Tom McKay, Author at Gizmodo

Sex Doll-Sharing Service Taqu Suspended After Angering Chinese Communist Party

Damn! Just when someone has a great, not at all weird and disturbing idea, the man has to come in and crush it. Per BBC, Chinese company Taqu (branded as Touch in English), which was launching a rental service for sex dolls, quickly folded just two days after announcing its launch on Thursday. Taqu was…

Gadgets Tom McKay Sep 19 '17

Loftium Wants You to Host an Airbnb for 357 Days a Year in Exchange for a Home Down Payment

Ask someone what their dream house is, and you’ll get a lot of different answers. Perhaps a rustic ranch house out on the plains. Maybe a New York or San Francisco brownstone. It could even be that perfect little cottage with the nice rose garden, or a remote farm in Lincolnshire, where Mrs. Buckley lives…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 19 '17

Report: Authorities Wiretapped Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort Twice

CNN has learned US authorities wiretapped Paul Manafort, the spin artist for dictators who worked a tumultuous four-and-a-half month term as Donald Trump’s campaign manager in 2016. According to CNN, the FISA court-authorized surveillance continued before and after he worked on the campaign and initially “centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 18 '17

Equifax’s Troubles Grow With News of Prior Breach, DOJ Investigation Into Stock Trades

Equifax, the credit reporting agency which recently lost said credit information on up to 143 million people to hackers, experienced another security breach months before it has already disclosed—and this news broke on the same day it was reported senior Equifax executives are being investigated for selling off stock after the attack. Per Bloomberg, three…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 18 '17

Waymo Wants to Delay Its October 11th Court Date With Uber

Waymo, the self-driving car company spun off of Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2016, scored a major win earlier this month when a federal appeals court ordered Uber to hand over secret documentation related to the two company’s ongoing legal battle. According to Waymo, former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski stole their technology before leaving to…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 17 '17

Tropical Storm Maria Is Now Likely to Become a Major Hurricane

Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean earlier this month, killing at least 38 people in the region and destroying thousands of buildings. Unfortunately, 2017’s relentless hurricane season is not letting up, and it looks as though Tropical Storm Maria is likely to become a hurricane before it hits the already-ravaged area this week. After forming…

Climate Change Tom McKay Sep 17 '17

The Pirate Bay Added a CPU-Hijacking Bitcoin Miner to Some Pages

File-sharing websites are not exactly known for their sterling reputation, though a few such as famed torrent site the Pirate Bay have been around for long enough while generally avoiding shady behavior they’ve acquired a certain cachet with the internet community. But gotta gett that cash, baby, and banner ads might not be cutting it…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 17 '17

La Croix’s Natural Flavors Were Not a Mystery

Odds are pretty good that you have consumed a food or beverage item in the past 24 hours containing some sort of “natural flavors.” In fact, there’s a non-zero chance you are ingesting one right now. The term is a catch-all for an enormous number of different ingredients, but the ambiguity of the label does…

Health Tom McKay Sep 16 '17

Verizon Is Booting 8,500 Rural Customers Over Data Use, Including Some on ‘Unlimited’ Plans

Verizon has decided to abruptly cut off wireless internet to some 8,500 rural customers in 13 states, saying their heavy data use had made it impossible to profit off of the accounts—even though many of the users had purchased unlimited plans. “Approximately 8,500 customers—using a variety of plans—were notified this month that we would no…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 16 '17

Equifax’s Chief Information Officer and Head of Security Are ‘Retiring’

Two Equifax executives—Chief Information Officer David Webb and Chief Security Officer Susan Mauldin—are “retiring” in the wake of a security breach that allowed hackers to run off with financial and other private information for an estimated 143 million Americans. In a post on Equifax’s investor website, the company said the “personnel changes are effective immediately.”…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 16 '17

Oh Man, You’re Gonna Hate What Equifax Just Admitted About That Security Breach

Equifax, the major credit reporting agency which collected extensive financial data on hundreds of millions of Americans before losing said data on 143 million of those people to hackers, has finally explained what went wrong. You are so not going to like it. In a post on a website designed to spread information on how…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 14 '17

Facebook’s ‘Fake News’ Solution Isn’t Going to Solve the Problem

Ever since the term was popularized by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump—and subsequently appropriated by Democrats—the stupid controversy over “fake news” has become a swirling vortex of pointlessness that refuses to go all the way down the drain. Now everyone’s calling legitimate articles and opinion pieces that contradict their own prejudices “fake,” as though disagreeing with…

Social Media Tom McKay Sep 13 '17

Martin Shkreli Gets Himself Thrown in Jail Ahead of Schedule

Martin Shkreli, the cancer drug price-jacking pharmaceutical executive and convicted securities fraudster for whom the moniker “Pharma Bro” is among his politer nicknames, will be behind bars a little earlier than anticipated. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto revoked Shkreli’s $5 million bail, the Washington Post reported, citing the con’s goblinoid social media habits.…

Health Tom McKay Sep 13 '17

The Mooch Is Back With Some Kind of Internet Venture, Baby!

Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci is currently best known as the former White House communications director whose tenure lasted just five days and additionally resulted in … loss of consortium. But in the future, you may know him as the founder of a little something something known as the Scaramucci Post. He’s back on top, suckers!…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 12 '17

Samsung’s Flexible Flip Phone Might Be Coming Next Year Whether You Want It or Not

Sometimes a new gadget is just really cool-looking. It hits all the right aesthetic notes, boasts a flashy new technology and looks like something you want. But whether it’s something you need—or will be willing to empty out your wallet for—is another matter entirely. Here’s something that seems to fit this category, for now. Per…

Gadgets Tom McKay Sep 12 '17

Donald Trump’s DHS Waives Environmental Regulations for His Dumb, Racist Border Wall

The Department of Homeland Security has moved to waive a stunning list of environmental regulations for the construction of Donald Trump’s stupid border wall. You know, the same one which depending on how lit the president happens to be at any given moment, he has promised would be between anywhere from 30 to 65 feet…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 12 '17

If a Sketchy Russian Ad Network Promotes a Facebook Event, Will Anyone Show Up?

Last week, news broke a network of fake Russian trolls bought at least $100,000 in ads from Facebook between June 2015 and May 2017. The ads were sometimes politically themed and potentially reached tens of millions of Americans, raising questions about possible links to increasingly well-evidenced allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections—though the total…

Privacy & Security Tom McKay Sep 12 '17

Study Finds Banning Reddit’s Bigoted Jerkwards Worked

In recent years, Reddit has banned a bevy of far-right troll havens, including its board for the white supremacist “alt-right” and others used for the harassment of women, minorities and other people. The bans were a reversal of Reddit’s prior policy to not ban “questionable” content—and drew predictable outrage, given that its policy of non-intervention…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 11 '17

NASA Satellite Images Show How Hurricane Irma Devastated the Caribbean

Before now-Tropical Storm Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys, killing at least nine and doing untold damage, then-Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean, killing dozens and flattening entire islands. According to the NASA Earth Observatory, the damage to the Virgin Islands is obvious even from its Landsat 8 satellite, which was able to capture…

Climate Change Tom McKay Sep 11 '17

Whoops, Spotify’s Web Player No Longer Works on Apple’s Safari Browser

Music streaming service Spotify no longer officially supports Apple’s Safari browser, and Safari users who attempt to access it say they are being redirected to use another browser or download Spotify’s desktop client. Per the Verge and Engadget, the company will only say “recent updates” have made the two programs incompatible. Users on the Spotify…

Tech News Tom McKay Sep 10 '17

Tom McKay

Sex Doll-Sharing Service Taqu Suspended After Angering Chinese Communist Party

Loftium Wants You to Host an Airbnb for 357 Days a Year in Exchange for a Home Down Payment

Report: Authorities Wiretapped Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort Twice

Equifax’s Troubles Grow With News of Prior Breach, DOJ Investigation Into Stock Trades

Waymo Wants to Delay Its October 11th Court Date With Uber

Tropical Storm Maria Is Now Likely to Become a Major Hurricane

The Pirate Bay Added a CPU-Hijacking Bitcoin Miner to Some Pages

La Croix’s Natural Flavors Were Not a Mystery

Verizon Is Booting 8,500 Rural Customers Over Data Use, Including Some on ‘Unlimited’ Plans

Equifax’s Chief Information Officer and Head of Security Are ‘Retiring’

Oh Man, You’re Gonna Hate What Equifax Just Admitted About That Security Breach

Facebook’s ‘Fake News’ Solution Isn’t Going to Solve the Problem

Martin Shkreli Gets Himself Thrown in Jail Ahead of Schedule

The Mooch Is Back With Some Kind of Internet Venture, Baby!

Samsung’s Flexible Flip Phone Might Be Coming Next Year Whether You Want It or Not

Donald Trump’s DHS Waives Environmental Regulations for His Dumb, Racist Border Wall

If a Sketchy Russian Ad Network Promotes a Facebook Event, Will Anyone Show Up?

Study Finds Banning Reddit’s Bigoted Jerkwards Worked

NASA Satellite Images Show How Hurricane Irma Devastated the Caribbean

Whoops, Spotify’s Web Player No Longer Works on Apple’s Safari Browser

Skyscanner Launches Summer Soccer Travel Deals, Book Now Before Prices Spike or Pay More Later

MacBook Neo Was Already Apple’s Budget Pick, but Now Even Cheaper on Amazon for Close to the Price of AirPods Max

‘Dragon Ball’ Is Going Back to the Xenoverse

Google Nest Cam for Indoor and Outdoor Gets Another Price Cut to Nearly 30% Off on Amazon’s Security Camera Clearance Deals

Somehow, the ‘Divergent’ Books Have Returned

WD_Black 1TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Drops to $0.15 per GB at 60% Off on Amazon Against the SSD Price Spike Trend

Volvo’s Plan to Make Software, Not Bigger Batteries, the Secret to Longer EV Range

Report Says Memory Shortage Could Delay Release of New Macs

Palantir Posts Very Long X Post Denouncing ‘Vacant and Hollow Pluralism’

Hollywood Has Decided ‘The Phantom’ Will Return to TV

I’ve Tested a Lot of Bad Smart Glasses and These Are the Worst Yet

Roborock’s Qrevo Curv 2 Flow Is the Ultimate Robot Mop—If You Don’t Have Corners or Walls

Alienware’s $350 QD-OLED Gaming Monitor Nixes Everything for a Pretty Screen

Sony Inzone H6 Air Review: A Perfect Case for Open-Back Gaming Headsets

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

The Soundboks Mix Is Going to Make You the Most Popular Guy at the Park

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go