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In belated response to an American intelligence report that concluded RT and Sputnik tried to influence the 2016 election, Twitter announced on Thursday that it is removing all advertising from accounts owned by the Russian state-sponsored news outlets. The company also promised to donate $1.9 million to help fund outside research into how the platform…
A warning to all: On Wednesday, a developer who works for Google published a demonstration app on GitHub that he claims shows off the creepy ways a rogue iPhone app can photograph you at any time without your knowledge if you grant it camera permissions. https://gizmodo.com/one-week-with-the-iphone-8-1818736319 Felix Krauss is the founder of Fastlane, a developer…
A 6,000-year-old skull found in Papua New Guinea is the earliest record of a human killed in a tsunami, according to new research published this week. Back in 1929, Australian geologist Paul Hossfeld uncovered a partial human skull outside the coastal town of Aitape in Papua New Guinea. An international team of scientists recently returned…
Today Twitter revealed that while it’s actually growing now—it added four million monthly Tweeters over the last three months—the company has made a crucial error: It accidentally inflated user growth in its reports for the previous three years. On Thursday morning, Twitter released its quarterly earnings in a letter to shareholders. In the report, the…
When it comes to mirrorless cameras, especially pro-grade ones, Sony’s full-frame Alphas are king. Panasonic’s Lumix GH5 and Olympus’ OM-D E-M1 Mark II come close, but both of those have Micro Four Thirds sensors, which for a lot of picky people puts them out of the running. And when Sony released the A9 earlier this…
No longer confined by the limitations of a printed book, the Guinness Book of World Records has infinitely expanded to include almost every kind of questionable achievement humanity can attempt. Even grabbing 244 friends, jumping off a bridge, and swinging by a rope is enough to gain you pseudo-fame—at least until 246 people try the…
AMD buddy, we’ve missed you. A few years ago there was a genuine choice between laptops with Intel inside and those with AMD. Then Intel continued to update and improve its processors while AMD did not. It was a big bummer if you wanted options when picking out a laptop, and it was particularly painful…
Walk into any bookstore in America and you’ll find plenty of titles written by Napoleon Hill in the financial self-help section. He practically invented the genre in the 1930s with his most famous book Think And Grow Rich. And for that, Virginia has declared today Napoleon Hill Day. But many people have no idea that…
Smart homes have finally improved enough that having a home that responds to your every wish and command is almost within reach. The problem, is that unless you are a Hollywood movie star or the offspring of an oil baron, retooling your house to smarten it up is too expensive to do all once, which…
Uber, the international ride-sharing company which has been frantically trying to stabilize its course after former CEO Travis Kalanick resigned in June amid allegations he oversaw widespread sexual harassment, is facing another lawsuit. Per Reuters, three female Latina engineers—Ingrid Avendano, Roxana del Toro Lopez and Ana Medina—filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in San Francisco…
2017 has been what some might call a “real doozy” of a year, but it’s still got some brutal surprises up its sleeve. On Wednesday, the United States Air Force publicly denied the existence of Santa Claus, who in exactly two months was ostensibly scheduled to deliver presents to the nation’s children. After Whiteman Air…
Verizon will soon begin charging customers on their “unlimited” data plans an additional $10 per month per line for access to 1080p or higher resolution streaming video on smartphones. That’s just months after adjusting those plans to cap video resolution at 480p for phones on the baseline $75/month plan, or up to 720p on phones…
The black market economy fueling ransomware distribution is booming, according to new research. In an October report, researchers at anti-malware service Carbon Black identified a 2,502 percent increase in ransomware software sales from 2016 to 2017. The study involved monitoring 21 of the top dark web marketplaces. The data gathered was then extrapolated to produce…
Multiple women have come forward accusing tech evangelist Robert Scoble of sexual harassment and assault. His former Rackspace colleague Michelle Greer and journalist Quinn Norton both accused Scoble of groping them in the early 2010s. Scoble responded to the accusations in an interview with USA Today, alleging that the sexual harassment happened at a time…
As you may have heard, California is recovering after a rash of deadly wildfires that forced a state of emergency in Los Angeles County last month and killed dozens up north. But with tragedy comes hoaxes. And though a jaw-dropping image of men golfing near an inferno in Washington last month was real, claims that…
As of approximately one hour ago, Reddit has begun a wave of new community bans, reminiscent of the culling during interim CEO Ellen Pao’s reign in 2015 that saw a handful of hate-based groups removed from the site. This time, Reddit’s leadership is taking aim at content and groups that incite violence, and the first…
Microsoft has killed off the Kinect seven years after the company first introduced the Xbox accessory that paved the way for 3D-tracking and virtual-assistant technologies that will soon be ubiquitous. But its groundbreaking approach to depth-sensing will live on through several products, including the iPhone X. Fast Company first reported Wednesday morning that Microsoft has…
Here’s the thing about quantum mechanics: it works on Earth, but how do we know that it works elsewhere—like in space? That requires testing it over and over again, building wild experiments that send particles all over the planet. After some new results, things still seem to check out. A key property of quantum mechanics—the…
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)—a Washington D.C.-based lobby group that boasts Google, Amazon, and Microsoft among its many clients—is telling governments to think twice about establishing laws to regulate AI. But given mounting safety, ethical, and social justice concerns, is that such a good idea? On Tuesday, ITI released its “AI Policy Principles,” in…
On Wednesday, anti-virus maker Kaspersky Lab continued its defense against accusations that it aided Russian intelligence in stealing classified docs from the NSA. The company released the results of its investigation of the incident and, if the report proves to be accurate, it certainly doesn’t make the NSA look good. Kaspersky’s investigation into the incident…
