The Consumer Electronics Show won’t have any female keynote speakers this year after weeks of attempting to add some diversity to the lineup, a source told Fast Company. All six top positions will instead be filled by male CEOS: Intel’s Brian Krzanich, Ford’s Jim Hackett, Huawei’ … | Continue reading
On paper, at least, nearly everyone is against online harassment. But how that line is defined — and how consistently the rules are applied — can vary dramatically on platforms and social media. Does it require a direct or immediate threat of violence, or is it enough to say you … | Continue reading
This week, two disastrous new processor vulnerabilities spilled out into the open — and the tech world is still coming to terms with the damage. The vulnerabilities, dubbed Meltdown and Spectre, affect nearly every processor made in the last 20 years. Meltdown is the immediate th … | Continue reading
The fight is coming to the courts, to Congress, and even to the 2018 election. Continue reading… | Continue reading
This morning, people on the US East Coast woke up to a “bomb cyclone,” a powerful winter storm that acts a bit like a snowy hurricane, and pictures of this explosive weather event from space show just how hurricane-like it actually is. The GOES-16 weather satellite — operated by … | Continue reading
Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook has “a lot of work to do” when it comes to harassment, election interference, and just making sure that it’s a meaningful platform to be on. So he’s making it his “personal challenge” for 2018 to “focus on fixing these important issues.”Zuckerbe … | Continue reading
Personal devices are now banned from Donald Trump’s White House, according to a statement from press secretary Sarah Sanders. Staff will be still be allowed to use government-issued devices, but they can’t send texts on those devices.In a statement, Sanders attributes the ban to … | Continue reading
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reversing a policy that advised federal prosecutors to take a hands-off approach in enforcing federal marijuana laws (which prohibit the drug) in states where the drug has been legalized. Now, prosecutors will be able to decide how strictly they … | Continue reading
I’ve been thinking about how to explain Ansel Elgort in the first sentence of this post for about 40 minutes, and I think this is the best I’m going to do: he’s the type of dude whose first 10 pages of Getty Image search results are of him jumping out of his chair at a basketball … | Continue reading
Toyota Research Institute, the Silicon Valley-based arm of the biggest carmaker in the world, just unveiled the latest version of its autonomous test vehicle. The vehicle — a Lexus LS 600hL test vehicle equipped with LIDAR, radar, and camera arrays — is an iterative improvement o … | Continue reading
Last March, we bid farewell to Mad Catz, the world’s leading manufacturer of gaming mice and controllers, that looked like the offspring between a Michael Bay Transformer and medieval torture device. According to CNET, a Chinese holding company largely comprised of former Mad Cat … | Continue reading
Microsoft has partnered with Johnson Controls to build a thermostat. The software giant first unveiled the Cortana-powered thermostat last year, complete with a translucent touchscreen display. Dubbed GLAS, the thermostat will track indoor and outdoor air quality and adjust tempe … | Continue reading
If you own a smart microwave or oven, you might soon be able to control it with Alexa. Amazon announced today that it’s adding microwave and oven control features to its smart assistant, allowing it to handle requests like “Alexa, microwave for 50 seconds on high.” Amazon says th … | Continue reading
OnePlus is today launching a new color for the 5T smartphone, called Sandstone White. The white model joins the Midnight Black color option that has been available since the 5T’s initial launch in November of last year. Beyond the lighter hue, the white model also features a diff … | Continue reading
Chinese company 90Fun is releasing a smart suitcase that’s designed to automatically follow you around so your hands are free. Named the 90 Fun Puppy 1 (which I take to mean it will follow you around like a puppy), the suitcase can constantly follow you or it can be summoned via … | Continue reading
Chrome is now the most popular browser across all devices, thanks to Android’s popularity and the rise of Chrome on Windows PCs and Mac computers. As Google continues to dominate our access to the web, information through its search engine, and services like Gmail or YouTube, Chr … | Continue reading
