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Linux founder Linus Torvalds temporarily took time off from the organization in September in order to “get some assistance on how to understand people’s emotions and respond appropriately.” During his helm within the open-source software community, he developed a reputation for his egregious verbal abuse. Now, about a month after his self-imposed send-off to better…
It’s increasingly difficult to expect privacy when you’re browsing online, so a non-profit in the UK is working to build the power of Tor’s anonymity network right into the heart of your smartphone. Brass Horn Communications is experimenting with all sorts of ways to improve Tor’s usability for UK residents. The Tor browser bundle for…
A privacy expert tasked with helping a new smart city development protect the data privacy of residents has resigned over concerns that her guidelines would be largely ignored. “I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” Ann Cavoukian, the former privacy commissioner of Ontario, wrote in…
Corpse-freezing hasn’t exactly gone mainstream, but most people are now familiar with the concept: you lay out a ton of cash, sign some papers, and spend a couple post-death decades in a cutting-edge meat locker, calmly awaiting the conditions for your eventual revival. Over 300 cold, dead Americans—or dead, cold American brains, depending on which…
If teens are the litmus test for what’s cool, Facebook is hurdling into mediocrity. A new survey indicates that slightly more than a third of teenagers use Facebook at least once a month, a number that has only decreased over the last few years. The study from Piper Jaffray, which surveyed more than 8,600 U.S.…
The Verge is claiming that Apple plans to fix a major flaw found in the newest iPhones. Dubbed “Beautygate,” the current batch of iPhones including the XS, XS Max, and XR, have a tendency to be overly aggressive in beautifying the subjects of portraits. While the aggressive beautifying of selfies is quite common for Chinese-made…
You might already be familiar with the quick fixes you can apply to your pictures after you’ve snapped them, right on your phone—but if you want to take your mobile photo editing to the next level there are tools and apps that can help here too. Here are six advanced tricks to try and how…
The U.S. National Archives is doing a special Facebook Live at 11:30am ET/8:30am PT and just sent out a special teaser, with the question, “what’s in the cans?” And now I’ve never wanted to know the answer more to anything in my entire life. Today’s Facebook Live tour of the Motion Picture Lab is part…
Dyson is best known as a company that makes high-end vacuum cleaners, but it’s looking to cars for the future. The company announced back in September of 2017 that it was planning to get into the electric car business, and today Dyson gave the world a peek at how it’s going to make that happen…
Staff discovered what appeared to be an explosive device in a mailbox at the Westchester County, New York home of billionaire George Soros on Monday, the New York Times reported, with a police bomb squad later destroying the device. According to the Times, law enforcement officials confirmed that the suspected bomb had not detonated on…
A report earlier this month from Bloomberg Businessweek alleging 17 unnamed sources had confirmed Chinese spies infiltrated the supply chain of microchip manufacturer Super Micro, installing tiny espionage chips that allowed them to wiretap systems belonging to almost 30 U.S. companies, has earned denials from Homeland Security, Apple, and Amazon. Now executives from Super Micro…
The Saudis have admitted Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist in self-imposed exile and frequent critic of Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering their consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. They’ve insisted Khashoggi’s death happened by accident during a struggle with over a dozen Saudi officials positioned…
Facebook made a splashy entrance into VR when it purchased fledgling startup Oculus back in 2014 for $2.3 billion. However, even after putting out the first consumer-ready Oculus Rift in 2016, which was followed up by this year’s Oculus Go and the upcoming Oculus Quest, today’s departure of Oculus co-f0under and former CEO Brendan Iribe…
A day ahead of Saudi Arabia’s controversial “Davos in the Desert” investment conference, it appears its website has been vandalized by hackers. The conference has been the topic of intense debate as high-profile attendees have dropped out following the scandal surrounding the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The website for the Foreign Investment Initiative (FII)…
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration said it had launched an investigation into a website created to ship abortion pills to women in the U.S., potentially jeopardizing an avenue for women to gain access to this highly effective and safe method of terminating unwanted pregnancies. The website, called Aid Access, was created by Women…
They’re becoming more prevalent in manufacturing, but if you’re still wondering if you need a 3D printer at home, there’s just one other question you need to ask: Do you have any old die-cast toy cars in need of a restoration? Stian Ervik Wahlvåg’s 10-minute video documenting the slow process of restoring a Majorette die-cast…
Tesla-owner Antony Kennedy claims he caught some remarkable footage of car thieves hacking their way into his Tesla Model S. The heist would’ve been pretty slick if the thieves simply understood how a Tesla’s charging cable works. Tesla is not the only company to find that some of its key fobs are vulnerable to determined…
You’ve no doubt got your favorite apps, the ones you turn to again and again on your smartphone—but have you discovered the best add-ons and plug-ins for those apps? There’s a growing market for apps that work with other apps, and we’ve picked out some of the best and most useful examples you can find…
The Trump regime has found it hard to find people in tech who want to work for the White House. That’s probably because Trump has systematically dismantled the rights of Muslims, immigrants, and just about every other minority group in the United States. But Trump and his cronies aren’t giving up. The White House is…
This morning, Christies announced that it would be auctioning off 22 items from the life and work of renowned theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, who passed away earlier this year. Among the items up for auction will be one of Professor Hawking’s earlier motorized wheelchairs, which he relied on when his battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis…
