Once only available in the fevered dreams of science fiction writers, the lethal headset is now a physical thing.

The creator says that the “half that kills you” is working, while he hasn’t figured out the “perfect-VR half of the equation.”

Oh, the creator? None other than VR wunderkind, Palmer Luckey. Yes, that Palmer Luckey, the one who co-founded Oculus, the VR hardware company now owned by Meta.

The sci-fi trope headset is supposedly “a piece of office art” with Luckey saying he hasn’t “worked up the balls to actually use it [himself].”

He even plans to make it tamper-resistant, so it will kill the user if someone tries to remove the headset.

That admission does beg the question: under what situation would he (or anyone) willingly use the lethal headset?

Anime inspired this lethal VR headset

See, maybe Luckey’s creation of this abominable headset makes sense to him.

The inspiration for the device came from Sword Art Online (SAO), a 2000’s webcomic that turned into an anime, and then multiple video games, including a VR demo.

That last game demo is important because the whole plot of SAO hinges on a VR headset. In it, the creator of the SAO game in the webcomic also creates the NerveGear, a VR headset to play the game with.

The game gets through the beta stages, and thousands of players buy the hardware. Then, the creator locks them into the virtual world.

The headset has a superpowered microwave that can kill the user if they either die in game or try to take the headset off.

The popularity of SAO helped Oculus, especially in the Japanese market. Maybe Luckey created this headset as an homage to the series that helped his own non-lethal VR headset. Or, perhaps he’s just a loon.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Apple’s AR glasses have reportedly been delayed
• Is God of War Ragnarök worth buying? Here’s what reviewers say
• Elden Ring: Everything to know about multiplayer co-op and PvP
• Diablo 4: Release date, classes, gameplay, and platforms

The post This VR headset explodes if you die in-game appeared first on KnowTechie.

No, you didn’t misread that. This piece of functional modern art costs $12,000. Porsche Design only made 500 of them for the entire world, but we imagine the target market is small.

The 911 Soundbar 2.0 Pro has enough oomph to go 0-60 in a really short time. The 2.1.2 virtual surround system has 300 watts of system power, 4K-compatible HDMI ports for input, Wi-Fi connectivity, and Bluetooth 5.0.

And don’t forget — the original Porsche 992 GTS exhaust system. That’s the internal name for the 911 GTS before it gets to the consumer market, and you can now have a piece of it on your wall.

Well, assuming you have $12,000 to spare, in a looming recession, with inflation out of control. Oh, and a wall able to hold 65kg (143.3 lbs).

You’ll have to be a purveyor of purloined Porsche parts to really enjoy this soundbar in your home. Even Dolby Atmos DTS-HD, Apple AirPlay 2, and Google Chromecast support won’t be enough of a draw for most.

Maybe this soundbar will appeal to true gearheads. It’ll certainly turn heads, just as much as the car that also uses that exhaust system.

Porsche Design isn’t the only company making oddball speaker systems. These options are a great way to decorate while hiding functionality so you can listen to music wherever you are.

It’s also not the only time Porsche Design has put an exhaust system on a speaker. The last version was $3,500, and featured 2.1 virtual surround and 200 watts of power.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Razer launches new $99 Leviathan V2 X soundbar for PCs
• Vizio is going all-out on smart TVs and soundbars in 2023
• Review: Monoprice Soundstage 3 portable Bluetooth speaker
• Volvo will stop selling gas guzzlers by 2030

The post Porsche’s $12K soundbar features a 992 GTS exhaust system appeared first on KnowTechie.

No, I’m not angry with you. I’m just worried. You’ve always been a good, diligent worker. But now, I’m starting to see cracks in your sanity.

Yes, I’m talking about your keyboard idea. Look, we appreciate creativity at Google, but we also have limits. 

What were you thinking? No, I’m not angry. I’m asking you a very literal question. What actually went through your mind when you came up with the idea for a keyboard that’s literally one long row of keys?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Have you seen this thing? I mean, seriously. Have you held it in your hand? It’s like a bloody lightsaber. How are you supposed to type on this? It’s 5.4ft (1.65m) long. It’s longer than some people’s cars! 

Sure, it might work if you have a Christopher Lee-sized arm span. But if you’re a normal person with normal arms, it’s useless. 