The history of PC gaming is littered with companies that thought they could get cloud-based streaming services up and running. From the famously failed OnLive to Sony’s somewhat lackluster PS Now to Nvidia’s still-in-beta GeForce Now service, no company seems to have cracked the … | Continue reading
Kendrick Lamar produced and curated the soundtrack for Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Black Panther film, with help from Top Dawg label head Anthony Tiffith. The first single, “All the Stars,” is a collaboration between Lamar and his labelmate SZA.Lamar provided a statement via press re … | Continue reading
Details have emerged on two major processor security flaws this week, and the industry is scrambling to issue fixes and secure machines for customers. Dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre,” the flaws affect nearly every device made in the past 20 years. The Meltdown flaw only affects I … | Continue reading
LG is intent on making useful robots. Last year at CES it unveiled a pair of bots designed to clean up in airports and help travelers find their way around. Today, it announced a trio of new robots designed to help carry stuff — from drinks to suitcases to shopping. Technical det … | Continue reading
Yves Béhar, known for his sleek designs like the August smart lock and this Samsung TV, has applied his skills to Hive’s new indoor camera, as spotted by DesignBoom. The Hive View is a small detachable magnetic camera with 130-degree view, manual pan-and-tilt control, and the abi … | Continue reading
Volkswagen Group and Hyundai are making a push towards fully autonomous vehicles, thanks to respective deals struck with Aurora Innovations — the company started by former Google self-driving car guru Chris Urmson. The three companies announced today that VW and Hyundai are the f … | Continue reading
Starting off the new year by introducing its latest custom smartphone processor, Samsung has revealed some of what we might expect from its next Galaxy S flagship. In among the usual claims of improved performance is an intriguing tease of using neural networks and deep learning … | Continue reading
AT&T has announced plans to roll out a true 5G network in a dozen markets in accordance with the 3GPP’s recently released 5G NR (new radio) guidelines by the end of 2018.It’s nice to see that AT&T is actually working on a real 5G network, given the company’s announcement of its s … | Continue reading
Lenovo is unveiling nine new 2018 ThinkPad models today, ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. While all of the new models are primarily targeted at businesses, the X series laptops are perhaps the most interesting. Lenovo isn’t ready to detail a new X1 C … | Continue reading
Dell is finally updating the design of the XPS 13 this year — at least, a little bit. After maintaining the same look, style, and port selection for three years, Dell is refreshing the XPS 13 with an ever-so-slightly streamlined build, a new white-and-gold color option, and updat … | Continue reading
Technology-based horror is nothing new for The X-Files, which had FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully confront their first murderous AI back in the 1993 episode “Ghost in the Machine.” But technological threats have always had the same status as other monster-of-the week proble … | Continue reading
Venture capitalist Peter Thiel is reportedly planning to launch a cable news network that would act as a competitor to Fox News, according to a report from BuzzFeed News. The idea has been in the works for months, the report says, with Thiel working closely on the project with di … | Continue reading
Google is considering selling off Zagat, the US restaurant review guide it purchased back in 2011, according to a report from Reuters today. The search giant has reportedly been in talks with multiple companies who may potentially buy the service, which is part of Google Maps and … | Continue reading
All week, the tech world has been piecing through rumors of a potentially catastrophic flaw in an entire generation of processors — but with all developers subject to a non-disclosure agreement, there were few hard facts to go on. Now, new details have emerged on how severe and f … | Continue reading
It may have been a rough 2017 for Tesla, but the Palo Alto-based automaker can boast about hitting one projection it made last year: more than 100,000 of its vehicles were delivered in the year.Tesla announced Wednesday it delivered 101,312 Model S and Model X cars in 2017, a 33 … | Continue reading
FCC chairman Ajit Pai has canceled plans to appear at CES next week, missing the show for the first time in five years and what would have been his first appearance as head of the commission.Pai was scheduled to appear next Tuesday, alongside the FTC’s acting chairwoman, Maureen … | Continue reading
