Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas was arrested in Las Vegas on suspicion of trafficking narcotics, police told reporters on Thursday. Authorities say the billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist was found with heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy in his hotel suite. According to the Los Angeles Times, Nicholas was staying at the Encore hotel when security alerted Las…
Gina Haspel was confirmed by the Senate to be director of the CIA on May 17th. But the public never got to see the memos that she wrote and authorized about the brutal torture of Al Qaeda suspects at a CIA black site that she oversaw in Thailand in 2002. Until now. The National Security…
Everyone knows there is no sound in space. After all, a sound wave requires a medium, like air or water, to travel through, and space is mostly a vacuum. But in studying a nearby galaxy cluster, astronomers detected a true occurrence of sound in space—and in this case, the incredibly deep sound was coming from…
Gab, the Twitter knock-off of choice for the far right, has 48 hours to delete offending content that Microsoft says incites violence. If Gab doesn’t delete the two posts, created by a user of the site, Microsoft says it will suspend its hosting services. Gab was founded as a “free speech” platform to counter Twitter,…
It’s become all too clear this election season that issues involving technology are becoming a core part of campaigns and voter concerns. The Democratic nominee for governor of Colorado, U.S. Representative Jared Polis, wants to add blockchain to the list of items voters consider this year. But what does that mean? Polis currently represents Colorado’s…
Tired of that smug look of satisfaction on your kid’s face when they’re able to find Waldo on a page faster than you can? A creative agency called redpepper built a robot that levels the Where’s Waldo playing field using a camera and machine learning AI to spot the striped traveler in as little as…
At Samsung’s Unpacked event, the company confirmed what we already knew, and announced its Samsung Galaxy Note 9 phablet. It also announced a new wearable: The Samsung Galaxy Watch, the fourth device in Samsung’s line of wearable gadgets. With LTE connectivity, a slew of new health features, and three different colors, it seems Samsung is…
As if we don’t have enough smart assistants already, after months of speculation, Samsung finally took its AI-powered voice helper Bixby and put it in a speaker that its calling the Galaxy Home. The device was revealed today at Samsung’s Unpacked event which also saw the official announcement of the Galaxy Note 9 and new…
Back in June, Microsoft built an underwater data center off the Scottish coast. The company has installed some underwater cameras to keep an eye on things, but Microsoft isn’t keeping the view all to themselves. The company is generously livestreaming the view, just in case watching fish swim around large submerged data is your thing.…
Last year’s Galaxy Note 8 was a totally solid phone, but it wasn’t very exciting. With a screen that was the same size as what you get on a Galaxy S8+ or S9+, and a battery that was actually smaller, it felt like Samsung played it safe. But on the new Galaxy Note 9, it…
You probably haven’t touched a 12-inch ruler since your grade school days, but think back to how that makeshift sword felt in your hand; that’s roughly the same size as a new solid state drive from Intel that stacks 64 memory cells atop each other to create a dense 3D grid packing 32-terabytes of storage.…
Created in 1908, Hydrox was the original chocolate sandwich cookie, but it was Oreo (which first went on sale four years later in 1912) that ended up dominating the market. In the decades since, Hydrox has been something of a cult favorite compared to its younger, more recognizable competitor—a battle for biscuit supremacy that took…
Authorities partially closed Schönefeld Airport in Berlin on Tuesday after they confused a bag of sex toys for a bomb. During an X-ray scan of luggage, security noticed “suspicious content in a luggage piece,” German federal police told CNN. The airport responded to the peculiar items by issuing an alert, which closed down terminal D…
Android 9 Pie is finished and heading out now to Pixel devices, with phones that were part of the Android P beta program next in line. Whether you’ve been following the development of the OS for the last six months, or you’re completely new to it, here are some of the cool tricks that are…
Employees at a National Weather Service center in Maryland were randomly interrupted by a “message in Chinese” broadcast over the facility’s little-used intercom system on Wednesday, morningthe Washington Post reported. Bizarrely, it also reached “employees by phone” in the same complex. Officials with the agency seem to have no idea how the message was broadcast…
Department of Homeland Security-funded research by Virginia-based security firm Kryptowire has allegedly discovered major security flaws in numerous phones, according to a report on cybersecurity site Fifth Domain. According to the report, DHS Science and Technology Directorate program manager Vincent Sritapan said at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas that the vulnerabilities have been…
Face recognition is coming to schools, stadiums, and airports, but surprisingly not to body cameras—yet. On an earnings call Tuesday, Rick Smith, CEO of Axon, one of the largest body camera manufacturers in the U.S., said the reason was simple: In addition to privacy and policy concerns, face recognition isn’t accurate enough. The “accuracy thresholds,”…
Alvin Toffler, who died in 2016, will be remembered for his many contributions to the work of futurism. Toffler was a prolific writer, most notably the author of the 1970 best-selling book Future Shock, and a man who became friends with important figures across the political spectrum in Washington DC, including Newt Gingrich. But Toffler’s…
China claims to have successfully tested a hypersonic aircraft capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 6, or 4,563 miles per hour. The cutting-edge vehicle has the potential to penetrate U.S. missile defense systems and be refitted to include a nuclear warhead. The hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), dubbed Starry Sky-2 (or Star-2), was launched…
In a stunning blow to companies like Uber and Lyft, the New York City Council today approved a one-year halt on issuing new licenses to rideshare drivers. The yearlong halt will give the council time to survey the current state of ridesharing in the city, and potentially enact minimum pay rules for drivers using these…
