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After months of rumors, Samsung has finally confirmed that its next Galaxy Unpacked event is Aug. 5. Unlike previous Unpacked events, this one will be entirely digital, which means anyone can watch to see what the company will reveal. (Spoiler alert: It’s almost certainly gonna be a giant copper phone.) You may be thinking to…
Over the past decade and a half, we’ve watched Facebook mature from its halcyon era of “moving fast and breaking things” into one where it can’t seem to stop apologizing for doing exactly that. It does’t matter if it’s being implicated in multiple(!) human rights abuses, election interference, conspiracy peddling, or, well, just about anything else,…
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has deployed a fleet of internet-delivering, high-altitude balloons in Kenya, an initiative that the company’s CEO said will be “the first of many” future commercial deployments in other parts of the world. Loon chief Alastair Westgarth announced in a blog post this week that the 4G LTE network connectivity…
It’s likely that in the past few weeks or months, you’ve come across an ad for a UV disinfecting gadget. It makes sense! There’s a novel coronavirus going around wreaking havoc! Your phones are filthy, your bags are filthy, your masks are full of your own face sweat and spit. Maybe, you ought to buy…
German authorities have reportedly confiscated a server used by the group DDOSecrets to share leaked confidential records belonging to more than 200 state, local, and federal American law enforcement agencies. DDOSecrets, which Twitter recently banned for distributing hacked material, published last month some 269 gigabytes of police data—known as #BlueLeaks—dating back to 1996, including confidential…
Movie theater giants AMC, Cinemark, and Regal filed a lawsuit yesterday against the state of New Jersey for forcing them to keep their businesses closed during the covid-19 pandemic, yet allowing churches and other places of assembly to remain open. Spotted by The Hollywood Reporter, the theater chains have called the closure order “unconstitutional and…
The bro influencers of TikTok, released into the wild with sick iPhone hacks and dropshipping tips but a few years ago, have matured from pups to the Wolves of Social Media. Now they’re harnessing that power with a pump-and-dump scheme involving Dogecoin, the joke currency made of memes, and also Elon Musk’s favorite coin. The…
It’s not always convenient or possible to glance at your smartphone’s screen as you normally would, but with a few tweaks to your phone’s settings, you can get the most important information without having to look down at the display. Here’s how to get your phone to read the info you need aloud to you…
Just last week, renders allegedly showing the unreleased Galaxy Note 20 appeared on Samsung’s official Russian website.But now, it appears the Galaxy Note 20 has been photographed in the wild for the first time, confirming details we’ve gleaned from previous reports. The new photos come from YouTuber Jimmy Is Promo, who posted shots of the…
Longtime Russian defense journalist and more recent government advisor on space issues, Ivan Safronov has been arrested in Moscow and charged with treason, according to a new report from the Moscow Times. Safronov faces 20 years in prison and the trial will reportedly be conducted behind closed doors. The 30-year-old Safronov, who was arrested by…
Magic Leap has had it rough during the pandemic. In March, word got out that the struggling augmented reality company was looking for a buyer. A month later, it reportedly laid off roughly half its workforce. Another month passed and it somehow pulled an additional $350 million in funding out of nowhere. About a week…
Creative technologist Matt Reed continues to make quarantine more bearable for all of us. First he blessed us with a tool that adds an AI-powered duplicate of yourself to Zoom meetings. His newest creation is perhaps even more useful, allowing you to Rickroll your co-workers. There’s a good chance your next Zoom meeting will be…
The Trump regime is considering a U.S. ban on the popular music and dance app TikTok, as well as other apps owned by Chinese companies, according to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the world, with roughly 800 million users globally, but the Trump regime believes…
Dystopian, U.S.-based face recognition firm Clearview AI has suspended its contract with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), effectively locking its business out of Canada entirely, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Clearview has become a particular flash point in the backlash to police use of face recognition, which aside from being riddled with bugs is inseparable…
Unemployment in the US is still over 11%, and yet during this economic crisis, Jeff Bezos has added an astonishing $56.7 billion to his already colossal fortune. If ever there was a time to redistribute some of that wealth, it’s now, and it seems that experiment in equity will begin in Seattle. The Tax Amazon…
International students in the U.S. will be forced to attend at least some of their fall semester classes in person during the coronavirus pandemic, or their visas to enter the country will be revoked, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) announced on Monday. SEVP threatened that those who stay in the…
When I saw that Apple recently filed a patent application for transparent keycaps made of glass, possibly for use in future Bluetooth desktop or MacBook keyboards, I was intrigued. This could be Apple’s solution to making a longer-lasting and more reliable keyboard, something the company has struggled with over the years. In its filing, spotted…
When Hong Kong passed its shiny new national security law last week, the city’s authorities were probably expecting a bit of pushback from the locals, who’ve called the new regime everything from “chilling” to “draconian” to nothing less than the Chinese Communist Party’s “takeover of Hong Kong.” What they probably didn’t anticipate was resistance from…
I have made a terrible mistake. I, the owner of an Apple-made miniature computer I carry with me everywhere, am experiencing a profound feeling of regret over the decision to procure this particular gadget over one that runs on Android. Because beginning this week, Android users will officially have access to a beautiful dark mode…
It’s been a very hard year, for a lot of reasons. If you’re one of the thousands of unpaid moderators of Reddit, you’ve likely had to deal with misinformation, harassment, conspiracy theories, hate speech: all the stuff that makes being online an intolerable nightmare. By means of showing gratitude, the site appears to be offering…