Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
The National Rifle Association (NRA) hasn’t tweeted since the afternoon of February 14th, the day that 17 people were killed and 15 were injured in a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. And it’s kind of strange, because typically the NRA loves to tweet. The gun rights organization, which has adopted a…
Police in Atlanta are searching for an UberEats driver who allegedly shot and killed a 30-year-old man after delivering his food. Police have not released a description of the driver, but say that he was using a white Volkswagen to make his delivery. The victim, identified as Ryan Thornton, reportedly exchanged words with the UberEats…
Despite periodic crashes in the cryptocurrency markets, digital currency keeps on moving out of its formerly niche space and affecting the real world in unpredictable ways. Bitcoin-mining operations are now set to gobble more electricity than domestic residential consumption in Iceland, major credit card providers are banning crypto purchases, rumored scams as well as proven…
Facebook, which landed itself in the crosshairs after becoming one of the primary venues by which federal prosecutors allege a Kremlin-linked, pro-Donald Trump Russian operation called the Internet Research Agency tried to flood the US with disinformation and propaganda before the 2016 elections, now says it will verify the identities of people who buy election-related…
As we continue to reel from yet another week of revolting news, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that some glimmers of good remain. Being a shill can still get you in some deep shit, and arguing to your entire company that women are biologically inferior to men is still a totally good reason…
Synaptics’s Clear ID sensor is not the first sensor to scan your thumb print through a display. The Vivo X20 phone, available now in China, is not the first phone to read your thumb through the screen. You might not know this if you’d seen the headlines coming out of CES—where Synaptic’s Clear ID was…
Facebook and Donald Trump, two large, terrible sons of our broken society that truly deserve each other, slow-motion collided on Saturday when the president decided to lift wholesale a new line of defense over the ongoing Russian election scandal from the social media giant’s vice president of advertising Rob Goldman. On Friday, the Department of…
After reports hit the news that over 130 of the more-or-less-randomly-promoted angry teens in the White House were working without full security clearances as of November, including top aides with access to highly classified intel like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s administration says it will overhaul its process for granting staff security credentials.…
Sources say Uber is considering bailing on its Southeast Asia division, with plans to sell it to regional competitor Grab, CNBC reported on Friday. Singapore-based Grab claims to have 95 percent market share in southeast Asia and recently held a $2.5 billion round of funding in July 2017. It operates in more than 100 cities…
AUSTIN—Looking at a Pablo Picasso painting could be confusing itself. But scientists using x-rays have revealed secrets behind both paintings and sculptures of the famed artist. The Northwestern University researchers traced the exact composition of metals in five bronze casts to a specific foundry in World War II-era Paris. Another team even revealed a hidden…
Kids today want more from social technology than seeing something new—they want a new way of seeing themselves. Snap and Instagram’s augmented reality lenses transform users into puppies, fairies, monsters, Wonder Woman, storied Jamaican singer-songwriters, and the like. It’s as if there’s a vibrant but invisible world all around you that you need a smartphone…
Working in a similar fashion to 3D-printing pens, but without the futile exasperation of actually trying to make 3D objects, Crayola’s new Crayon Melter turns colorful sticks of wax into a thick, goopy, ink that lets kids write on almost any surface imaginable. Can you hear the sound of parents crying in the distance? Although…
Two-factor authentication, a security measure that requires a verification code as well as a password upon login, can help prevent phishing and account takeover. But at Facebook, two-factor authentication ended up being used as a way to pester its users with notifications. As Gizmodo reported earlier this week, users who gave Facebook their phone number…
Tracking all the president’s lies is a Herculean effort best left to the teams of political reporters at august publications with time and money to burn. But there was one lie Friday so flagrant and easy to disprove there’s no good reason not to point it out. The Justice Department on Friday unveiled an eight-count…
Teddy bear sewn from chicken “duplicate parts.” Hand-made. Perishable. $47. Ask about availability
So you just bought a $1,000 iPhone X. It’s fast, gorgeous, and everything you could ask for in an absurdly priced consumer device. There’s just one problem. As good as it looks, it’s way too precious for life without some kind of protection. You’re going to need a case, but what kind should you get?…
Google did not violate labor law by firing James Damore, the author of a memo that argued women were biologically less capable to work in software engineering than men, according to an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. Damore, who was fired last August after the memo he’d circulated internally at Google became public,…
Your data may be safe from a quantum attack… for now. When quantum computers develop the ability to crack present-day encryption mechanisms, will you be ready? Currently, lots of data is encrypted based on public key cryptography, which relies on a simple principle: Some math problems, like factoring large numbers into primes, are hard for…
A California woman who claims she saw Sasquatch perched in a tree last year is suing California for refusing to accept what she now knows to be true: Bigfoot inhabits the San Bernardino mountains. Claudia Ackley—who has been researching Bigfoot for the last two decades—was hiking with her two daughters, aged 11 and 14, near…
An extremely compelling video has racked up over 2 million views on Twitter in less than 24 hours. It appears to show security footage of two young skateboarders stealing chips from a convenience store when a dude with a shotgun enters and attempts to rob the place. And then the skateboarders totally stop him and…
