Melanie Ehrenkranz, Author at Gizmodo

Waze Says It’s Not Its Fault If Drivers Can’t Make It Up Dangerously Steep LA Street Without Crashing

Los Angeles locals are blaming navigation app Waze for hellish driving through a dangerously steep street in the area. But despite complaints, Waze isn’t changing its service just to accommodate drivers who can’t handle a freakin’ hill. Baxter Street is not the city’s steepest street, but the Echo Park stretch has reportedly seen an uptick…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Facebook Will Now More Formally Consider How Its Products Might Ruin Our Lives

Facebook screwed over most of its users, and people are now waking up to the notion that the social network may not have had their best interests in mind after all. But Facebook’s chief technical officer, Mike Schroepfer, assured the Financial Times that the company will now do more to identify the possible downsides of…

Social Media Melanie Ehrenkranz

Facebook’s Fact-Checkers Sound Like They’re Miserable [Updated]

At the end of 2016, Facebook delegated its misinformation problem to outside experts, but it looks like fact-checkers tasked with weeding out bullshit are largely dissatisfied with how things are going down. A new report released Wednesday by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism explores Facebook’s partnership with its fact-checking organizations, revealing a number of…

Social Media Melanie Ehrenkranz

Tinder Is Down, and Sad, Horny Users Correctly Blame Facebook

Tinder is down, according to a number of users on Twitter who are unable to log into the dating app. Instead, they are stuck in a Facebook permissions loop. Trying times for the thirsty. Several publications and some users are pinning the blame on Facebook. On Wednesday, the social network announced changes to its API,…

Social Media Melanie Ehrenkranz

HTC Smartphone Selfie Ad Banned Because You’re No Olympic Medalist

A dispute over an HTC smartphone ad took a surprisingly theoretical turn recently, with a British ad watchdog forced to decide whether consumers could dive while taking selfies as skillfully as Olympic medalist Tom Daley. The commercial in question features the British diver plunging off a board into a pool, taking selfies with an HTC…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Apple Says It Pays Women Less on Average in the UK

In November, Apple released a report that reportedly indicated it had eliminated its gender pay gap across the world. On Tuesday, it released a new pay-gap report showing that that is not yet the case. The report Apple released today only details pay discrepancies among United Kingdom-based employees. The stats in Tuesday’s report are pulled…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Schools Are Giving Up on Smartphone Bans

Bans on phones in schools are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, new research shows. A survey from the National Center for Education Statistics exploring crime and safety at schools indicates that there is a trend toward relaxing student smartphone bans. The survey reports that the percentage of public schools that banned cell phones…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Apple Proposes First Accessibility Emoji, Including Guide Dogs and Prosthetics

On Friday, Apple submitted a proposal to Emojipedia for a suite of new accessibility emoji. There are 13 in total, which expands to 43 when you take into account skin tone options. They include a guide and service dog, a person with a cane, a person in both mechanical and manual wheelchairs, a person signing,…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Meet the Oregon Middle Schoolers Fighting for Net Neutrality

Luca, a 12-year-old student at Mt. Tabor Middle School in Portland, Oregon, first learned about net neutrality through an Instagram post. “Before it was repealed, I was just trying to tell people about it,” Luca tells Gizmodo. Soon, she’d gotten her two friends, 12-year-old Athena and 13-year-old Lola, interested in net neutrality—an issue that is…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

This Game Imagines a Bleak Future in Which Tech Companies Win and Gig Workers Just Try to Survive

Neo Cab isn’t a game that will make you feel optimistic about the future—that is, unless the notion of a cyberpunk SoCal border town oozing in surveillance and run by an insidious conglomerate excites you. That is essentially the world of Los Ojos, the universe designed for the upcoming narrative game that imagines a future…

Games Melanie Ehrenkranz

Amnesty International Calls on Twitter to Release Its Raw Data on Abuse

On Tuesday, Amnesty International released its findings from a 16-month investigation into the experiences women face on Twitter—namely, online abuse. The 77-page report, #ToxicTwitter: Violence and abuse against women online, illustrates Twitter’s failures to protect its most vulnerable users and to be transparent about those failures. The report is being released 12 years after the…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

When You Can Make ‘JFK’ Say Anything, What’s Stopping Him From Selling Doritos?

