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Just like it did with Filters, Snaps, and Stories, Facebook is duplicating another feature that previously existed on its competitor Snapchat. According to TechCrunch, deep in the code of Facebook’s Android app is unreleased functionality letting users “build personalized, illustrated versions of themselves for use as stickers in Messenger and comments.” In other words, it’s…
On Monday, reports emerged in Page Six, the tabloid New York Post’s gossip page, that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is dating none other than musician Grimes. At first, I didn’t know what to make of this, because—confession: I had absolutely no idea who Grimes is. But reader, after roughly 20 minutes of research,…
First lady Melania Trump presented her long-awaited “Be Best” initiative on Monday, which entails something about protecting children from social media cyberbullies and also the opioid crisis. And boy, was said presentation a doozy, laden with the kind of Hallmark card-inspired language and dramatic music that one typically associates with bad made-for-TV movies. But it…
With Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and Signal all offering various forms of encrypted messaging, Twitter has often seemed like the lone holdout. The company has been pressed to add an encryption option to its direct messaging—most notably by Edward Snowden—but the feature has yet to be introduced. However, it looks like Twitter is finally going to…
In March, a woman crossing the street on a bicycle in Tempe, Arizona was struck by an Uber that was testing its autonomous driving mode. The victim later died from her injuries. Since then, Uber has been studying what went wrong and it has reportedly concluded that the hardware was working properly, but the software’s…
Android Things was first shown off back at Google I/O 2016, and now, two years later, Google’s nebulous internet of things platform is finally getting an official release ahead of the 2018 edition of Google’s annual developer conference. So what is Android Things, you ask? Well simply, it’s another variant of the Android operating system…
It’s been a few weeks since a Russian court ordered ISPs to block encrypted messaging service Telegram—and the country proceeded to break its own internet to enforce the ruling. Google and Amazon made changes that help the ban, and Russia has moved to blocking VPNs. Now, privacy advocates are asking Congress to step in and…
Two Romanians, described as “international computer hackers” by the United States Justice Department, have been extradited to the United States to face hacking and fraud charges. Teodor Laurentiu Costea, 41, and Robert Codrut Dumitrescu, 40, are accused of using computers in the Atlanta, Georgia, area to send “thousands of automated telephone calls and text messages”…
Today, Fitbit has begun to roll out a major update to its app that adds a handful of welcome features for its Versa and Ionic smartwatches. The new Fitbit features will allow its users to track their menstrual cycle, reply to messages from their wearable device, and stay abreast of their medical condition. Lord knows…
Made up of colorful scrolls cascading down a wall, artist Dima Yarovinsky’s installation “I Agree” is beautiful—at face value. If you read the fine print, however, you’ll learn that it’s a statement against our blind compliance with tech giants. Each scroll is a single tech company’s terms of service agreement, annotated at the bottom with…
Using ground-penetrating radar, three independent teams of researchers failed to detect the presence of doors or empty spaces behind the walls of King Tut’s funeral chamber. It’s a disappointing result, as archaeologists were hoping to find the final resting place of Queen Nefertiti. “We conclude, with a very high level of confidence, that the hypothesis…
No doubt you’ve gotten an automated phone call at one point in your life. But since 2015, reports of robocalls have increased at quite an alarming rate, with around 4.5 million robocall complaints filed in 2017, an increase of about 2.4 million robocalls since 2015. A few million calls may sound like a lot, but…
Shooting on film continues to get more and more expensive, especially for fans of instant cameras like the reborn Polaroid. Sixteen bucks for just eight shots was far too pricey for Tim Alex Jacobs, so he hacked an old Polaroid camera to instead spit out images on cheap thermal paper, the same kind used in…
Cats are enigmatic little creatures. It’s hard to get a read on them. Does your cat love you, or would it gladly stab you in your sleep, if only it had thumbs and a slightly larger brain? The cat never tells—it thrives on inscrutability. But it can’t help betraying certain signs of its inner life:…
On the internet, a week is a lifetime—especially when it’s the opening week of Avengers: Infinity War. Unlike seemingly everyone else, I’ve yet to see the Marvel blockbuster, an admission that is likely enough to inspire my colleagues at io9 to greet me at my desk in the morning with pitchforks. It also means running…
Officials in Florida believe that the death of a 38-year-old man in St. Petersburg on Saturday is linked to the explosion of a vape pen, the Miami Herald reported on Sunday. Details are scarce, including what kind of pen was involved in the tragic incident. But Spectrum News 9 reported that a St. Pete Fire…
The eruption of the Mount Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island has continued to progress, with massive lava flows pouring out of what is now believed to be at least 10 fissures in the nearby residential neighborhood of Leilani Estates, the Washington Post reported. At least two of the volcanic fissures are believed to have…
Facebook is connecting more than just distant relatives who post too much about their children, at least per a recent study that concludes it is connecting new affiliates to the Islamic State’s digital networks. According to the Telegraph, researchers with the Counter Extremism Project analyzed the social media habits of roughly 1,000 ISIS supporters in…
YouTube has removed “hundreds” of videos advertising an essay-writing service, EduBirdie, following a BBC investigation that concluded over 250 channels were promoting the Ukraine-based company. According to the BBC, the investigation ultimately discovered more than 1,400 videos with over 700 million views promoting EduBirdie, with the topics covering “range of interests including: pranks, video games,…
UK authorities have ordered Cambridge Analytica, the sketchy election firm at the center of a data scandal involving at least 87 million Facebook users, to hand over all of the information it acquired on a US voter in a move that could potentially open the floodgates for others to know what information the firm stockpiled…