Yes, I hear you. Two people can, theoretically, use this at the same time, like they’re reenacting that shit hacking scene from NCIS.

You can theoretically do a lot of things. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Haven’t you seen Jurassic Park? 

I mean, in practice, how does that work? Every time you need a bit of punctuation, you have to yell to your co-worker to press the comma button?

Can we expect your productivity (and that of the poor dupe you’ve roped into this scheme) to fall to one sentence per day? 

I can’t really grumble about the name. The Gboard Bar sounds like an overpriced beachfront dive bar, but it doesn’t really rank in the hierarchy of crap tech product names. 

Remember that German MP3 player company in the mid-2000s? How it had a line of devices called “i.Beat” and then made a special edition called the “Blaxx?”

And how when you put both names together, it sounded really, really bad?

The Gboard Bar is generic, but it could be worse. Personally, I would have preferred to see a bit of commitment to the bit.

You’ve already made the most bonkers tech product since the iSmell. Why not call it something like “The Toblerone Typewriter?” 

I’m not trying to yell at you

I’ll cut to the chase. We won’t manufacture your keyboard. Google. We just killed Stadia, and people actually used that! Not many, but some. Probably.

Your five-foot keyboard has two potential users: Christopher Lee, who died in 2015, and Stretch Armstrong, who isn’t a real person. He’s a toy. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but inanimate rubber objects don’t have credit cards. 

And I suppose it’s not a total waste. It might not be a good keyboard, but it’s a perfectly fine suppository for the guy who shut down Google Reader.

Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• New Das Keyboard 6 Pro is all business at $199
• New Google Search feature alerts you when it finds personal info
• How to enable haptic feedback on your iPhone keyboard
• How to request a refund for Google Stadia

The post Google’s new Gboard Bar keyboard is just a 5-foot row of keys appeared first on KnowTechie.

The company announced the feature on Wednesday at its Re:MARS conference, which is currently taking place in Las Vegas. The Re:MARS event is a showcase for Amazon’s AI tech. MARS itself is an acronym and stands for Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space.

Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s Head Scientist, said the feature could be used to replicate the voices of deceased relatives. In one demonstration, the reconstituted voice of an older woman is heard reading her presumed grandson a bedtime story. Watch it below.

Computers have long enjoyed the ability to mimic human voices. In fact, the technology is well established and increasingly commoditized.

In addition to the various commercial tools like Resemble AI and LyreBird, you can find several free open-source packages offering the functionality, with many based on the GPT-3 AI model.

This Alexa update merely builds on this. It lowers the barrier to entry dramatically, making it possible for anyone to create faithful renditions of their loved ones’ voices. But it’s not without its ethical questions.

The Thorny Ethical Questions

First, there’s the thorny issue of consent. I’m not discounting the possibility that people will gain a sense of comfort from being able to hear their loved ones’ voices. But would you want to be turned into a voice assistant after you die?

It feels almost like a discarded plot line from Black Mirror. You die and suddenly you’re encased in a small plastic sphere, dutifully performing any task barked at you.

Dead people can’t consent. Users have no way of knowing whether this feature goes against the wishes of their relatives. Additionally, how will Amazon determine whether a voice belongs to a dead person or a living person?

Again, the idea that someone could grab a one-minute snippet of my voice and permanently turn me into a subservient digital assistant is horrifying.

Consequently, there are the other more serious — and less philosophical — concerns.

The Problem of Vishing

As mentioned, the ability to make a computer sound like a person is nothing new. This Alexa update would simply lower the barrier to entry. With this in mind, it’s not hard to see how a malicious third party could weaponize this.

I’m talking about “vishing,” of course. Vishing stands for “voice phishing.” It’s a relatively new take on something most of us have witnessed, if not directly fallen victim to.

The premise is simple. Someone mimics another person’s voice and gets them to do something, like transfer a sum of money to an offshore bank account, or hand over their login credentials.

This approach is invariably devastating. For example, in 2021, scammers tricked a UK energy firm into transferring €200,000 (around $210,000) to a foreign bank under their control, after they successfully impersonated a company executive.

Speaking to the Washington Post, the company’s insurer described the terrifying accuracy of the deepfake used. “The software was able to imitate the voice, and not only the voice: the tonality, the punctuation, the German accent,” they said.

