Tech Podcasts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeHere are some recent five-star reviews of the Apple Podcasts app in Apple’s own App Store. Let me know if you see a theme? Amazing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is my favorite podcast and I am so glad I found this. I think I learned more in this podcast then in all my years in school. Great advice for parents! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Such valuable advice for parents. I can’t wait for the next episode. Smart man with a great mindset ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Start with his $100 million offer book and open your mind. Alex gives away so much valuable content, it makes you want to get big enough just so you can hire him! The best ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Absolutely the best podcast in Nigeria Pushkin ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If reality is a construction, and each postmodern self creates his/her/“their” own reality, then let’s all just say screw it and cross over into the reality called Klavanon. At least there we don’t have to look into our underpants to see who we are. Maybe slow the sound down? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Benigno was always my favorite, but it seems like the sound is cranked to fast Genuine Inspiration ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I find you to be a very down to earth, genuine person. You have remarkable guests and discuss topics that are relatable and current and really help with life. Bourbon lovers ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoy these guys and the passion they have for America’s native spirit. Absolute delight! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Love the podcast. To be fair I’m partially biased because Ben liked two of my Facebook posts. Law! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I enjoy the fact that I learned things, despite the fact that not all of them or what I want to hear. Thank you sister-in-law you’re very good at your jobs! Makes me Laugh! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Would never have put these 3 together, but boy, they are a hysterical combination. My new favorite! That’s right: they’re reviews of the podcasts themselves, not the Apple Podcasts app. And that is an extremely convenient situation for Apple because actual reviews of the Apple Podcasts app most definitely do not trend toward five stars. In fact, they trend toward an abysmal 1.8-star score because the app has been remarkably buggy for months. Like many 1-star reviewers, I find it doesn’t keep track of which episodes I’ve already played and sometimes plays them out of order. How did “Apple Podcasts” suddenly go from 1.8 to 4.6 stars? Is Apple manipulating their own app ratings now? https://t.co/bSAr8sFKqQ pic.twitter.com/5kJKYd54VP— Kosta Eleftheriou (@keleftheriou) November 17, 2021 But in the nearly three months since I helped point this out at The Verge and brought it directly to Apple’s attention, the only thing that’s changed is Apple Podcasts’ rating has gone up from 4.7 to 4.9 — and each of its five little gray star marks is now completely filled in, for a five-star rating overall. 4.9 is five full stars as far as the graphic is concerned.The app hasn’t received any updates during this time, by the way. Every bit of newfound goodwill is people suddenly submitting reviews for podcasts instead of reviews for the app. Here are Apple’s three “Most Helpful” reviews of the app as of today: Why would Apple change any of this, though? Seems to be working out great for Apple.

Google is once again facing claims it copied others' code in Android. Purdue University has sued Google over allegations the company is knowingly violating a patent for detecting power management bugs in code. The internet giant purportedly saw an article about Professor Y. Charlie Hu's research on the subject in 2012 and incorporated related infringing code into Android Lint, an error-catching tool in what would become the Android Studio development kit.The USPTO granted the patent in August 2019. Purdue said it notified Google of the claimed violation in August 2021, but that Google had continued to incorporate the disputed code in Android Studio as recently as this month. The school is asking for unspecified "past and future" damages from Google.In a statement, Google told Engadget it was still examining the lawsuit, but that it would "vigorously defend" itself and "independently develop[s]" products. We've asked Purdue for comment, but the university already told Reuters it believed Google violated more patents and would add them to the lawsuit if the company didn't negotiate licenses.School technology patent lawsuits aren't new. Apple, for instance, was asked more than once to pay the University of Wisconsin over claimed infringements. This case may be more serious than some, however. Android Studio is a staple of Android app development — if Purdue can prove a violation in the first place, it could argue that a significant chunk of Android's app ecosystem is built around copied technology.Update 2/2 5:15PM ET: Purdue has provided its full statement to Engadget. The university contends it spent "weeks" trying to set up a meeting to discuss the patent dispute, but was forced to file a lawsuit when Google "refused reasonable conditions" for the meet-up. The school is still open to a meeting to discuss licensing terms, but will add patents to the case if it doesn't get a response.You can read Purdue's full statement below."Purdue Research Foundation's policy is to protect intellectual property developed and patented by Purdue University's faculty and researchers. Many of the innovations are supported by taxpayer-funded grants and research endowments, and PRF is tasked with protecting those public investments from those who would infringe for private gain."The suit against Google was filed after a year-long pre-suit investigation that revealed Google's willful infringement of multiple PRF patents. PRF attempted for weeks to set up a meeting with Google, but when Google refused reasonable conditions for a meeting, Purdue was left with no option but to initiate suit."RF is the assignee of multiple additional patents Google infringes. Purdue has again invited Google to meet, see the evidence of infringement, and discuss license terms. If Google continues to refuse to negotiate a license, the suit will be amended to add patents."What happens next is completely up to Google."

