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One of the recent trends in Bluetooth speakers is the addition of colorful LEDs that blink and flash along with whatever music’s playing. But a company called Victrola has done something way out of left field by putting an animated Pin Art display on top of its new wireless speaker. We’ve all played with those…
The new, modular Technics SP-10R turntable plays records just like any other turntable. But, according to Technics, it plays records really, really, really well. It better since it’s priced at $10,000 and up depending on just how you configure it. But the introduction of yet another Technics tribute model—or collector’s item if you’re being honest…
Two years ago, the object-recognition algorithm fueling Google Images told a black software engineer, Jacky Alciné, his friends were gorillas. Given the long, racist history of white people claiming the people of the African diaspora are primates instead of human beings, Alciné was predictably upset. As was his employer: Google. As a result, Google censored…
There was once a time when Sony’s Xperia phones were some of the slickest, most fashionable Android phones out there, thanks to their stylish, minimalist designs and trend-setting features like water-resistance way back in 2013. Somewhere along the line, the company got stuck in a rut, and despite having phones with impressive specs, Sony’s inability…
When Google Glass was announced back in 2013, it was easy to forgive one of the the first AR headsets for looking awkward and being hard to use. There’s no doubt Google’s first crack at making an optical head-mounted display was ahead of its time. The thing that always rubbed me the wrong way about…
The first thing that I should say about FORPHEUS is that it’s gentle. The artificially intelligent Ping-Pong tutor built by Omron is not trying to beat you. It’s not trying to take over the world. FORPHEUS is trying to make you a better Ping-Pong player. I played Ping-Pong with this incredibly futuristic being, and not…
Winter weather gotcha down? How about some sweet vintage robot pics to cheer you up? Vintage robot pics on the beaches of Venice, California, no less. In my book, there’s just about nothing cooler than robots from the 1930s. This one didn’t appear to be capable of much outside of posing for pictures. But at…
While messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Google Allo have all incorporated end-to-end encryption into their products over the last few years, Skype has lagged behind. But that’s changing today—Skype is adding end-to-end encrypted messaging, with the help of Signal. “Microsoft joins a growing list of organizations including WhatsApp, Google, Facebook, and Signal itself…
Citizens, residents, and visiting workers in India are required to submit all ten of their fingerprints and an iris scan to participate in the country’s controversial unique identifying number program. The man behind that program, Nandan Nilekani, for some reason tweeted a photo of his ID card with the numbers blacked out, but he didn’t…
Julian Assange, who has been living in Ecuador’s embassy in London for the past five years, is officially being granted Ecuadorian citizenship. What does that mean for Assange’s future? It’s still very unclear. Assange has been in self-imposed exile since 2012 after it was clear that he may have to face charges that he sexually…
To date, the best use of augmented reality has been running around parks trying to capture virtual Pokémon. But as that fad has (mercifully) faded away, a company called AstroReality has come up with a more compelling use of AR technology that works with an astonishingly detailed replica of the moon that’s as much a…
After covering CES for 10 years, nothing I’ve seen at the show has me as excited about the future as Ossia’s wireless charging technology. The company’s developed a way to deliver power to your gadgets the same way internet is delivered by wi-fi, and one of the first real-world applications of the tech is a…
Looking ahead to 2018, there’s plenty to be excited about when it comes to design. From technology companies who are finally starting to own their responsibility, to the rest of us saying goodbye to boring hardware—here are five design trends we’d like to see more of this year. Explained algorithms If 2016 was the year…
A day after the White House urged Congress to pass a bill extending a warrantless surveillance program, President Trump took to Twitter to attack it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to extend the Section 702 program of the FISA Amendments Act, which permits American spies to collect and store,…
The first thing you notice about Sophia, a robot, is the sound she makes. Like a late-90s Pentium processor struggling to load a video, she makes a whirring squeal that fills the room. Sophia talks, too. But what I’ll always remember about my recent conversation with a robot is her stare. I recently talked with…
Facebook has long said that it doesn’t use location data to make friend suggestions, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t thought about using it. In 2014, Facebook filed a patent application for a technique that employs smartphone data to figure out if two people might know each other. The author, an engineering manager at Facebook…
In the United States, the big banks have been very slow to adopt new credit and debit card technologies, with secure chip cards only being introduced in the past few years. Which is tragic, because Dynamics is introducing a new connected credit card with a GSM chip inside, and an E-Ink display, that’s no thicker…
A number of IP addresses tied to users of a prominent revenge porn website have been traced back to several government offices, including the US Senate, the Navy, and the Executive Office of the President. Some of the users had posted message to an imageboard, know as Anon-IB, inquiring after nude photographs of women, while…
If you’re like me, you know Sennheiser as that sleek German company that makes dependably terrific headphones and microphones. That’s about to change. Later this year, Sennheiser will release a next-generation sound bar that aims to bring 3D audio into the living room. It’s a lofty goal, since plenty of other companies are trying their…
The fallout over Apple’s decision to throttle the performance of older models of iPhone with degraded batteries has continued to mount despite the company’s apologies, with Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee chair Sen. John Thune asking the company to give Congress more information. Per Reuters, Thune sent a letter on January 9th asking Apple…
