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Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political operative in Washington and ally of President Trump, was arrested by the FBI in Fort Lauderdale, Florida shortly after 6:00am ET this morning, CNN reports. Stone has been indicted by Robert Mueller’s special counsel which is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Stone is being charged with…
I think we can all safely agree that last year was not great for Facebook. User trust plummeted to record lows as the company faced scandal after scandal. At this point, there are countless reasons users can and even should be wary of Facebook—and yet. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a 1,000-word screed…
It’s about to get way, way harder to win any money playing HQ Trivia. According to a report from the Verge, the app is currently testing the waters of points-based winnings that can be redeemed in-game in place of its already elusive cash prizes—a change that doesn’t seem to be going over well with actual…
A growing chorus of Washington lawmakers is now pressing federal regulators to do something about the fact that wireless carriers have recklessly sold off data that can pinpoint the locations of their customers’ mobile phones (and thus the customers themselves). The firestorm of inquiries began after it was revealed that during an investigative sting, a…
In 2017, Nancy Lee Carlson of Illinois auctioned off a genuine Apollo 11 lunar sample bag for $1.8 million dollars. That’s a good score given she purchased the bag for $995, but she was expecting as much as $4 million. The reason for the low value, she says, is that NASA damaged the bag—and she’s now…
In a little over a year, MoviePass has burned through the goodwill of its customers almost as fast as it’s burned through investor cash. But on Thursday, the company claimed it will be bringing back the one feature that made anyone care about its theater subscription service: Unlimited movies for a flat fee. MoviePass has…
Slowly but surely, ports have been falling off our devices, and as a preview of our fully wireless future, Meizu and Vivo recently released seamless phones with nary an opening. But despite how slick those devices appear, (and my personal desire to banish wires to the shadow realm), the world simply isn’t ready for phones…
Google publicly supported tens of thousands of its employees walking out in November to protest working conditions, but weeks later the company pushed the National Labor Relations Board to roll back a legal protection organizers relied on, Bloomberg reports. Documents obtained by Bloomberg via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Alphabet lawyers argued…
Even as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strives to imbue confidence in the nation’s aviation system amid the unprecedented government shutdown—now in its 34th day—air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants are speaking out about a “growing concern” for the “safety and security” of airlines workers and travelers. Union leaders representing the workers warned in…
While you’re struggling to toast bread without burning it, metalsmith Seth Gould harnesses heat and fire to turn raw steel into masterful creations like this lock box featuring a complex series of steps that have to be perfectly executed in order to open it. It took Gould, who was in residency at North Carolina’s Penland…
Week 2: Facebook After Facebook’s hell-year of scandal, and its unabating erosion of our privacy—a topic I’ve been covering for over 10 years—I never thought I’d miss the social network. But here I am, staring at my screen, feeling strangely alone. In the second stage of my epic quest to thwart the world’s most powerful…
Of all the steps you can take to improve your personal cybersecurity, keeping your software up to date is one of the easiest and most effective. Thankfully, researchers at security firm Avast have compiled a list of the most common out-of-date programs installed on PCs to give us some guidance on keeping our computers healthy.…
As our phones become ever more powerful and smart, their capabilities are increasing—so much so that we’re using them more and more like computers these days (quite literally sometimes). It also means Android and iOS are becoming better at multitasking, and here are the best ways of speeding through whatever it is you need to…
The high-end camera world is in the middle of a revolution. Longtime DSLR makers Canon and Nikon recently jumped on the full-frame mirrorless bandwagon with the new EOS R and Z series systems, with Panasonic joining the party soon with the new Lumix S1 and S1R. Meanwhile, Olympus is taking the road less traveled by.…
It’s day 34 of President Trump’s government shutdown with no end in sight. And while most of the media’s attention has been focused on the long lines at airport security and food that’s going uninspected, there’s another topic that isn’t getting much coverage: the potential for rampant corruption. There’s literally never been a better time…
Over 200 employees working on Apple’s self-driving cars project, code-named Project Titan, have been laid off. The move is being positioned internally as an “anticipated restructuring,” according to the earliest reports, though it’s not immediately clear that the job losses were actually expected by the people who were laid off. Apple has been working on…
This year is already proving to be challenging for Microsoft’s Bing. It appears as of Wednesday that the search engine is no longer accessible in China, even despite the company’s commitment to censoring its search results. The Financial Times reported Wednesday that it spoke with two sources who said that Bing was barred on a…
Unions that represent U.S. air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants sent out an alarming joint statement on Wednesday warning that the ongoing federal government shutdown—at 33 days, the longest in history—has caused a situation in which they “cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play” and is “unconscionable.” “We have a growing…
Google Hangouts loyalists, I regret to inform you that the news about your beloved communication tool is not great. Google announced in a blog post Tuesday that beginning in October it will start phasing out Classic Hangouts for its G Suite users in order to transition them to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Thankfully, the…
Excuse me, sir. Sir! If you would put down your newspaper forthwith, and grant me your fullest attention for a situation most dire. For I have learned news most terrible concerning the electronic web, and its various scoundrels and malcontents. Yes, my good man, though you may be a stranger to me, surely a development…
