new feature coming to the high dynamic range standard that’ll optimize TV picture quality based on a room’s ambient brightness, Samsung announced today. HDR content is typically designed to look its best in dark rooms
Read MoreIf you had an Amiga during the 16-bit home computer era it’s possible that alongside the games and a bit of audio sampling you had selected it because of its impressive video capabilities. In its heyday the Amiga produced broadcast-quality graphics that could even be seen on more than a few TV shows from the
Read MoreStephanie Chan / Sensor Tower Blog: Consumers worldwide spent $407.6M across the App Store and Google Play on Christmas, up 34.5% YoY; mobile games rose 27% YoY to $295.6M, led by Honor of Kings — 2020 has been a record-setting year for worldwide spending on mobile apps and games, which passed $100 billion in a
Read MoreThere’s an old joke that the CEO of IKEA is running to be Prime Minister of Sweden. He says he’ll be able to put together his cabinet in no time. We don’t speak Swedish, but [Adam Miklosi] tells us that the word “uppgradera” means “upgrade” in Swedish. His website, uppgradera.co has several IKEA upgrade designs you
Read MoreThere are some surprisingly decent true wireless earbuds that still don’t cost a lot. Some are really cheap. Here are the current best of the bunch. The best true wireless earbuds under for 2021 – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreThe variant is said to be more transmissible, though there’s no evidence it’s deadlier or makes people sicker. More-contagious UK coronavirus mutation appears in United States – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreChristopher Palmeri / Bloomberg: Over Christmas holiday, Apptopia says HBO Max had ~554K app signups; Sensor Tower says Disney+ had ~2.3M global app installations, up 28% from prior weekend — AT&T Inc.’s HBO Max streaming platform set a single-day record for downloads of its mobile app following the release of the superhero sequel … Over
Read MoreDave Lee / Financial Times: FactSet: Amazon’s “other” business unit, which is made up almost entirely of its ads business, will make $21B in revenue in 2020, up 47% YoY — Ads unit grows faster than retail or cloud computing divisions — The surge in online shopping triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic … FactSet: Amazon's
Read More65 is the new 50, and large TVs are cheaper than ever. Here are our favorites. The best 65-inch TV for 2021: LG, TCL, Sony, Vizio and more – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreMicroscopy used to be a rarity in the hobby electronics world. But anyone doing lab work has always needed a microscope and with today’s tiny parts, it is almost a necessity. However, [Nathan Myhrvold] didn’t use an ordinary microscope to capture some beautiful snowflake pictures. According to [My Modern Met], the pictures are the highest
Read MoreLooks like the Boston Dynamics robots can now learn choreography. And you thought you were a good dancer? See Boston Dynamics robots show off seriously impressive dance moves – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreKevin Helms / Bitcoin News: New York regulators have authorized a subsidiary of Japan’s GMO Internet to issue the world’s first publicly available stablecoin backed by the Japanese yen — The New York State Department of Financial Services, the Bitlicense regulator, has authorized GMO to issue U.S. dollar and Japanese yen-pegged stablecoins. New York regulators
Read MorePhoto: GmanModz Taking an old console and making it as small as possible is a well-established tradition in the modding community, and there may be a new victor in the race to shrink the Nintendo 64 as far as possible (via Input). GmanModz has cut down an N64 to the point where it’s smaller than
Read MoreThe lyrics mimic those of the hit musical surprisingly well, with a few amusing exceptions. Hamilton song written by AI features odd reference to Hillary Clinton – CNET Source: CNet
Read MoreNeed a durable child-friendly tablet that will keep your kid entertained and educated? Here are our top picks. The best kids' tablets for 2021: Apple iPad, Amazon Fire and more compared – CNET Source: CNet
Read MorePromotional screen from Vybe’s now-defunct website. An iOS app called Vybe Together that promoted private parties during the COVID-19 pandemic has been removed from the Apple App Store, had its account on TikTok banned, and scrubbed most of its online presence. The app’s creators told The Verge that Apple was the one to take it
Read MoreThe variant is said to be more contagious, though there’s no evidence it’s deadlier or makes people sicker. UK coronavirus variant reported in United States – CNET Source: CNet
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