Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Lyft finally filed for an IPO on Friday, a long-expected move for the ride-sharing company that has been racing to beat its larger competitor Uber to the public-offering punch. Aiming for a $20 billion valuation, Lyft’s newly filed IPO prospectus claims 39 percent of the U.S. ride-share market, a 17 percent jump in two years.…
Data compiled by the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) found that in the past 18 months, over half of child grooming incidents in England and Wales where the communication method was known involved a Facebook-owned platform. The data is far from perfect. It was compiled from responses to freedom…
His name is Tex and for a glorious moment, he found the one thing he never knew his life was missing. Tex resides at the Ima Survivor Donkey and Farm Animal Sanctuary in Cleveland, Texas. In a video posted to the sanctuary’s Facebook page, Tex the bull appears to learn something we’ve all known since…
You may think that your Xbox One or PS4 controller will always stay faithful to the console it’s paired with, but that’s not always the case. Thanks to the wonders of Bluetooth and other wireless technologies, you can actually use these input devices with Windows and macOS as well—and the setup isn’t too difficult either.…
Before the iPhone came along, it was not uncommon for me to upgrade my cellphone every few months. It was an addiction, I’ll fully admit it, but it was also a fun time when mobile phones didn’t all look like a feature-less slab of glass. Companies tried every hardware gimmick imaginable to make their devices…
Those quirky Amazon Dash buttons will soon be dead, gone, no more. Intended to be an easy way to reorder items, Amazon has now pulled them from sale worldwide and seems to be admitting that no one really needs them. When the Dash buttons were originally introduced in 2015, it was hard to believe they…
Welcome to AIstrology. With the help of research scientist Janelle Shane, we built a bot to generate monthly horoscopes. Each horoscope below is a prediction based on a wealth of predictions for each sign; a distillation of what the stars have in store for you this month. Its natural language faculties should improve the longer…
Two videophones from the early 1970s that were produced by AT&T/Bell Labs and the now-defunct Western Electric will go up for auction this month. And while they might not seem very special to kids of the 21st century, these videophones were the most futuristic things around for people who grew up watching movies like 2001:…
Twitter’s quest to fix its platform continues, this time with an experimental replies moderation feature. The “Hide Tweet” feature will be a public experiment, but it’s not clear yet who will have access to it. Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong shared a screengrab of the tool on Thursday, writing that the Hide Tweet feature will…
The chief executive and chairman of HBO, Richard Plepler, is leaving the company amid changing tides following a recent AT&T takeover of HBO’s parent company, Variety reported Thursday. His departure will mark the end of a nearly 30-year career with HBO, during which time the admired company head spearheaded and greenlit several of HBO’s defining…
Amazon may have left New York’s governor high and dry weeks ago, but Andrew “Amazon” Cuomo appears no closer to letting it go. The New York Times reported Thursday that Cuomo “is furiously working” to sweet talk the company back into a deal with New York for its HQ2 headquarters after Amazon dipped earlier this…
YouTube has a genuine crisis on its hands after it was revealed that comments on its site were being used to organize a child exploitation network. Major advertisers are dropping like flies. In response, YouTube on Thursday announced that it is disabling comments on almost all videos that feature minors. The controversy began earlier this…
In a bustling room inside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon, a group of survivors wearing black pins stand behind a podium that reads #EndForcedArbitration. They are all waiting to share their stories—of sexual harassment, of sexual assault, of racial discrimination, of unfair labor practices, of consumer exploitation. The common thread connecting these disjointed individuals…
Last night I woke up at 3:00 a.m. heaving and sweating. A bug-eyed, banged and beaked entity was haunting my mind’s eye. Online, she’s just known as Momo. Heart pounding, I tossed and turned, unable to get her grody face out of my head. I’d think the image had passed and, boom, my brain would…
It’s embarrassing, so few employees tend to report it, but a type of phishing attack known as sextortion is becoming increasingly common at workplaces, according to one security company’s recent analysis. To get the attention of users, many of these threatening messages are initially disguised as legitimate security warnings. These type of scams are carried…
In a split second before you reach to pick up an object, your brain pre-calculates all the movements needed to safely reach and grasp it securely. It’s a subconscious approach that’s the result of years of childhood development and learning, and one that robotics researchers are now using for their own creations. Festo’s new BionicSoftHand…
Fake products aren’t a new headache for Amazon, but now the tech retailer is shifting its strategy on how to deal with them. In a blog Thursday, Amazon announced it will allow individual brands to directly remove counterfeit products themselves. The move is part of what Amazon is calling “Project Zero.” Under the program, Amazon…
By injecting nanoparticles into the eyes of mice, scientists gave them the ability to see near-infrared light—a wavelength not normally visible to rodents (or people). It’s an extraordinary achievement, one made even more extraordinary with the realization that a similar technique could be used in humans. Of all the remarkable things done to mice over…
An Alaska Airlines flight was diverted from its destination on Wednesday night after its crew reported smelling a mysterious odor in the cabin. Passengers were reportedly having trouble breathing and four crew members were taken to a hospital for further medical evaluation. This is the second time this week that an Alaska Airlines flight was…
A new report detailing the number of pedestrian traffic deaths in the United States has just been released, and the news is not good. In 2018, an estimated 6,227 Americans died from being struck by a vehicle. That’s the highest number since 1990. The news comes from an annual report by the Governors Highway Safety…
