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The trial of two men who allegedly made $20 million in an insider trading scheme involving hackers who stole corporate press releases before they were public began in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Reuters reported, with prosecutors telling jurors they had “electronic communications, trading records and testimony from witnesses who took part in the scheme themselves.” According…
Apple’s new App Store privacy guidelines restricting apps that collect data on users’ friends—specifically, the address books of iPhone users—already seemed to be in large part a response to Facebook’s sprawling Cambridge Analytica data scandal. But the company could also be targeting Facebook’s Onavo Protect VPN service, which poses as a way to grant users…
On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that AT&T has the all clear to merge with Time Warner, paving the way for a media-gobbling merger frenzy. It didn’t have to be this way, but bizarre circumstances and inadequate arguments from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division have, yet again, given corporations more power. U.S. District Judge…
Apple quietly rolled out a new set of rules for developers last week, adding restrictions for apps that suck up the address books of iPhone users, Bloomberg reports. Developers could, for example, sell the databases filled with your friends’ contact information to boost their bottom lines. No more. Address book requests are fairly typical. Instagram…
If you asked 100 random strangers what God looks like, you’d probably get around 100 different responses. But if you specifically asked American Christians, and then aggregated their answers, you’d apparently end up with a face that’s so close to Tesla founder and aspiring mole man Elon Musk it’s frankly bizarre. This puzzling news comes…
Intel has stopped dancing around the issue and confirmed in a tweet, as noted by Engadget, that it will be making discrete GPUs and that they will be here by 2020. This means the company known for making the most popular computer processors available will now be competing with AMD and graphics giant Nvidia, in…
A landmark report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) out Tuesday details the wide extent of sexual harassment, bullying, and ostracization of women within the scientific world. It also offers a series of proactive, far-reaching recommendations to combat its further spread. Though especially poignant in the era of the #Metoo movement,…
Less than a month after unanimously passing a contentious tax on big business, Seattle’s city council has voted to repeal the so-called “head tax.” Against the fervent protestations of residents and local coalitions—which were extended to a full hour of testimony—council members voted 7-2 to pulled the plug on what would have been a vital…
Translation apps can be incredibly useful tools when you need quick guidance on translating a phrase or word from one language to another. But tools like Google Translate often fall short when you’re traveling and can’t get online. On Tuesday, Google announced it’s upgrading its own translation app specifically for offline use by incorporating previously…
A post by DigiTimes that’s making the rounds cites unnamed “sources at analog IC vendors” who say that Apple could be moving the iPhone and iPad to USB-C by 2019. That move would spell the gradual demise of Apple’s proprietary Lightning port, which was introduced in 2012 and has been the connector for basically every…
Like many Instagram users, I often scroll through my feed wondering why I’m not receiving more options to buy shit. Thankfully, Facebook’s constantly growing photo sharing app is looking out for me, the person whose endless appetite for special offers is instantly whetted by shaky cell phone footage. Today, Instagram announced that users will be…
Playing classic 8-bit side scrollers with a touchscreen is awful, so 8BitDo’s releasing an updated version of its tiny, keychain-sized Zero gamepad with support for the Nintendo Switch, and motion controls, so it should be easier to be perpetually prepared for any retro gaming emergency. The original Zero gamepad featured a directional pad, four action…
Fake news sucks, and as those eerily accurate videos of a lip-synced Barack Obama demonstrated last year, it’s soon going to get a hell of a lot worse. As a newly revealed video-manipulation system shows, super-realistic fake videos are improving faster than some of us thought possible. The SIGGRAPH 2018 computer graphics and design conference…
Security researchers on Tuesday unveiled a method that could’ve allowed hackers to bypass a wide range of commercial products designed to protect Apple devices from malware. While there’s no evidence the bypass was ever used maliciously, the issue went unnoticed for over a decade. The vulnerability is in how vendors such as Google and Facebook…
Details are scarce, but Super Mario Party, the next version of Nintendo’s popular party game series, is coming to the Switch, and it will enable you to pair at least two Switches together and play as though the screens were physically one. The game, which will be available October 5 and was announced during the…
It’s been two months since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent hours testifying before Congress, and the company has finally provided answers to the Senate portion of the hearing. The 450-page document mostly does a lawyer-dance around uncomfortable topics. But there are some revealing tidbits of information as well. When Zuckerberg took questions from two Senate…
Until now, purchasing some too-good-to-be-true cheap clothes or a weird smartphone case through a Facebook ad usually ends in disappointment, with no way to provide feedback about your new dress shirt that makes you look like a store brand anime character. While Facebook can’t stop you from buying a t-shirt with a few missing stitches,…
The saga of ZTE is a never-ending roller coaster. After violating sanctions in Iran, ZTE was banned from buying parts and components from all American companies. And then suddenly it wasn’t, after President Trump and the Department of Commerce inked a deal that gave ZTE another lease on life. But now, it seems the ban…
Replicating the complicated muscle structure that allows fish to wiggle their bodies and dart through the water is no easy feat. But not every underwater creature moves that way. Cuttlefish instead use long fins that undulate in waves to propel themselves, which is an approach that robotics maker Festo found relatively easy to replicate. Festo’s…
President Trump and Kim Jong Un had a historic private meeting earlier today in Singapore. And while we don’t know exactly what was said between the two men, we do know that Trump played a video for Kim on his iPad. The video was created to look like a Hollywood movie trailer and it’s honestly…
