Tech Companies Don't Need to Be Creepy to Make Money

The unlikely success of DuckDuckGo suggests a way to escape surveillance capitalism.

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In Defense of Snow Days

Virtual school after a snowstorm is yer another kind of techno-solutionist slush that should be plowed away.

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Muchos Bezos: Inside Amazon’s Empire With Author Brad Stone

This week, we talk to the author and journalist about his new book on the retail giant and its famous boss.

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Could You Really Climb the Spinning Ship’s Cable in Stowaway?

Anna Kendrick’s rotating spacecraft cleverly uses cables and a counterweight to make artificial gravity. But scaling them would be harder than it looks

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The Real Cost of Colonial Pipeline's $5 Million Ransom

Stopping payments would go a long way to stopping ransomware. But the choice is never quite so easy.

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Live Audio Apps Lure Creators With Money and Promises

Talk is cheap, unless you’re an in-demand content creator for platforms like Clubhouse and its many clones.

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Log in to the Upscale, Retro-Cool Home Gym of Your Dreams

The home workout app Obé Fitness turns your living room into a high-end fitness boutique.

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The Yankees Covid Outbreak May Be Bad News for Ditching Masks

The spate of cases is a bad bounce—and it might show that lifting mask mandates for the vaxxed won’t be a grand slam.

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Decades-Old Flaws Affect Almost Every Wi-Fi Device

The so-called Frag Attack vulnerabilities could let hackers steal data or compromise connected gadgets.

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GameStop FOMO Inspires a New Wave of Crypto Pump-and-Dumps

Thousands of would-be investors are joining Discord groups that promise big earnings by manipulating the crypto market.

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When a Pipeline Goes Down, Tanker Trucks Come to the Rescue

But driving millions of gallons of gas around the country is trickier than you might think.

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Watch Us Roam Virtual Deep Seas With Real Oceanographers

WIRED will be playing Subnautica: Below Zero and talking about ocean—and space—exploration with scientists from NOAA and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

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The Chip Shortage Is Driving Up Tech Prices—Starting With TVs

Some high-end televisions already cost 30 percent more than they did last summer. As the crunch continues, expect more gadget prices to spike.

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AI Shows ExxonMobil Downplayed Its Role in Climate Change

According to a new paper, the company’s own research showed that human activity was a contributor, but public statements suggested otherwise.

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Gaming Influencers Are the Future of Esports

Top players have left pro leagues to pursue streaming full-time as the industry veers more toward content creators.

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Apple’s AirTags Are a Gift to Stalkers

The tiny new tracking devices can be easily hidden in the cars and bags of victims. And exploiting them is dead simple.

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Resident Evil Village Is Too Self-Conscious to Enjoy Itself

The eternal conflict: Play horror straight, or play it up for campy laughs? Village tries to have it both ways, with mixed results.

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Researchers Shed Light on the Perils of Firefly Tourism

A new study shows how bug spray, flashlights, and foot traffic can spell disaster for the fragile insects.

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The 16 Best Gifts for the Recent College Grad

This year’s students have been through a lot. Ring in their special milestone with useful gadgets, outdoor gear, subscriptions, and more.

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Does a Robot Get to Be the Boss of Me?

WIRED’s spiritual advice columnist on policing, degrees of freedom, and dancing in the streets.

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It’s True. Everyone IS Multitasking on Their Video Calls

A Microsoft study finds just how often remote workers multitask during videoconferences—especially when the group is large and the meeting runs long.

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The Best Personal Safety Devices, Apps, and Alarms

Your smartphone or wearable could help you out in a truly dangerous situation. Here are some options to consider.

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The Teeny, Tiny Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill

All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a mysterious error in decades-old research.

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The Best Personal Safety Devices, Apps, and Alarms

Your smartphone or wearable could help you out in a truly dangerous situation. Here are some options to consider.

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Researchers Shed Light on the Perils of Firefly Tourism

A new study shows how bug spray, flashlights, and foot traffic can spell disaster for the fragile insects.

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Resident Evil Village Is Too Self-Conscious to Enjoy Itself

The eternal conflict: Play horror straight, or play it up for campy laughs? Village tries to have it both ways, with mixed results.

