Tech Boys

A major telecommunications outage is unfolding, with a surge of reports pointing to widespread service disruptions across AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. In particular, many Verizon customers are reporting that their phones have gone into SOS mode, though they should still be able to make 911 calls via satellite. According to Downdetector , user error reports started to spike around 11:55 a.m. ET on Wednesday. ( Disclosure: Downdetector and Mashable are both owned by Ziff Davis. ) While some users on AT&T and T-Mobile networks have also reported issues, Verizon customers appear to be bearing the brunt of the disruption. On X, "Verizon" quickly began trending as users attempted to figure out what was happening. With the outage still developing, details remain limited. So far, Verizon is the only carrier to publicly acknowledge the issue. In a post on X, the company said : “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers. Our engi...

More than 1,000 Meta employees — the ones who brought you the metaverse — are now looking for work. The company behind Facebook and Instagram laid off more than 1,000 employees from its Virtual Reality (VR)-focused division, Reality Labs. As first reported by Bloomberg , this means the closure of VR game development studios like Sanzaru, Twisted Pixel, and Armature. The news was delivered via an internal memo from Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CEO. Bosworth said Meta will refocus its metaverse efforts on other products in the future, such as wearables. That means you can expect more products like the Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, with AI and Augmented Reality (AR) — and fewer like the VR Meta Quest 3 . SEE ALSO: Meta delays Ray-Ban smart glasses international rollout, citing high demand Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the metaverse way back in the pandemic year of 2021. His big bet was that we would all use VR headsets to hang out and do work meetings remotely in vi...

Several of Meta's VR studios have been affected by the company's metaverse-focused layoffs. The company has shuttered three of its VR studios, including Armature, Sanzaru and Twisted Pixel. VR fitness app Supernatural will no longer be updated with fresh content. Employees at Twisted Pixel, which released Marvel's Deadpool VR in November, and Sanzaru, known for Asgard's Wrath , posted on social media about the closures . Bloomberg reported that Armature, which brought Resident Evil 4 to Quest back in 2021 has also closed and that the popular VR fitness app Supernatural will no longer be updated with fresh content, though the current version will continue to be supported.  A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the closures. "We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward Wearables," the spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget. "This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the ...

Is Reddit down? The website is operating normally as of this writing, but thousands of Reddit users were asking this question on Tuesday, Jan. 13, when the popular online discussion platform appeared to suffer a brief outage. According to Downdetector , the problems started around 11:33 a.m. ET, with tens of thousands of Downdetector users reporting problems accessing the Reddit website and app. ( Disclosure: Mashable and Downdetector are both owned by Ziff Davis. ) Reddit's status had returned to normal at Downdetector by 12:18 p.m. ET. Credit: Downdetector This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. At the peak of the outage, Downdetector received 89,943 user error reports. "Reddit is currently experiencing a significant internal outage causing widespread service disruptions," reads a Downdetector summary (emphasis in original). "The impact is categorized as Very High , primarily affecting mobile app access (55%) and w...

On Jan. 7, Rene Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mother exercising her right as a legal observer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, was shot and killed by federal agent Jonathan Ross while in her car. She was the second death at the hands of ICE in the new year, following the killing of Keith Porter Jr. by an off-duty ICE agent. Three days after Good, two more people were shot and injured by border patrol agents attempting an arrest in Portland, Oregon. Over the last year, at least 32 individuals have died while in ICE custody, the deadliest year on record for the agency. Under direction from the Trump administration, ICE and border patrol agents ramped up aggressive tactics intended to meet elevated deportation demands, including conducting raids of protected areas like school grounds, hospitals, and places of worship. SEE ALSO: The biggest moments of the 2026 Golden Globes Many Americans have protested ICE's actions , with some pundits likening the a...

Last year, Dell killed off all of its PC brands , including the iconic XPS lineup, and replaced them with a simplified naming scheme. It was a move meant to make it easier for people to discern between the company's many brands, but in reality, it just just made the company's lineup even more confusing. We called it an unforced error at the time, but after seeing how much Dell's PC market share fell over 2025, it's fair to say that rebranding was an absolute marketing disaster. So, with its tail between its legs, Dell has returned to CES some welcome news for its fans: XPS lives ! And the company plans to double-down on the brand in ways it never did before. Today, Dell revealed the new XPS 14 and 16 notebooks, which feature a more practical design than the previous models. There's a new function row with traditional keys, instead of the odd capacitive buttons that disappeared in sunlight. And while the company is sticking with its "invisible" trackpad, w...

The 83rd Golden Globe Awards ceremony is underway, with actors and filmmakers flocking to the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California once more to celebrate the last year in entertainment. Hosted by Nikki Glaser for the second consecutive year, the 2026 Golden Globe Awards introduces the new Best Podcast category for the first time. Even so, the primary focus is still squarely on television and film. One Battle After Another is kicking off the night with the most bites at the apple, boasting a total of nine nominations including Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy and Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson). Also competing for Best Director are Sinners (Ryan Coogler) and Hamnet (Chloé Zhao), which follow One Battle After Another in nomination count with seven and six respectively. Meanwhile, The White Lotus dominated the television categories with six nominations, while Adolescence nabbed five and Only Murders in the Building and Severance earned four each. Here...

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To further push the limits of consumerism , Google has launched a new open standard for agentic commerce that's called Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). In brief, it's a framework that combines the power of AI agents and online shopping platforms to help customers buy more things. Thanks to the introduction of UCP, Google is offering three new online shopping features. To start, Google's AI mode will have a new checkout feature that allows customers to buy eligible products from certain US retailers within Google Search. Currently, this feature works with Google Pay, but it will soon add PayPal compatibility and incorporate more capabilities, like related product discovery and using loyalty points. On the merchant side, the UCP also established the Business Agent feature, which Google said will be "a virtual sales associate that can answer product questions in a brand’s voice." The Business Agent will launch tomorrow with early adopters including Lowe’s, Mic...