It’s reasonable to worry that, with this feature, Amazon is opening Pandora’s box with serious ethical and security ramifications. Without any guardrails, the consequences could prove dire.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• How to turn on follow-up mode on Alexa
• Google Nest cameras now work on any Alexa device with a screen
• Surprise! Amazon uses Alexa voice data to serve targeted ads
• How to call someone from Alexa and Amazon Echo

The post Amazon wants to make Alexa sound like your dead relatives appeared first on KnowTechie.

First conceived in 2015 and “built from the ground up with little ones in mind”; YouTube Kids was supposed to be a safe place. Video submissions are screened by both human moderators and artificial intelligence. They’re not doing a good enough job.

TTP found all kinds of objectionable, inappropriate content in the mix of videos on YouTube Kids. Some examples include videos talking about concealing firearms and “encouraging skin bleaching.”

READ MORE: Here are the secret emojis teens are using to buy drugs online

READ MORE: YouTube now lets you use your phone as a second screen

There were even videos talking about cocaine and crystal meth, and diet culture. I’m fairly sure we need to show body positivity to two-year-olds; not tell them that they should limit their serving sizes.

Content referencing Breaking Bad kept popping up, including themed cooking shows making fake meth. Minecraft creators also recreated scenes from the show. Even music videos referencing other hard drugs made it into the Kids app.

Other content found by TTP includes videos about skin bleaching, exercise videos emphasizing burning calories, and unboxing videos which lack the required FTC disclosures.

That last point is partly because YouTube Kids doesn’t have a place for video descriptions; where most YouTubers put their disclosures on the main site.

YouTube has removed or age-gated the flagged videos from the Kids app. Let’s hope they can stop these types of content from appearing in the first place.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• YouTube is adding picture-in-picture support for iOS users, but it’s not all great news
• How to send YouTube links as stickers in Snapchat
• Apple, Microsoft, and Google are working on a passwordless future
• Facebook intentionally blocked government pages in Australia

The post YouTube Kids exposed for suggesting drug and gun videos appeared first on KnowTechie.

First noticed by 9to5Mac‘s editor-in-chief Chance Miller, the OG HomePod is trending on eBay with some crazy pricing. Sealed units are going for anywhere north of $500 on average. Even used units with no box are still selling for over $200.

That makes the average price of an OG HomePod $375 over the last week, according to The Verge. That’s a 25-percent premium over the MSRP Apple set all those years ago. Not a bad return on your investment, if you’d kept one in its wrapping.

READ MORE: A new HomePod is reportedly coming later this year

I sold one in used condition just before the pandemic started and was happy to get just under the MSRP. Then again, it was taking up lots of space and the cash was appreciated.

Some of the listings even mention that they got Apple to replace their old HomePod with brand new, in-box units. That means the one you’ll be buying on eBay could be brand new, but you’re going to have to pay through the nose for one.

The real question is why? Sure, the Apple HomePod does pump out quality audio thanks to its over-engineered array of speakers. Maybe it’s because the HomePod mini isn’t quite room-filling enough.

Who knows, but the pricing is only going to get wilder. It’s not the first time a discontinued Apple product commanded more than its MSRP. That honor is reserved for the 2001 iPod, which sold for $20K.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• iPhone apps can still track you regardless of what Apple claims
• Apple’s upcoming mixed reality headset has been delayed…again
• This leak gives us a glimpse of Google’s upcoming Pixel Watch
• Microsoft finally has a Windows 2-in-1 that’s actually worth buying

The post Your HomePod is worth more than MSRP for some reason appeared first on KnowTechie.

To add to the chaos of the moment, commuters found that both companies had implemented surge pricing in the wake of the attack.

Some of the prices were ten times the usual rates, seemingly putting profits over people’s safety. Just look at the price of the Uber ride shared by Shannon McDonagh on Twitter.

READ MORE: Uber used a shady trick called a ‘kill switch’ to evade police raids

In case you think Uber was the only one, they weren’t. Lyft also implemented surge pricing yesterday morning, while the subways were still shut down.

READ MORE: Uber no longer requires you to wear a mask on rides

That’s not just an algorithm, that’s pure profiteering from the two largest ridesharing companies during a tragedy.

Uber has also told Insider that it will “refund customers who were charged surge pricing around Sunset Park in Brooklyn.” That’s a good response, after the fact, but it didn’t have to be like this.

