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Virtual reality — computer generated 3D environments that can range from startlingly realistic to abstract wonderlands — has been on the cusp of wide acceptance for years without ever really taking off. The pandemic should have been VR’s big moment, offering an escape for millions of locked-in households. Special headsets and gloves let people interact with a 360-degree, three-dimensional environment, seemingly a good fit for people stuck indoors. But consumers preferred simpler and more accessible tech like Zoom, Nintendo’s Switch and streaming services like Netflix. It’s the latest disappointment in an industry famous for stop-start progress. Patrick Susmilch, 33, an administrative assistant in Los Angeles, figured it was time for a VR headset after the lockdown began. He has a PlayStation and a Nintendo Switch and was spending about an…

Terry Colli and three other residents of the John Knox Village senior community got a trip via computer to the International Space Station, a kickoff to a Stanford University study on whether virtual reality can improve the emotional wellbeing of older people. Donning 1-pound (470-gram) headsets with video and sound, the four could imagine floating weightless with astronauts and get a 360-degree tour of the station. In other programs, residents can take virtual visits to Paris, Venice, Egypt or elsewhere around the globe; attend a car rally, skydive or go on a hike. “I feel great. It is amazing. It is like you are really there,” said Colli, 73, and a former spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Washington. Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab will be working with John Knox’s…

Two key groups that offer automobile safety ratings are yanking their top endorsements from some Tesla vehicles because the company has stopped using radar on its safety systems. Consumer Reports pulled its “Top Pick” status for Tesla’s Model 3 and Y vehicles built after April 27, while the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety plans to remove the vehicles’“Top Safety Pick Plus” designation. The U.S. government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is no longer giving the Models 3 and Y check marks on its website for having forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane departure warning and emergency brake support. That prompted the ratings groups’ actions. Both require electronic safety systems for the top safety designations. Consumer Reports says that removing radar and relying on cameras means the safety features may…

The European Commission said it has given the Chinese-owned video app TikTok one month to answer complaints from a European consumer group over its commercial practices. The EU’s executive arm said it has started discussions involving the social media platform and the national consumer authorities following an alert launched earlier this year by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) about alleged breaches of consumers’ rights. The Commission said some contractual terms in TikTok’s policies could be considered misleading and confusing for consumers, adding that concerns relating to issues including hidden marketing and advertising strategies targeting children were raised. TikTok is hugely popular with teenagers and young adults who use it to post and watch short-form videos. In February, the BEUC filed a complaint with the European Commission and the network of…

The Met Gala should be so lucky. In a spectacular (though sadly fictional) red carpet moment that easily rivals Lady Gaga’s 2019 Met Gala striptease , a sanitation truck arrives, ready to offload its trash. But then Emma Stone as Cruella de Vil somehow emerges from the detritus, gathering a 40-foot-train around her and looking like a demented Cinderella arriving at the ball — if her fairy godmother were a hybrid of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen. Her nemesis, Emma Thompson as the icy Baroness von Wintour, we mean von Hellman, glares. And there we have the three main elements that make Disney’s “Cruella” a guilty pleasure, at least for the eyes: Emma S, Emma T, and fashion. Killer fashion. Let’s get out of the way what’s sure to be…

Americans are going back to one of their favorite pastimes: store shopping. With more people getting vaccinated and dropping their face masks, retailers from Walmart to Macy’s are seeing an eager return to their stores after more than a year of their customers migrating online during the pandemic. Marcia Williams, who lives in a Philadelphia suburb and who stuck to online shopping only during the height of COVID-19, went back to her local mall right after she was fully vaccinated last month. That was her first time in more than a year “I am definitely getting out,” said Williams, a hair and makeup artist who spent nearly $1,000 on clothing for herself and her three children during several buying trips. “I do feel more comfortable. I like the experience of…

More than a year after the U.S. Interior Department grounded hundreds of Chinese-made drones it was using to track wildfires and monitor dams, volcanoes and wildlife, it’s starting to look like they won’t be flying again any time soon — if ever. A measure moving through Congress would impose a five-year ban on U.S. government purchases of drones manufactured or assembled in China. It reflects bipartisan concerns that devices made by companies such as DJI, which is based in Shenzhen, China, could facilitate Chinese spying on critical infrastructure. But a ban could create problems for government users, since DJI dominates the global market for the small, low-altitude drones used by hobbyists, photographers, and many businesses and governments. There aren’t many affordable and reliable alternatives, said Carrick Detweiler, the CEO of…