The Federal Communications Commission could soon make it more difficult for telemarketers to leave ringless voicemails on your cellphone. On Wednesday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared a proposal that seeks to force callers to obtain your consent before they can leave a message directly in your voicemail box.The proposal would effectively extend the protections of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to cover ringless voicemails. The 1991 law prohibits telemarketers and other groups from using automated systems to make non-emergency calls to your mobile phone without first obtaining your consent. In March 2017, a company called All About the Message asked the FCC to rule that the TCPA did not cover ringless voicemails. Rosenworcel’s proposal would deny that petition.“Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive and can lead to fraud like other robocalls—so it should face the same consumer protection rules,” said Rosenworcel. “No one wants to wade through voicemail spam, or miss important messages because their mailbox is full. This FCC action would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them.”The FCC didn’t say when it plans to hold a full commission vote on the proposal. The agency’s next open meeting is scheduled for February 18th, but addressing ringless voicemails isn’t listed on the day’s agenda. There’s no guarantee the FCC will approve the proposal, but compared to a topic like net neutrality, combating spam callers is something most Americans want more action on from the government.

With Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 and Sifu on the docket for the next couple of months, PlayStation owners already had a bunch of console exclusives to look forward to in the near future. You can now add another one to your calendar. The delayed Ghostwire: Tokyo at last has a firm release date: March 25th.Ghostwire: Tokyo update! See new gameplay and behind-the-scenes details in a special presentation from Bethesda this Thursday at 2pm Pacific: https://t.co/qTfvK9oYdJpic.twitter.com/GPcTmNQ5A5— PlayStation (@PlayStation) February 2, 2022The paranormal action-adventure game, which is coming to PS5 and PC, was initially supposed to arrive in late 2021, but publisher Bethesda and developer Tango Gameworks pushed it back until this spring. As spotted by Wario64 on Twitter, PlayStation noted the release date in a YouTube video description.That video, in case you were wondering, is a Ghostwire: Tokyo showcase, which will premiere at 5PM ET on Thursday (for those keeping tabs, that's 24 hours after a State of Play focused on Gran Turismo 7). We'll soon learn much more about the game, in which you'll team up with a spirit to save a desolate Tokyo from a supernatural threat. Those who pick up the deluxe edition will get three days of early access, as well as some bonus items.Once it's live, you'll be able to watch the showcase below.

Snap may not be particularly keen on the metaverse — at least, not as it’s been articulated by Mark Zuckerberg — but the company’s latest experiment certainly sounds a lot like a version of one. The company is teaming up with Universal to host a virtual concert featuring Jennifer Lopez and Colombian pop singer Maluma, which viewers can watch as their Bitmoji avatars.The concert itself won’t take place in the Snapchat app, but would-be spectators can access the show by signing into the concert’s dedicated website with their Snapchat login. Users’ Bitmoji avatars will appear as spectators in the crowd. There are also a handful of interactive effects that will be available during the show, including the ability to start “the wave” and trigger a virtual laser effect. Lopez and Maluma will also appear as 3D Bitmoji avatars.The event, scheduled for February 3rd, is meant to promote the upcoming rom-com Marry Me (also starring Lopez and Maluma), and is expected to last about 10 minutes, according to the company.Virtual concerts have become one of the earliest examples of a metaverse-like experience. Fortnite’s in-game concerts are often referenced in discussions of what an eventual metaverse will look like. And Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said he wants the Fortnite publisher to be a leader in the space. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also referenced concerts in the metaverse, writing last year that in the future people may be able to “teleport instantly as a hologram” in order to attend shows.But Snap executives have talked about the metaverse very differently. Snap AR exec Sophia Dominguez told Engadget in December that the company’s vision for the future is not to “escape into another world” but create experiences that can bridge physical spaces with virtual ones. (Snap CEO Evan Spiegel put it slightly differently, remarking last fall on the dystopic origins of the word metaverse. “I think the basic notion was that you know as the physical world was sort of crumbling in this dystopian future that people would escape into this virtual world — that's not at all a focus for us,” he said referring to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.)What’s less clear is if Snap intends for Bitmoji-led concerts to be a regular occurrence like Fortnite has (Live streaming platform Oz is powering the tech behind the show). But if the company’s first big foray into metaverse adjacent experiences is a hit, it’s not difficult to imagine Snap could host more Bitmoji-driven live events.

