Yesterday YouTuber JJRicks Studios has shared a video of their eventful ride with a Waymo driverless robotaxi. Halfway through the ride the vehicle was required to make a right turn to the main road — however the right lane was closed off. The taxi’s planner showed that the car wanted to go right anyway, but it got confused, and just… stopped. The roadside service team got alerted by the unexpected pause and made an in-car call to JJRicks to reassure him that roadside assistance was on its way....

A 70-foot LauncherOne rocket carrying 10 satellites was dropped from a modified Boeing 747 at 11.39AM Pacific Time on Sunday. LauncherOne then ignited its engine and began soaring into orbit. — Virgin Orbit (@Virgin_Orbit) January 18, 2021 The Boeing jet — nicknamed Cosmic Girl — flew from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California to a drop point over the Pacific Ocean. Onboard were customer carrier satellites sponsored by NASA, which contracted Virgin Orbit for the launch....

We all love superheroes and space operas, but c’mon — do we really have time for 100 new Marvel and Star Wars projects clogging our screens? It’s all about moderation, and for every chunk of full-blown fantasy we devour, we should try to balance our intake with a healthy helping of content that might actually teach us a little something. You need some meat and potatoes to go along with your dessert — and CuriosityStream is the streaming service equivalent of a pan-seared steak and baked potato with all the toppings....

Well, then you’ll also know there are two new emoji that tower above the rest. The first? The transgender flag we’ve already covered (thank us later). And the second? Well, that’s what many of us would call the ‘Italian hand’ emoji. You, your mom, your racist grandma — we all know it. Whether it’s from TV shows, movies, or just life in general, it’s hard to have avoided coming across this symbol: [Read: Apple’s Q1 2020 financials were great — but it still needs a budget iPhone] Thing is… do any of us non-Italians actually know what the hell this pinching hand really means?...

Let’s dive into what it’s all about — and especially what it means for European businesses. What is Matter? Traditionally, smart home devices exist across several ecosystems with limited interoperability. They don’t play nicely together and are plagued by the requirement for multiple apps, complex set-ups, and configurations. On top of this, more often than not, there’s a lack of clarity about cybersecurity too. Matter is developed through collaboration within the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), previously known as the Zigbee Alliance....

If you’ve ever worked on a large codebase, you’ll know that it can suck. Their highly-coupled code and increased deployment risk can slow developer productivity right down. To combat this, many have shifted away from monolithic applications to smaller, more manageable pieces through microservices. However, this has largely only affected the backend world while frontend codebases — with their ever-increasing complexity — remain monolithic. But in recent times, teams have begun to adopt the philosophy of microservices into frontend development by implementing micro-frontends....

What is Pegasus? Pegasus is a type of spyware developed by Israel-based NSO Group. It could reside on your phone and track all your activities. Pegasus entered the limelight in 2019, when it allegedly exploited a bug in WhatsApp to gain access to hundreds of smartphones across the world. Later, WhatsApp even filed a lawsuit in the US against the company, for helping governments snoop on more than 1,400 individuals across the globe....

The Facebook-owned messenger seems to be testing an “Always Muted” option for chats, WABetaInfo has noticed. The feature is still in development, but it will likely replace the “1 year” option which WhatsApp currently gives to users. At present, WhatsApp lets users mute chats for eight hours, a week, or a year. Unfortunately, those options leave a gap for certain chats where you need to be, but don’t necessarily have to follow the full discussion....

If you’re anything like me, chances are you speak to a few people much more often than others. Now you can differentiate these conversations visually by using a custom wallpaper. Aesthetic preferences aside, it can be useful as a quick way to make sure you’re not sending a message to the wrong person. Other updates include the ability to change the color of the default doodle wallpaper, and a collection of new wallpapers with images from around the world that are categorized into “bright’ and “dark” albums....

According to a report by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is working on a cashback feature in a beta version of its Android app. Last November, the company launched WhatsApp Pay in India, after running it in the test mode for two years, due to regulatory hurdles. In the country, WhatsApp’s solution is based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) standard, which also is used by other payment apps such as Walmart’s PhonePe, Google’s Google Pay, and Indian fintech giant Paytm....

