One surprising result of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a spike in consumer demand for imitation meats. According to a Nielsen report, during the first nine weeks of the crisis in the United States, grocery store sales of faux meat products increased 264 percent. The reasons included concerns about illness at meatpacking plants, the possible…
In 1714, the British government was desperate for a scientific solution to a deadly problem. In the empire’s haste to explore—and conquer—the globe, British ships were frequently colliding with land before they knew they had reached it, because sailors had no way of keeping track of how far east or west they had traveled. Rather…
To live in San Francisco for the past 20 years has been to live with outrage that a society so innovative and compassionate can so reliably fail to meet even the most basic challenges of public life. This city never stopped being pretty—salmon boats on the bay, coyotes in the park—and the local spirit of…
Superfast 5G wireless isn’t exactly spreading across the US at superfast speeds. The White House and Defense Department on Monday announced a plan to accelerate the process by making a crucial new chunk of spectrum available to the wireless industry. The spectrum, which telecom companies will share with the Pentagon, aims to help wireless carriers…
Google’s newest smartphone, the Pixel 4a ( 9/10, WIRED Recommends), is the best it has ever made and it only costs $350. But it lacks some of the extras you can get on pricier phones, like wireless charging, waterproofing, and a screen with a wonderfully smooth 90-Hz refresh rate. If you want these features then…
Internet connectivity and cellular service in Belarus have been down since Sunday evening, after sporadic outages early that morning and throughout the day. The connectivity blackout, which also includes landline phones, appears to be a government-imposed outage that comes amid widespread protests and increasing social unrest over Belarus’ presidential election Sunday. The ongoing shutdown has…
A billion or more Android devices are vulnerable to hacks that can turn them into spying tools by exploiting more than 400 vulnerabilities in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, researchers reported this week. ARS TECHNICAThis story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by…
Apple has released public betas for the next big Apple Watch and Mac software updates. On the Mac, Big Sur (as the OS is called) has a ton of visual differences that I think will grow on you — they make macOS look just a little more like iOS. It also does a weird new…
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Chrome OS users also get a reprieve, as support for apps on that platform will end in June 2022 instead of June 2021. Google is suggesting that Chrome extensions are another alternative for developers who want to offer features within the Chrome browser. In any case, all support for standalone Chrome apps will end in…