Sony announced it intends to acquire game developer Bungie for $3.6 billion, Crisis Text Line ends its data-sharing relationship with Loris.ai, and Google Messages rolls out beta of iMessage reactions for Android users. MP3 You can get an ad-free feed of Daily Tech Headlines for $3 a month here. A special thanks to all ourContinue reading "Sony intends to acquire game developer Bungie – DTH"

Battlefield 2042 is flawed, to put it mildly, and the developers are rethinking their schedule to address to address those shortcomings. DICE and EA have officially delayed the game's first season to early summer, and will use the extra time to fix the core experience. The next BF2042 update will bring a revamped, easier-to-digest scoreboard, while better player profiles and long-awaited voice chat functionality are coming "as soon as possible." There will be improvements to squad mechanisms, the ping system, objective rewards and Portal mode, DICE added.The studio similarly promised a better feedback loop. The BF2042 team will publicly discuss major areas for planned improvement, including its existing strategy. Staff will listen to the community's response to those subjects and roll the feedback into the relevant updates. There will be conversations for smaller refinements, too. This open-book approach certainly isn't new for game creators, but it is an acknowledgment this latest Battlefield didn't match player expectations.As for season one? DICE is shy on details, but it did promise BF2042 Gold and Ultimate Edition buyers will get a "Steadfast" bundle in return for the wait. The pack will include a melee weapon, player imagery and skins for weapons, a Specialist and a vehicle. While that's a far cry from what's expected from the four intended seasons (including new Specialists), it might be a small comfort for those who spent extra.

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The VergeTurning the ‘Great Resignation’ into good business It’s an interesting time to talk to someone in the business of helping people get new jobs — we’re still fully in the middle of the pandemic-driven Great Resignation, and a record 4.5 million people quit their jobs in November 2021, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. But that’s exactly what Career Karma and CEO Ruben Harris are doing. Career Karma helps job-seekers identify potential new career paths, then matches them with coding boot camps and other training programs to help them on their way. Ruben and his team just raised $40 million in Series B funding for a total of $52 million, and it’s launching a live audio feature for job seekers to connect and talk about their career paths. So, of course, I wanted to talk to Ruben about what they plan to do with that infusion of cash and how exactly they plan to grow — and to talk about how Career Karma makes money, what he’s learned from his community about the future of the job market, and if he thinks the traditional 9 to 5 might be on the way out. Now, if you’ve been listening to Decoder, you know I love a startup CEO with ambition, and Ruben is definitely an ambitious startup CEO. This was a good one — I think you’ll like it. Okay, Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma. Here we go. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Ruben Harris, you’re the co-founder and CEO of Career Karma. Welcome to Decoder. Yes, sir. Thank you, brother. You have some news to talk about. You just raised $40 million in Series B funding. That’s a total of $52 million. I want to talk about what you plan to do with the money, but let’s start at the very beginning. What is Career Karma? What do you do for people? Career Karma is the easiest way to find a job training program online. We serve blue-collar workers — usually ages 25 to 35 years old — who want to get a job in tech. They can be younger or older, but that tends to be the age range. Job training programs pay us to send them qualified applicants. A common misconception is that Career Karma only helps people get jobs as software engineers, but we actually offer seven different career paths that are technical and non-technical, like sales, marketing, and design. Once we match someone to our best recommendations of a school, they enroll into a training program that gets them a job in about three to 12 months. We have live audio rooms to give students support from peers, coaches, and mentors during the program so that they can get any questions answered or overcome any insecurities. Then, when they get to the job search, they can connect directly with companies to find a job. That live audio program has been a pandemic hit, right? Are these Clubhouse and Twitter spaces? Did you build that because the networking component was harder in the pandemic? Before we started Career Karma, we had a podcast like this one; it was called Breaking Into Startups. We still have it. I used to work in radio: we’ve always been bullish on audio because most people that come from this demographic actually listen to the radio and television. We’ve always known that at some point cars are going to be digitized and Bluetooth technology is going to be a big deal. It’s not just Tesla that’s out there, but everything’s digital. Then you have these at-home devices like Amazon and Alexa and things like that. Our roots are in audio, but to your point, as we started to see how audio starts taking off on the internet — it wasn’t just Clubhouse and Twitter spaces. LinkedIn has audio now. Reddit has audio. To be fair, LinkedIn has everything. LinkedIn has everything. Exactly. To your point, rather than going crazy with all the features before we had audio rooms, we were actually pretty dependent on Zoom and Discord and Slack