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Asus's New Zenfone 8 Is Powerful and Small. That's About It

This pocket-friendly Android phone has a speedy processor and an excellent screen. It's also really boring.

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The PS5 Is Starting to Look Like the Revolution It Promised

What’s happening with Sony’s latest console, now that it’s been out for six months? Supply issues aside, it’s proving to be much more than a simple evolution.

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Humans Need to Create Interspecies Money to Save the Planet

A new form of digital currency for animals, trees, and other wildlife (no, not like Dogecoin) would help protect biodiversity and bend technology back to nature.

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Adidas and Allbirds Team Up to Make Sustainable Running Shoes

The high-performance Futurecraft.Footprint shows the key to a lower carbon impact might lie in collaboration, not competition.

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Help! A Male Colleague Thinks I’m Scary

Whose problem is it when men are intimidated by women at work?

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Watch a Snake Robot Go for a Swim

The Hardened Underwater Modular Robot Snake has thrusters for muscles and a camera for a face. Your move, evolution.

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DeepMind Wants to Use AI to Transform Soccer

The Alphabet-owned company is working with Liverpool to bring computer vision and statistical learning to the high-stakes world of sports.

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Creators Who Joined Twitch in the Pandemic Plan to Stay

When lockdowns hit, entertainers turned to the platform to connect with fans. Now, even as many places reopen, many have no plans to leave.

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The Case for Letting People Work From Home Forever

Do you want happier, productive, more engaged, and more fulfilled employees and coworkers? Well, you should campaign to let them work remotely. Here's why.

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Biden Makes a Deal With Uber and Lyft in the Name of Vaccines

Despite his unease with the ride-hail business model, the president needs help getting more Americans to vaccination sites to meet his July 4 deadline.

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How Amazon Sidewalk Works—and Why You May Want to Turn It Off

The premise is convenient. But the ecommerce giant’s record on privacy isn't exactly inspiring.

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Vaccinating US Kids Isn't Neglect of Indian Adults

The debate over whether it's ethical to inoculate American children while the pandemic rages elsewhere is unproductive and harmful.

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Rumble Sends Viewers Tumbling Toward Misinformation

Research shows the emergent video platform can recommend conspiracy theories and other harmful content more often than not.

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Awesome, Hypnotic Photos of Swirling, Crystal Chemistry

A new book goes micro to show the wonderful world of close-up chemical reactions.

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How a Geeky Superhero Fan Revived a Failing Comic Con

And how he used that great knowledge to help nudge Marvel back from bankruptcy.

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Why Is It So Hard to Be Evil in Video Games?

Sometimes there are too many choices. Most of the time, “good versus evil” isn’t very clear-cut.

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A Top New York Restaurant Is Going Vegan. It Could Backfire

Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park will only serve plant-based dishes—but here's how keeping a little bit of meat on the menu could set a better example.

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How to Take a Slick, Professional Headshot With Your Phone

Snapping that perfect self-portrait on your phone is a skill. Here’s how to do it, according to the experts.

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This Is Your Brain Under Anesthesia

For the first time, researchers were able to observe, in extra-fine detail, how neurons behave as consciousness shuts down.

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The Cicadas Are Coming. Let’s Eat Them!

Why not embrace Brood X as the free-range, sustainable source of protein that it truly is?

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Get Your Hands on Some of Our Favorite Sex Toys

May is National Masturbation Month, and sales from two of our favorite brands will help you perfect your self-love.

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How Amazon Paid Unwitting Civilians to Make Alexa Smarter

In 2011, Jeff Bezos dreamt up a talking device. But making the virtual assistant sound intelligent proved far more difficult than anyone could have imagined.

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DarkSide Hit Colonial Pipeline—and Created an Unholy Mess

As the White House gets involved in the response, the group behind the malware is scrambling.

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US Teens Can Get Their Covid Shot. What’s Next for Schools?

Kids as young as 12 are now authorized for Pfizer’s shot. That could make it easier for campuses to reopen this fall—but it introduces a whole new set of decisions.

