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On Monday, Facebook announced a new initiative that aims to help the company better understand how it influences elections and democracy at large. Thing is, it will involve Facebook handing over user data to independent researchers—but in a good way this time, promise. In their announcement blog, Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy,…
Companies keep trying to make tablets for education happen. Two weeks ago, Acer announced the $329 Chromebook Tab 10, a confusingly named slate running Chrome OS that was designed with students and teachers in mind. Then Apple followed that up with a revamped iPad featuring some new education apps and Apple Pencil support. But to…
Have you seen this photo of President Donald Trump bursting out of his jacket? The US president is a large man, but he’s not quite that lumpy. The photo has been photoshopped. The original photo, which you can see below, was taken by Tom Brenner for the New York Times. It shows President Trump arriving…
It’s just a lone, boney middle finger, but the scientists who found it say it’s the oldest directly dated fossil of our species to ever be found outside of Africa and the Levant, a region that today comprises Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. But the new discovery is not without its critics, who say older…
Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify before Congress this week as his apology tour rolls on, but the Facebook CEO’s newfound humility has done little stem the flood of criticism hitting his company. The latest high-profile critic to jump into the fray is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. It’s been about three weeks since the Cambridge…
You’re probably used to bookmarking your favorite sites for easy access, but the web goes much deeper than the top domains you’re familiar with—from your social networks to your email box, having the right URL to hand can enable you to jump right into the page, feature, setting, or search you need. Here are 10…
You know the first week of April 2018 was a weird one when it began with a horrific shooting at YouTube’s headquarters and ended with President Donald Trump’s New York City skyscraper catching fire, tragically killing one person, and somehow Facebook’s ongoing screw-up continued to top the headlines. It’s enough to make anyone want to…
Roughly 87 million people had their Facebook data stolen by the political research firm Cambridge Analytica. And starting today, Facebook will finally notify the people who had their information scooped up. About 70 million are in the US, while the rest are primarily in the UK, Indonesia, and the Philippines. How can you find out…
Investors are walking away from a $675 million deal to purchase New York’s storied Plaza Hotel, in part by raising $375 million via an initial coin offering—a largely unregulated form of investment vehicle in which investors are offered cryptocoins instead of traditional stock. Per Business Insider, sources now say that the promise of buying into…
NASA test dummies go through a lot so humans don’t have to. They get used for brutal impact tests, and sometimes said tests don’t go so well… for the dummies, not necessarily the scientists. Courtesy of NASA’s Langley Research Center, here’s some footage of recent tests involving dummies that have been stuffed full of sensors and…
Facebook has booted AggregateIQ, the Canadian election consulting firm that built data tools for sketchy election firm Cambridge Analytica, this week on the grounds that it may have received some of the extensive data on 87 million Facebook users the latter company received through a partnership with an app. Per the National Observer, after AggregateIQ…
Ride hailing service Uber and competitor Careem will not be banned in Egypt after a court overturned a judicial decision to pull the companies’ licenses, allowing both companies to continue operations there for the time being. Per Reuters, the suit was brought by Egyptian cab drivers who claimed that Uber and Careem were violating local…
Trump Tower, President Donald Trump’s midtown Manhattan skyscraper, caught on fire on Saturday. It is, as of yet, unclear how or why flames are engulfing the side of the 58-story building. But video posted to Twitter shows New Yorkers gathered to see flame shoot out one end of the tower, which just as quickly drew…
Days after Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, allegedly warned Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt to knock it off with all these goddamn scandals, the Associated Press reports that the full bill for the first year of Pruitt’s unprecedented travel and security expenses are now in the neighborhood of $3 million. According to…
After months of harsh coverage of the malicious or inappropriate content that keeps popping up on YouTube Kids, ranging from videos of Peppa Pig drinking bleach to David Icke conspiracy rants, Google seems to have partially conceded and is planning on rolling out a human-curated version of the app. According to BuzzFeed News, an updated…
Pressure has been mounting on Facebook and its leadership to make big privacy changes in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal—in which it lost control over extensive data on what it now says are 87 million users—and after weeks of hedging and minor tweaks around the margins, the company has begun to make other…
Earlier this year, smack in the middle of a typical Monday afternoon, my vision started to blur and cloud like someone had thrown an exposure slider for my eyes all the way to the right. I tried to blink my way through it, but it was no use. So I shut my laptop, briefly panicked,…
The Department of Homeland Security announced a public bid for third party companies to build a “media influence database” capable of tracking more than 290,000 news sources across the globe. First spotted by Bloomberg Law, the public bid would also track journalists and bloggers, compiling their personal information and the publications for which they write.…
Exploring the limits of type design, Tokyo-based designer Kosuke Takahashi has developed Braille Neue, an attempt to combine Braille with the English and Japanese alphabets. This is no easy feat. There are, for example, 26 different characters in the English alphabet, while in English Braille, there are as many as 250 different symbols, representing letters,…
Spotify’s announcing something on April 24th in New York, and we’re not exactly sure what it is. We do, however, have a few ideas: recent developments suggest the company’s going full speed ahead in its quest to replace the humble car radio and your favorite shock jock with its own streaming service, no matter how…