How many people decided against getting to safety via Uber, due to the overblown surge pricing? How many Uber drivers bravely drove into the danger zone to pick up passengers, lured in by the promise of higher than usual fares? Is surge pricing automatic or does a human make the decision?

The thing is, it seems that after the initial outrage, Uber is still implementing surge pricing again this morning. This tweet from an NYC resident shows a $41.17 UberX trip into Brooklyn, while Lyft is charging $20.55 for the same pickup and dropoff points.

Lyft is also giving discounted rides in NYC, “while transit is affected.” Riders in NYC can use NCYHELP22 for two free rides, of up to $15 each. This code will work until 4/15/22 at 11:59 pm ET, for 1000 users.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Uber adds planes, trains, and (rental) automobiles to its app
• New study shows that maybe Uber and Lyft actually aren’t better for the environment
• Halo is a new ridesharing service that remotely drops off a car for you to drive around
• GM and Honda are teaming up to make EVs that compete with Tesla

The post Did Uber really use surge pricing after the Brooklyn shooting? appeared first on KnowTechie.

The Android app uses AI to estimate the speed of any vehicle in its view, and it’s a terrible idea. It’s supposedly the brainchild of “a team of AI scientists with backgrounds in Silicon Valley companies and top UK universities.”

It is the perfect example of “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

READ MORE: This eye-scanning app screens patients for Alzheimer’s and ADHD

Let’s break it down. For one thing, your crowdsourced speed data isn’t going to hold up in court. Not that you’d get anywhere near court; as only law officers can cite drivers for speeding.

READ MORE: Is the NewProfilePic app safe?

The developers say it could deter speeding, and lead to fewer serious injuries on the roads. A worthy idea, sure, but turning citizens into snitches never ends well for the populace.

The other terrible part about this app? You have to pay to use it. It works on a credits system. You get 20 credits for free at sign-up; then it’s £15 ($19.56 USD) for 1000 credits to continue policing the streets.

Yeah, it’s a pass from us on this speed trap app. It seems that the reviews from users of Speedcam Anywhere also see this as a passing fad, with the most common complaint being that it’s difficult to sign-up in the first place.

Maybe that’s for the best, and leave the speed policing to the actual police, yeah?

READ MORE: This app will pay you $5 a day to keep you from drinking

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Epic Games has a free app that scans your world into video games
• Spotify could be entering the NFT world
• Peloton Guide is a camera that tracks and analyzes your workouts
• Tinder now lets you run background checks on your sketchy matches

The post This speed trap app lets anyone take the law into their own hands appeared first on KnowTechie.

Over the weekend, a thread on Apple’s discussion forum sprung into life. In it, over 50 users of the Studio Display had one common problem – they couldn’t update the device. When they tried, they received the below error message:

Apple Studio Display firmware update could not be completed. Try again in an hour. If the problem persists, contact an authorized Apple service provider.

That’s bad enough on its own, stopping you from updating your brand-new $1,599 monitor. What makes this bug even worse is that it stopped the users from updating the Mac they had attached to the Studio Display.

READ MORE: How to update the Studio Display to make your webcam better

Yes, a bug in one device stopped them from getting the important security updates for macOS on their computer. That’s a bad look, Apple, but it gets worse.

The reason you couldn’t update your Studio Display? It was Apple all along. See, according to Macworld, when Apple releases a new iOS update, they “stop signing” the previous version.

iOS 15.4 can’t even install properly on the monitor, as it “basically has the guts of an iPhone 11;” while iOS 15.4.1 doesn’t work on the Studio Display.

The fix? Apple has re-signed iOS 15.4, so the Studio Display can now update its firmware. You also need your Mac to be on macOS 12.3.1, so check for an update for that. Oh, also, this update doesn’t actually fix the display’s webcam issue.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Apple is facing antitrust charges in the EU over a Spotify complaint
• Apple’s Studio Display has 64GB of storage – Why?
• Google will soon send you parts so you can fix your own Pixel phone
• Samsung unveils its first-ever OLED TV for 2022

The post Apple Studio Display users can finally update their device appeared first on KnowTechie.

The fast-food pioneer and its partner, Miso Robotics, announced their plans to bring burger-flipping robots to 100 White Castle locations. And with a little over 350 locations in total, this is a pretty significant expansion for the company.

