After embracing remote work in 2020, companies face conflicts making it permanent

Although the pandemic forced employees around the world to adopt makeshift remote work setups, a growing proportion of the workforce already spent at least part of their week working from home, while some businesses had embraced a “work-from-anywhere” philosophy from their inception. But much as virtual events rapidly gained traction in 2020, the pandemic accelerated a location-agnostic mindset across the corporate world, with tech behemoths like Facebook and Twitter announcing permanent remote working plans. READ MORE

Top work-from-home trends of 2020

After millions of Americans moved to work from the office to working remotely, working from home has undergone the largest test trial to date. Even though many employers are set to reopen offices in 2021, it has been proven that telework is plausible, and many companies will allow for a hybrid model of home and office work moving forward. The future of the workplace could be changed permanently, molded by trends of the grand remote work experiment amid the pandemic. READ MORE

How Close Are We—Really—to Building a Quantum Computer?

The race is on to build the world’s first meaningful quantum computer—one that can deliver the technology’s long-promised ability to help scientists do things like develop miraculous new materials, encrypt data with near-perfect security and accurately predict how Earth’s climate will change. Such a machine is likely more than a decade away, but IBM, Microsoft, Google, Intel and other tech heavyweights breathlessly tout each tiny, incremental step along the way. Most of these milestones involve packing ever more quantum bits, or qubits—the basic unit of information in a quantum computer—onto a processor chip. But the path to quantum computing involves far more than wrangling subatomic particles. READ MORE

FAA brings commercial drone deliveries one step closer with new rules

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced on Monday that it will issue a long-awaited rule to allow for small drones to fly over people and at night, bringing the technology's use for widespread commercial deliveries one step closer to becoming a reality.

In addition, the FAA is also requiring remote identification for most drones in order to address security concerns. READ MORE

SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet service provides rapid speeds of 175 Mbps in freezing temperatures, high winds, and deep snow, users report

Elon Musk's aerospace company sent an update email to beta testers Tuesday saying its made upgrades to the service, including a "Snow Melt Mode" for the Starlink dishes.

Users of SpaceX's "Better Than Nothing Beta" test have posted pictures and videos on the Reddit Starlink community proving that the Starlink terminal still works in extreme weather conditions - and in some cases, it's even faster. READ MORE

Elon Musk says taking Tesla private would be an 'impossible' task

It is “impossible” for Elon Musk to turn Tesla private — despite the CEO’s belief that ridding the electric carmaker of its duties as a public company would help accelerate innovation, he said Christmas Eve.

“Engineering, design & general company operations absorb vast majority of my mind & are the fundamental limitation on doing more,” Musk tweeted in response to a user who was speculating on how the tech tycoon could best allocate his time. “Tesla public company duties are a much bigger factor, but going private is impossible now (sigh).” READ MORE

How the real estate market has been changed in 2020 by multigenerational living

There is no place like home for the holidays, but for a steadily increasing number of Americans, there is no place like moving back home, permanently.

As the coronavirus pandemic celebrates its anniversary, the newest trend taking over the market is the growing number of people moving out of their high-rise lifestyle in places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. READ MORE