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The Vindicator, a news outlet in Liberty, Texas, wanted to help its followers read the entire U.S. Declaration of Independence before the Fourth of July, so it posted excerpts on its Facebook page. But something in one of the most significant documents in modern history triggered Facebook’s filters. The outlet broke the Declaration up into…
Israeli hacking firm NSO Group is mostly known for peddling top-shelf malware capable of remotely cracking into iPhones. But according to Israeli authorities, the company’s invasive mobile spy tools could have wound up in the hands of someone equally, if not far more, devious than its typical government clients. A 38-year-old former NSO employee has…
Netflix is reportedly testing a new “Ultra” pricing tier that gives potential subscribers access to 4K “Ultra HD” and HDR streaming. Unfortunately, with this new tier Premium subscribers might be getting the short end of the stick, having some of their perks removed in the process, according to Italian smartphone site Tutto Android. Today, Premium-tier…
As 12 boys and their soccer coach wait to be rescued from a submerged cave in northern Thailand, officials may be forced into action due to expected heavy rains in the coming days. The situation is grave, given a medical assessment claiming the boys and coach are too weak to attempt such a physically demanding…
In recent years, Nerf has added some gigantic blasters to its lineup, at times necessitating the need for a shoulder strap. But they still can’t compare to one of YouTube’s Ryan & David’s recent creations: a four-foot long custom-built bazooka that fires oversized darts made from pool noodles. It’s reminiscent of Mark Rober’s world’s biggest Nerf…
On Thursday, members of European Parliament held a vote on the misguided new copyright reforms that posed a threat to memes, online encyclopedias, news organizations, and pretty much everything that’s good online. Incredibly, lawmakers decided not to do the dumb thing and voted down the bill. It’s not over yet, but there’s plenty of reason…
About a month ago, rumors leaked that Apple was testing green and purple paint jobs for the next batch of iPhones, and while it seemed like a stretch, new info from noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has now added a bit more credibility to the idea that a bunch of brightly color iPhones might be…
Robotic lawnmowers are fairly mainstream these days, even if they don’t have much market share yet. But they’ve been a long time coming. We’ve been promised solar-powered semi-autonomous lawnmowers for decades. This Sunday comic strip from 1959 predicted the rise of these machines, but also pointed at the problem with its illustration: Many people are…
Tech support scams, obviously shady though they might seem to some, continueto catch more and more people—Microsoft says the number of reported cases is on the rise, while in March the U.S Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said it logged 11,000 complaints last year, a rise of 86 percent over 2016. The claimed losses amounted…
Faced with a seemingly infinite number of media subscription services, it is sometimes necessary for the modern content consumer to ask which ones are actually worth it and which ones are basically a scam monetizing our collective need for distraction and stimulation. “Do I really need Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Amazon Video and the Basque-language animated…
Kim Dotcom, the former founder of defunct file hosting service Megaupload and its successor Mega, just lost another court battle to avoid extradition to the US on charges of copyright infringement and fraud. Per the BBC, Dotcom lost an appeals court decision on Wednesday in New Zealand, where he has lived since 2008 and was…
E-commerce giant Amazon, which remains determined to cannibalize what’s left of the brick-and-mortar competitors it helped kill off, may be making a move on the turf formerly occupied by bankrupt retail chain Toys “R” Us with plans to distribute a holiday toy catalog. According to Bloomberg, though people familiar with the plan were light on…
Neil Basu, Britain’s top counter-terrorism official, announced on Wednesday evening that a couple poisoned in the county of Wiltshire appear to have been exposed to Novichok, the Soviet-era nerve agent behind the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury earlier this year. According to the Guardian, authorities first believed…
For years, Facebook has insisted that it isn’t a publisher or media company but rather is just a platform. That position appears to have changed in a recent court appearance. The Guardian pointed out the social media giant’s legal defense referred to it as a publisher to bolster its case in a lawsuit. The shift…
If the heat wave and the accompanying blanket of humidity have you feeling like the world is moving just a little slower than normal, well you’d be right—at least in when it comes to radio transmissions. Nasdaq warned customers Tuesday that the weather was resulting in slight delays in the transfer of data, which could…
You’re doing the Fourth of July wrong if you’re not spending it with lots of food, lots of fireworks, and lots of tiny flags. But if you’d rather just stare at your phone all day, director David Ma has combined all the requisite Fourth of July traditions into a slo-mo extravaganza of patriotic destruction. Red,…
WhatsApp is promising to introduce new features intended to prevent the spread of hoax messages in India following reports that more than one dozen lynchings have occurred in the country as a result of false rumors spread on the popular, Facebook-owned messaging service. According to BuzzFeed, WhatsApp sent a letter to India’s Ministry of Electronics…
Jeb Corliss brought along a GoPro Fusion 360-degree camera during a ride on Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Goliath roller coaster. But instead of using the footage to create an immersive VR experience, he instead turned it into a fantastically trippy 2D video that will make you dizzier faster than riding the real thing. The camera…
Earlier this week, 12 Thai boys from a youth soccer team and their coach were discovered by diving experts trapped in an air pocket deep within a submerged cave system. Water levels within the cave complex aren’t expected to drop for months, but a daring plan to rescue the boys is now rapidly taking shape.…
The convenience of never having to recharge a manually-powered wheelchair is often outweighed by the fact that riders must use both arms to steer it. Carrying something like a smartphone at the same time is a big challenge, so a Swiss design student was inspired to design a better wheelchair that allows riders to steer…
