The US Federal Trade Commission and at least three states are investigating Meta for antitrust violations in its virtual reality division, according to Bloomberg. The report says the FTC and attorneys general from New York, Tennessee, and North Carolina began speaking last year with third-party VR developers who have concerns about Meta’s business practices. It’s…

Google is in the process of releasing a much-anticipated update for Pixel 6 phones. Earlier today, Android expert Mishaal Rahman noted that Google posted OTA and factory images to its developer site for the January 2022 patch. That means anyone can sideload the update to their Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro now, and the…

The White House has announced that people will be able to order free COVID-19 tests from COVIDTests.gov starting on Wednesday, January 19th. This follows a promise that the government would be setting up a website to distribute 500 million tests, which President Joe Biden announced in December. You’ll only have to put in two pieces…

Amazon-owned Eero seems to be close to announcing new routers sometime soon, as new FCC filings appeared this week for devices that appear to be called the Eero 6 Plus and the Eero Pro 6E. That 6E branding for the Pro could indicate it will support Wi-Fi 6E, meaning it can take advantage of 6GHz…

You might think a Google phone would be the best choice to control your Google-branded speakers, but that’s not necessarily true: Google’s actions have potentially opened the door for other manufacturers to do what the Pixel legally cannot, writes Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman at Esper. Last week, we wrote how “Your Google home speakers are…

Rumors have swirled for years about Apple releasing some kind of virtual reality / augmented reality headset. While reports had pegged a possible 2022 release for the company’s first mixed reality headset, the device is hitting some development snags and may not release until 2023, according to Bloomberg. Apple planned to reveal the headset at…

Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, has arrested numerous members of the REvil hacking group at the request of the US government, the FSB said on Friday. The move, which marks an unusual degree of cooperation between Russian and US agencies, comes amid increasingly aggressive Russian military activity on the Ukrainian border and tense diplomacy…

Bollinger, a Michigan-based startup, announced today that it was postponing its plans to manufacture electric trucks in order to focus on commercial delivery vans. Bollinger burst onto the scene several years ago with a pair of rugged, box-like electric truck prototypes: the four-door B1 (which is shaped like a Jeep Wrangler) and the B2 (which…

Block, the payment company formerly known as Square, is working on building an “open Bitcoin mining system,” its CEO Jack Dorsey has announced. In a thread, Block’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton outlined the company’s goals for the system, which is for it to be easily available, reliable, performant, and relatively power efficient compared…

While Slack began as a workplace instant-messaging tool, over the last few years it has become popular as a way for anyone to keep in contact with a group of friends, colleagues, or family. It now even offers a way for groups to create in-the-moment “huddles,” in which two or more people can move from…