Maybe you’ve got a passing interest in programming. You’re curious…but you might not be sure if it’s something you’re really ready to dive into with 100 percent gusto yet. Or perhaps you’re chomping at the bit to turn an infatuation into an obsession and let the fever for coding absolutely consume you. No matter where you fall on the programming heat scale, the Build a Bundle: The 2021 Ultimate Learn to Code Training can be morphed and shaped to fit your needs, delivering a small taste of coding know-how or acting like a airtanker to smother you loads and loads of programming goodness....

These reports were based on internal documents WSJ reviewed. Today, the whistleblower behind uncovering documents, Frances Haugen, appeared on the TV show 60 minutes to talk about why she decided to reveal some of Facebook’s secrets. Haugen, 37, is a data scientist from Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in business. She was a product manager at Facebook assigned to the Civic Integrity group, which worked on risks to elections including misinformation....

By: Alfred Ng and Jon Keegan There is an estimated $12 billion market of companies that buy and sell location data collected from your cellphone. And the trade is entirely legal in the U.S. Without legislation limiting the location data trade, Apple and Google have become the de facto regulators for keeping your whereabouts private—through shifts in transparency requirements and crackdowns on certain data brokers. Specifically, the app stores have cracked down on data brokers that market software development kits (SDKs) to app developers—like X-Mode (now known as Outlogic), which has come under scrutiny for selling data to military contractors....

Cryptocurrency regulation has become inevitable, and many people in the industry say they would welcome clearer rules. Proponents argue that regulatory clarity will legitimize the sector, reduce financial risks, and support product development. Uncertainty, meanwhile, would stall market growth, stifle technical innovation, and scare off potential investors. Naturally, they want regulation on their own terms. Trading platform Coinbase, for instance, is currently preparing a draft federal framework for consideration by lawmakers....

Musk’s remarks triggered much discussion in the media about whether we are close to having full self-driving cars on our roads. Like many other software engineers, I don’t think we’ll be seeing driverless cars (I mean cars that don’t have human drivers) any time soon, let alone the end of this year. [Read: Rallycross is going electric in 2021 with a chaotic new race series across Europe] I wrote a column about this on PCMag, and received a lot of feedback (both positive and negative)....

And, if you’ll let me set the stage first, I’ll explain why I’m convinced the court case will lead to a successful presidential campaign for Jeff Bezos in 2024. The alleged personal vendetta supposedly has a lot to do with The Washington Post’s negative coverage of President Trump – and, of course, Jeff Bezos owns the Post. Bezos may not need a big government payout – his company is among a handful of businesses valued at over a trillion dollars and he’s one of the richest people in the world – but he desperately wants one....

However, this transition from traditional, reliable coal to weather-dependent wind and solar generation brings with it increasing challenges to match electrical supply and demand at every instant. This is where large grid-scale energy storage systems could help regulate and buffer supply and demand, and improve grid control. The UK government recently announced the removal of planning barriers to building energy storage projects over 50MW in England and 350MW in Wales....

The company today announced support for the AAC Bluetooth codec is coming to Windows 10, starting with Windows Insiders. While Windows 10 already supports another high-quality codec, AptX, many audio devices don’t. Notably, Apple headphones — including Beats — use AAC exclusively as their high-quality option. I’ve tested many a product that only supported AAC (aside from the basic SBC), so this is pretty great news for this audio enthusiast....

Such a process can be extremely exhaustive. That’s why many entrepreneurs depending on their location might as well leave the whole process to fly by. Others have been caught on the wrong side of the law trying to use unorthodox means to register their businesses. Today there are better solutions to such. Many experts have come together to derive better means through which businesses can make the process of setting up their operations really simple....

An ISRO official told the publication the Chinese manufacturer may soon release a phone with NavIC chips: Last September, during the Indian Mobile Congress event, Qualcomm announced some of its upcoming chips will support the Indian positioning system. We’ve reached out to Xiaomi for more details, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. NavIC is supported by a constellation of seven satellites and covers India and an area of 1,500 km around it....