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Back when we could travel—if you used to travel—you’ll remember that the best way to wake up was to whisper across the hotel pillow at your phone, asking plaintively for Siri to wake you up at 5:00 am so you could take a cold taxi to an impersonal airport. Now, thanks to the magic of…
Initially developed to make it easier to interact with touchscreens in cars to reduce distractions, researchers at the University of Cambridge have created a touchscreen interface that users don’t actually have to physically tap, and it’s perfectly timed for a post-pandemic world where we’re all going to be too paranoid to touch anything outside our…
Murmurs that Microsoft’s Surface Duo might appear earlier than expected have been floating around for a while—but an FCC filing earlier this week and Bluetooth SIG certification that popped up today are strong hints that we’re probably a just a few weeks away from launch. The Surface Duo was announced last October at Microsoft’s Surface…
While we wait patiently for the next breakthrough in battery life technology, we’re seeing plenty of innovation in battery charging. Manufacturers are building phones that can be juiced up quicker than ever before, while new technologies such as gallium nitride (or GaN) to make fast-charging even faster. Here’s what you need to know, and what…
The New York Times published a story Thursday night about the likelihood that aliens have visited Earth. The main takeaway? Aliens could be real and the U.S. government has been conducting classified briefings in recent years about things left behind by “off-world vehicles.” Naturally, the new article appears on the 17th page of today’s paper…
During a study in mid-2019, a team of Facebook employees found that proposed rules for Instagram’s automated account removal system disproportionately flagged and banned Black users. When the team approached CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his upper echelon of cronies with this alarming information, they were purportedly ignored and told to halt any further research regarding…
If you’ve been following along with Intel’s troubles moving away from its 14nm process to 10nm over the years, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the company is now having trouble getting its 7nm process off the ground. On its Q2 earnings call today, Intel revealed that it’s pushing back its previously planed 7nm…
TikTok is an app at the center of national scrutiny here in the U.S. and abroad, an app beloved by witches and convicted felons alike, an app that’s recently been accused of hooking children up with local drug cartels. It’s also an app that recently announced it would be launching a $200 million funding pool for…
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and its de facto leader, his son-in-law and Jimmy Neutron wannabe Jared Kushner, is locked in an increasingly bitter feud with mobile networks preventing them from spamming millions of people with donation or get out the vote requests. Per Business Insider, the campaign was blocked from sending a surge of text…
Now would be a good time to change your Instacart password. The grocery-delivery service is in hot water after an investigation found that the information of hundreds of thousands of its users is being sold on the dark web—including transactions and personally identifying information. Instacart says its investigation into the incident so far has not…
Mailing your spit to an ancestry site and uploading it to a DNA matching database has seemed like a pretty bad idea since 2018 when federal law enforcement officials tracked down the Golden State killer through a discarded tissue and his relatives’ online genetic profiles on GEDMatch. Since that episode generated a widely-publicized alarm, GEDMatch,…
Twitter never fails to disappoint. Despite its best(?) efforts, the platform remains the same bot-riddled, neo-Nazi-friendly cesspool that’s full of the same harassment and hate we’ve come to expect. With that said, it might not be too surprising that the high-profile Twitter hacking incident from earlier this month—you know, the one that hit Kanye West…
Back in May, when classrooms felt like ancient relics, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he and Bill Gates shall “reimagine” school with online learning, and the city would create “what education should look like in the future.” We shuddered at the thought of eternal Zoom calls, but the future is here: a growing…
It all started with a video dropped into our cooking Slack. In case you don’t feel like watching, it’s Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng’s alter ego Uncle Roger losing his shit at a BBC Food show, in which the host completely fucked up cooking Egg Fried Rice. There are several things wrong with the host’s rice…
Good news for people who hate big phones: Yesterday, Apple released the third developer beta of iOS 14, and hidden in the code of the Display Zoom feature is a hint that the iPhone 12 lineup will include a 5.4-inch iPhone. What does Display Zoom have to do with a tiny phone? Well, according to…
During a recent earnings call, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood appeared to confirm that the Xbox Series X will launch in November 2020. Only a tad more specific than the holiday 2020 release Xbox has on its website, but we’ll take it. According to TechSpot, Hood was responding to a question from Bloomberg reporter Dina Bass,…
Have you seen that photo of beloved actor Jim Varney, famous for the Ernest movie franchise, standing next to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein? The photo has been doing the rounds on Twitter today, but we’re here to tell you Ernest isn’t canceled. The image is photoshopped. The real photo shows Varney with the late comedian…
The internet is full of irksome words—“heckin,” “awesomesauce,” “updoot”—but the worst one by far is “hubby.” Hubby, if you’re not familiar, is short for “husband” and is primarily used in spaces where certain types of married women hang out online. On mommy forums, it pops up like measles on the skin of an unvaccinated child.…
Are you a frontline worker dealing with new stresses or irresponsible management? Is working (or not working) from home starting to take a psychological toll? How are you coping with reopening? Submit a story using this Google form or send me an email with the subject line “My Covid Story” and provide as much detail as…
Corning’s Gorilla Glass is one of the most recognized components used to help protect smartphones against the perils of everyday life. Typically, each new generation of Gorilla Glass comes with improved durability against either drops or scratches, but not both. However, for its newest formula of Gorilla Glass—Gorilla Glass Victus—Corning promises that’s about to change.…
