Astronomers are increasingly drawing back the curtains on black holes. In the past few years, we have finally captured actual photos of these fearsome creatures and measured the gravitational waves – ripples in spacetime – that they create when colliding. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about black holes. One of the biggest enigmas is exactly how they form in the first place. My colleagues and I now believe we have observed this process, providing some of the best indications yet of exactl
There’s no doubt that for most folks on the internet, search is synonymous with Google. However, there’s a small yet growing audience that wants a privacy-first search experience with little or no ads. That’s where Neeva comes in. This new search engine from ex-Googlers, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, guarantees two things: an ad-free experience and advanced features for all its customers. What’s on offer? The company launched last year with a subscription-only model. This cost $4.95 p
January 12th is one of the most important days of the year. That’s right, it’s the birthday of Jeff Bezos. While ingrates mark the milestone by insolently asking the entrepreneur to stop union-busting, we want to celebrate the joyous occasion with a song: Bo Burnham’s “Bezos I.” The lyrics tell the touching tale of Jeffrey’s selfless mission to become a tech oligarch. The track was a highlight of Burnham’s Netflix special, Inside, but its legacy didn’t end there. In the months after the show’s r
Biden might be pushing for electrification, but Americans aren’t onboard. Well, that’s what a study by Deloitte has found at least. Amongst the 1,031 American respondents, nearly two-thirds preferred sticking to conventional gas-guzzlers for their next vehicle purchase. Some 17% would consider a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), while only 5% would get a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), or a battery electric vehicle (BEV). Conversely, consumer interest in BEVs is highest in South Korea (23%), China (17%), an
Friends! Acquaintances! Nemeses! Terrific news — the glorious Apple Cloth is back in stock. Woah, no need to close the article that fast. Firstly, bless the kind and caring souls over at 9to5Mac for bringing this to light. All blessed up? Grand. Now, if you’d like to read about why we’re all so achingly excited about the Apple Polishing Cloth, you can do so here. At TNW we’re not about rehashing the past (unless we are). No, we’re all about the future. And can you guess the future of the Apple P
Earlier this week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said in his newsletter that Apple is gearing up to launch a new version of the diminutive iPhone SE, this time with 5G connectivity to bring it up to speed with the latest handsets on the market. There was great excitement in our newsroom because we love compact phones, and don’t hear about many compact phones every year. That also got us thinking: why don’t we see more compact phones these days? The iPhone SE is the top dog of the compact smartphone ma
Car manufacturing in the UK stalled dramatically last year. The head of the industry trade body described the situation as the “toughest in decades”, and the numbers certainly back up his claim. The latest car registration figures show that 2021 was up just 1% on a COVID-ravaged 2020 – and production actually went into reverse gear. In November 2021, UK car production dropped by almost 29%, the fifth consecutive month of output falling, and the worst since the mid-1980s. October’s figures had be
By: Todd Feathers Over the past six years, a little-known private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, has built an educational software empire that wields unseen influence over the educational journeys of tens of millions of children. Along the way, The Markup found, the companies the firm controls have scooped up a massive amount of very personal data on kids, which they use to fuel a suite of predictive analytics products that push the boundaries of technology’s role in education and, in some
Spotify Hifi’s announcement in February of 2021 seemed poised to shake up the streaming industry. With the introduction of lossless audio, Spotify would increase its credibility among audiophiles, not just casual listeners. Even if most people can’t tell the difference between lossless and high-bitrate compressed music, it indicated Spotify was paying more attention to sound quality. At the time, Spotify said that HiFi would launch “later this year” and that it would have “more details to share
Alphabet’s reportedly planning to promote one of its Moonshot projects from venture to business in a bid to take advantage of its recent breakthroughs in the field of quantum computing. It was only a matter of time. Time crystals, that is. Up front: Last year’s big story in the physics world was Google and its partner’s breakthrough experiment in creating a new phase of matter inside a quantum computer called time crystals. As we reported last year, this is a big eureka moment because time cryst