HBO Max will soon be available in 15 more countries as part of the platform's gradual global rollout. Folks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia can start using the service starting on March 8th.Once WarnerMedia flips the switch in those locations, HBO Max will be officially accessible in 61 territories across Europe and the Americas, following its debut in Spain, Andorra and four Nordic nations in October. The service will arrive in six more European countries, including Greece and Turkey, later this year.Word of the second phase of the HBO Max European rollout comes as AT&T announced more details of its plan to spin off WarnerMedia as a separate company as part of the proposed merger with Discovery. AT&T's shareholders will still own 71 percent of Warner Bros. Discovery (as the new company will be called). They'll receive 0.24 shares for each share of AT&T they own. Existing Discovery shareholders will own around 29 percent of the new endeavor. AT&T expects the move to be completed in the second quarter of 2022. There's talk that HBO Max and Discovery+ may be combined into a single service after the deal closes.

Bose's QuietComfort family of headphones is a safe bet for those who want both great sound quality and strong active noise cancellation. You'll have to shell out quite a bit of money for a pair, however right now one of the latest models is back down to a record low. The QuietComfort 45 wireless headphones are on sale for $279, or $50 off and a return to their Black Friday price.Buy Bose QuietComfort 45 at Amazon - $279They may not be the slickest looking headphones (the Bose 700 take that title), but the QC45 have plenty of other things to love about them. They're comfortable to wear for hours on end and have handy onboard control buttons, a switch to go from ANC to ambient sound mode, a USB-C port for charging and an impressive 22.5-hour battery life. They pump out clear and balanced sound and Bose managed to improve upon its already stellar ANC. Multiple microphones along with a "proprietary digital chip" in the QC45 help detect and silence more mid-range frequencies, which should quiet things like the subway train you're riding or the sound of someone else's Zoom call nearby.All of those features lead us to award the QC45 a score of 86 in our review, but the cans come with a few downsides. Aside from the lackluster, albeit comfortable, design, the QC45 don't have automatic pausing and their multi-device connectivity can be frustrating due to the fact that they don't automatically reconnect to a second device after you take a call. But if you can live with those compromises, the QC45 are a solid pair of wireless ANC headphones that are made even better by this sale price.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Pretty soon, you'll no longer have to see those weird reaction texts from your iPhone-using friends. Google has started rolling out a feature for Messages that translates iMessaging "Tapbacks" as emojis, according to 9to5Google. The publication first discovered the experimental feature in a deep dive of the Google Messages beta app last year. It's unclear where it'll come out for the stable version, but If you're using the beta app, you'll get the update that enables it soon enough.When iPhone users react to messages sent from an Android device, the recipient gets text interpretations of that reaction. A "thumbs up" to a text that says "see you in ten?" will be translated to "liked 'see you in ten?'", for instance. It can make the chat thread a bit cluttered and confusing. With this new update, the Android user receives emojis instead, though as 9to5Google notes, they're not exact translations of the actual reactions. A "heart" reacts yields the "face with the heart eyes," for instance, while the exclamation mark reaction sends the recipient the "face with the open mouth" emoji. When you tap on the emoji, a note pops up explaining that it was "Translated from iPhone," along with the sender's name. The feature is enabled by default, but users can toggle it off if they want by going to Advanced under the Messages' Settings and switching off "Show iPhone reactions as emoji."