I say expansion because this is not the beginning of a partnership between White Castle and Miso Robotics. The two companies initially began working together more than a year ago. White Castle participated in a test at a single location, utilizing a burger-flipping robot aptly named Flippy.

Now, Miso Robotics has developed Flippy 2, a new and improved burger-flipping machine. Flippy 2 takes over the entire fry station at a White Castle. In addition, it can perform more than twice as many food prep tasks as the original, making the robot even more helpful to the White Castle kitchen.

READ MORE: Chipotle’s chip-producing robot makes more per month than a human employee

“Having Flippy 2 be a new hire at 100 of our White Castle locations keeps us on a path to achieve big goals at White Castle,” said White Castle COO Jeff Carper.

White Castle will implement the new Flippy 2 robot at its locations over the next few years. As a result, the company expects many significant improvements in productivity with Flippy 2 at so many of its locations.

So the next time you visit a White Castle, don’t be surprised to see a burger-flipping robot behind the scenes.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• You can get your own massage robot for the low, low price of $310,000
• Snowbot is a robotic snowblower that does all the heavy lifting for you
• This new humanoid robot shows more emotion than I ever have
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The post White Castle is hiring 100 robots to flip burgers appeared first on KnowTechie.

MoviePass is back, and now it looks like a crypto-bros wet dream where you watch adverts to generate virtual currency, which can then be redeemed for theater tickets or concessions.

The dystopian nightmare attached to this? The app will use facial recognition to only credit you when you’re actively looking at it. Yikes.

If it sounds like a scam, looks like a scam, and walks like a scam… I mean, MoviePass was never going to work in the first place. $10 a month to be able to watch as many movies in the theater as you want? The math was never gonna work out.

Then you add former CEO Mitch Lowe making employees lock some of the heaviest users out of their accounts, dodgy ways to resubscribe prior users, a class-action suit brought by the shareholders, and eventual bankruptcy and you can see why it was never going to work.

Now, one of the original MoviePass co-founders, Stacy Spikes, has the rights to the name again. Spikes bought it on the cheap during the bankruptcy proceedings. The MoviePass reincarnation is filled with web3 buzzwords, from virtual currency to digital wallets.

Even the advert-watching-for-virtual-currency part looks like a scam. It’s powered by something called PreShow, which started life as a Kickstarter that never delivered on its promises.

The advertisements only play while your phone detects you’re looking right at them. Trust issues, much? Know who else doesn’t trust anyone? Scammers.

Yeah, we’re not saying that MoviePass is a scam but something is very off here. Why does a service that promises to give you virtual currency in exchange for watching ads have a tiered subscription model?

At this point, MoviePass and its co-founders have shown us who they are. Don’t sign up for this, it’s a privacy nightmare at best.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Jack Dorsey says Mark Zuckerberg wasted his time on Meta’s crypto project
• TurboTax now lets you deposit your tax return directly into your Coinbase account
• Nike is coming for StockX over its sneaker NFTs
• GameStop is launching an OpenSea-like NFT marketplace for gamers

The post MoviePass is back, but not in the way you expect appeared first on KnowTechie.

But the truth is, my wife absolutely hates it. She’s known for unclogging the toilet after my blatant disregard of our TP rations. Now, if only there were something that would shame my excessive wiping habits. Well, readers, meet the NodeMCU WiFi Toilet Paper Sheet Counter. 

This toilet paper tracker keeps tabs on how much toilet paper you use. As the YouTube video description says, “Keep track of use and abuse. Whose butt does the most damage to the planet and budget?!” Check it out in action here: 

Creator Vije Miller developed the device, and he explains how he created the formula used to estimate the number of sheets counted. It’s a bit complex, but Gizmodo sums it up really well: 

“The sheet counter is powered by an ESP8266 running NodeMCU. It relies on a pair of neodymium magnets and a hall sensor (a device that detects the presence and intensity of a magnetic field) to keep tabs on the rotation of a roll of toilet paper.”

As for tracking, an LCD screen displays usage statistics, but it goes a step further. The data is uploaded to ThinkSpeak, an IoT analytics platform service that allows you to visualize and analyze live data streams in the cloud. This means anyone can access and track how much TP is being used in Miller’s own household.

