GadgetFreak

What’s new on Disney Plus in January 2022? You can watch the first Disney-produced Ice Age movie, plus the streaming debut of a Marvel Studios film and more. Read: All the best Disney Plus movies and shows from Android Authority https://ift.tt/2UiZmS3 via IFTTT

Technology has come a long way in 2021. There’s widespread mRNA vaccines ! An asteroid-deflecting space mission! A very powerful laptop with a very controversial notch! But it’s unfortunately easier to think about the cringiest moments of the year than it is to remember times when we marveled at indoor farming robots .  So hop aboard the choo-choo- cheugy train. We promise, this isn’t just a list of things Elon Musk tweeted in 2021. Facebook is so Meta Facebook changes its corporate branding to Meta The biggest and most eye-wateringly silly rebrand of the year is uncontested: Facebook, one of the most recognizable names in the world, changed its name to Meta in order to distract from unflaggingly awful decisions and the irreparable harm it has caused countless people focus on the “metaverse,” something no one asked for and certainly no one wanted Facebook of all companies to take the lead on. Block this out Square is changing its name to Block Meta’s not the on

Credit: Bogdan Petrovan / Android Authority You might think that the first weekend of 2022 might be a slow one for new streaming movies and shows. You would be wrong. Not only are we getting a new Star Wars live-action series, but the fourth season of a major Netflix TV show. Oh, and there’s a reunion of many of the stars of the Harry Potter film franchise. Here’s a look at five new streaming movies and shows you can binge-watch this weekend. from Android Authority https://ift.tt/3EGANlp via IFTTT

What’s new on Netflix in January 2022? The streaming service is bringing us the first part of the final season of Ozark, plus a new parody series from Kristen Bell and much more. Check out: The best Netflix Originals from Android Authority https://ift.tt/2XINvvW via IFTTT

Tom Parsons / What Hi-Fi? : Apple's VP of Acoustics Gary Geaves and head of AirPods marketing Eric Treski about designing AirPods 3, Spatial Audio, Bluetooth's limitations, and more   —  First, a qualification: Gary Geaves isn't quite “the man who made the AirPods”, and I'm sure he'd never describe himself as such. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3EJdp6T via IFTTT

New Zealand, a country of 5 million people in the South Pacific, has witnessed a shifting tech startup landscape over the last couple of years. While some major global companies like Xero, Rocket Lab, LanzaTech and Seequent have shined a spotlight on New Zealand’s startup scene, the country historically hasn’t had access to much venture capital. As a country with an economy that primarily exports agricultural products, the New Zealand startup world has usually relied on funding from a community of high-net-worth individuals and family offices who probably made their millions through real estate or farming. In March last year, the New Zealand government launched Elevate, an NZD $300 million fund of funds program that’s been providing millions to local VCs to invest into the startup community to fill the early-stage capital gap. At the same time, foreign investors have been flooding onto the scene, attracted to the small country that has a reputation for producing great companies. Foun

This year was rife with ransomware . 2021 witnessed the attack on IT software company Kaseya that knocked 1,500 organizations offline, the CD Projekt Red hack that saw threat actors make off with source code for games including Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3, and several high-profile attacks targeting big-name tech companies, from Olympus to Fujitsu  and Panasonic . It was also the year that hackers seized global attention by targeting critical infrastructure, hacking American oil pipeline system Colonial Pipeline , meat-processing giant JBS and Iowa New Cooperative, an alliance of farmers that sells corn and soy, to name just a few. After the attacks led to prolonged shutdowns, inflated oil prices and ran the risk of food shortages, the U.S. government began to take notice — after years of inaction — and scored some rare wins in what once seemed like an unwinnable battle against the ransomware epidemic. It began in April when the Department of Justice formed the Ransomware an

Credit: Adam Molina / Android Authority Apple’s AirPods are undoubtedly in the top tier of earbuds , but they come with a healthy dose of Apple Tax. In fact, they’re some of the most expensive on the market. The good news is that there are plenty of AirPods deals are available across the internet. To make the search easier for you, we’ve rounded up some of the best savings on sale this holiday season. Featured deal: Save $90 on the AirPods Max from Android Authority https://ift.tt/34L6s4V via IFTTT