On Friday, The Times of London teamed up with a tech company and a creative agency to digitally recreate “the speech JFK would have made in Dallas had he not been assassinated.” The Dallas Trade Mart speech never happened—Kennedy was killed the day he was supposed to deliver it—but thanks to artificial intelligence, you can…

Privacy & Security Melanie Ehrenkranz

Women Who Say Uber Drivers Raped Them Are Fighting to Have Their Lawsuit Heard by a Jury

Women who sued Uber on the assertion that the company’s policies failed to protect them and others from sexual misconduct want to have their case heard by a jury. But they say Uber’s terms of service have forced them into arbitration, meaning anyone who uses the app must settle disputes behind closed doors through a third…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Apple Products Actually Really Great for Kids, Apple Says

Apple would really like you to know that its products are the gateway to a happy family. On Thursday, the company launched a new page on its website dedicated to families. “You want to do what’s best for your family,” the page reads. “So do we,” it affirms. Apple’s new page is a breakdown of…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

This AR Street Fighter II Lets You Brawl in the Real World

Augmented reality experiences are oftentimes a dud, and the really mind-melting ones require hardware that costs a shit-ton of money. But Abhishek Singh seems to have figured out a way to make AR both accessible and really fucking cool. His latest project brings the classic arcade game Street Fighter II to life as a multiplayer…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Wikipedia Had No Idea YouTube Was Going to Use It to Fact-Check Conspiracy Theories

On Tuesday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that the company had a new strategy to deal with conspiracy theories on the platform: dropping a handy Wikipedia link beneath videos on highly contested topics. And it looks like Wikipedia learned about this curious strategy at the same time as everyone else. In a Twitter thread asking…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

WhatsApp Agrees Not to Share EU Users’ Personal Info With Facebook, for Now

WhatsApp just agreed not to share the personal information of its users in the European Union with Facebook until it can comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will be enforced in May. It’s not a permanent commitment, and there are a few noteworthy exceptions, but it’s good news for WhatsApp users who…

Social Media Melanie Ehrenkranz

Facebook, Which Is Totally ‘Not a Media Company,’ May Launch a Video News Channel

Just when you thought Facebook was getting out of the news business, it’s… getting into the news business—but with video! The social network reportedly plans to test out a news video section for its Watch tab, which will begin rolling out this summer, Axios reported on Tuesday. To do so, Facebook will partner with around…

Social Media Melanie Ehrenkranz

City in Texas Dumps Bus Service for On-Demand Mercedes Vans

Until bus service arrived in 2013, Arlington, Texas was the largest city in the nation without public transportation. Residents have repeatedly voted against measures that would bring mass transit to the area and now the city is killing its bus service in favor of a ridesharing startup. Via lets riders book a trip in a…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

This Company Wants to Pay You Virtual Money to Watch Porn (and Hand Over Your Data)

A new cryptocurrency and porn platform is banking on you wanting to spank it in return for internet money. Vice Industry Token Inc. hopes that offering consumers, content creators, and distributors free “money”—in the form of its proprietary cryptocurrency—will help shake up the adult entertainment industry. The concept behind Vice Industry Token (VIT) is seemingly…

Tech News Melanie Ehrenkranz

Melanie Ehrenkranz

Waze Says It’s Not Its Fault If Drivers Can’t Make It Up Dangerously Steep LA Street Without Crashing

Facebook Will Now More Formally Consider How Its Products Might Ruin Our Lives

Facebook’s Fact-Checkers Sound Like They’re Miserable [Updated]

Tinder Is Down, and Sad, Horny Users Correctly Blame Facebook

HTC Smartphone Selfie Ad Banned Because You’re No Olympic Medalist

Apple Says It Pays Women Less on Average in the UK

Schools Are Giving Up on Smartphone Bans

Apple Proposes First Accessibility Emoji, Including Guide Dogs and Prosthetics

Meet the Oregon Middle Schoolers Fighting for Net Neutrality

This Game Imagines a Bleak Future in Which Tech Companies Win and Gig Workers Just Try to Survive

Amnesty International Calls on Twitter to Release Its Raw Data on Abuse

When You Can Make ‘JFK’ Say Anything, What’s Stopping Him From Selling Doritos?

Women Who Say Uber Drivers Raped Them Are Fighting to Have Their Lawsuit Heard by a Jury

Apple Products Actually Really Great for Kids, Apple Says

This AR Street Fighter II Lets You Brawl in the Real World

Wikipedia Had No Idea YouTube Was Going to Use It to Fact-Check Conspiracy Theories

WhatsApp Agrees Not to Share EU Users’ Personal Info With Facebook, for Now

Facebook, Which Is Totally ‘Not a Media Company,’ May Launch a Video News Channel

City in Texas Dumps Bus Service for On-Demand Mercedes Vans

This Company Wants to Pay You Virtual Money to Watch Porn (and Hand Over Your Data)

Watch and Follow Live as NASA Launches Its First Crewed Mission to the Moon in 54 Years 🔴

This Is the Way to Lego’s April Releases

Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI

Amazon Facilities in Bahrain Hit Again as Iran Follows Through on Threat, Report Says

Why the PS6 Handheld Will Matter More Than the PS6

DNA Study Casts Even More Doubt on Shroud of Turin’s True Origin

Sam Witwer Is Ready for Maul’s Moment

Anthropic Can’t Cover Up Its Claude Code Leak Fast Enough

Zach Cregger Recruits Second Zach for His Aunt Gladys Spinoff

Can You Run a Computer Without RAM? Surprisingly, Yes—But You’ll Be Miserable

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?