While this toilet paper counter isn’t a thing you can actually buy, it’s undoubtedly something most of us can appreciate. Not to mention our toilets and the environment.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Is the Apple Ring real? What you need to know about the rumored smart wedding ring
• Does Microsoft have any plans for a HoloLens 3?
• The Milin Cool Mist Humidifier kicks the absolute shit out of dry air
• TP-Link’s new router automatically adjusts its antennas to give you the best signal

The post This toilet paper sheet counter puts excessive wipers on blast appeared first on KnowTechie.

We all knew the camera-only side mirrors that Tesla had originally destined for the Cybertruck wouldn’t last. Most states require physical side mirrors to be present, especially if the center mirror is obstructed as the Cybertruck would be.

We hope the mirrors that Tesla slapped onto the prototype aren’t going to be the production ones, as they’re fugly. Seriously, they look like they were torn off a Ford Transit and glued in place.

That said, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the mirrors are designed to be “easy to remove by owners.” They might not even ship with any in Europe, where cameras are allowed to replace physical, outside mirrors.

The other big change is the wheels, which seem closer to the Model 3 standard rims. Electrek thinks those rims were always there, hidden by the aerodynamic covers shown on the launch prototype.

The pictures show some other minor changes to the Cybertruck, like the massive, single windshield wiper on the front windshield. Tesla designed this to extend with magnets, so it can clean the whole windshield at once.

The handles on the doors have also disappeared from sight. Instead, the Cybertruck will open the door for you when it recognizes you walking up.

It’s still the same vehicle that already has hundreds of thousands of preorders. Tesla had to tweak the Cybertruck design to fit motor vehicle regulations across the country, which is why it now has side mirrors and a flatter nose.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Tesla Full Self-Driving now costs $12,000 – unless you pay monthly
• Elon Musk says SpaceX is taking people to Mars in the next 10 years
• The first edition Chevrolet Silverado EV sold out in just 12 minutes
• A hacker on Twitter says they took partial control of over 25 Tesla EVs

The post Why did Tesla slap these truly terrible side mirrors on the Cybertruck? appeared first on KnowTechie.

Smart guns, as they are being called, have been a topic of discussion for some time now and it looks like we may see the first couple of iterations coming to market sometime this year.

Thanks to a report from Reuters, we now have word of two different companies that plan to create smart guns for consumers before the end of this year.

SmartGunz LLC is a gun manufacturer out of Kansas that is currently testing out its smart guns with law enforcement. That company is using radio frequency identification to ensure that only selected users can fire the guns. Its smart guns have been developed for both law enforcement and civilians.

LodeStar Works is the other company set to deliver a smart gun during 2022. That company recently revealed its 9mm smart handgun with a few different options for security.

The guns have fingerprint sensors as well as a pin pad where users can set a combination that unlocks the gun for firing. The company also has a mobile app that can be used to lock the gun.

A lot of people don’t like the idea of smart guns

Smart guns have been a controversial topic for some time now. Many critics say that having to unlock a gun could take too much time in situations where time is of the essence, such as break-ins or for law enforcement.

Reuters also notes that Smith & Wesson, an extremely popular gun brand, pledged to promote smart gun development way back in 1999. But the company’s customers weren’t having it, and the National Rifle Association led a major boycott of the company.

Despite the criticism, these companies are moving forward. The companies hope to potentially avoid some of the tragedies that can happen with guns by making sure only the right people can use them.

I think these smart guns are a great idea that could potentially save many lives in the future. But I guess, for now, we’ll have to wait and see how the gun nuts in this country react to the extra safety features in these firearms.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• This company wants to take on Tesla with cheaper solar roof panels
• Canon is encouraging printer owners to break DRM so they can use ink cartridges
• Weird laptops were everywhere at CES 2022
• HP’s new Chromebook is the first to feature haptic feedback on the trackpad

The post 2022 could be the year of the smart gun appeared first on KnowTechie.

Depending on which graphics card you have, you might even be in the hole, if your electricity consumption is higher than the amount of crypto that Norton’s miner makes for you. Yikes.

Here’s how to remove the cryptominer from Norton antivirus

You can remove the Norton Crypto service if you don’t want to remove the entire Norton package.

1. Open N360 and then click on Device Security

2. Click on Settings

3. Disable Norton Tamper Protection (select 15 minutes when it asks for a time period)

4. Open File Explorer and go to C:/…/Program Files/Norton Security/engine/(product version)

5. Look for NCrypt.exe in the list and delete it

If you’re disgusted by this and want to cancel your subscription to Norton, they don’t make that easy either.