An automated spacecraft docked with China’s new space station last Sunday carrying fuel and supplies for its future crew, the Chinese space agency announced. Tianzhou-2 spacecraft reached the Tianhe station eight hours after blasting off from Hainan, an island in the South China Sea, China Manned Space said. It carried space suits, living supplies and equipment and fuel for the station. Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, is third and largest orbital station launched by China’s increasingly ambition space program. The station’s core module was launched April 29. The space agency plans a total of 11 launches through the end of next year to deliver two more modules for the 70-ton station, supplies and a three-member crew. China was criticized for allowing part of the rocket that launched the Tianhe to fall…

Huawei launched its own HarmonyOS mobile operating system on its handsets on Wednesday as it adapts to having lost access to Google mobile services two years ago after the U.S. put the Chinese telecommunications company on a trade blacklist. The Shenzhen-based company announced that about 100 Huawei smartphone models will use its proprietary HarmonyOS system, and that the operating system will also be available on certain tablets and smart screens in the fourth quarter of the year. The launch of the operating system comes as the company is still cut off from American technologies including Google’s services and some computer chips to power its devices after the U.S. put it on an “entity list,” saying Huawei might aid China’s espionage efforts, an accusation the company vehemently denies. Huawei’s inclusion on…

A three-man crew of astronauts will blast off in June for a three-month mission on China’s new space station, according to a space official who was the country’s first astronaut in orbit. The plans for the station’s first crew were confirmed to state television by Yang Liwei, the manned space program’s deputy chief designer, as an automated spacecraft was launched with fuel and supplies for the Tianhe station. The Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, is the third and largest space station launched by China’s increasingly ambitious space program. Its core module was launched into orbit April 29. The Shenzhou 12 capsule carrying the crew will be launched from the Jiuquan base in China’s northwest next month, Yang said in comments broadcast by China Central Television. They will practice spacewalks and conduct…

North Hollywood After graduating from high school, Michael (Ryder McLaughlin) aspires to become a professional skateboarder, but experiences pushback from his father Oliver (Vince Vaughn), who wants Michael to either go to college or follow his lead by joining the construction industry. FIVE FACTS: 1. North Hollywood was directed, co-produced and written by Mikey Alfred, who owns the skateboard and clothing brand Illegal Civilization . 2. Alfred grew up in the area of North Hollywood in Los Angeles, and started skateboarding at the age of 10. 3. Alfred was a co-producer on the 2018 film Mid90s. 4. A number of professional skaters, including Andrew Reynolds and Louie Lopez, cameo in North Hollywood. 5. In March 2021, it was announced that North Hollywood would premiere as a drive-in screening at SoFi…

A painfully awkward sexual encounter. An impromptu road trip. A tested friendship. No, the outlines of Natalie Morales’“Plan B” aren’t revolutionary. This is the tried and true framework of the high-school comedy. But teen comedies, almost as a rule, are made by their leads. And with Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles, “Plan B” is overwhelmingly a winner. Morales’ film seems destined to be compared to Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart,” which arrived in theaters almost exactly two years ago. Both are helmed with a veteran filmmaker’s sense of timing by actors-turned-first-time-directors. (Morales has been a familiar face in film and TV for the past 15 years.) Both feature a pair of breakthrough performances. And both bring a funny, feminist spin to a traditionally boyish and often boorish movie genre. But it surprised…

History repeats itself. But do decades duplicate? As hopes rise that the pandemic is ebbing in the United States and Europe, visions of a second “Roaring Twenties” to match last century’s post-pandemic decade have proliferated. Months of lockdown and restrictions on social life have given way to dreams of a new era of frivolity and decadence. For some, it feels like party time. As hopes rise that the pandemic is ebbing in the United States and Europe, visions of a second “Roaring Twenties” to match last century’s post-pandemic decade have proliferated. For some, it’s party time. In many parts of the world, such thoughts are unthinkable. India is engulfed in crisis. The virus is raging in South America. Japan is grappling with a punishing new wave of cases. And even…

