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The World Bank has released its annual World Development Report, and the headline news this go round, as relayed by Bloomberg and others, is basically that “Robots Aren’t Killing Jobs.” Which, good news, if true. “This fear that robots have eliminated jobs—this fear is not supported by the evidence so far,” the World Bank’s Chief…
A method a pair of hackers used this week to hijack thousands of Google Chromecast devices is now, for those who hadn’t figured it out already, plain as day. Uploaded to Github on Thursday, a tool called Crashcast enables the almost instantaneous takeover all of Chromecast streaming devices left accessible online by mistake. This same…
The president today wandered into a surprise White House press briefing already attended by border security suits to restate that he is, among other things, an expert on drone technology. “You see what’s just been put out on social media,” Trump stated, referring to some unspecified post that may or may not exist, “where thousands…
Phones with bendable screens are coming whether you like it or not. Samsung showed off a prototype of its upcoming flexible phone at its developer conference in November, and Royole released the FlexPai before that. LG and Huawei are also rumored to be working on their own bendy phones. But among all the leaks and…
Online harassment has existed for as long as online has existed, and as access speeds up and expands, it’s only getting worse and more nuanced. A newly released report from the Digital Rights Foundation, a feminist nonprofit in Pakistan focused on digital freedom, spotlights timely data collected on harassment in the country. None of the…
Scientists genetically modified plants in order to give a huge boost to photosynthesis, hoping to one day improve the yield of food crops like rice and wheat, according to a new paper. A swelling population means that demand for plant-based products continues to increase in kind. This challenge has resulted in the development of things…
With its high price, outdated specs, lackluster holographic screen, and absent mod support, Red’s Hydrogen One may have been the biggest smartphone flop of 2018. However, on the last day of the year, Red teased that something could be coming in 2019 that could potentially redeem the over-hyped handset. In a post on Facebook, Red…
On Wednesday, Tim Cook issued a dire, surprising, and historic warning to his company’s investors. Apple, the world’s first trillion dollar company, would be lowering its revenue forecast for the first time since 2002, thanks in part to bad iPhone sales and China (basically). But wait, you’re thinking, what the hell happened in 2002? 2002…
The day after Christmas, Amazon celebrated its own annual holiday tradition: announcing record-breaking sales in a very long press release that affirms its status as the largest online retailer in the known universe. As such, Jeff Bezos’s Big Store said that in 2018, it surpassed its own sales records with “More Items Ordered Worldwide Than…
Apple incorporated 42 years ago today, and it’s celebrating with a flash crash. On Wednesday, Apple Cook released a statement declaring things were not as nice as the company would like; instead of a projected $89 billion to $94 billion in revenue, it expected to earn a paltry $84 billion in revenue during the previous…
Riders of Dublin’s tram system Luas will have to navigate their commute without the aid of the service’s website on Thursday. The site is down following a hack by someone who mostly appears to be worried about calling attention to security holes. The Independent reports that Dubliners visiting the Luas website earlier this morning were…
In the 1940s, as the Italian Jesuit priest Father Roberto Busa studied “the verbal system” of Thomas Aquinas, he wondered if, perhaps, there was “any gadget” that could help him develop a concordance—an alphabetical listing of all words written by the 13th century philosopher saint, complete with conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and their citations. In 1949,…
Many hardcore Walt Disney World fans were heartbroken over the holiday season as reports spread about the theft of a retired audio-animatronic character who once brought joy to millions as a part of an Epcot attraction. “Buzzy” was the star of Cranium Command, in which he guided a boy though life from a control center…
The Wound Man (or Man of Wounds, depending on how you translate it in Fasciculus medicinae, the 1491 medical treatise in which his image first appears) is one of the most well-known medieval surgical diagrams going. It’s up there with da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (né 1490) but is far less aesthetically pleasing than what everyone’s favorite…
Apple’s AirPods paved the way for decent wireless earbuds, but the lump of white plastic that serves as their charging case leaves something to be aesthetically desired. Limited battery life means you’ll have to carry some way to recharge wireless earbuds, though, and Klipsch is seriously wooing me with a battery case that looks like…
An account posing as PayPal used a paid promotion on Twitter to bait users into sharing their personal information under the guise that they were entering an end-of-year contest, The Next Web reported this week. TNW reporter Matthew Hughes first reported the since-deleted promoted tweet from @PaypalChristm, which he said populated in his timeline. The…
As data breaches and privacy concerns become a frighteningly common feature of our digital world, it’s increasingly important that we think critically about the kinds of apps with which we share our information. A new report from the Wall Street Journal finds that a popular weather app has been asking users for an “unusual amount…
Hackers who reportedly commandeered thousands of Chromecast streaming devices on Monday used them to alert owners to a hole in their security, while also plugging their favorite YouTube star—perennial edgelord PewDiePie, a.k.a. Felix Kjellberg TechCrunch reported Wednesday that the hackers, Hacker Giraffe and J3ws3r, had taken advantage of know issues with Universal Plug and Play…
In the latest enforcement of a recently adopted policy against the distribution of hacked materials, Twitter has moved to vanquish the account of a hacking group believed to have pilfered thousands of documents from an American law firm that litigated insurance claims stemming from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The policy, which forbids the…
Tim Cook just issued a very curious warning: Apple is lowering its revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2019. In other words, Apple is not going to make as much money as it had previously anticipated, and it’s kind of China’s fault. How bad is the damage, you wonder? Apple now expects to earn…
