Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Fifty-eight people were killed in the Las Vegas massacre last week, the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Seventeen guns were found in gunman Stephen Paddock’s hotel room, including a dozen that had been modified with a “bump stock,” an added part that allowed the guns to fire more rapidly. And up until today,…
In case the lack of new phones or software updates didn’t already clue you in, Microsoft has shut down any efforts to keep Windows Mobile 10 alive. On Twitter, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Windows Joe Belfiore stated that the company is no longer actively developing new features or hardware for the platform, and that…
Perhaps you’ve been using the same browser since you first unboxed your phone, or perhaps you switch between them on a weekly basis: There are just as many choices for browsers on mobile as there are on desktop and each runs a little differently. Below we’ve run through every major browser available—from stalwarts like Chrome…
Russian actors spent tens of thousands of dollars on Google ads meant to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election, the Washington Post reported on Monday. Citing employees “familiar” with Google’s internal investigations, the Post reports that these ads, which appeared on Gmail and YouTube, “do not appear to be from the same… troll farm…
There are currently 96,559 candidates on the list awaiting a kidney transplant in the US. In major cities, the average wait is five to ten years. For those on the list, there are meager options to get off it. They could receive a kidney donation from a relative or a friend. Internationally, some have opted…
Traveling to the United States can be a huge hassle. Even if you’re an American citizen, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can pull you aside for extensive and invasive “secondary screening.” And by all accounts, this process has gotten worse since Donald Trump was elected. But it was horrible even before Trump gained power. How…
BlackBerry put an end to its long-simmering hardware misery and stopped designing new phones in 2016, opting to move entirely into the software sector. Yet the actual BlackBerry brand continues to shuffle along in the form of a partnership with Chinese company TCL, which earlier this year released the BlackBerry KeyOne, a moderately successful throwback…
Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, defended his employer against “coverage of our recent issues driven by stereotypes of our employees and attacks against fantasy, strawman tech cos.” in a lengthy tweetstorm on Saturday. Stamos was responding to Lawfare editor Quinta Jurecic, who criticized Facebook’s decision to have human editors oversee more ads as a…
Project Loon, the former Google X Lab enterprise to provide mobile data to rural areas and disaster zones via high-altitude weather balloons now run by Google’s parent company Alphabet, may soon get another major test drive. Per Engadget, the FCC issued an “emergency license” for X to deploy its technology to Puerto Rico, where the…
Divers with Danish police have located “the decapitated head, legs and clothes” of Kim Wall, the Swedish journalist who disappeared during a ride on Copenhagen Suborbitals co-founder Peter Madsen’s DIY UC3 Nautilus submarine, the Associated Press reported. Madsen originally claimed the submarine went down due to a “minor problem with a ballast tank” that subsequently…
US officials are denying accusations raised in an incredible BuzzFeed News report published Friday, in which a senior US Treasury official accused the intelligence arm of the Treasury Department of illegally spying on US citizens. A Senate source now tells Gizmodo that department officials may be called to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee over the…
A Florida man has been arrested for running a parody Twitter account impersonating a Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson—a story we’ve already seen play out with two similar cases over the past few years. Although it has never ended well for authorities, police officers arrested 48-year-old Ernesto Orsetti on Wednesday at his Miami Beach home, the…
Less than five light years away sit three stars orbiting each other. You probably remember that one of them, Proxima Centauri, has a planet orbiting in its habitable zone—which got us really excited about the possibility of life. But what if that star was stolen? That’s a real possibility, according to new evidence from a…
NEAR AN ART GALLERY IN CHELSEA – It was an unseasonably warm October afternoon, and Jony Ive was about to go on stage with The New Yorker’s David Remnick to talk about who knows what. I got there early, chugged a ginger ale, and hustled past a buffet of expensive-looking sushi to get a seat…
It’s commonly known as the “sports effect,” the “soap opera effect,” “motion smoothing,” or “motion interpolation” and it makes sports on your TV look great, while movies look… weird. TV manufacturers turn this setting on by default and all too often it just gets left that way. Now, James Gunn is getting his Hollywood buddies…
Luck doesn’t strike daily. Sometimes you lose your wallet, trip up the stairs, get into a car accident, or drop your iPhone and crack the screen. But sometimes you get lucky. Your scratch off card has a five dollar prize. You find out that your young nephew, not your dog, ate the dark chocolate bar…
Casey Neistat is miffed. On October 2 he took to YouTube (the video above) to announce a GoFundMe fundraiser for the victims of the shooting in Las Vegas. He added that any ad revenue earned from the video’s 1.3 million and counting views would go directly to the victims as well. YouTube, citing a policy…
An innovative surgical glue developed by researchers from the United States and Australia seals wounds quickly and without the need for staples or stitches. The squirtable substance could eventually be used in surgeries and in emergency situations, though it still needs to be tested on humans. It’s called MeTro, and it was developed by researchers…
Those towering wind turbines that are slowly starting to cover countrysides around the world don’t just show up overnight—and they’re definitely not dropped in place by a helicopter. They arrive on trucks in pieces—staggeringly massive pieces—that test the skills of drivers navigating roads not designed to accommodate 200-foot long trailers. Even with the ability to…
Mattel is cancelling Aristotle, a device described as “Alexa for kids,” after facing criticism from lawmakers and parents’ groups. In a statement, Mattel said Aristotle did not “fully align with Mattel’s new technology strategy” and would not bring the device to market “as part of an ongoing effort to deliver the best possible connected product…
