For modern smartphone owners, it’s a common enough of an occurrence. You’re just sitting there, talking about whatever, when suddenly you say something that triggers the digital assistant on your phone. Now normally, you’d probably get annoyed for a second, tap a button to dismis … | Continue reading
For a few brief moments, comic book fans around the world were shocked to hear some tragic news. But luckily, the panic didn’t last long. As first reported by CinemaBlend, Siri spent a little time this week telling people that Stan Lee had died on July 2. Why would a computer pro … | Continue reading
It’s the smartphone conspiracy theory that just won’t go away: Many, many people are convinced that their phones are listening to their conversations to target them with ads. Vice recently fueled the paranoia with an article that declared “Your phone is listening and it’s not par … | Continue reading
Scientists haven’t conclusively spotted any new particles since the Higgs boson, and that’s got some people worried—there are a ton of other physics puzzles remaining, many of which would require the presence of a new particle to resolve. But recently, there have been some tantal … | Continue reading
Should Microsoft end its federal contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)? This was the question posed to tens of thousands of Microsoft employees late last month—all users of the anonymous messaging board Blind. | Continue reading
As the U.S. prepares for war in space, China’s bringing the space war home. Its ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is reportedly capable of hitting a target from a kilometer away, igniting flammable objects, and burning through human skin. And it’s ready for production, the researchers … | Continue reading
The Ugandan government has implemented a law forcing mobile users to pay taxes to use mobile money and social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Skype. | Continue reading
Everyone, from time to time—or at every single moment of every single day—wishes they could somehow escape technology. It’s not ultimately that fun to be inundated at all hours with the collapse of society, the weekend activities of people you barely knew ten years ago, bad memes … | Continue reading
MoviePass has been operating for nearly a full year on its too-good-to-be-true premise of offering essentially unlimited movie passes to subscribers for just $9.99 per month. It’s the monorail and, according to a report from the Miami Herald, company CEO Ted Farnsworth sure seems … | Continue reading
New York officials announced the conviction and sentencing of Nevada-based Sungame Corporation and its CEO Neil Chandran for grand larceny and securities fraud, saying the fraudsters would be forced to pay up $2.8 million to redress hundreds of people the company scammed with pro … | Continue reading
Saturday’s test of the MOMO-2 unmanned rocket, which was scheduled to be the first privately funded Japanese rocket to reach space, went very poorly for Interstellar Technologies’ Takafumi Horie, a convicted securities fraudster who a 2014 Financial Times profile dubbed “Japan’s … | Continue reading
The UK government’s Home Office released a report this week announcing plans for a forthcoming centralized biometric database of its citizens, compiling DNA, fingerprint, face, and possibly even voice data for law enforcement to access and share, according to the Telegraph. In ad … | Continue reading
With the price boom of 2017 and the constant chatter about the blockchain revolution, it feels like people have forgotten the one thing bitcoin is proven to be good for: buying drugs. On Thursday, law enforcement gave everyone a reminder of cryptocurrencies roots when it took dow … | Continue reading
Federal prosecutors have charged hundreds of people with allegedly defrauding the US government’s health care system out of a combined $2 billion. And many of the charged are doctors who are also being accused of aiding the opioid crisis by illegally prescribing more than 13 mill … | Continue reading
For nearly 30 years, Masafumi Nagasaki lived a life many of us extremely logged-on folks can only dream of. A life completely void of commuting, the internet, and screens. He had the entire island of Sotobanari to himself—foraging, raking debris from the shore, and watching baby … | Continue reading
The older we get, the greater our likelihood of dying. Or at least that’s what we thought. New research suggests mortality rates level off after we turn 105, and that no upper limit exists for the human lifespan. It’s an extraordinary conclusion—one that’s not going over very wel … | Continue reading
New research shows that crows can recreate tools from memory, a capacity previously thought impossible for birds. | Continue reading
Using data collected by NASA’s late-great Cassini space probe, scientists have detected traces of complex organic molecules seeping out from Enceladus’ ice-covered ocean. It’s yet another sign that this intriguing Saturnian moon has what it takes to sustain life. | Continue reading
You may have seen the ads that Facebook has been running on TV in a full-court press to apologize for abusing users privacy. They’re embarrassing. And, it turns out, they may be a sign of things to come. Based on a recently published patent application, Facebook could one day use … | Continue reading
On Wednesday, Slack confirmed that users worldwide were experiencing difficulty connecting to the workplace messaging service, pledging to investigate the problem and provide updates soon. | Continue reading
By today’s standards it was ugly, it was slow, and it was primitive, but Windows 95 was the first operating system I mastered inside and out, and I’ll always have a soft spot for Microsoft’s most memorable PC OS. That can be the only explanation for why part of me would also love … | Continue reading
Recent headlines have suggested that California lawmakers are considering a bill that would give Californians “unprecedented control over their data.” This is true but that is not the whole story. | Continue reading
