Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
China’s ride-sharing behemoth Didi is trying to make its platform safer for users after a 21-year-old woman was allegedly murdered by one of its drivers. For starters, its carpooling service, Hitch, will no longer let drivers and passengers rate and tag the appearances of one another. Drivers have reportedly given female passengers tags like “long legs,”…
On Tuesday, a local medical examiner released their report that concluded a 38-year-old man in St. Petersburg, Florida, died due to an explosion in his vape pen that sent two piece of shrapnel into his cranium. According to the Washington Post, it’s believed to be one of the first deaths of its kind. The Tampa…
Microsoft’s Surface line of Windows 10 PCs have mostly been marketed as premium devices. But according to a new Bloomberg report, the company is planning to bring back a good ol’ fashioned cheap Surface, most likely to get in on some of that sweet sweet iPad money Apple’s been raking in (or to give us…
These days it’s hard to do without a little bit of cloud storage space, whether it’s for your holiday photos or your digital music, and Google just revamped its offerings with new price points, a new name, and some new extras. So how does Google One stack up against what you can get from Apple,…
Cambridge Analytica, the shady UK-based election firm that shut down after it allegedly partnered with an app to scrape data on at least 87 million Facebook users without their consent and months of ensuing controversy, is rapidly seeing its problems grow worse. Already embroiled in trouble with authorities in the UK, it now has to…
Hello! Did you happen to be walking down a gravel road in or near Mountrail County, North Dakota and find a big ol’ crate of explosive grenade rounds? The US Air Force meant to fire those somewhere else, and would really like it if you return them. According to the Washington Post, the 91st Missile…
A suspect held in a Manhattan jail on child pornography charges is the lead suspect in last year’s leak of CIA hacking tools to WikiLeaks, reports the Washington Post. Joshua Adam Schulte, charged in August 2017 with the receipt, possession, and transportation of child pornography, is believed to have supplied WikiLeaks with a cache of…
Work ceased for several minutes at Gizmodo Media this afternoon as everyone stopped to listen to a four-second sound file of someone either saying “laurel” or “yanny.” No one could agree. I heard “laurel.” No joke, this question divided staff, with many insisting the other side couldn’t possibly be hearing what they claimed. It’s essentially…
Twitter in 2018 remains a cesspool of narcissists, scammers, and trolls—I’m not just talking about Kanye West’s mentions—and on Tuesday the service announced its latest attempt to solve that problem. In the coming weeks, Twitter will begin hiding tweets that are “detracting from the conversation.” Twitter isn’t going to start flat-out deleting tweets from your…
Today, Microsoft announced the Surface Hub 2, and like many of the company’s previous Surface products, it offers a tantalizing view into a future filled with glorious touchscreen devices and effortless workplace collaboration. It looks totally sweet, and I’d love to have one on my wall at home right now. But after seeing multiple Surface…
Although Facebook’s ability to track and remove terrorist content was one of his favorite talking points when CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress last month, a new report from the social media network shows that there’s still a lot of work to do. The company’s first content moderation report, released Tuesday, finds that it’s removing…
A privacy watchdog group in the UK is calling for a ban on automated face recognition technologies after a report revealed staggeringly high false-positive rates. Big Brother Watch has released a report, titled “Face Off: The Lawless Growth of Facial Recognition in UK Policing,” detailing abuses of the tech, which the watchdog group calls a…
Mark Zuckerberg put his name on a hospital, and the act of hubris is predictably not boding well with those concerned with their privacy. About a dozen current and former nurses protested the name change over the weekend, in which they covered Zuckerberg’s name outside the hospital in blue tape. Zuckerberg and his wife donated…
Facebook has responded to a list of 39 questions provided by British lawmakers concerning user privacy, but in many cases, the company failed to adequately provide answers, a parliamentary committee said. Asked, for example, who at Facebook ultimately made the decision not to inform users that their information had been illegitimately acquired by the political…
On Tuesday, Facebook debuted its Youth Portal, a subsite featuring dozens of quick explainers on its privacy and data collection policies, as well as general tips for using social media. It’s actually a great resource for adults. The sections are concisely written, with cute emoji that sort of look like updated versions of Clippy—a reference…
In a unanimous decision (9-0) yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved a version of the “head tax” plan—a progressive tax on big businesses to combat homelessness in the city—putting an end to months of fierce debate. Those opposing the legislation claim the tax is aimed at jobs, or hiring in general. Technically, it’s a tax…
Things have been rocky for Snapchat. After going public in March 2017, Snap Inc. has seen its stock price drop by more than 50 percent in a little more than a year, while taking a $40 million loss on unsold Spectacles and more or less canceling a redesign that had users complaining in protest. So…
An embattled Kaspersky Labs is fighting back against accusations that its ties to the Russian government can create a security risk when using its anti-virus software. On Tuesday, the cybersecurity firm announced that it will be moving a significant chunk of its infrastructure to Switzerland, and an independent group will be able to review its…
Right now the best way to watch YouTube on your phone without being tracked by its ever-knowing recommendation algorithm is to either completely log out or pause your viewing history. But on Tuesday morning, Android Police reported that Google is experimenting with an Incognito mode inside the YouTube for Android app. The mode has appeared…
Your brand new iPhone X ain’t that brand new anymore, and as it passes the six-month marker of its existence, one has to wonder “What’s next?” No doubt a new fleet of iPhones is coming from Apple, but even that presumption presents yet another question posed by philosophers across the internet: “What’s the next iPhone…
