Samsung is throwing in the towel on Blu-ray players, in the U.S. at least.

“Samsung will no longer introduce new Blu-ray or 4K Blu-ray player models in the US market,” the company told CNET, in response to an earlier report in Forbes. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t still get your hands on a Samsung Blu-ray player — retailers have plenty of older models in stock by the look of it — but if you were holding out for a new high-end player you’ll have to go with another brand. As Engadget points out, there were already good reasons to opt for one of Samsung’s competitors, anyway. Namely, that Samsung doesn’t support Dolby Vision (it uses a different HDR standard). Read more…

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been one of the most outspoken critics of Amazon’s now-abandoned HQ2 plan for New York City, and now the online mega-retailer is hitting back… nicely.

After the young congresswoman criticized Amazon over reports of the inhumane conditions faced by the company’s warehouse workers, an Amazon exec responded with a denial and an offer: come visit our facilities and see for yourself.

“Is that culture of ‘strict performance why Amazon workers have to urinate in bottles & work while on food stamps to meet targets?'” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “‘Performance’ shouldn’t come at the cost of dehumanizing conditions. That’s why we got rid of sweatshops.” Read more…

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When Oscar voters cast their ballots ahead of the 91st Academy Awards on Feb. 24, Disney wants them to remember Incredibles 2.

“For your consideration” ads and social media posts are a common sight in the run-up to the big show every year. But the typically dominant showing from Disney-Pixar productions is facing major competition in the universally well-received Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.

And that movie’s fans are internet-savvy, to say the least.

So when Disney dropped into Twitter on Friday with a “for your consideration” shout-out to Incredibles 2, every Spider-verse fan’s Spidey sense started to tingle.  Read more…

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Want a new basketball jersey? In the future, it may be as simple as pushing a button.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver showed off a concept for the “NBA jersey of the future” that does just that. Silver, who was speaking at the NBA’s All-Star Technology Summit demoed the futuristic tech, which would let you change the player name and number on your jersey in just a few seconds.

“So hopefully I just put Michael Rubin out of business,” Silver joked, referring to the CEO of online jersey retailer Fanatics. 

It’s not clear exactly how this tech might work, or how far along it might be. Silver used a smartphone app to make the change onstage, according to NBA.com.  Another angle of the demo, captured by Los Angeles Times columnist Arash Markazi, makes it look like the demo was more of a projection than actually-changing jersey. Read more…

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Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good.

You know how when you delete a Twitter DM and you’re expecting it to, like, be erased and non-retrievable ever again? Turns out Twitter’s still keeping archives of deleted DMs according to a security researcher who shared his discovery with TechCrunch.

Speaking with TechCrunch, security researcher Karan Saini discovered he was able to retrieve old Twitter DMs he had deleted years ago. 

Saini says he found his old deleted Twitter messages from recipient archive folders belonging to Twitter accounts that were deleted. Twitter lets senders delete their DM messages, but the messages are only deleted from their end and not the recipient’s (and vice versa). Read more…

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5G phones — real ones you can actually buy soon — are coming.

OnePlus and Samsung have already pledged to release 5G smartphones sometime in 2019, but LG might beat everyone to launching one first if a newly leaked image of its alleged 5G-ready V50 ThinQ ends up being real.

Phone leaker extraordinaire Evan Blass aka @evleaks published an image of what he claims is the LG V50 ThinQ. 

The successor to the V40 ThinQ will reportedly be one of the first phones capable of connecting faster 5G wireless networks and is likely to be announced at Mobile World Congress on Feb. 24 during LG’s press conference. Read more…

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Oh Presidents’ Day, the one day of the year when you can score mattresses at rock-bottom prices. We’ve decided to shake things up for 2019 and swap sleepy time for brain fuel: online courses, bundles, and e-learning packages. 

Take your pick from this selection of hot courses and learn something new before Memorial Day comes around.

Machine Learning and Data Science Certification Training Bundle ($1,600 value)

Haven’t you heard? The world revolves around machine learning and big data now. If you want to get in on the fun, this bundle breaks down the most head-scratch-inducing concepts into digestible lectures, allowing you to gain a deeper understanding of things like TensorFlow, Neural Networks, Clustering In R, and a whole lot more. Lost already? Read more…

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Since AirPods launched in late 2016, people have begged Apple to release them in a color other than white.

After years, Apple might finally cave in to everyone’s wishes. The latest rumor suggests Apple launch the second generation of its AirPods, tentatively called “AirPods 2,” in black.

According to the Economic Daily News (via AppleInsider), Apple’s supply chain has already started mass producing AirPods 2 in black as well as the AirPower wireless charging mat that has been delayed several times because of engineering challenges. Read more…

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This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.

Between the loss of queer publication Into and the partial closing of AfterEllen, it’s been a crushing few years for queer people in media.

So it was downright uplifting to see Out Magazine feature the women and non-binary femmes otherwise known as the “Mothers and Daughters of the Movement” in its latest issue. 

It’s so rare to see this community represented in media, forget gracing a cover. 

Here’s how the editors of the magazine describe the “Mothers and Daughters:” Read more…

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Look at the back of your car or the next car passing by. Unless it’s an ultraluxury Lamborghini or something similar, you likely just saw which car company made the car (maybe a Honda) as well as which model it is (probably a Civic). 

Now look at the backside of a Tesla Model 3, the electric car company’s newest sedan.

It’s almost entirely bare, save for the Tesla logo above the license plate. (The dual motor version is badged and says “Dual Motor,” so there are exceptions.) Its predecessors, Models X and S, out in 2015 and 2012, respectively, didn’t get this same treatment — their names were prominently displayed on the backs of the car. But when the new Model 3s first started appearing out of factories and on roads in 2017 the only clue a car was the Model 3 was a Model 3 license plate frame from the dealership. Now that the cars are more abundant, the frames are coming off, and there’s little to indicate which car it is. Read more…

More about Design, Tesla, Model 3, Tech, and Transportation