The FAQ says you should be able to go into your account page and Cancel Subscription Renewal. However, some users on Twitter are saying that didn’t work, and they had to contact Norton directly to cancel their account.

At this point, we can’t blame you if you want to cancel Norton. They’ve long used dark patterns to make it easy for you to subscribe but difficult to unsubscribe, and this cryptomining debacle is just wrong.

Our advice? Use Windows Defender, it’s actually useful in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Norton 360 is adding a crypto miner to its antivirus software because why the hell not
• Can a Tesla mine crypto? This owner says he’s doing it and making up to $800 per month
• Is this guy Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s creator? Elon Musk sure thinks so
• GameStop is going all-in on NFTs and crypto because nothing else has worked

The post Your Norton antivirus software can mine crypto for you, but Norton wants a 15% cut appeared first on KnowTechie.

Canon has admitted to customers that it can’t source the chip they use for DRM; which also keeps track of toner levels. That means that even Canon’s own toner cartridges might show up as counterfeit to the printer, as the chip won’t be found. Yikes.

Canon’s solution? A statement on its German website, and emailed to some customers, outlines the issue and then goes into a how-to for bypassing the DRM.

Yes, Canon is advising its own customers to break its DRM, so their printers will accept the toner cartridges. Canon says that this should still only be done with official, Canon-branded toner cartridges.

That’s fine, we shouldn’t expect anything else from a company that probably makes more on toner than on selling printers, but it’s not the full story.

If it’s that trivial to dismiss the scare tactic pop-ups that either warn or disable the printer when a non-genuine (read: non-Canon) cartridge is inserted – what’s to stop anyone using third-party, cheaper alternatives in the future?

Canon has just invalidated its own argument for why you should be using first-party toner. If the printer will still work after the DRM is disabled, what was the point of the DRM?

We’re pretty sure many of the countries that Canon sells printers in have stringent laws about anti-competitive behavior like this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Canon’s admission that the printers will still work without the DRM is the first step to legislation that strips proprietary DRM measures like this.

That’ll be a win for consumers, and for manufacturers, as if anyone can make toner cartridges for any printer, increased competition should result in better, cheaper toner for everyone.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Canon is being sued because it disabled features when printers ran out of ink
• This guy made an absolute killing selling overpriced printer toner – now he’s going to jail for it
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Instead of paying Tesla for the required repair services, he teamed up with a YouTuber that specializes in explosive content, to send the sky-high repair bill, umm, sky-high.

The Finnish owner, Tuomas Katainen, loved his Tesla Model S for the first 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) after he bought it. That’s when the trouble started, according to him, with error codes constantly appearing.

As any dutiful car owner would, he took it into the local Tesla dealer’s authorized repair shop to analyze the issue. A month went by, with the repair shop saying that it wasn’t going to be a cheap fix. The only way to get rid of the error messages? A complete battery replacement, priced at 20,000€ ($22,600) or more.

Katainen’s response? He told the mechanic that he was coming to pick up his car, so he could “explode the whole car away.” Seems reasonable, right?

An out-of-warranty Tesla battery replacement is roughly that price, half of the price of a whole, same-year Model S in Finland. So, why not just strap dynamite to the defective car and make a big bang? Here’s the video below:

Check out the fiery demise of the Tesla in the video above, from Finnish YouTubers Pommijätkät. That roughly translates to bombers, which is pretty accurate since the bulk of their content features an abundance of pyrotechnics.

The final resting place of Katainen’s Tesla Model S? A small town in Southern Finland, Jaala, and an even smaller quarry.

There’s one less Finnish Tesla owner in the world. Pour one out for him and his troubles. We’re assuming he bought something that wasn’t a Tesla to replace his car.

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The post Guy decides to explode his Tesla Model S instead of paying a $22.6K repair bill appeared first on KnowTechie.

Some background first. Fisher-Price made a special, Bluetooth-equipped version of the iconic Chatter phone for its 60th birthday. It connects to your iPhone or Android device and lets you make and receive phone calls. 

When Fisher-Price announced it, the phone sold out instantly. At the time of writing this, it’s still unavailable at Best Buy. But fearing privacy concerns, security researchers at Pen Test Partners outlined issues with the little phone.

