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The top lobbying group for the wireless communications industry is fighting against legislation that would effectively ban the supremely shitty business practice of throttling mobile data for first responders during a state of emergency. The legislation exists because, last year, exactly this thing happened. In August 2018, as the Santa Clara County Fire Department fought…
Step right up, join the fun, the headline IPO of 2019 is about to take center stage. Silicon Valley ridesharing giant Uber is waiting in the wings. The company aims for a $91.5 billion valuation in its imminent initial public offering, the biggest IPO in U.S. markets since Alibaba’s 2014 debut and a giant, attention-hogging…
When it comes to Apple’s current phone lineup, the iPhone XS and XS Max get most of the attention thanks to features like dual cameras, more luxurious designs, and vivid OLED screens. But the iPhone XR is Apple’s true winner. That’s because, for the second quarter in a row, the iPhone XR remains the best-selling…
Earlier this month, a non-existent bear named Ron did not attend an anti-vaccine rally. Neither the bear nor the rally in Hawthorne, Florida, were real, and Wendy Callahan, a local anti-vaccine activist, had no idea her name was being used by a person posing as her to file a permit for the rally. That person…
Twenty years ago, in April 1999, Microsoft introduced an update to its IntelliMouse line of input devices. On top it didn’t look much different than its predecessors—it still had a few buttons and a scroll wheel—but underneath it introduced a technology to the masses that brought an end to the prehistoric days of cleaning dirt…
Look around, and you’ll find no shortage of stories about the rise of injuries linked to rentable e-scooters. But until you’ve read firsthand accounts of shattered arms and metal plates in faces, it’s hard to comprehend just how completely these little scooties can wreck your shit. Earlier this year, a Consumer Reports investigation identified over…
The Jason Group, an advisory panel of scientists and academics that have conducted studies for the Pentagon since 1960, might not be dissolving after all. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has stepped in to keep the group alive until January 2020. First reported by Defense News, the NNSA posted a contract…
The two-day delivery option available to Amazon Prime members for just about anything they could possibly need is one of the biggest reasons that the company can continue getting away with hiking its subscription fee (which currently runs members $119 annually). Now, the company is working to implement one-day delivery, and that could spell bad…
Disney may be staring down an opportunity to gobble up Comcast’s 30 percent stake in Hulu, according to a new report, which would bring Disney’s share in the streaming service to 90 percent. Citing sources familiar with the matter, CNBC reported Thursday that Disney and Comcast are in talks for a deal, adding that the…
Fifteen years of feature creep have left Gmail feeling a little cluttered and over-burdened for some users, including Michael Leggett, who served as the product’s lead designer from 2008 to 2012. (Fast Company has an interview with Leggett about the extension.) So who better to help strip Gmail back to its simpler roots? His free…
Animals are just like us—deep down, they all want to do crimes and fight against structural oppression. And this week a lot of animals seem to be acting on their darkest impulses. While everything may not be working out for the animals, they are certainly accomplishing the crimes. We’re not sure why so many animals…
A former PayPal employee filed a gender discrimination complaint against the company on Thursday, alleging that her supervisor passed her up for a promotion because the job would require international travel and she had young children at home. Instead, the complaint says, her male colleague with a small child was given the job. Theresa Pasinosky…
The more we learn about Apple’s forthcoming streaming service, the more underwhelming this product ultimately sounds—and a new whisper of one its offerings isn’t doing Apple any favors. Citing four people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported Wednesday that Airbnb is looking to get into the original content game with series designed to get viewers…
San Francisco is ground zero for an unprecedented year of giant tech public offerings: Uber is the $100 billion main event while Lyft, Palantir, Pinterest, Airbnb, Slack, Postmates, Instacart and more promise billions of their own. And all of them could soon find themselves getting some unwanted attention from lawmakers in their home town. The…
Featuring a massive 6.7-inch screen, a big 4,600 mAh battery, bonus 3D time-of-flight sensor, and of course a built-in 5G modem, we knew the Galaxy S10 5G wasn’t going to be cheap. But now that Verizon has officially announced pricing for the S10 5G, we finally have an idea for how hard Samsung’s first 5G…
Dating platforms in China are starting to experiment with livestream chatting features, and we need to accept that it’s only a matter of time before U.S. apps start making you face-time with potential hookups. The Next Web reports that China’s biggest internet dating site Jiayuan first started offering video streaming in January. But it wasn’t…
We’re doing more than half of our browsing on mobile devices now, and that trend is only going in one direction. With that in mind, don’t settle for a second-class browsing experience on your mobile device—these tips and tricks can load pages faster, make them easier to read, and get you around the web more…
Wikipedia can go ahead and add all of Canada to the ever-expanding List Of Parties Who Have A Bone to Pick With Facebook page—a joint investigation by the privacy commissioners of Canada and British Columbia found the company “committed serious contraventions of Canadian privacy laws.” Several data breaches have roiled the platform’s estimated 2 billion…
The Jason Group, an independent panel of academics who have advised the Pentagon for the past 59 years, will likely disband on April 30. The group had hoped to get a one-year extension to continue its work. The Jasons was founded in 1960 as a scientific advisory panel that helped the Pentagon solve some of…
After traveling around the world, sampling the ocean from pole to pole, scientists have uncovered nearly 200,000 populations of marine viruses. In the marine ecosystem, tiny living things called microbes make up most of the ocean’s biodiversity and over half of its biomass. But much less is known about the viruses—packets of genetic information that…
