Technology

An Alaska Airlines plane takes off from Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday.

Telecoms delay 5G launch near airports, but some airlines are canceling flights

9:14am January 19, 2022

by David Schaper

The FAA says 5G service could interfere with critical navigation systems on some aircraft and will restrict flights into some airports, which could lead to widespread delays and cancellations.

Queue Listen Now

When TikTok user Nathan Evans posted his rendition of "Wellerman," it inspired a huge wave of sea shanty-singing videos on the app.

Arts

'Garbage trends' clog the internet — and they may be here to stay

8:34am January 19, 2022

by Neda Ulaby

Sea shanties, the word "cheugy," feta pasta and "RushTok" were all fleeting internet obsessions over the past year. But what do such "garbage trends" say about our cultural condition?

Queue Listen Now

National

High speed 5G service will launch tomorrow, but not near some airports

5:43pm January 18, 2022

by David Schaper

Verizon and AT&T will be launching 5G mobile service Wednesday. They agreed to delay implementation near some airports, as airlines say 5G could interfere with sensitive safety equipment on planes.

Queue Listen Now

Activision Blizzard is behind such successful franchises as Call of Duty and Candy Crush. It is being acquired by Microsoft.

Arts

Microsoft set to acquire the gaming company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion

5:01pm January 18, 2022

by Andrew Limbong

Activision Blizzard is behind huge games such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush. But the company has faced reports of a workplace culture rife with sexual harassment.

Queue Listen Now

A satellite image taken by a Japanese weather satellite shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. (Japan Meteorology Agency via AP)

World News

An undersea cable fault could cut Tonga from the rest of the world for weeks

4:49pm January 18, 2022

by Rina Torchinsky

Amid the 7.6-magnitude quake, the single fiber optic cable that the archipelago relied on for global communications ruptured.

California prosecutors have filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against the driver of a Tesla on Autopilot that ran a red light, slammed into another car and killed two people in 2019.

National

A Tesla driver is charged in a crash involving Autopilot that killed 2 people

3:08pm January 18, 2022

by The Associated Press

California prosecutors have filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against the driver of a Tesla on Autopilot who ran a red light, slammed into another car and killed two people in 2019.

Israeli police have used spyware from controversial Israeli company NSO Group to hack the cell phones of Israeli citizens without judicial oversight, according to an Israeli newspaper.

Israeli police used spyware to hack its own citizens, an Israeli newspaper reports

1:55pm January 18, 2022

by Daniel Estrin

According to a report in Israeli media, Israel has hacked activists, mayors and other Israeli citizens without judicial oversight using spyware from the controversial NSO Group.

Reporter Chloe Veltman reacts to hearing her digital voice double, "Chloney," for the first time, with Speech Morphing chief linguist Mark Seligman.

Arts

Send in the clones: Using artificial intelligence to digitally replicate human voices

6:41pm January 17, 2022

by Chloe Veltman

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, it's never been easier or more affordable to make a perfect facsimile of a human voice: a celebrity, a world leader or even a public-radio reporter.

In Cleveland, Ohio, about 8,000 city employees — including the police and fire departments — are affected by the Kronos outage.

Hackers disrupt payroll for thousands of employers — including hospitals

7:35am January 15, 2022

by Becky Sullivan

Hundreds, if not thousands, of workers have missed out on overtime and holiday pay in recent weeks. In Cleveland, city administrators set up a "war room" to deal with the paycheck backlog.

National

A small studio has become the first video game company to unionize in North America

5:21pm January 14, 2022

by Andrew Limbong

The video game industry has a reputation for long hours and toxic environments. But now, a small studio is hoping to chart a different path as the first unionized video game company in North America.