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Authorities have charged 25-year-old Los Angeles man Tyler Barriss with manslaughter for allegedly placing a hoax call that led to a Wichita, Kansas police officer shooting and killing an innocent man, the L.A. Times reported. Court records released on Friday showed that prosecutors charged Barriss with involuntary manslaughter, interference with law enforcement, and making a…
This winter I bought three Google Home Minis—two for me, and one for my lovely parents. At home, my pair works like a deeply discounted Sonos setup. I can tell Google’s Assistant to play a song on “both speakers,” and it’ll pipe tinny, still-decent-sounding music into my bedroom and living room. At my parents’ house,…
“You need people that are truly, truly capable” Donald Trump wisely explained to hedge fund manager John Paulson in September of 2016, vowing to appoint to his potential administration only people of “great competence.” Today those people spent 22 minutes figuring out how to use a phone. CBS reports that during a conference call regarding…
US Army officials say they replaced five Chinese-made surveillance cameras from Fort Leonard Wood, a base in Missouri, in response to news stories about the company that manufactures them. The five cameras were made by Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, which is 42 percent owned by the Chinese government and is just one of several…
There could be a crisis in science, especially in the social and even medical sciences: Results are difficult to reproduce. Groundbreaking papers might reveal a first set of results, but attempts to repeat the studies reveal a different and sometimes even conflicting new set. There are many factors as to why the same experiment might…
Lawmakers are determined to bury any dreams that Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei has ever had of gaining traction in the US. After pressuring AT&T to kill a major deal with the company this week, members of Congress are now moving forward with a bill that would ban the federal government from working with contractors that use…
Members of the United States Senate are the latest American politicians to be targeted by Russian hackers, according to a report by the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro. The company claims that the hacking group sometimes nicknamed Fancy Bear—the same group believed to be behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016—is now targeting…
Security researchers on Friday disclosed the existence of malicious code buried inside dozens of apps that displayed pornographic images to users. Many of the apps are games reportedly geared toward young children. Google moved quickly on Friday to remove the roughly 60 apps said to be affected from its Play Store. The malware was first…
Thai police have arrested a member of the Japanese mafia they say has been on the run for 14 years. 74-year-old Shigeharu Shirai was detained in Lopburi, Thailand on Thursday. Authorities say Shirai fled Japan for Bangkok in 2005 while being investigated for the 2003 murder of a rival Yakuza member. Japanese police were alerted…
Even though the battle to slim down laptops has slowed in recent years, that hasn’t stopped Acer from trying. And with the second-generation Swift 7, Acer has retaken the crown for having the thinnest laptop in the world. Measuring just 8.98mm, Acer managed to shave off an additional millimeter compared to the original model. However,…
In a landmark case, Facebook has agreed to a settlement with a teenager in Northern Ireland after a private photo of her was posted on a “shame page” on the platform “several times” from November 2014 through January 2016. However, the individual who posted the explicit photos of the girl without her consent won’t face…
“We need to refocus the system,” is how Mark Zuckerberg explained the dramatic changes he plans to make to Facebook’s News Feed in an interview with The New York Times yesterday. “We want to make sure that our products are not just fun, but are good for people.” It’s as close to an admission as…
In a twisting and intercontinental case of ‘mad online,’ an American psychiatrist practicing in Tokyo has filed a defamation suit against Redditors who derogated his services. In a suit filed in Florida, Dr. Douglas Berger is seeking damages in excess of $15,000, alleging libel and defamation after anonymous commenters called him a “scam artist” and…
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants you to remember a time when you curated your list of favorite movies, showed off your new pair of shoes, shared some good news, and didn’t see using Facebook as a pseudo-masochistic act of poor impulse control. He wants you to forget the time Facebook made you hate everything. And…
Going into college, I thought I understood all of the different ways poop could look. My digestion is generally bad, and my eating habits don’t help. But after returning from a four-day-long river trip, I realized just how naive a pooper I was. You’ve probably read every raw water take possible by now, so here’s…
A memo written by a former Google engineer claims that the company’s human resources department and a senior vice president pressured him to stop discussing diversity initiatives on company forums, interactions that ultimately motivated him to leave the company. The document, which was written in 2016 and shared publicly this week, provides a striking counterpoint…
Joel Seligman, the President of the University of Rochester, has announced his resignation today after 12 years in the role. This occurred the same day that an “independent” Special Committee released the results of their investigation into how the University handled a case involving alleged sexual harassment in the science department. Seligman resigned prior to…
We humans are plenty talented at seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil. But when push comes to shove, as a recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research demonstrates, we’re also great at forgetting any evil existed at all—especially if that memory loss will make our buying choices a little less guilt-ridden. Researchers at…
In a matter of months, Scott Rogowsky has gone from a peripheral figure in the New York comedy scene to a household name as the host of HQ Trivia, the live app-based game show that’s as popular as it is buggy. But what do we really know about the cloyingly upbeat spokesbeing known as “quiz…
Scientists knew something strange happened when they heard reports of a raft of floating rock near New Zealand back in 2012. That raft eventually grew to around 150 square miles—remains of the largest underwater volcanic eruption in the 20th or 21st century to date, bigger even than Mount St. Helens. But when researchers actually visited…