As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away! Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine. It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometer (125-mile) Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally. A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonlyused crossing points along the Evros River that separates the two countries. Nearby observation…

Zoom is still booming, raising prospects that the video-conferencing service will be able to sustain its momentum, even as the easing pandemic lessens the need for virtual meetings. Some signs for optimism emerged in the company’s latest quarterly earnings report released this week. That fueled a 3% gain in Zoom’s recently slumping stock to $338 after the numbers came out. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan sought to reassure Wall Street that the San Jose, California, company will still play a key role in an evolving environment that is expected to give workers more flexibility to split their time between the home and office. “Zoom is here to help each customer calibrate their future working model in their own way,” Yuan told analysts during a meeting hosted on the company’s service. “Many…

A fire-damaged Japanese factory that supplies many of the auto industry’s computer chips is producing about 88% of what it was making before the March blaze, its owner says. Renesas Electronics Corp. said this week that replacements for fire-damaged equipment arrived on May 27, and should be running in mid-June. That would allow the company to return to full production. The March 19 Renesas fire and a worldwide shortage of computer chips have wreaked havoc on auto industry production schedules, forcing companies to cut production and allocate scarce chips to higher-margin models. The production cuts have crimped the supply of new vehicles just as demand recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, causing shortages and raising new vehicle prices. Used vehicle prices have hit record levels. Ford, for instance, said it the…

A group of Harvard researchers has come out against the U.S. Census Bureau’s use of a controversial method to protect privacy with the numbers used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts, saying it doesn’t produce data good enough for redistricting. The Harvard researchers said in a paper released last week that using the new privacy method will make it impossible for states to comply with the requirement that districts have equal populations, a principle also known as“One Person, One Vote.”The technique also doesn’t universally protect the privacy of people who participated in the 2020 census, they said. The privacy method adds “noise,” or intentional errors, to the data to obscure the identity of any given participant in the 2020 census while still providing statistically valid information. Rather than use this…

Goodbye & Good Riddance (Anniversary Edition) Juice WRLD Three years have passed since the original release of the late Chicago rapper Juice WRLD’s debut studio album Goodbye & Good Riddance – leading to the issuing of this anniversary edition that adds new material, including a remix of the artist’s breakthrough hit “Lucid Dreams”. FIVE FACTS: 1. Juice WRLD’s off-stage name was Jarad Anthony Higgins. 2. Higgins graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School in 2017. 3. Higgins passed away in December 2019, at the age of 21, after suffering a “medical emergency” at Midway International Airport in Chicago. 4. The reissued album’s remix of “Lucid Dreams” features Lil Uzi Vert. 5. The re-release also contains a new song titled “734”. life’s a beach easy life As its title indicates, British alternative…

Jordan Janz knew his gamble on an experimental gene therapy for his rare disease might be paying off when he returned to work and a friend sniffed him. “He said, ‘you have a normal smell, you smell good,’” Janz recalled. “And I’m like, ‘that’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said.’” The 22-year-old Canadian man’s previous treatment required 40 to 60 pills a day and left him smelling like rotten eggs or stinky cheese. He was born with a flawed gene that left him unable to make a protein needed by virtually every organ in the body. Kids with this disease can throw up a dozen times a day, need eye drops every hour to prevent blindness and often kidney transplants before they’re adults. Now, Janz and a growing number…

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It may be too little, too late. That’s the realization sinking in as Japan scrambles to catch up on a frustratingly slow vaccination drive less than two months before the Summer Olympics, delayed by a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, are scheduled to start. The Olympics risk becoming an incubator for “a Tokyo variant,” as 15,000 foreign athletes and tens of thousands officials, sponsors and journalists from about 200 countries descend on — and potentially mix with — a largely unvaccinated Japanese population, said Dr. Naoto Ueyama, a physician, head of the Japan Doctors Union. With infections in Tokyo and other heavily populated areas currently at high levels and hospitals already under strain treating serious cases despite a state of emergency, experts have warned there is little slack in…