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On Windows, at least, the era of living on the edge by recklessly ripping out your USB devices appears to be coming to an end. Windows 10 version 1809 has updated the operating system’s default setting for USB and Thunderbolt-enabled external devices. In past versions of Windows, the default setting was “Better performance,” which enabled…
In an epic road trip spanning more than three years, 33 countries, and roughly 59,000 miles, Dutchman Weibe Wakker set what is believed to be the record for the ‘world’s longest trip’ by an electric car, yesterday. Wakker set out from Amsterdam in the Netherlands on March 15, 2016, as part of his Plug Me…
Your phone comes with a stack of apps to get you started—and they’re fine, up to a point. But if you stick with the apps Apple and Google give you, then you’re missing out on a whole world of quality third-party alternatives. Here’s a guide to some of the best we’ve used. We’re going to…
It took four years to do it, but Sonos and Ikea have finally revealed their new wireless speakers. The so-called Symfonisk series includes a bookshelf-style speaker that doubles as an actual bookshelf and a lamp with a speaker in its base. Like a lot of Ikea furniture, the two new products are quirky and practical.…
If you’ve been online, watched TV, read a magazine, or even popped to the store to buy Oreos, you’re painfully aware that the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones gets underway this weekend. What better way is there to prepare for the inevitable death of your favorite character than by humming along with the…
Britain is scheduled to crash out of the European Union on Friday, potentially causing severe economic damage. But that hasn’t stopped the British government from attending to other issues. Like proposing new rules that could make social media companies legally responsible for some content uploaded by users. The British government released a paper this morning…
In 2014, Amazon announced that it would power its rapidly expanding fleet of data centers with 100 percent renewable energy. Apple, Facebook, and Google made similar pledges two years before that, and pressure from consumers and environmental groups drove Amazon to follow suit. For the next two years, the tech giant made admirable strides toward…
It’ll be a fine day for Poland Spring, when Mars is finally colonized: bottled’s the only option, when you’re living on a planet whose last substantial traces of flowing liquid water disappeared a few billion years ago. That ancient water has occasioned much study and debate, and provided the name for at least one French-Candian…
It’s April 2019—and perhaps the month that will later be known as the dawn of the Age of Fungus. A concerning report in the New York Times this weekend detailed how multiple strains of Candida auris, a drug-resistant species of pathogenic fungus, have quietly spread across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control reports a…
A small, experimental nuclear reactor being constructed by Argentina’s state-backed nuclear company INVAP at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh has spurred renewed concerns about Saudi leadership’s intentions for the program, CNN reported on Sunday, even as its development zips along at a brisk pace. According to CNN, former director…
Last year, Microsoft won a $479-million-plus contract with the U.S. Army to build Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) prototypes that a government document described as intended to “accelerate lethal defensive and offensive capabilities utilizing innovative components.” This weekend, CNBC got a look at what Microsoft has been cooking up in the form of a modified…
Streaming giant Netflix has dropped native support for Apple’s AirPlay, with the company revising its support guidelines to state that the switch is “due to technical limitations,” Cult of Mac wrote on Saturday. As Cult of Mac noted, Netflix streaming via AirPlay—namely, using the feature to stream video from the iOS app to an Apple…
Google’s website has leaked the name of its upcoming lite version of its Pixel phone, the Verge reported on Friday, in what appears to be the second time in two weeks something like this has happened. Just like last month when Google’s website (seemingly accidentally) dropped news of the upcoming Nest Hub Max without fanfare,…
Despite the fact that there are now somewhere around 120 million smart speakers lurking in kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms around the United States, most people do not need Google’s Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa in their lives. In fact, I thought I’d never own one of these devices, out of principle. Why, after all, would…
A bill aimed at protecting net neutrality in Colorado is on its way to being signed into law. Colorado Governor Jared Polis is expected to sign Senate Bill 78, the Colorado Sun reported Friday, after it passed in the Colorado House this week. The bill was introduced earlier this year by state Democrats and would…
Elon Musk is, if nothing else, an innovator. He finds new ways to recover rockets from space; new useless holes to drill into the earth; new reasons to get fined by the SEC, and according to a report by Bloomberg, new ways of threatening his subordinates. Mostly you could say he’s guilty of having too…
Boy that big gorgeous Sony TV you spent a paycheck on is nice, too bad Google has implemented a “pilot” program that now serves ads on it. Sony’s televisions, as well as the Nvidia Shield and other products running the latest version of Android TV, has been hit with an irritating update from Google that…
Every spring, nearly 300 white nationalists convene in Burns, Tennessee for the American Renaissance Conference—and they always need a place to stay. The conference—organized by Jared Taylor, who has been designated an extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)— will be held at Montgomery Bell State Park, a scenic spot 40 miles from Nashville,…
Like many people, I don’t use Facebook a lot these days, but when I idly visited the world’s largest digital nation-state this afternoon, I had an odd realization: Wow, it looks like ass. Of course, it’s easy to criticize Facebook. A poll released on Friday found that 60 percent of Americans don’t trust Facebook with…
You might have a certain idea of where cybercriminals congregate. Maybe you imagine a black hoodie operator working at night on the dark net or something out of Mr. Robot. In fact, these things are often much more simple and mundane than they seem. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm Talos found 74 Facebook groups used…
