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A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a major property management company against Airbnb, ruling that Airbnb can’t be held responsible for giving tenants a platform to break their lease agreements. Aimco—that’s the Apartment Investment and Management Company, if you’re feeling formal—sued Airbnb in California and Florida, alleging that Airbnb encouraged tenants to violate…
Spotify has been hit with a huge copyright lawsuit that alleges the music streaming company “failed to pay songwriter royalties to a publishing company approximately 21 percent of the time,” according to the complaint. Wixen Music Publishing filed the $1.6 billion lawsuit against Spotify on December 29th. The music licensing company says it represents Tom…
Did a loved one buy you an Amazon Echo over the holidays? Sorry about that. But now, in addition to well-founded fears about surveillance and security, you’ve got a new problem: ads. CNBC reports that Amazon is in discussions with huge companies that want to promote their goods on Echo devices. Proctor & Gamble as…
Until every last piece of furniture on Earth has a built-in wireless charging pad, you’ll probably still find yourself charging your smartphone with a cord more often than not. But if you’re so desperate for a cordless future that you’ll do just about anything to make it happen, you could slip Avido’s new WiBa charger…
If at any point last year you thought all the blustering in Congress over the Equifax breach would result in anything meaningful, let me be the first to say: You must be new here. Sure, it was cathartic watching Equifax executives get smacked around on live television by lawmakers who, only a few short months…
Chanticleer Holdings, which owns nine Hooters restaurants and other regional burger chains like Little Big Burger, announced today that it was putting its loyalty programs on the blockchain. And just like other companies that have recently issued press releases with the word “blockchain,” its stock price shot through the roof. The Nasdaq-listed stock, BURG, was up…
Brick-and-mortar retail had a really bad year, with thousands of major chains shutting down stores. But Amazon, the company that many people blame for the retail apocalypse has been more eager than ever to build up its retail presence. As the world nervously awaits Jeff Bezos’ next big move, a prominent analyst predicts that Amazon…
This month the Canadian government is launching a pilot program to research and predict suicide rates in the country using artificial intelligence. The pilot will mine Canadians’ social media posts “in order to identify patterns associated with users who discuss suicide-related behavior,” according to a recently published contract document. The Public Health Agency of Canada…
If you’ve taken a peek at the news anytime in the past 12 months, then there’s a good chance you’re having a hard time falling asleep every night. Counting sheep is apparently one way to drift off, but a trippy drone’s-eye view of dogs herding and corralling sheep might be even more effective. The individual…
Like your car, or your kitchen, your tech devices will run best when they’re maintained properly—and that means finding time to do all those low-level maintenance tasks that aren’t much fun, but can keep everything stable and smooth, and avoid problems in the future. Whether you’ve got five minutes, or fifty, to spare, here are…
After Apple admitted to slowing down older iPhones, the company tried to calm frustrated customers by dropping the price of out-of-warranty battery replacements from $79 to $29. Unfortunately, even that discount came with a catch, because unless your phone’s battery failed a diagnostic test at the Genius Bar, you wouldn’t actually be eligible for a…
CES is less than a week away, which means there are less than seven days before we’re inundated with news of crazy new TVs, laptops, and random crowdfunded gadgets that probably should never make it to market. LG Display (a subsidiary of LG), clearly hoping to get ahead of the rest of the news, took…
2017 was the year public sentiment began to turn against massive tech conglomerates like Facebook and Google. But nowhere in the West has the backlash been bigger than Germany, which last year passed a sweeping anti-hate speech law requiring websites to promptly investigate reports of posts illegal under German law and delete them. On January…
North Korea has one-upped President Donald Trump’s infamous diet Coke button—the one he uses to ensure he gets his reported 12 cans a day—by providing Kim Jong Un with a similar button that can launch nukes at anywhere in the U.S. on his desk. At least, that’s if you take his word for it. “The…
Can you eat yourself to death on one occasion of very excessive eating? We know that America’s eating problem is bad, albeit gradual: No one’s ever died from eating three Big Macs, but plenty of people may have died from eating three Big Macs twice a week for thirty years (some, miraculously, have managed to…
2017, a dumb and stupid year which even the Pope agrees was pretty miserable, will shortly give way to 2018. Fortunately, 2018 is already planning on greeting us with the icy cold of the grave. Per the Washington Post, January 1st, 2018 will be the coldest New Year’s Day on record in the Eastern U.S.…
Model Chrissy Teigen and singer John Legend got themselves dragged into the stupidest possible controversy this weekend when self-proclaimed “investigative journalist” and far-right activist Liz Crokin, who Twitter in their unending wisdom had decided to give a verified account, accused them of involvement in the debunked “Pizzagate” scandal. On Saturday, Teigen posted that she was “pretty disturbed”…
The government of Iran has shut down mobile internet access and blocked apps including Telegram and Instagram after days of protests that exploded into widespread civil unrest. According to the Washington Post, at least two people are reported dead during the demonstrations, “the largest in Iran since an uprising over disputed election results shook the…
When the year ends, many of us take the time to reflect by getting utterly obliterated. But what’s actually going in your body and brain after two or three or five drinks? Alcohol, technically “ethanol,” is a simple chemical with powerful neurological effects. There’s still some disagreement as to how exactly alcohol makes you feel…
Amazon is no longer permitted to lure in customers who think famous shoe and sandal manufacturer Birkenstock is spelled “Brikenstock,” “Birkenstok,” “Bierkenstock,” or the like in Germany following a court ruling, Reuters reported this week. According to Reuters, Birkenstock convinced a Dusseldorf court that Amazon had placed ads for the misspelled variants of its name…
