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Artificial intelligence is coming to your phone. The iPhone X has a Neural Engine as part of its A11 Bionic chip; the Huawei Kiri 970 chip has what’s called a Neural Processing Unit or NPU on it; and the Pixel 2 has a secret AI-powered imaging chip that just got activated. So what exactly are…
If you’ve taken a science class, you’re likely aware that DNA is the body’s instruction manual. But its language is only written in four letters: A, T, C, and G. Those who paid extra close attention will remember that RNA, the photocopy of the instructions that the cell actually uses, replaces the Ts with the…
It was almost two years ago to the day when Amazon released a cheeky video detailing its plans to conquer the skies with a fleet of package-delivering drones. We’re still waiting for these unmanned aircraft to replace standard trucks and delivery personnel, but it’s clear Amazon hasn’t abandoned the idea. Earlier this week, Amazon was…
People around the country who were baffled and alarmed to get recorded phone calls telling them to stop making “negative and derogatory posts” about President Trump were the targets of a recently launched prank call app—a gag that misfired when the company’s automated disclaimer message failed to work. The calls, which claimed to be from…
Early today, NBC 4 in Washington published several dozen pages of White House work orders it had obtained. Within the long, mundane requests (“please turn temperature up 1.5 degrees higher”) and repairs one expects with a building over 200 years old were orders which suggest there are several types of infestations—mice, cockroaches, and ants—in one…
On Thursday, Massachusetts prosecutors announced that they will move to dismiss more than 6,000 convictions tied to lab results from a chemist caught stealing and using drugs from the University of Massachusetts Amherst crime lab. In 2014, Sonja Farak pleaded guilty to stealing drugs and tampering with evidence after admitting she ran lab tests while…
Top Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee are renewing efforts to pass a law requiring companies to quickly notify consumers in the wake of a data breach, citing recent news that Uber suffered a breach more than a year ago and responded by paying the hackers responsible $100,000 in exchange for their silence. The bill,…
After months of explosive price jumps, Bitcoin finally had a moment at the White House press briefing on Thursday. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders may, or may not, have said something important about it. As is often the case with Sanders, it was a little hard to tell. Sanders kept the press briefing short and…
While it’s magnificent that you can connect to the internet while you’re soaring in a metal tube miles above ground, there are still shitheads who are going to use this modern wonder for evil. Most recently, a passenger aboard a flight from Nairobi to Istanbul created a Wi-Fi hotspot and named the network “bomb on…
Most people are guilty of sharing a story on Facebook or Twitter that they didn’t read. And according to a new study, users are no different when it comes to performatively upvoting articles on Reddit. What’s most surprising is just how often those votes are impulse clicks. According to Motherboard, a new paper by a…
Despite all the time and energy companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and others have spent stressing the importance of AI, actual progress doesn’t always feel that swift. That’s because after about a year on the market, the Google Home has just gotten the ability to do two things at once. Instead of having to…
Since launching The Boring Company a year ago, Elon Musk has mentioned several possible construction sites for the tunnel-drilling business, and thrown out a vague reference to a “verbal” government approval for a Hyperloop tunnel connecting New York City and Washington, DC. But now we know at least one mayor wants Musk to drill a…
For the sake of an open internet, it’s generally believed that objectionable and offensive content is acceptable—and perhaps even necessary—up to a certain point. Internet companies still haven’t charted exactly where that point is. During an event this week, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince argued that they probably shouldn’t. “It’s very important for a deep infrastructure…
The work life of adults can be strange and alienating. Case in point: Supervisors of Tom Colella, a 60-year-old electrician working in Perth, Western Australia, knew he stored his company-issued PDA in empty bags of junk food for an indeterminate amount of time and apparently none of them asked any of the questions such a…
With all the streaming, Instagramming, and everything else people are doing on their phones, your monthly allotment of data just doesn’t last as long as it used to, especially if you’re on one of those family plans with a shared data pool. And while most phones have some rudimentary tools for tracking how much internet…
Various members of the Trump administration, including the president himself, are famous for buying into crazy conspiracy theories. Now, the Los Angeles office of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has come up with a whopper of its own. These guys think China is spying on unsuspecting Americans with DJI drones. The New York…
At a time when regulations, glitches, price swings, forks, hacks, and fraud can’t seem to keep the cryptocurrency-mania down, there’s a new hurdle for it to overcome: the taxman. Coinbase is one the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world and its backing by high profile investors like Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz has given…
Battery life—the arch-nemesis of every smartphone user. You’ve probably already realized that bingeing sessions on Netflix or afternoons on mobile Minecraft aren’t particularly kind to your remaining battery level, but there are more draws on your phone’s juice than you might think. Here’s everything to watch out. Spotty signal If your phone can’t get a…
In the last 24 hours alone, President Donald Trump has used his infamous Twitter account to retweet British fascists’ anti-Islam videos and tag the wrong Theresa May in an angry rant. This is nothing new. The president is one of the site’s worst shitposters—made infinitely worse by the fact that via virtue of his immense…
On Black Friday, Amazon CEO and richest man in the world Jeff Bezos—famous for both his dominance of the entire online retail market and pivot to rock-hard biceps—hit a net worth of $100 billion, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Alas, the brightest stars burn shortest, and this tale of hubris has collided with a tragic…
