Author Archives: Carol Edwards

“Much better,” one Apple executive said as her body dissolved, her head ballooned and she shrank into an auditorium full of similarly disembodied memoji cheering her CEO.

That was the ending of Monday’s keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, WWDC 2021. But it was also the underlying message throughout the preceding two hours. Doesn’t matter what product we’re talking about — Apple Maps, AirPods, HomePod — it’s just better: Better than it was before, better than the unnamed competition, better if you use it in conjunction with all the other better Apple products. 

But does anyone really believe that in all cases? Or is Apple hurting its brand by blindly insisting on the betterness of everything while ignoring the reality of how we actually use tech? Many of the features that Tim Cook’s exec team gushed over during this performance, and the many COVID-era ads just like it, seem like they’re destined for the dustbin of stuff that looks cool in an Apple store but go unused in regular life. (When was the last time you actually sent a memoji?)  Read more…

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TL;DR: Dive into design with the 2021 Ultimate Adobe Designers Bundle, on sale as of June 7. Get the 12-course bundle for only $44.99 — a 98% savings.

Graphic design is a useful skill set that can help any business owner, podcaster, or even influencer enhance their own brand. If you want to boost your digital artistry and create better designs, logos, and more, the 2021 Ultimate Adobe Design Bundle is an easy way to build your skills.

This 12-course bundle features over 500 lessons that you can tune into and absorb at your own pace — once you gain access to them, you’ll have access for life. First, you’ll take the digital productivity course, which includes a digital journal to track daily habits, to-do lists, and more. Then, you’ll move on to the basics of Photoshop. You don’t have to have any prior experience to take this course, but you’ll jump right in. As you move through the lessons, you’ll be tested and challenged in real time to make sure you’re actually learning and absorbing the information. Read more…

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Like a third act reveal we all should have seen coming, it turns out that MoviePass was even more of a villain than we thought. 

The movie ticket subscription service, which promised customers the ability to see one film in theaters per day for $9.95 a month, officially shuttered (for good) in 2019. However, according to a Federal Trade Commission complaint released Monday, the company actively worked to prevent its customers from seeing movies in theaters. 

MoviePass allegedly did this in three calculated and rather hilariously screwed-up ways.

First, according to an FTC press release announcing the complaint, MoviePass invalidated users’ passwords and claimed, falsely, that it had detected fraud related to their accounts. And we’re talking about a lot of customers. According to the complaint, MoviePass did this to 75,000 users — many of whom where then locked out of their accounts as “MoviePass’s password reset process often failed.” Read more…

More about Moviepass, Tech, and Smartphones

Robots have often had a hard time identifying buried objects in environments like sand or gravel. MIT researchers are hoping to change that with “Digger Finger.”  Read more…

More about Mashable Video, Robot, Mit Researchers, Tactile, and Buried

TL;DR: Take your love of gaming to the next level with this ten-course game development bundle, on sale for 91% off. As of June 7, get it for only $8. 

In many cases, the best way to learn something new is by actually doing it. And these game development courses are super hands-on. 

With this ten-course game development bundle, you’ll start by working with Godot, Unity, and Unreal engines, and as you master those, you’ll begin adding on Python and JavaScript skills as well. Not only will you boost your overall game development skills, but you’ll also learn how to think about games from the inside out, just like the pros do. Read more…

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TL;DR: Stop dealing with rusty razors with the Blew Razor Blade Dryer. As of June 7, get one on sale for only $39.99 with code WELOVEDAD.

With the Blew Razor Blade Dryer, you can not only sanitize your blade after each use, but also avoid that annoying rust and corrosion that causes a rough shave.

The Blew device dries off the razor with a heated fan (similar to a hair dryer) to prevent razor-rusting oxidation. Plus, once your razor is inside the Blew device, a UV light turns on to sanitize and sterilize your razor, ensuring it’s ready for you to use the next time.

See it in action:

All you have to do is drop your wet, just-used razor into the Blew device and forget it. It dries automatically and the UV light works its magic. It also shuts off automatically, so you won’t be wasting unnecessary power all day long. Plus, Blew is designed to fit 99 percent of razors on the market, so the whole family can use it. Read more…

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There are few activities more freeing than the white girl dance, which is less of a dance and more of a transcendental journey to the highest vibe imaginable. 

Regardless of gender or race, white girl dancing is a joy to behold and perform. The trend started on TikTok, where creators tried to emulate the liberating joy that white women seem to embody after a few drinks. 

In one of the first white girl dance videos, creator Elijah McWilliams posted a TikTok of himself dancing in a laundry room captioned, “Sometimes you’ve just gotta stop and white girl it out.” He paired it with Calvin Harris and Disciples’ 2015 song, “How Deep Is Your Love,” a club bop made for white girl dancing.  Read more…

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Twitter’s upcoming Super Follows apparently won’t be for everyone.

The feature that the company revealed back in February promises to bring a Patreon-like experience to the platform, allowing prolific users with lots of followers to turn a profit on their 240-characters-or-less doses of personal wisdom. Now, alleged new details unearthed by tech blogger and frequent revealer-of-tech-secrets Jane Manchum Wong offer a better sense of what to expect.

In a tweet published Sunday, Wong noted that Super Follow applicants will have to meet a specific set of criteria. Namely, they’ll need at least 10,000 followers, they’ll need to have posted at least 25 tweets in the past 30 days, and they’ll need to be at least 18 years old. Read more…

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You may or may not have binged all of Netflix’s Sweet Tooth on opening weekend — and if not, we highly recommend it. Instead of a one-off miniseries based on Jeff Lemire’s DC Comics graphic novel, Sweet Tooth sets us up for a second season with an emotionally gripping, jam-packed finale.

(Spoilers ahead.)

We still don’t know exactly what happened during humanity’s Great Crumble, the world-changing period of time introduced in episode 1. But the Sick and the hybrids arrived, forever altering life as we know it, and the world was no longer sustainable as it was. Lemire’s comic came out in 2013, long before a plague divided our own modern lives into a Before and an After — but there was no better time for the screen adaptation to premiere. Read more…

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A local bakery in Texas is receiving an outpouring of support after a customer canceled a large order because the bakery wished the LGBTQ community a happy Pride month. 

The Lufkin, Texas-based bakery Confections posted a photo of rainbow heart cookies on Facebook on Wednesday, captioned, “More LOVE. Less hate. Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ friends! All lovers of cookies and happiness are welcome here.” 

The following day, the shop posted an update stating that they had lost a “significant amount of followers” because of the last post, and that one customer canceled an order of five dozen summer-themed cookies because of their support for the LGBTQ community. The order was already baked, decorated, and set for pick up the next day when the former customer canceled it.  Read more…

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