‘Child Flag’ System Needed To Protect Teens From AR/VR: Report
Congress should require that device makers and online platforms hosting age-restricted content establish a “child flag” system, according to a report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
Electric vehicles from Stellantis brands, including Dodge and Chrysler, will start using the NACS connector in select models next year. The automaker will also offer an adaptor for existing vehicles, so drivers can use NACS or Combined Charging System (CCS) ports.
Tesla open-sourced its EV charging connector back in 2022. Back then, it rebranded it as the North American Charging Standard (NACS), pitching it as better than rival chargers with "no moving parts, is half the size, and twice as powerful".
The pitch worked, and automakers — Volkswagen, GM, Volvo, Polestar, Mercedes, Honda, BMW, Lucid — gradually sided with NACS. Stellantis says it's still committed, with other car manufacturers, to building a network of more than 30,000 fast charging points on highways and in urban areas in North America by 2030. These stations will support NACS and CCS.
Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines is gearing up for an actual moonshot. It'll try to land a spacecraft named Odysseus on the lunar surface — ideally without it breaking. The mission follows Astrobotic's unsuccessful attempt in January; that company's lander, Peregrine, never made it to the moon. Odysseus is the first of three Nova-C landers Intuitive Machines plans to send to the Moon this year, all of which will have commercial payloads and NASA instruments on board. Its mission, if it nails a soft landing, will be a short but potentially valuable one for informing future excursions. Orbiting probes have found evidence of water ice at the lunar south pole, which could be used for astronaut subsistence and even fuel.
There are always early issues. If you were one of the Vision Pro owners that lost their passcodes in the first week of ownership, you had to visit an Apple Store (or ship the device to AppleCare) to reset it and be able to use your $3,500 device again. Fortunately, visionOS 1.0.3 will let you do the password reset at home.
But seriously, if you forgot your password in the first week — you've got problems.
The internet has been buzzing the last couple of weeks with rumors that Microsoft will begin publishing Xbox first-party games on competing consoles. The company promised it would soon share more details about its "vision for the future of Xbox," and that looks to be coming on February 15. Phil Spencer will appear on the Official Xbox Podcast to share "updates on the Xbox business." It's an unusual move, with Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, and Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Game Studios, joining Spencer on the podcast.
There have been all kinds of rumors flooding the web, from Hi-Fi Rush coming to the Nintendo Switch to Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle showing up on the PS5. All may become clear later this week.
The Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to a sleep apnea detection feature on Galaxy Watch devices in the US. It has already picked up approval in South Korea, but Samsung says this is the first approval of its kind in the US.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects around 25 percent of men and a tenth of women in the US, according to the National Sleep Foundation. And it can get serious. Left untreated, it can increase the risks of heart attacks and strokes.
With the feature, people over 22 who have not been diagnosed with the condition can check for signs of sleep apnea using their smartwatch and phone. It looks for signs of moderate-to-severe OSA over a two-night monitoring period. To use the feature, users must track their sleep for more than four hours twice over ten days.
Samsung plans to add the sleep apnea monitoring tool to compatible Galaxy Watch wearables in the third quarter of 2024.
Dyson's signature Supersonic hairdryer hasn't changed much since its launch back in 2016, but why not reveal a new look at New York Fashion Week? The Supersonic r is a tube-shaped hairdryer that dwarfs its predecessor, and it's just 325g (around 11.5 ounces) — almost half that of the original Supersonic. Dyson is asking for $570 — it's aimed at professionals.
Musk and the SEC now have a week to agree on a time and place for his testimony.
A federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to comply with the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) subpoena and testify again in its probe of his Twitter takeover. The order comes after Musk failed to appear for a testimony in September and later refused to attend a rescheduled interview, prompting the SEC to sue. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with the SEC after Musk tried to challenge its subpoena, which he claims is seeking irrelevant information and is harassment. The SEC claims it has new documents in relation to the probe and has further questions for the X owner.
After years of decline due to smartphones, it looks like the camera market is on the upswing — with Canon, for one, seeing solid growth in 2023. And as with 2022, we saw many new models arrive last year from Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon and Panasonic, featuring faster speeds, better focus, improved video and — it is 2024 — occasionally AI-powered features. We pick out our favorites at multiple price points.