Rebecca Feng / Wall Street Journal : SenseTime closes up 7.3% in its Hong Kong trading debut after rising as much as 23%; the company raised $740M in its IPO at a $16.4B valuation   —  U.S. government had added SenseTime to an investment blacklist that barred Americans from buying shares in the firm from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3FGnEdB via IFTTT

The future of lidar is uncertain unless, as Voyant hopes to do, its price and size are reduced to fractions of their current values. As long as lidars are sandwich-sized devices that cost thousands, they won’t be ubiquitous — so Voyant has raised some cash to bring its smaller, cheaper, more easily manufactured, yet still highly capable lidar to production. When I wrote up the company’s seed round back in 2019 , the goal was more or less to shrink lidar down from sandwich to fingernail size using silicon photonics. But the real challenge faced by nearly every lidar company is getting the price down. Between a strong laser, capable receptor, and a mechanical or optical means of directing the beam, it just isn’t easy making something cheap enough that, like an LED or touchscreen, you can easily put several of them in a vehicle that costs less than $30K. CEO Peter Stern joined the company just as COVID was getting started, and they were looking for a way to turn a promising prototype de

Brian Quarmby / Cointelegraph : Ethereum scaling project Polygon says it quietly fixed a bug that put $23.6B in MATIC tokens at risk, but not before $2.04M in tokens was stolen   —  “Considering how much was at stake, I believe our team has made the best decisions possible given the circumstances,” said Polygon's co-founder Jaynti Kanani. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3Hl9HlN via IFTTT

Consumer electronics are a bad metric for gauging the passage of time. And, frankly, Consumer Electronics Shows are considerably worse. I’ve attended well into the double digits of CES and have largely experienced them in similar manner: as a week-long flurry of news and shiny gadgets, filing news from trailers, press centers, hotel rooms and convention center hallway floors in a sometimes quixotic attempt to define the year’s trends. The halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center and its many satellite Expo Halls and hotel suites are thick with the ghosts of good intentions and forced obsolescence. That’s the nature of the category. Some of the devices that have become our daily drivers over the past decade debuted at CES, but more often than not, devices come and go — if they ever end up making it to store shelves in the first place. CES 2022 will be a strange one — a fact that has more to do with extenuating global circumstances than anything happening on the show floor (though, la

Credit: LG Display LG Display announced its newest big-screen television technology, OLED EX. The new display should be up to 30% brighter than conventional OLED TV screens. The first TVs with OLED EX screens should be made sometime in the second quarter of 2022. OLED TVs are well known for their accurate color and deeper blacks compared to traditional flat-screen televisions . However, they do tend to not be as bright as rivals that use the mini-LED technology. Today, LG Display announced a new screen technology it calls OLED EX (EX is an acronym of “evolution” and “experience,” according to LG). The biggest feature is that displays with this technology should be up to 30% brighter compared to normal OLED screens. Read more : Best smart TVs from Android Authority https://ift.tt/3FGoJ50 via IFTTT

Sophie Alcorn Contributor Share on Twitter Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: What’s allowed between a K-1 visa and a green card? Dear Sophie: 2 questions about resuming consular appointments Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn , a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.” TechCrunch+ members receive acce

Kim Folsom came up through the engineering ranks in the 80s and 90s before founding the first of six companies, three of which successfully exited. Today, she is the founder and CEO at Founders First Capital Partners , a San Diego startup investment firm that uses a non-traditional approach to funding called revenue-based investment to invest in historically underrepresented founders. Unlike most Silicon Valley VC firms, Founders First isn’t looking for the next unicorn. Instead, Folsom seeks out founders from historically underrepresented backgrounds — women, people of color, LBGTQ, veterans — with solid ideas and decent, if not spectacular, revenue and growth who have had trouble getting external investment to help build their businesses. She focuses on B2B companies, usually in tech, that have a product and some wraparound services to go with it that you could turn into recurring subscription revenue. And with the additional help from Founders, coaching and guidance transform th