Tech News – by Arlin Schaffel

Gentrified Doom remake trades chainsaw for cheese knife

Doom: The Gallery Experience, created by Filippo Meozzi and Liam Stone, transforms the iconic E1M1 level into a virtual museum space where players guide a glasses-wearing Doomguy through halls of fine art as classical music plays in the background. The game links each displayed artwork to its corresponding page on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/01/doom-marine-crashes-art-gallery-politely-sips-wine/

The weirdest tech at CES 2025

CES is home to some of the coolest, cutting-edge, and most innovative technology around. But within this sea of tech are always some pretty strange gadgets. This year’s conference was no different, packed with a whole bunch of wacky devices, some of which might have a chance of taking off, and others… maybe not so much. Highlights include Mirumi, the shy sloth-like robot, A phone battery charger that resembles a toaster, A retractable keyboard, An even more portable LG StanbyME display, SwitchBot’s modular, multitasking robot, An 18-karat gold smart ring, LG’s air purifier your cat can sit on, The “world’s first wearable solar panel”, LG’s indoor gardening side table, Encapsulated anime girls that talk to you…
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/8/24338251/ces-2025-weirdest-tech-gadgets-robots

LG’s microwave has a 27-inch display that’ll be perfect for ads

LG has responded to Samsung in the battle to slap displays on every home appliance you own, culminating in the LG Signature microwave which puts a superfluous 27-inch LCD touchscreen and speakers into an appliance you probably don’t even need.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/30/24331994/lg-microwave-27-inch-display-speakers

Amazon is ending remote work. Its employees hope the company reconsiders

It's back to the office full time for the majority of Amazon employees across the globe, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer it's not a welcome change. "The people on my team are very upset about this," said CJ Felli, a system development engineer at Amazon Web Services based in Seattle. Amazon's corporate employees worked mostly remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2023, they were allowed to work a hybrid schedule — two days remotely and three days in the office.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-ends-remote-work-1.7422614?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Meta rolls out live AI, translations, and Shazam to its smart glasses

Meta just announced three new features are rolling out to its Ray-Ban smart glasses: live AI, live translations, and Shazam. Both live AI and live translation are limited to members of Meta’s Early Access Program, while Shazam support is available for all users in the US and Canada.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/16/24322628/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-live-ai-translation-shazam