An Alaskan baby buried 11,500 years ago has clued scientists in to a forgotten branch of the Native American family tree. This child’s DNA is more genetically ancient than the ancestors of modern Native Americans — so it must have come from a previously unknown, even earlier popu … | Continue reading
Karl Pilkington, star of An Idiot Abroad and collaborator on The Ricky Gervais Show, is also almost eerily in tune with the TV series Black Mirror. A YouTube video maker dug up Ricky Gervais Show clips where Pilkington closely outlines much of Black Mirror’s season 4 finale, “Bla … | Continue reading
Microsoft is issuing a rare out-of-band security update to supported versions of Windows today. The software update is part of a number of fixes that will protect against a newly-discovered processor bug in Intel, AMD, and ARM chipsets. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tel … | Continue reading
If you live in the eastern US, from northern Florida all the way to New England, you’re in for some nasty weather: a massive winter storm called a “bomb cyclone” is hammering the coast, bringing snow, ice, flooding, and strong winds. That’s not a made-up click-bait term; it’s act … | Continue reading
Intel is responding to claims that the company’s processors have a security bug, and software fixes could slow down PCs. Reports this week have suggested that a security flaw in Intel processors, and allegedly not AMD ones, has led to a redesign of Linux and Windows kernels to pr … | Continue reading
Didi Chuxing, the ride-sharing giant of China and likely the most valuable startup in the world, just bought a controlling stake in 99, a leading ride-sharing app in Brazil. According to Reuters (citing a repot in Valor Economico, a leading financial newspaper in Brazil), the dea … | Continue reading
For the last two years, astronomers all over the world have been eagerly observing what is hailed as “the most mysterious star in the Universe,” a stellar object that wildly fluctuates in brightness with no discernible pattern — and now they may finally have an answer for its wei … | Continue reading
Black Mirror’s fourth season episode “Black Museum” is set in a tourable collection of technological artifacts with horrible backstories. As shady proprietor Rolo Haynes puts it, “if it did something bad — chances are it’s in here.” And for longtime series viewers, some of those … | Continue reading
Logan Paul's video in which he filmed the body of a suicide victim continues to live on YouTube, even though the company has attempted to purge complete re-uploads from its site. A search this morning surfaced multiple re-uploads, including a few complete videos and many stitched … | Continue reading
Hisense — the world’s third-largest TV manufacturer — is starting to preview its 2018 lineup of smart TVs that’ll be announcing at CES this year. The big addition this time around seems to be Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant, which is coming to some existing models, including the 1 … | Continue reading
Our bodies are home to tiny organisms called microbes that play a big role in health, and scientists have developed a new way to track these organisms using sound. They’ve only tested the technique in mice so far, but it could one day be used to enhance treatments for gut disease … | Continue reading
The fourth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on December 29th, 2017. In this series, six writers will look at each of the fourth season’s six episodes to … | Continue reading
Last week, parts of Apple’s new flagship retail store in Chicago had to be roped off, as dangerous icicles started to form on the roof. Although many believed the design of the MacBook Air-like roof was flawed, Apple later explained that the problem was instead a software issue t … | Continue reading
On New Year’s Eve, Community and Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon tweeted, “This was truly the Year of the Asshole. Myself included. We don’t have to make 2018 the Year of the Mensch but I hope it can be the Year of the Not as Much of an Asshole. #RealisticGoals.” The admission, … | Continue reading
Mesh routers like Eero, Netgear’s Orbi, and Google Wifi are getting all the hype these days, but replacing your whole network with a bunch of new devices can be kind of expensive. Asus has a good solution with its new AiMesh system, which lets you repurpose your existing Asus rou … | Continue reading
If you’re trying to fool an AI vision system in the future, then stickers like these might help. For a long time, computer scientists have been developing special types of images that bamboozle AI eyes. These pictures and patterns are known as “adversarial images,” and they explo … | Continue reading