Thunderbird's Android app, which is actually the K-9 Mail project reborn, is almost out. You can check it out a bit early in a beta that will feel pretty robust to most users. Thunderbird, maintained by the Mozilla Foundation subsidiary MZLA, acquired the source code and naming rights to K-9 Mail, as announced in June 2022. The group also brought K-9 maintainer Christian Ketterer (or "cketti") onto the project. Their initial goals, before a full rebrand into Thunderbird, involved importing Thunderbird's automatic account setup, message filters, and mobile/desktop Thunderbird syncing. At the tail end of 2023, however, Ketterer wrote on K-9's blog that the punchlist of items before official Thunderbird-dom was taking longer than expected. But when it's fully released, Thunderbird for Android will have those features. As such, beta testers are asked to check out a specific list of things to see if they work, including automatic setup, folder management, and K-9-to-Thunderbird transfer. The beta will not be "addressing longstanding issues," Thunderbird's blog post notes. Read full article
Business Read on Ars TechnicaZoom plans to introduce a feature to let people effectively clone themselves digitally. There's concerns that this could be misused.
Crime and Courts Read on TechCrunchAfter a competitive casting process, the Rebel Ridge star has officially boarded the DC Studios series.
Entertainment Read on GizmodoZoom is getting one step closer to letting AI avatars attend meetings for you. As part of a broader AI expansion, Zoom announced it will soon let you create an AI avatar of yourself that you can use to send brief messages to your team. To create a digital avatar, you’ll need to record an initial video of yourself that Zoom’s AI will use to make an avatar that looks — and even sounds — like you. From there, you can write the message you want your AI avatar to say and then have it do all the talking for you. This feature will only work with Zoom’s Clips feature, allowing you to record brief video updates for your colleagues. Zoom is taking the possibility of deepfakes into account. Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer, said during a...
Business Read on The Verge TechBrazil's Supreme Court is allowing Elon Musk's X to resume operations, apparently ending a months-long battle after the social network paid over $5 million in fines and reluctantly agreed to suspend accounts accused of spreading disinformation. The court yesterday issued a press release announcing the reinstatement, saying that X has complied with all the orders it previously defied. Brazil Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered that the suspension be ended and that telecom agency Anatel take steps to allow the platform's return. The dispute began in April, when X refused to suspend certain accounts belonging to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. X, formerly Twitter, was banned in Brazil for over a month. Internet providers, including Musk's Starlink service, were ordered to block the social network. Read full article
Politics Read on Ars TechnicaPalantir now owns 8.7% of struggling electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The data-mining company was granted more than 800,000 shares in the EV startup on October 2 “as payment for certain outstanding receivables” — the equivalent of roughly $2.4 million judging by Faraday […]
Business Read on TechCrunchThis Prime Big Deal slashes $100 off the price of this amazingly smart Android tablet, all the way down to a lowest-ever $300
Business Possible ad Read on GizmodoMicrosoft has fixed a known issue that was causing Word to delete some Windows users' documents instead of saving them....
Business Read on Bleeping ComputerMicrosoft has fixed a known issue that was causing Word to delete some Windows users' documents instead of saving them....
Business Read on Bleeping ComputerRobot vacuums are some of the most useful smart home gadgets you can buy. Small, circular home helpers that clean areas you can’t reach and work hard so you don’t have to, these little suckers are life-changing. As The Verge’s resident robot vacuum expert, I’ve tested dozens of different models over the last five years and have always highly recommended only buying robot vacuums when they’re on sale. This is because: (a) they’re expensive, and (b) they're almost always on sale — if not today, then likely tomorrow. And today, the last day of the October Prime Day event, is a very good day to pick one up. There are some excellent deals to be had — over 50 percent off in some cases. Here are my picks based on price and prowess:
Lifestyle Possible ad Read on The VergeAround twenty percent of the homeless people in the Netherlands are children. Another fifth are between the ages of 18 and 27.
Environment Read on NL TimesGeneral Motors is shaking up its electric vehicle strategy once again. Despite bumper EV sales in 2024, the US automaker told investors yesterday that it will stop branding its batteries under the Ultium name. Perhaps more consequentially, it's also abandoning its one-cell-type-fits-all strategy and will embrace a wider range of cell chemistries and physical formats in forthcoming EVs. GM debuted the Ultium brand in March 2020 as part of a much-hyped EV plan that was supposed to see 22 new electric models on sale in the US by 2023. The company formed a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem, called Ultium Cells LLC, and decided on a family of common batteries across its brands, using a nickel manganese cobalt aluminum chemistry in a pouch cell format that could be combined in modules for packs as small as 50 kWh or larger than 200 kWh, as found in the Hummer and Silverado EVs. Most importantly, GM chair and CEO Mary Barra said that Ultium cells would drop below the important $100/kWh barrier "early in the platform's life." Read full article
Business Read on Ars TechnicaSave up to 32% on these retro-inspired mechanical keyboards designed after old gaming consoles from the early era of gaming.
Politics Possible ad Read on GizmodoThe Wimbledon Championships, the most prestigious of professional tennis events, declared it would no longer use human line judges at next year’s tournament. In 2025, the London event will use an electronic line-calling system (ELC) instead. First reported in The Times of London, the announcement marks a radical change to a 147-year-old tradition, albeit one that’s on trend with the sport’s broad shift toward technology-assisted officiating. In 2023, the Association of Tennis Professionals announced all of its events would move toward automating line calls, and two of the four Slams have already incorporated it. With Wimbledon going with ELC, the last holdout is the French Open. In the past, a court was monitored by as many as nine line...
Sports Read on The VergeNintendo just announced its new Alarmo clock with a motion sensor, and even though we’re still soaking in the $100 device, the company also shared a look at some interesting early prototypes that reveal how the project changed during its development. While the Alarmo is round and an eye-catching red, one “early” prototype Nintendo showed in an “Ask the Developer” interview had a more boxy shape and came in gray. This prototype did have an interesting feature in its dot matrix LED display (similar to the now-discontinued Echo Dot with Clock), but Nintendo ultimately went in a different direction because “we felt that this display system wouldn’t be able to communicate the instructions sufficiently,” says Nintendo’s Yosuke Tamori, who...
Entertainment Read on The Verge TechSix unusual earthquakes shook Mount Adams in September, but it's too soon to speculate about a potential eruption
Environment Read on GizmodoIt's the best deal of Prime Day for those looking for a laptop.
Business Possible ad Read on Gizmodo