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By using the barren Atacama Desert in Chile as a stand-in for Mars, researchers have shown that it’s possible to use an autonomous rover-mounted drill to detect life beneath a desolate surface. Encouragingly, the test resulted in the discovery of a resilient microorganism—exactly the kind of creature that could lurk deep beneath the Martian surface.…
Listen, I’m not here to argue about whether the 2004 film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel The Notebook starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling is or is not a good film. But to trim the last minute of the movie and swap in a comparatively dispassionate prelude to credits starring a flock of birds seems…
The Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation on Wednesday issued an interim rule banning the transportation of lithium ion cells and batteries as cargo on passenger craft, as well as setting a 30 percent charge limit on ones shipped as air cargo. Lithium ion batteries have a non-negligible chance of exploding, which is…
Amazon just gave the slip to yet another city. The company has officially listed a sublease for its floors in Seattle’s Rainier Square tower that were to be used as office space, according to a marketing flier obtained by GeekWire. In a statement to Gizmodo, an Amazon spokesperson said that the company is “currently building…
If Thanos came to Earth and only wanted to turn robocallers into dust, the Avengers would let him. And given how bad spam calls have gotten, surely most if not every adult with a cellphone in the U.S., and certainly everyone in the half of U.S. households that still have landlines, would throw Thanos a…
When pundits, politicians, or advocates have talked about the need to reduce fossil fuel production to combat climate change, one of the most common rejoinders has been to appeal to that most central of American concerns—it creates a lot of jobs. Oil industry backers are often touting the notion that it creates lots of decent-paying…
How did life first start? Scientists hoping to answer that question are recreating the conditions of early Earth’s oceans in a lab. NASA researchers showed that systems with specific kinds of iron dissolved in water, which could have been common on the early Earth seafloor, could have assisted in the creation of the molecules that…
Whether in its former life as lip-synching app Musical.ly or its current rebrand as TikTok, the short-form video platform has always courted a youthful demographic. And in the past, its stance on obtaining user consent was, let’s say, inattentive. For both these reasons, it’s now the recipient of the largest civil penalty for violating the…
It doesn’t look as flashy as the outdoor gear that lures your eyes (and dollars) at stores like REI, but this simple piece of fabric, developed by researchers at the University of Maryland, could help someday replace your seasonal wardrobes with clothing that keeps you either warm or cool all year round. Outdoor clothing makers have…
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has struggled to regain its reputation after it was accused of aiding Russian intelligence operations and its software was banned from use by the U.S. government. But on Tuesday, another layer of mystery was added to the story when a Russian court convicted a senior researcher at Kaspersky Lab of…
Last year, the San Francisco District Attorney’s office said it was teaming up with Code for America, a nonprofit that aims to better government through technology. The goal was to use a Code for America algorithm to identify and expunge criminal records that could be cleared by California’s Proposition 64, which retroactively eliminated or reduced…
“Prism, prism on the wall, who’s the most trustworthy of them all?” said Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping on stage on Tuesday at Mobile World Congress 2019. But Guo wasn’t talking about Snow White. He was poking fun at the massive surveillance programs maintained by the United States. Huawei is under fire around the world…
In the first case of its kind, the Federal Trade Commission took action against a diet pill seller for both making false claims and paying to juice their standing on Amazon with fake positive reviews. The fruit of garcinia cambogia has been hailed by some as a powerful weight loss supplement. Of course, there’s no…
President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, will testify publicly today on Capitol Hill at 10 am ET, 7 am PT. And judging by his written statement, which was released last night, it’s going to be one for the history books. But how can you watch this important testimony in the middle of…
Facebook is gunning for creator-subscription service Patreon’s business—but on much less generous terms. According to TechCrunch, a “policy document” shows that its Fan Subscriptions feature, which has only been made available to a tiny number of creators so far, shows that Facebook wants up to a full 30 percent cut of subscription revenues (minus processing…
The Federal Trade Commission is launching a new task force focused on the tech industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, with a broad anti-trust mission that will “include re-examining mergers that already have been approved by the government.” FTC Chairman Joe Simons wrote in a statement, “The role of technology in the economy…
The day started with an intense tropical storm consuming San Francisco, but by evening the clouds had parted just in time for a group of grinning and excited venture capitalists, techies, and real estate agents to gather atop a downtown highrise that overlooks the city all the way to across the Bay to Oakland. Everyone…
In June, Facebook’s head of news partnerships announced that the social network was going to fund news shows for its Watch video service. “Watch is the destination on Facebook where people come together around video,” said Campbell Brown in a blog post. Flash-forward to today, with Digiday reporting that two-thirds of Watch’s news programming will…
An Arizona crematorium was contaminated with radiation after the cremation of a patient who’d received radiopharmaceutical treatment, according to a new case study. Radioactive materials have a variety of uses in medicine, for both diagnosis and treatment. An occasionally overlooked matter is what to do with the body after the patient has died, a problem…
If you’ve been thinking of a graphics upgrade, now is the perfect time to pull the trigger: Fresh new GPUs from Nvidia and AMD promise a lot of bang for not much buck, there’s downward pressure on prices across the board as existing hardware gets older, and we won’t see any new launches for several…
