Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Delivery service DoorDash is taking a page out of the Amazon playbook and creating standalone stores called DashMarts—physical locations where consumers can pick up “grocery, and restaurant items, from ice cream and chips, to cough medicine and dog food, to spice rubs and packaged desserts from the local restaurants you love on DoorDash.” The company…
The workday under lockdown has been defined by the dangerous presence of my enemy the fridge, but also, longer hours, more meetings, and more after-hours emails, researchers from Harvard Business School and NYU have found. They used email and meeting metadata to analyze the habits of over three million people in 16 cities across the…
Quibi, the beleaguered mobile-first streaming service teeming with talent but struggling to find a solid subscriber footing, has introduced a free, ad-supported tier to its Australian market—something the company arguably should have been doing all along. Quibi officially launched in Australia and New Zealand on Aug. 5. (Previously, Quibi users in these regions could only…
Identifying depression can be a tricky beast. However, UCLA researchers are collaborating with Apple in a three-year study to see if gadgets can help revolutionize how depression is detected and treated. The study, which was co-designed by UCLA researchers and Apple, aims to measure sleep, physical activity, heart rate, and “daily routines” to see if…
Apple isn’t the only enormous tech company that can have a big day of gadget announcements! If you didn’t have a chance to watch Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2020, you can go watch it here and truly appreciate the awkward silences every time the hosts motion to a wall of muted viewers. But if awkward silences…
Pranksters disrupted judicial hearings on Wednesday for the 17-year-old Florida kid who allegedly hijacked the accounts of prominent Twitter users last month, according to multiple people on the teleconference call. There were several intrusions during the first attempt at the hearing, and it was finally stopped after pornography was streamed via Pornhub. The judge overseeing…
With the original Galaxy Fold, Samsung took a major leap into creating an entirely new type of mobile device. However, like a lot of innovative first-gen gadgets, the Fold was just as much of a tech demo as it was a true retail device. But with the Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G, Samsung appears to…
Like a dyed-in-the-wool narcissist, Facebook absolutely can’t stand the idea anyone would care about another company—hence its propensity to buy up or rip off anything that so much as threatens to peel away a fraction of its users’ attention. Anyway, here’s Reels, something no one asked for. TikTok. You’ve heard of it, probably because there’s…
Samsung’s last two flagship Android tablets-the Galaxy Tab S4 and Tab S6—were fine devices but couldn’t really hang with competitors like the iPad Pro or Surface Pro. But for the Tab S7, Samsung is looking to change that by cramming in practically every feature you could ever need on an Android Tablet (and maybe even…
At first, you have to laugh at Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Live, or at least I did—they look like lil shiny beans. But looks aren’t everything: The top-selling Bluetooth earbuds in the world, Apple’s AirPods, were roundly mocked for their weird-looking stemmed design at launch. Now they’re inescapable. Samsung just announced its widely leaked pair…
When Samsung released the Galaxy S20 Ultra, I appreciated the sheer audacity it took to make a phone that big, that powerful, and that expensive. But at the same time, it felt like Samsung overreached by slightly overpromising and under-delivering on the S20 Ultra’s abilities. Now with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Samsung seems to…
Every new Samsung smartwatch gets closer and closer to catching up with the Apple Watch—there’s just usually something that’s a little off. But with the Galaxy Watch 3, Samsung may have finally figured out how to deliver the first serious rival to the world’s most popular smartwatch. The Galaxy Watch 3, which was announced at…
Nearly a dozen civil liberties organizations have accused Congressman Adam Schiff and other Democratic leaders of purposely undermining the online privacy of U.S. citizens and immigrants; possibly in an effort, they say, to conceal the unlawful surveillance of Americans’ web browsing activity by the FBI’s national security branch. In a letter on Wednesday addressed to…
Get your popcorn ready because Samsung is starting its Galaxy Unpacked August 2020 livestream in a mere 10 minutes. The biggest news has already leaked (a few times) but you can expect to see a plethora of new devices including a dual-screen Galaxy Z Fold 2, the Note 20, the pair of Galaxy Buds Live, and…
I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Aren’t Polaroids back?” And my answer is that the new wave of instant cameras might look similar and do the similar things as an old-school Polaroid, but they are most definitely not the same. I distinctly remember the first instant camera my dad let me play with. Not…
The U.S. Army aired new video of its secretive hypersonic missile on Tuesday, a rare look at what President Donald Trump has previously described as America’s “super duper missile.” And while we still don’t know much about the missile’s specs, hypersonic missiles are almost certainly the future of military posturing during the New Cold War,…
Allan Lichtman, a political forecaster and historian, has accurately predicted almost every presidential election of the past four decades, even confidently predicting that Donald Trump would win in 2016. Now Lichtman is making his prediction for 2020, including a win for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. But much like all predictions, it’s important to look…
Anthony Levandowski, the former Google autonomous vehicle engineer whose switch to Uber was the subject of massive lawsuit, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for trade theft. Levandowski co-founded Google’s autonomous vehicle unit, now known as Waymo, in 2009 and worked there until 2016. That year, he quit and founded his own company,…
As if the premium of ever-increasing streaming costs hadn’t already pummeled your monthly bank balance, Disney has announced it will charge you the obscene amount of $30 to watch its live-action remake of Mulan. No, that is not included in your subscription, and yes, you read that eye-watering figure correctly. Disney announced the decision Tuesday…
No one in the White House has any idea what the fuck Donald Trump was talking about when he suggested that the U.S. Treasury should get a slice of any deal for Microsoft to buy TikTok. The Trump administration has threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S., possibly by putting it on a Commerce Department…