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Apple Execs Chose to Keep a Hack of 128 Million iPhones Quiet

Emails from the Epic Games lawsuit show Apple brass discussing how to handle a 2015 iOS hack. The company never notified affected users.

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Black and Queer AI Groups Say They'll Spurn Google Funding

The move is the latest fallout following the departures of the heads of the company's ethical AI research team and a recruiter.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Coronavirus

Here's all the WIRED coverage in one place, from how to keep your children entertained to how this outbreak is affecting the economy.

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Ann Takamaki From Persona 5 Was Exactly Who I Needed to See

My community wasn’t always accepting of my mixed Asian heritage. Turns out, neither was Ann’s.

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2 Baseballs Collided at an MLB Game. How Did That Happen?

During a pregame warmup, Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper batted a line drive right into a ball zooming in from the outfield. It's not impossible, but it's a long shot.

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One Thing Covid Didn’t Smash to Pieces? Monster Movies

If you liked Godzilla vs. Kong, there’s more—and better—where that stupid mindless clobberfest came from.

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The Pentagon Inches Toward Letting AI Control Weapons

Drills involving swarms of drones raise questions about whether machines could outperform a human operator in complex scenarios.

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Bad Weather Forecasts Are a Climate Crisis Disaster

Predicting the output of solar panels is tricky—but getting it right could slash carbon emissions.

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The Best Chef’s Knives to Sharpen Your Home Cooking Skills

It's the indispensable multi-tool of the kitchen. We sliced and diced our way through meats and veggies to find today's best blades.

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How to Use Tech to Capture Your Family History

Our elders have rich stories to share. There’s no better time than now to sit down and hit Record.

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4 Rugged French Presses for Your Coffee-Fueled Summer Escape

Whether you're an avid camper or vacation home–renter, try one of these glass-free French presses made for traveling.

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Hitting the Road This Winter? Take Your Kitchen With You

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The Best Camping Gear to Jump-Start Your Adventures

Enjoy nature with WIRED’s favorite outdoor products and essentials.

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What If Gravity Is Actually a Double Copy of Other Forces?

An enigmatic connection between the forces of nature is allowing physicists to explore the quantum side of gravity.

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What's Google Floc? And How Does It Affect Your Privacy?

There's a battle raging over how advertisers can target us on the web—or whether they should be able to target us at all.

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Google Gets Serious About Two-Factor Authentication. Good!

The tech giant wants to push its billions of users—and the rest of the industry—to enable multifactor authentication by default.

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The Colonial Pipeline Hack Is a New Extreme for Ransomware

An attack has crippled the company’s operations—and cut off a large portion of the East Coast’s fuel supply—in an ominous development for critical infrastructure.

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Microsoft Will Soon Kill Flash on Windows 10 for Good

Plus: A Peloton data leak, Russian hacker details, and more of the week’s top security news.

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Microsoft’s 15-Inch Surface Laptop 4 Is a Battery Champion

This fourth-gen notebook lacks Thunderbolt and has a spongy keyboard, but it delivers where it matters most.

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ISPs Funded 8.5 Million Fake Comments Opposing Net Neutrality

The secret campaign, backed by major broadband companies, used real people’s names without their consent.

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What’s the Point of Wasps, Anyway?

A new study says the reviled stinging insects play a critical ecological role—and their venom might even be useful to people.

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These 5 Great Weighted Blankets Are on Sale Right Now

Weighted blankets are comforting, but they're usually pricey. We found discounts on one for kids, a King-sized model, and more.

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Want to Grow Your Own Food? Try a Hydroponic Garden

Today’s home kits are stylish, smart, and easier to use than ever. Here’s how to get started.

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Trump Abused the System. Facebook Created It

The company's oversight board failed to mention one thing in its ruling this week: Facebook's responsibility for making the tools to wield undue influence and power.

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Twitter's Tip Jar Privacy Fiasco Was Entirely Avoidable

Sending its users to PayPal has created all sorts of problems that Twitter should have caught ahead of time.

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Pfizer's FDA Request, Vaccine Diplomacy, and More News

Catch up on the most important updates from this week.

