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Everyone has an opinion about fonts, but Helvetica has long reigned over the modern era. It’s used for brands galore—Panasonic, Jeep, American Airlines, Motorola, 3M, Toyota, to name a few—but in recent years, tech companies like IBM, Apple, Netflix, and Google have been shifting to their custom Helvetica-esque-but-not-quite fonts to deal with some of its…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that it will move to block China Mobile, the largest telecom company in mainland China, from offering services in the United States. The effort comes at the direction of the White House and still needs to be approved at the FCC’s May 9 meeting. “Safeguarding our communications networks…
Just days after Samsung gave its $2,000 foldable smartphone to reviewers, a troubling number of journalists say their Galaxy Fold units are all jacked up. Reporters at CNBC, The Verge, and Bloomberg have all tweeted images showing seemingly distinct problems with the Galaxy Fold—although in the last case, the reviewer may have helped fuck up…
Take a peek at your smartphone’s camera roll and you’ll probably find hundreds of duplicate shots, all snapped while trying to take the perfect selfie. To remedy this, Google is bringing some new AI smarts to its camera app so that it only takes a photo when everyone is selfie-ready. Digital cameras have had features…
What we can all agree on is that of the heavy hitters operating in the voice assistant market—Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and I guess Cortana and Bixby if we’re being generous—exactly none are made by Facebook. We can probably also agree things ought to stay that way, but then, when in recent memory has humanity…
It seems like every day there’s someone in a fancy office talking about how teamwork and collaboration is the key to success. And yet, most of us are still stuck with the same infuriating video conferencing tools that make people want to give up. But the Microsoft Surface Hub 2S feels a bit different, a…
A fresh report has renewed rumors about Apple’s super-secretive autonomous car unit known as Project Titan. Citing three sources familiar with the matter, Reuters reported Wednesday that the company’s self-driving car unit is exploring options for a “revolutionary design” in lidar sensors. The company has spoken with at least four unnamed companies, the news service…
After two years, Apple’s legal spats with Qualcomm have come to an anticlimactic end. There’s a lot to parse from the settlement itself, but one main takeaway is that Apple now has a faster path toward building a 5G-compatible iPhone. Neither company officially specified exactly why two years of sniping came to an end, but…
A man who goes by the name Lucas Lambert reportedly spent months setting up meetings with three cybersecurity experts under false pretenses last year, hoping to get them to say that they were paid to criticize Kaspersky Lab. Lambert was unsuccessful, but the attempt sheds new light on alleged covert activity potentially carried out on…
A supply chain report from Taiwan suggests that Apple is planning to release a new version of the iPhone 8 with upgraded guts in March 2020. These guts could include an updated A13 processor which would surely give the old phone some new kick. If true, this could be the new iPhone SE model that’s…
How were giant ancient structures like Stonehenge, or the towering Moai heads on Easter Island, assembled at a time when cranes and trucks were still hundreds of years away? Researchers at MIT have given more credence to theories that ancient engineers were masters of balance and leverage with a new experiment that produced giant concrete…
On July 16, 1945, scientists first unleashed the energy stored at the center of the atomic nucleus, causing a massive explosion in the New Mexican desert. That bomb’s successors would kill several hundred thousand people, permanently alter the course of international relations, and instill a constant sense of fear across the world for the following…
Verizon is upping the prices of in-store phone activations—though it’s also lowering the cost of ordering and activating phones using its app or online services, per CNET. While Verizon used to charge $30 for all upgrade and activation fees (a common industry practice, and one of the many ways carriers have introduced sneaky ways to…
The Federal Aviation Administration has released a draft report about its initial review of the Boeing 737 Max software update, following two recent plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people and led to the grounding of more than 300 of the jets around the world. The new FAA report, issued on Tuesday,…
With ever more streaming options and set-top boxes than any one person could ever possibly need, it’s certainly much more convenient to cut the cord than ever before. But if you’re looking to cut corners with the devices you’re using for those services, you may want to reconsider. The Federal Communications Commission last week issued…
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security might classify fentanyl, a highly addictive pain reliever that’s at the center of American’s opioid epidemic, as a weapon of mass destruction, according to a leaked document obtained by military-focused news site Task & Purpose. Task & Purpose obtained an internal DHS memo titled “Use of counter-WMD authorities to…
The tech giants Apple and Qualcomm avoided extending an already grueling three-continent legal battle by settling their years-long disputes on Tuesday. The agreement includes an undisclosed payment from Apple to Qualcomm, a six-year licensing deal, and a chip supply agreement. In other words, these multibillion-dollar technology giants have finally buried the hatchet and agree to…
Apple’s ads over the last year have been centered around one idea: privacy. The message is that the rest of the tech industry is fucking up while Apple is not. Frankly, they have a point. With its encrypted phones and messages to anti-tracking in browsers, Apple is jumping over an admittedly low bar on privacy…
That sound, that sound, as they come marching. When it’s not frightening the world with videos of back-flipping cyborg supersoldiers, Boston Dynamics likes to have a bit of fun with their robotic creations. Presumably inspired by last month’s Iditarod, the company strapped ten of its SpotMini robots together but instead of pulling a sled, these…
A Buzzfeed report published on Tuesday illustrates that in the not-so-distant aftermath of sexual misconduct allegations, tech executives can still land some pretty sweet gigs. Their professional setbacks were fleeting, and as details buried in the report indicate, so were some of their apologies. Tech evangelist Robert Scoble and Silicon Valley investor Dave McClure were…