Peloton is once again expanding its fitness equipment, but this time it's focused on tracking your workouts. PCMag and The Verge note Peloton has unveiled a $90 Heart Rate Band that, as the name implies, moves monitoring to your arm. The optical sensor-based wearable is theoretically more comfortable and easier to use than a chest strap (which typically requires precise positioning and a moistened contact point) while remaining accurate. That's particularly important for people whose limb and mobility issues might prevent them from using chest trackers. The Heart Rate Band is built to work with Peloton's app and devices, including all Bike and Tread models as well as the Guide camera. You're not locked into the company's ecosystem, though — the armband should support other products that recognize common Bluetooth heart rate monitors. Just be aware there's no ANT+ support.The band is initially available in the US, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK. The hardware has been development for a while — Bloombergfound early code for the Heart Rate Band in June 2021.As The Verge explained, the Heart Rate Band might not be for everyone. While arm-based optical heart rate monitoring is common with smartwatches, it can have problems with some dark skin tones and tattoos. Obesity and loose fits can also cause problems. We'd add that $90 is nearly twice the normal $49 price for Peloton's chest strap. You'll have to really, truly value the convenience of an armband to justify that premium.

Bloodborne, a game famous for being notoriously difficult to beat, was released in 2015 for the PS4 with modern graphics and visuals. Over the past 13 months, though, game programmer Lilith Walther created a version of the title that makes it look like it was released way back in the 90's for the first PlayStation. Bloodborne PSX reimagines the Victorian city of Yharnam in the art style commonly seen in games from that console era. The blocky and pixelated graphics with the colored health bars would sure look very familiar to a generation of gamers who used to play on the PS1. The demake only covers some parts of the whole game, but it does give players access to 10 hunter weapons they can use to slay enemies — some even slow down the game's frame rate as one would expect to happen on a real PS1 title. As Polygon notes, Walther posted updates about the undertaking on Twitter for over 13 months, including one wherein she revealed that the music creator for the project remade the Cleric Beast boss music using a real Roland SC-88 Pro for authenticity. Bloodborne PSX is now available as a free download for Windows PC. Players can use a keyboard and a mouse for controls, but they can also dust off their old PS1 controllers and use that instead. Those interested can get a glimpse of the demake below.

It's now been three months since Apple brought its own silicon to its pro-grade laptops. As we said in our review, the M1 Pro and Max are fantastically capable chips that offer more than enough performance for the vast majority of users.But for our explainer show Upscaled, we wanted to go a little deeper, with a suite of benchmarks that really push the Pro and Max to their limits, as well as some requests that our readers really wanted to see. Ever wondered how long it takes to open a 100MB Excel file?Watch the video above for the full story, and we'll see you for the next episode soon.

Tesla is issuing an over-the-air update to recall a "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) beta feature that allowed cars to roll through stop signs, ABC News has reported. The function first appeared in FSD 10.3 with the addition of the so-called Assertive profile. It allows vehicles to illegally roll through stop signs at 4-way intersection at speeds of up to 5.6 MPH, according to ABC.  Tesla reportedly agreed to the recall after two meetings with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officials. It affects nearly 54,000 vehicles including 2016-2022 Model S and X EVs, 2017-2022 Model 3s and 2020-2022 Model Ys. "Failing to stop at a stop sign can increase the risk of a crash," the NHTSA wrote in the recall report. Tesla said it doesn't know of any injuries or crashes caused by the feature, however.Tesla previously reverted its FSD 10.3 software due to "some issues" including a regression with left turns, phantom forward-collision warnings and auto-steering bugs. The company was also forced to recall 300,000 cars in China due to Autopilot issues, while issuing recalls elsewhere for camera and trunk defects, separating suspensions and other issues.As we've previously mentioned, the name "Full Self-Driving" is misleading because that term generally refers to true Level 4 self-driving, while Tesla's system simply offers Level 2 advanced driver assistance. An OTA release to disable rolling stops is expected to be sent out by early February.