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He’s perhaps this year’s most celebrated figure, but we still know remarkably little about the hirsute, tangerine, hockey monster known as Gritty. Case in point: After sending a half dozen emails to various authorities, I’m no closer to identifying the strange, purple opening on his belly. We know that the Grimace-like mascot has “grit,” of…
When President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this month, people started looking more closely at the man who was appointed to take his place, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. And the closer you look, the worse it looks, especially as new questions are raised over roughly $1.2 million that Whitaker has received since…
Facebook’s scandals in recent memory have included reckless sharing of user data with third parties like the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica political firm, several high-profile security breaches, and continued abuse of its platforms to spread misinformation and propaganda during elections. Other even worse stuff has included its sluggish pace responding to widespread reports Facebook was playing…
One benefit of working at a university with an agricultural school is the availability of meat. That’s especially useful if you need something to stab cactus spines into. The scientists weren’t as interested in the meat as they were in figuring out the relationship between a cactus spine’s structure and how well its stabs and…
The Federal Communications Commission plans to publish a report on Wednesday that will purportedly reveal whether internet service providers are providing the broadband speeds they claim they are. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai published a cheesy Thanksgiving blog post on Tuesday. Mixed in with some quaint dad jokes and various other announcements, Pai mentions that the…
Earlier today, Evgeniy Lvovich Zubarev, the sole shareholder and General Director of a “domestic and international news” corporation called Federal Agency of News LLC, filed a suit against Facebook for booting his page from its platform this April. In and of itself, the lawsuit is unremarkable. People sue internet services over deplatforming quite a lot,…
Blockchain is meant to be secure—but a new paper from quantum computing scientists warns that quickly advancing quantum technology poses a vulnerability for the much-hyped blockchain. Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin. It’s found uses as a secure digital ledger and authentication system maintained by its users, rather than by one central authority. But quantum…
While we’ve watched tech companies provide a means for us to tear apart the fabric of society, they’ve been credited with keeping the financial markets booming over the last year—but that could be coming to an end. This year has seen record gains and earnings on the stock market, but much of the growth has…
A 16-year-old girl in South Sudan was recently auctioned on Facebook for marriage, according to a report from CNN. The social network reportedly didn’t remove the post until 15 days after it was published and nearly a week after she was already married. The auction started on Facebook on October 25. The girl was married…
Of all the things you do with your iOS devices, listening to music is probably still one of the most common reasons you reach for them. The iPod isn’t dead; it just got lost in a sea of other features. But you could make it the star of the show again with this tiny case…
There’s no doubting the Pixel 3 has one of the best cameras out there. There’s also no denying it’s been beset by bugs since Google released it last month. Now, Pixel 3 owners say a yet another bug has the device serving up ‘fatal errors’ when they use the camera, and the issue apparently appears…
Security firm Palo Alto Networks on Tuesday issued a new warning about phishing attacks linked to APT 28, the elite Russian hacking group tied to the 2016 election interference in the United States. According to researchers, the attack begins with a single weaponized document, which in turn retrieves malicious code via an email-based channel from…
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in modern history, finally announced the first recipients of his charitable Day One Fund. The initial round of grants total $97.5 million, representing about 1/20th of his proposed investment in the fund, and about 0.0006 percent of his net worth. The Day One Fund, named after Bezos’s axiom to treat…
Hospitality giant Airbnb has begun removing about 200 listings for rentals in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Haaretz reported on Monday, with Israeli officials immediately denouncing the company and warning of potential measures to restrict its operations in Israel. In a blog post announcing the listing removals, Airbnb said that it was backing off…
After lackluster sales of the Galaxy S9, it seems Samsung has some big plans in store for its next Galaxy phones. And that’s in part because next year will be the 10th anniversary of the Galaxy S line. According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Samsung is going to blow out the…
Interplanetary travel is pitched to us as a good thing. Explorers will visit other planets, which settlers will then colonize. But colonization on our own planet led to the genocide and displacement of cultures and people, economic inequity, and the destruction of environments. What lessons from Earth’s colonialist tragedies can we apply to our interplanetary…
An express elevator in a Chicago building formerly called the John Hancock Center until earlier this year, the 100-story tower at 875 North Michigan Avenue that is the fourth-tallest skyscraper in the city, fell from the Signature Room restaurant on its 95th floor all the way down to the 11th on Nov. 16th due to…
On Friday, niche blogging platform Tumblr became suddenly and inexplicably unavailable on Apple’s app store, and since then users posting adult-themed content have claimed their blogs are being deleted by the site without warning despite no official statement from either Tumblr, it’s parent company Oath, or Apple. The reason, as some had grimly suggested, was…
A White House “examination” of Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump’s online habits has concluded she used a personal email address for official correspondence hundreds of times, in many cases in “violation of federal records rules,” the Washington Post reported on Monday. According to the Post, White House officials discovered that the younger…
The world might be on fire, but last week Google published a patent application for “Augmented And/Or Virtual Reality Footwear.” Yes, the Google document describes motorized shoes with wheels on the bottom that keep you in place as you walk around in VR. They’re basically what Ars Technica has aptly dubbed, “VR roller skates.” On…