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Sci-Fi About Overpopulation Was Way Off

In his new book, political reporter Matthew Yglesias imagines a future America that's revitalized itself by tripling its population.

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Epic v. Apple and the Plan to Avoid ‘Looking Like the Baddies’

This week’s antitrust trial against Apple reveals in new detail how the Fortnite developer aimed to take on the industry's titans.

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24 Essential PS4 Games Every Player Should Try

Crawl dungeons, hunt dinosaurs, and learn to be a dad with our favorite PlayStation 4 titles.

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The Bill and Melinda Gates Divorce Memes Are Freaking Me Out

Get LOLs out of anything else, I’m begging you.

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Why Amy Klobuchar Just Wrote 600 Pages on Antitrust

Plus: The iPhone before the App Store, the threat of digital enhancement, and the unlikely darling of the liberals.

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The Powerful, Complicated Women of Resident Evil

Resident Evil Village’s Lady Dimitrescu is only the latest in a long line of the series’ strong—and sometimes conflicted—female characters.

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Resident Evil Has Had a Rocky Relationship With Multiplayer

When this iconic horror franchise veers from single-player stories, the results are often scary—and not in a good way.

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Here's the Truth About Section 230

This week, we go deep on the law that shaped the modern internet with our resident legal eagle, Gilad Edelman.

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Bats Raised in Helium-Rich Air Reveal a Key to Echolocation

To test bats’ sense of the speed of sound, researchers put them in an atmosphere that alters it. No word on whether the helium made the bats sound funny.

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Sisters With Transistors Puts Women Back Into Music History

The documentary follows the women who, throughout the 20th century, captured the sound of a newly electrified world.

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Apollo's Ghost E-Scooter Is So Powerful, It's Scary

This electric kick scooter is heavy and spendy, but its dual motors can get close to 40 miles per hour.

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The Wolf Tree and the World Wide Web

In this essay from Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard reflects on parenting, climate change, and the networks at the heart of the forest.

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Sharks Use the Earth’s Magnetic Field Like a Compass

Biologists have long believed that these animals rely on magnetic sensing to migrate across oceans. Someone finally figured out how to prove it.

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Which Google Pixel Phone (and Gear) Should You Buy?

Here’s a guide to all the models, along with case recommendations and software tips.

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Here’s a Calendar Trick to Ease Post-Pandemic Reentry

Ready or not, the world is opening up. Creating a daily rhythm calendar can help you take it all in at your own pace.

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What a Crossword AI Reveals About Humans' Way With Words

Dr. Fill, a puzzle-solving automaton, came out victorious at last week's national tournament—but human solvers shouldn't throw in the towel just yet.

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KEF's New Wireless Bookshelf Speakers Are Modern Marvels

The KEF LS50 Wireless II are audiophile-grade companions for the streaming era. And they play nice with TVs too.

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Twitter Group's Offer India a Covid-19 Lifeline

Hashtags have provided a kind of emergency hotline—but the need for mutual aid on social media is also a rebuke to the government.

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The Statistical Secrets of Covid-19 Vaccines

They’re really very good, and they’re the only way out of the pandemic. But a tour through the numbers could bring the vaccine-hesitant into the tent.

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15 Last-Minute Deals on Mother’s Day Gifts

We couldn’t find a discount on breakfast in bed, but these WIRED-recommended products are the next best thing.

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Everything You’ve Heard About Section 230 Is Wrong

These hallowed 26 words shield internet companies from being held responsible for what people post and share. But the web’s most sacred law is a false idol.

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To Make These Chips More Powerful, IBM Is Growing Them Taller

The company reveals a process that it says can cram two-thirds more transistors on a semiconductor, heralding faster and more efficient electronic devices.

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Peloton Recalls Treadmills After Injuries and 1 Child Death

A six-year-old died after being pulled under the Tread+. It's unclear what the next move will be for the connected fitness equipment maker.

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How a Former Netflix Exec Built a Brazen Bribery Scheme

The company’s ex-vice president of IT faces 20 years in prison for creating a pay-to-play environment with technology vendors.

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