TechCrunch was able to get their hands on one and, after some internal testing, it turned out that the tip was right. As a result, TechCrunch confirmed the phone could be used as a spying device by remotely tapping into Chatter’s audio.

So how is this possible? It all boils down to the phone not having a secure pairing process, meaning any unauthorized phones in Bluetooth range can connect to it.

Well aware

The issue isn’t so much the lack of a PIN to connect, it’s that the device is always discoverable. It’s supposed to only be with a button press for a short time. Firmware hiccup I bet.

Dammit. Now I’m gonna spend the holidays dumping firmware from my chatter phone

— Render Man (@ihackedwhat) December 23, 2021

Mattel, the company that makes the Chatter phone, told TechCrunch the phone “will time out if no connection is made or once the pairing occurs — it is only discoverable within a narrow window of time and requires physical access to the device.” TechCrunch quickly debunked this in their testing. 

In another test, they left the receiver off the hook and called the phone connected to the Chatter phone, and boom, the phone answered the call, “immediately activating the handset’s microphone and allowing us to hear ambient background audio,” TechCrunch writes. Yikes. 

READ MORE: Some nutbag rigged a Fisher-Price baby controller to play Elden Ring

Ken Munro, the founder of the cybersecurity company Pen Test Partners, notified TechCrunch of this security flaw and offered this kicker of a quote: “It doesn’t need kids to interact with it in order for it to become an audio bug. Just leaving the handset off is enough,” said Munro.

When pressed for comment, a Mattel spokesperson said the company is “committed to security and we will be investigating these claims.”

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

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The post This adorable little Fisher-Price phone could be used as a spying device appeared first on KnowTechie.

If you’ve got both Apple and non-Apple devices in your house, head on over to the PNG Parser website on each and see what you are shown. Even if you don’t have two different devices, check it out in Safari, and another browser like Brave. Desktop Firefox will also show the difference, but iOS Firefox uses Safari’s renderer so it will show the same thing.

The creator of this blursed piece of tech, David Buchanan, found it quite by accident. He was working on a way to do multi-thread decodes of PNG files and found a bug that could be exploited in fun ways.

That fun multiplied when he realized that Apple’s own implementation of “parallel-decodable PNGs” suffers from the same bug. That ended up in a new tool to create these merged PNG files; which show one image on Apple’s Safari browser, and another on pretty much every other browser in existence.

READ MORE: How to convert screenshots from PNG to JPEG on iPhone

Okay, neat trick. Why should you care, beyond a little bit of fun? Well, it could be used by marketers, or even hackers to show different images to different device groups.

It could even be used to insert malicious code. The “zero-click” exploit that NSO Group used to plant the Pegasus malware took advantage of a rendering bug in Apple’s CoreGraphics PDF parser.

The PNG parser could be similarly affected. That would mean a hacker could create a PNG file that shows a normal image on non-Apple devices but inserts a payload when on an Apple device.

READ MORE: PicWish is one of the best image background removers out there

It’s unusual for such a bug to stay undetected for so long. PNGs had parallel processing added in 2011, according to a comment on HackerFactor. It seems that this also needs patching, or perhaps just the rendering engine in browsers.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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The post PNG Parser will completely change an image depending on what device you’re on appeared first on KnowTechie.

The theft was reported on by Vice, with a tale that could have come from a Hollywood rom-com dystopian fever dream.

Man meets girl. Girl lends him money. Relationship ends. Man charms his way back into her apartment, saying he wants to return the money. Man gives woman cold medicine because she was feeling ill. Woman falls asleep. Man uses her fingerprint to unlock her phone; then lifts her eyelid to pass Alipay’s facial recognition checks.

The man then transferred about $24,200 from her accounts to his own, which he went and spent on gambling debts and living expenses.

He has been sentenced to serve 3.6 years of jail time and has a $3,100 fine to pay. Maybe there will be some hijinks as he embezzles the money to pay off his fine.

Whatever the end result of this individual story, the lesson learned is applicable to anyone who uses a digital wallet. Always secure things with a passcode, passphrase, or another type of password. Relying on biometric authentication is only going to end up in tears.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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The post Some jerk unlocked his ex-girlfriend’s phone by lifting her eyelids, making off with $24K appeared first on KnowTechie.