John Routledge - Technoshia

12 Apr

Google, a $1.97 trillion company, is protesting California’s plan to pay journalists

John RoutledgeLatest News

Google, the search giant that brought in more than $73 billion in profit last year, is protesting a California bill that would require it and other platforms to pay media outlets. The company announced that it was beginning a “short-term test” that will block links to local California news sources for a “small percentage” of users in the state. The…

12 Apr

Ubisoft is deleting The Crew from players’ libraries, reminding us we own nothing

John RoutledgeLatest News

Ubisoft’s online-only racing game The Crew stopped being operable on April 1. Some users are reporting, however, that things have gone a bit further. They say that the company actually reached into Ubisoft Connect accounts and revoked the license to access the game, according to reports by Game Rant and others. Some of these users liken this move to theft,…

12 Apr

Roku suffered another data breach, this time affecting 576,000 accounts

John RoutledgeLatest News

Roku has disclosed a second data breach in as many months. While it was looking into a previous incident in which 15,000 accounts were affected, the company learned that another 576,000 accounts had been compromised. In both incidents, Roku believes that the attackers used a method called credential stuffing. "It is likely that login credentials used in these attacks were…

12 Apr

8BitDo’s Ultimate Controller with charging dock drops to $56 on Amazon

John RoutledgeLatest News

8BitDo makes some of our favorite third-party game controllers. The gamepads work with a variety of devices (now including the Apple Vision Pro) and they’re well-built. Right now, you can pick up a bundle of an 8BitDo Ultimate Controller and charging dock for $56 on Amazon. That's 20 percent off and close to a record low. It’s the best price…

12 Apr

TCL’s first original movie is an absurd-looking, AI-generated love story

John RoutledgeLatest News

Many major tech companies, particularly those that operate in the TV hardware business, have dipped their toes into original content. Although it's had its own free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channels for a while, TCL is late to that party. Not for much longer though, as the company is set to release its first special, a short romance movie, on TCLtv+…

12 Apr

The Playdate Stereo Dock got stuck in factory limbo, but it’s still coming

John RoutledgeLatest News

Playdate, otherwise known as The Only Handheld That Actually Fits In My Tiny Hands, is almost perfect. It's a small yellow machine with a black-and-white screen and a crank on one side, and it's the home of fantastic, outlandish video games. The Playdate Catalog has more than 100 titles and there are hundreds more on sites like itch.io, created by…

12 Apr

Apple’s MacBook Air M2 returns to an all-time low, plus the rest of the week’s best tech deals

John RoutledgeLatest News

Another week is coming to a close, which means it's time for another roundup of good discounts on good tech. This week's highlights include the return of the best price we've seen for Apple's M2 MacBook Air, which is down to $849. No, this isn't the latest and greatest MacBook, and yes, a Bloomberg report this week said that Apple…

12 Apr

Paid ChatGPT users can now access GPT-4 Turbo

John RoutledgeLatest News

OpenAI has brought the new GPT-4 Turbo to paid ChatGPT users. The company announced the news on X (formerly Twitter), sharing that its large language model has improved math, logical reasoning, coding and writing skills. In reference to the latter, a response to its initial post states that "when writing with ChatGPT, responses will be more direct, less verbose, and…

12 Apr

China reportedly orders state-owned mobile carriers to replace foreign chips

John RoutledgeLatest News

Back in 2019, the FCC banned US carriers, which were then starting to deploy their 5G networks, from using subsidies to buy equipment from companies deemed a national security threat. Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE were at the top of that list. Now, China is implementing a similar measure: According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ministry of Industry and…

12 Apr

Playdate revisited: Two years with the little yellow inspiration machine

John RoutledgeLatest News

Playdate came out two years ago, and it’s still miniscule and yellow with a black-and-white screen and a delightful crank on its side. Today, the device has a built-in library of more than 100 titles, none of which are Call of Duty, Dark Souls, The Last of Us or any other big-budget, mainstream game — and this is precisely what…