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If you’re a holdout who refuses to upgrade to a post-2015 MacBook because of Apple’s revamped keyboard and its shallow butterfly switches, it seems like your prospects for a better experience in the future just got a little bleaker. A patent filing recently granted to Apple details something involving “dual display equipment with enhanced visibility…
History’s littered with lost ears: Van Gogh’s, Evander Holyfield’s, that ear Kyle MacLachlan finds in a field in Blue Velvet, etc. Or maybe ears is the wrong word. The weird little flesh-whorls that jut out from the sides of most of our heads are just small components of a much larger, delicately interconnected system. Remove…
If your week was anything like mine, it started off fine, quickly devolved into a neverending stream of shit, and capped off with a freak storm that plunged you into darkness. Of course, brighter times and sunny skies lie ahead—unless you work at Apple, where it’s not even safe indoors. But hey, no matter what, you…
Humans may remain pathetic creatures of meat and bone, but the era of the almighty humanoid terminator is not yet upon us. CNBC recently got an opportunity to test-drive South Korean firm Hankook Mirae Technology’s really cool looking Method-2, which just so happens to be the very bipedal robot that aspiring post-apocalyptic warlord Jeff Bezos…
After the passage of China’s new cybersecurity laws, watching out for international consequences might be par for the course for brands that do business there. Per a report in the Wall Street Journal, hospitality chain Marriott International Inc. fired 49-year-old social media manager Roy Jones (who was making just $14 an hour) after he liked…
Conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones, that guy who thinks the government is flooding waterways with chemicals that turn frogs gay and also that mass shooting survivors are paid-off “crisis actors,” announced on Saturday night that YouTube was planning on deleting his channel, which has nearly 2.3 million subscribers and thousands of videos. But…
E-retail giant Amazon has declined to feature any future products from Google’s line of smart home products, Nest, and as a result, Nest won’t be restocking those items currently listed on the site once they sell out. Per Business Insider, during a recent conference call between the two tech giants, Amazon informed Google’s team about…
Bizarre reports of US diplomatic staff in Cuba suffering from symptoms resembling brain trauma, allegedly after hearing unsettling sounds resembling scraping metal or insects buzzing, have continued to baffle medical researchers. But a team from the University of Michigan may have come up with a credible explanation for the incident, per the Miami Herald. Kevin…
Last month, reports emerged that Apple’s new “spaceship” campus in Cupertino, California—which hosts roughly 13,000 employees behind around 3,000 giant panes of glass—had resulted in the company’s employees repeatedly injuring themselves by walking straight into the semi-visible walls. Cupertino building officials allegedly warned Apple that the $5 billion Apple Park design would lead to just…
When Essential debuted the first-ever notched display on the PH-1, it was a bold, divisive statement about smartphone design. Then Apple put one on the iPhone X, and while some people still didn’t get it, the sentiment around the notch shifted from confusion to curious appreciation, or even adoration. But now, after going to Mobile…
You’ve been here before. You’ve read this article already. Every word feels familiar. Even the room you’re sitting in feels the same. You know exactly what happens next. Actually, you don’t—you just think you do. A pair of researchers form Colorado State Researchers dug into the feeling of premonition that often accompanies déjà vu, using…
Hey look, it’s the Friends theme! What a cheerful piece of TV history. What a milestone for prime-time entertainment. Remember to clap along!
YouTube, the internet’s default music player, just hired away a key employee from its competition. On Friday, Billboard reported that Tuma Basa, the former global programming head of hip-hop for Spotify, is leaving the Swedish streaming giant for the music industry’s longtime adversary YouTube. The news arrives only one day after Basa, who curated Spotify’s…
Blustery days like today are a good reminder that when the power goes out and you’re at home in the dark, the loneliness creeps in fast. And when you’re lonely, nothing makes you feel better (and worse) than Logging On. Sure, you’re not with your friends seeing Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville on Broadway, but…
The security of tens of thousands of websites is in question after the CEO of a company that sells HTTPS certificates included the private keys for 23,000 customers in an email—an apparent attempt to force a revocation of the customers’ certificates. HTTPS certificates form the foundation of the encrypted web. Issued to website operators by…
Computer scientists at Google Brain have devised a technique that tricks neural networks into misidentifying images—a hack that works on humans as well. As Evan Ackerman reports at IEEE Spectrum, so-called “adversarial” images can be used to trick both humans and computers. The algorithm, developed by Google Brain, can tweak photos such that visual recognition…
In 2014, activists rallied for body cameras after a brutal summer of officer-involved shootings. More officers than ever are now wearing cameras, but who gets to see the footage? Upturn, a DC-based policy think tank, recently found that body camera footage of fatal police shootings isn’t consistently released to the public. Researchers reviewed 105 cases where body…
Editor’s note: After Uber’s chief economist, Jonathan Hall, publicly criticized the MIT study’s findings for being based on “inconsistent logic,” its lead co-author acknowledged that the study’s conclusions may be inaccurate and said he plans to run a new analysis to recalculate drivers’ wages. Since taking over as Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi has done a…
A former Google employee is claiming that the company discriminated against white and Asian male candidates during the recruiting process. Arne Wilberg, who worked as a recruiter for YouTube for seven years, filed a civil lawsuit against Google in January for allegedly retaliating against him when he objected to the company’s recruiting practices. According to…
Despite a big splash that had at least one asshole waiting in line for 5 hours just for the opportunity to buy a pair, the original Snap Spectacles were a flop. Snap sold only about 150,000 pairs and was forced to write off $40 million dollars in costs “related to Spectacles inventory.” Many companies would,…