When the Surface Laptop was released a year ago, it immediately struck me as the Microsoft-built computer I’d been waiting for. You see, I’ve always admired the design of all of Microsoft’s Surface products, but at the same time felt that they weren’t exactly for me. The keyboard … | Continue reading
For more than 18 months, US diplomats have come down with similar illnesses that include mild brain damage and hearing loss after they claim to have heard unusual sounds. The incidents began in Cuba but reports have now spread to other countries. As authorities have ramped up eff … | Continue reading
The Orlando Police Department announced today it has ended its pilot of Amazon’s Rekognition face recognition software. Last month, the ACLU released hundreds of pages of documents from the Orlando Police Department and Oregon’s Washington County Sheriff’s Office detailing their … | Continue reading
News of the next generation of consoles has slowly trickled out over the last couple of weeks. None of the news gives us a clear view of either Sony or Microsoft’s consoles—instead we’ve only gotten teases of each. And those teases have had wildly different focuses. On one hand, … | Continue reading
“If I gave two fucks - two fucks about streaming numbers, would have put Lemonade up on Spotify,” Beyoncé proclaims on “NICE” from her joint album with Jay-Z which they dropped exclusively on Tidal over the weekend. Unfortunately for those emotionally or monetarily invested in th … | Continue reading
Reporters are regularly being denied access to America’s concentration camps along the U.S.-Mexico border. And on the rare occasion when they’re allowed in, journalists aren’t permitted to take photos or record video. But some reporters are taking a new approach to the Trump regi … | Continue reading
Following employee protests at Google and Microsoft over government contracts, workers at Amazon are circulating an internal letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, asking him to stop selling the company’s Rekognition facial recognition software to law enforcement and to boot the data-mining f … | Continue reading
Days after Microsoft came under intense scrutiny for working with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a report from NBC News revealed that a number of major tech firms have been raking in millions of dollars from the government agency that has, under the advisement of the … | Continue reading
More than five dozen Github contributors on Thursday signed a letter threatening to abandon the website unless Microsoft canceled its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract. | Continue reading
The EU has voted to adopt Article 13 and Article 11, bad copyright legislation that threatens the internet as we know it. | Continue reading
Instagram’s YouTube era apparently starts now. Today it officially announced IGTV, a new home for up to hour-long videos that will live on Instagram’s explore page and in a separate, standalone app. | Continue reading
For 15 years, Erez Benari’s struggle with his type 2 diabetes had been a losing one. A software engineer at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington, Benari had stuck to a restrictive diet that kept him off most carbs, along with regular insulin shots. But still, his high blood sugar lev … | Continue reading
Agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are routinely rounding up people suspected of being undocumented, often separating them from their children, and detaining them in what are essentially internment camps—all without due process. A new animated series wan … | Continue reading
Current prosthetic limbs aren’t yet capable of transmitting complex sensations like texture or pain to the user, but a recent breakthrough by scientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in which a synthetic layer of skin on an artificial hand transmitted feelings of pain dire … | Continue reading
In April, the day before taxes were due, the IRS’ online filing system failed, just as procrastinators were settling into the annual TurboTax panic. How did this happen, especially before the most important tax day of the year? And why does this keep happening to government websi … | Continue reading
Microsoft employees are putting pressure on their management to cancel a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of a backlash against the agency’s policy of separating children from their families at the U.S. border. | Continue reading
Aside from the new dark mode UI in Mojave, one of the most useful additions to the next version of macOS is Stacks, a feature that automatically sorts and arranges all the files on your desktop into tidy little groups. | Continue reading
For 15 years, Erez Benari’s struggle with his type 2 diabetes had been a losing one. A software engineer at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington, Benari had stuck to a restrictive diet that kept him off most carbs, along with regular insulin shots. But still, his high blood sugar lev … | Continue reading
It’s been over six weeks since lava fissures began erupting on Hawaii’s Big Island, and there’s still no end in sight. New videos taken by the US Geological Survey reveal the dramatic extent to which the encroaching lava has reshaped the surrounding landscape, turning once gorgeo … | Continue reading
Earlier today, President Donald Trump said he’ll be directing the Pentagon to create the US Space Force, which would become the sixth independent branch of the US military. The move is meant to help the US keep pace with its rivals, but experts question the need for an entirely n … | Continue reading
Tensions are high within Microsoft, as new scrutiny is given to a partnership between the company’s Azure Government cloud computing arm and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to several Microsoft employees who spoke to Gizmodo on the condition of anonymity … | Continue reading
California’s two net neutrality bills are poised to become one, offering the state’s 40 million residents comprehensive protection against internet service provider trying to shakedown businesses and subscribers in the wake of the FCC repeal. | Continue reading
According to one actor involved in the Star Wars franchise, there is a lot going on. | Continue reading