Technology

The Christian Post reports: Earlier this month, nearly 500 people gathered online for the Metaverse Church Summit, which featured a host of Christians involved with ministry in the metaverse. One of them was Bill Willenbrock, a hospital chaplain who has been leading a Christian fellowship on VRChat for about three years. VRChat is a growing collection of more than 25,000 …

Axios reports: Walmart customers in six states will soon be able to have their orders delivered by drone in less than 30 minutes. This will be the first large-scale drone delivery operation in the United States. So far, drone deliveries have been available only in a few small towns, with customers selecting from a short list of items. Walmart’s DroneUp …

New York City’s Fox affiliate reports: The final New York City public pay telephone was being removed on Monday morning. It was on 7th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The city began removing payphones in 2015 and replacing them with public Wi-Fi hotspots. The city has removed thousands of payphones across all five boroughs in the past several years. In 2014, …

Engadget reports: Apple just marked the end to one of the most important product lines in its history. The company has discontinued the iPod touch, which will only be available in stores “while supplies last.” Not surprisingly, the company maintained that the “spirit of iPod” continues in other products, including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The move has been …

The Washington Post reports: Facebook said Monday that it’s opening its first physical retail space — its latest gambit to transform itself from a social media platform into a hardware giant inventing the “metaverse.” In the store, customers will be able to test out Facebook’s growing line of smart hardware devices including its virtual reality headset Quest 2, its smart …

The Verge reports: Twitter is experimenting with an “unmentioning” feature that will allow users to remove themselves from conversations. It’s limited to some users and only on the web version for now but looks like a very useful way to clean up your mentions. “We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations,” …

Elon Musk will surely take credit for this: It’s a feature that Twitter users have been requesting for so long that it’s become a meme, but now the mythical “edit button” is actually becoming a reality. Twitter has announced that it’s working to allow users to edit their tweets after posting them. The idea is that you’ll be able to …

Axios reports: A small Silicon Valley startup is announcing Wednesday that it is close to having a working prototype of a contact lens capable of showing basic information such as driving directions using only eye movements to control the display. While smart glasses are often touted as a fixture of our augmented-reality future, a handful of companies are taking things …

The Washington Post reports: Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan Wednesday after undocking from the International Space Station and flying back to Earth in a historic mission that came amid mounting tensions over the war in Ukraine. The Soyuz spacecraft touched down under a parachute right on time, at 7:28 a.m. Eastern, …

The Independent reports: The man who created the GIF has died from Covid-19 at the age of 74, his family has confirmed. Stephen Wilhite came up with Graphics Interchange Format, which are now used for animated internet memes and jokes, when he worked for CompuServe in the 1980s. “Even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and …

The Verge reports: The first state to officially roll out Apple’s digital driver’s license and state ID is Arizona, the iPhone maker announced Wednesday. “Starting today, Arizonans can add their driver’s license or state ID to Wallet, and tap their iPhone or Apple Watch to seamlessly and securely present it at select TSA security checkpoints in Phoenix Sky Harbor International …

The New York Times reports: Inside a dimly lit tunnel along a stretch of simulated subway track, one of the New York Fire Department’s new dogs showed off a few of its tricks. Lie down. Roll over. Stay. But the most remarkable things that the two robotic dogs can do were mastered by real dogs long ago: jogging across rugged …

Reuters reports: Ukraine’s two leading suppliers of neon, which produce about half the world’s supply of the key ingredient for making chips, have halted their operations as Moscow has sharpened its attack on the country, threatening to raise prices and aggravate the semiconductor shortage. Some 45%-54% of the world’s semiconductor grade neon, critical for the lasers used to make chips, …

ABC News reports: Apple on Tuesday unveiled a new version of its budget-priced iPhone that’s capable of connecting to ultrafast 5G wireless networks, an upgrade that’s already been available on the company’s upscale models for more than a year. The latest iPhone SE marks the first upgrade to the bare-bones version of Apple’s most popular product in nearly two years. …

The New York Post reports: Even more than dark subways or stale bagels, New Yorkers fear being phoneless. Nomophobia, the fear of being without your mobile phone, is the No. 1 “unusual fear” in New York, according to a new report citing Google search metrics. Hyper-connected New Yorkers “see their phones as an extension of themselves,” said Kent State University …

The Verge reports: Fitbit announced today that it’s working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to voluntarily recall its Ionic smartwatch. The company says it’s received over 100 reports of the watch’s lithium-ion battery overheating, as well as 78 reports of burn injuries to customers. “Customer safety is always Fitbit’s top priority and out of an abundance of caution, we …

Variety reports: Twitter was experiencing significant problems with its site and apps Friday, according to user reports. According to DownDetector.com, user reports that Twitter was having technical issues began to spike at 12:13 p.m. ET. Problems that users reported on other social platforms included that their tweets weren’t loading (with the error message, “Something went wrong. Try reloading) or they …

Mediaite reports: Recently released dashcam footage captured the moment a Tesla being driven on auto-pilot crashed into a parked patrol car, hitting an officer and sending a second vehicle into a ditch. The incident, which occurred in North Carolina last August alongside U.S. Highway 64, was the result of an auto-pilot attempt gone wrong, as the Telsa owner was watching …

CNN reports: Late Wednesday, Meta reported a rare drop in profits, driven by spending on its vision for a so-called metaverse while simultaneously confronting advertising challenges on its existing services. The company’s shares plummeted in after-hours trading and are continuing their steep drop on Thursday. By mid-morning, the stock was down nearly 25%, making it the worst performer in the …

The Guardian reports: The International Space Station (ISS) will continue its operations until 2030 before heading for a watery grave at the most remote point in the Pacific, Nasa confirmed in a new transition plan this week. More than 30 years after its 1998 launch, the ISS will be “de-orbited” in January 2031, according to the space agency’s budget estimates. …