Author: Max Milella

Tesla’s Elon Musk has always been an adamant supporter of cryptocurrency, specifically Dogecoin and the more serious Bitcoin, the latter of which you can now use to buy an EV. As is the case with a lot of Musk related news, this comes by way of his Twitter feed. In a series of tweets, Musk explains that Tesla is using an internal and open-source software for transactions, and operates directly with Bitcoin nodes. Transactions are made entirely with Bitcoin, without converting to fiat currency at any point. Handy if you have trouble keeping up with Bitcoin’s fluctuating value. Tesla goes…

Drone deliveries aren’t entirely commonplace yet, but they’re becoming increasingly so. More and more companies are offering airborne-robo-package delivery services, and Samsung has just announced its own take on the tech. The South-Korean tech giant has paired up with Manna Drone Delivery, who boast a delivery time of 3 minutes or less in a 2km radius. The partnership now makes drone delivery available to Irish customers purchasing the latest range of Galaxy devices (the S21 Ultra, Tab S7, etc, including the newly released A Series phones) from Samsung.com/ie. Samsung takes to the skies What’s particularly nice about this little venture…

Though we aren’t getting a Switch Pro (or Super Switch) this year, we are getting a boosted version of the original console, to keep its relevance up alongside the next-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles. A few weeks ago we learned that one update would be to the size of the screen, and now Bloomberg reports that Nintendo is kitting its consoles out with improved Nvidia cards too. Switching things up a notch These new Nvidia cards will upgrade both GPU and CPU performance, and will apparently support Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS for short, which reproduces images on the fly…

Bloomberg reports that, according to anonymous sources, Microsoft is currently in talks with Discord concerning potentially acquiring the service, for over $10 billion. The online chat platform has been approached by potential buyers before, and has now signed an exclusive acquisition discussion with one particular party, suggesting that its in the final stages of negotiation. Discourse around Discord Nothing is set in stone, though. One of Bloomberg’s sources says Discord could very well opt to go public rather than be acquired. It worked for Roblox, so it could be profitable for Discord too, with its similarly massive user base. According to Venturebeat Discord…

No more switching apps, says Twitter, unveiling a new feature that lets you watch YouTube videos on its platform. Before, if someone tweeted a YouTube link you would automatically be taken to the YouTube app if you clicked on through the mobile app. A small bother, but vexing nonetheless. Hooray for small conveniences, courtesy of Twitter In-house YouTube viewing isn’t new to the platform, it’s always been a thing on the desktop site. But it’s making its’ debut on mobile, and we think it’s about time. We’re living in a world of small luxuries and fine-tuned comforts after all. The Next Web reports…

Facebook has released a video detailing its new augmented reality interface which works using wristbands. These wristbands use electromyography to recognise small neural signals, the ones your brain sends through your nervous system to tell your finger to twitch or your hands to clench, and translate them into AR functions. Facebook reads your signals loud and clear https://www.facebook.com/TechAtFacebook/videos/1146186389155473/ This could be more accurate and responsive than the more generally used hand tracking that we’ve seen before. The wrist bands track “clicks”, basic gestures and movements. Different “clicks” have different functions, like turning on a lamp or pulling a virtual bowstring.…

Accessibility is paramount when it comes to making content universally consumable, and captions have long been used to make content more accessible to those with hearing impairments. Google unveiled its “Live Caption” feature, which generates captions for video and audio content in real-time, for the Pixel phone back in 2019, and brought the feature to several other phones with Android 10 later that year.  Chrome’s Captions have you covered Now the feature is available for the latest version of the Google Chrome desktop browser. It’s cool enough that this brings the feature to desktops, where it hadn’t been before, but that…

Giving a presentation is daunting, even when you’re backed up by brightly coloured and info-rich PowerPoint slides. That said, any task can be made easier with practice, though it’s hard to mark your mistakes when you’re just reading in a room to an imaginary audience. In comes “Presenter Coach”, a tool for Powerpoint, that helps you improve your presentation skills, sans audience. PowerPoint presents: Presenter Coach Presenter Coach has been available for PowerPoint’s web application for some time already, and is now coming to desktop and mobile, making it so you can use the tool “when and where you need…

Voice-only virtual hangout Clubhouse has existed for a year, but in the past two months its popularity has gone through the roof, and every other social media platform (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, even Telegram) is trying to get in on the action with their own versions of the app. Now Discord is reportedly working on a copy too. Clubhouse Clone Wars Voice chatting isn’t new to Discord. It’s one of its main attractions, actually. Currently, you can voice chat with one other person or in rooms with a few others, but nothing on the same scale as Clubhouse. However, a Reddit…

Wikipedia, the open-source amassment of knowledge and saviour of the last minute assignment, has long been free for everyone, but that won’t be entirely true for much longer as The Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for The Free Encyclopedia and other projects, has announced that it is launching a paid service. But fret not, day to day users, your wallets will remain unaffected. This commercial product is for Big Tech folks like Facebook. Wikipedia’s still free, guys But there will be an optional paid offering aimed at organisations. This new service, called Wikimedia Enterprise, is Wikipedia’s standard API (software that works as…