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You know what’s cool about finding someone you’re actually into? Holding hands. Making out. Gazing into each other’s (actual) eyes. You know where you can’t do these things? In the void. So why the hell are people proposing in virtual reality? For some inexplicable reason, people keep taking a tender moment and strapping some hardware on…
Facebook will share political ads linked to a Russian troll farm with Congress, in a reversal of its earlier claim that it could not share the ads because of its obligation to protect user privacy. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the change today on Facebook Live, as well as several other changes the company is making…
The European Commission paid €360,000 (about $428,000) for a study on how piracy impacts the sales of copyrighted music, books, video games, and movies. But the EU never shared the report—possibly because it determined that there is no evidence that piracy is a major problem. The Dutch firm Ecory was commissioned to research the impact…
Back in April, at Facebook’s annual developer conference, the company announced an ambitious—and very creepy!—plan to read its users’ minds. Facebook’s secretive hardware R&D division, Building 8, planned to develop its own “brain-to-computer interface” hardware that would allow a user to send words straight from her brain to a computer by merely thinking. But until…
He was just seven-and-a-half when he died some 49,000 years ago, an otherwise healthy Neanderthal boy whose cause of death remains a mystery. An analysis of his well-preserved skeleton is providing new insights into how these extinct humans developed and matured, revealing an extended period of growth in certain aspects compared to modern humans. Like…
On or shortly after this Tuesday in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, the founder and CEO of Facebook will take the stand for the second time this year. Unlike the intellectual property case against Zenimax that forced Facebook to cough up $500 million, Mark Zuckerberg stands to lose some of the control he’s maintained over his…
I am, admittedly, a very weak swimmer, and at this point in my life I don’t see myself signing up for Summer swim lessons. So I completely endorse this alternative approach to getting comfortable in the water: building a jet-powered wet suit that lets you cruise faster than Michael Phelps. On land, the suit is…
We’ve seen a lot of data breaches this year: some big, some small, some that are dangerous, and some that are just embarrassing. But if we were to name one as the creepiest data breach of 2017, this leak of logins for car tracking devices might take the cake. The Kromtech Security Center recently found…
Colin Furze is back with another bizarre invention that will make you wonder why more mad scientists haven’t embraced YouTube yet. This time he’s turned a BMW E30 into a drivable hot tub, complete with a pair of leaf blowers used to generate bubbles, and a barbecue grill in the trunk. Not only did the…
The playground you frequented as a kid was probably blanketed in sand to help soften the impact every time you tumbled off the jungle gym. But did you know that something magical happens when you pump a pile of sand full of air? It suddenly enters a liquid-like state. The effect is known as fluidization,…
Uber has rightfully taken heat for its past privacy overreaches: tracking riders after they get dropped off, tracking Lyft drivers, tracking and circumventing law enforcement, tracking critical journalists. Lots of tracking in situations where people expected not to be tracked! All that unanticipated tracking made a bunch of people mad at Uber, and Uber has…
Facebook founder and NASCAR enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg likes a lot of things. He likes Facebook. He likes being in charge of Facebook. He even likes talking about how much he likes being in charge of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg does not, however, like it when reporters publish embarrassing but true details about how he runs his…
When Avast announced that 2.27 million people had downloaded a malware-riddled copy of its performance optimization software CCleaner, it was initially believed that a second payload—that can control a system—was never delivered to victims. It’s now clear that wasn’t the case, and it appears the attackers may have been targeting tech firms for the purposes…
Your childhood fantasies of soaring through the air like Iron Man or Superman will seem far less fantastic after this sobering first-person footage of a drone racing alongside a moving cargo train reveals just how terrifying (and slightly nauseating) it would be to actually fly. Pilot Paul Nurkkala is at the controls of this custom camera-equipped…
Is it a phone? Or maybe a tablet with removable gamepads kind of like a Nintendo Switch? No one really knows, but Razer has been rumored to be working on a mobile gaming gaming device for quite some time now, and according to a new interview between CNBC and Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan, it seems…
White water rapids are Mother Nature’s way of telling humans to find another route to their destination. Even with proper safety gear like a helmet and life jacket, navigating tumultuous currents like this is a risky thrill. But it gets exponentially more dangerous when you stack six rafts atop each other and attempt to shoot…
Lasers are the future of war. And if this new video by defense company Lockheed Martin is any indication, that future is pretty damn close. Lockheed released a video showing off its latest tests of the 30-kilowatt class ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset) laser weapons system at the White Sands Missile Range in New…
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has disclosed that hackers accessed sensitive information from its systems about publicly traded companies. And while the SEC has so far been tight-lipped about what kind of fallout the hack will have, the agency acknowledges that the hackers have probably conducted trades using the information. The revelation from the…
Citizen, the extremely dubious rebranding of Vigilante—an app which notifies users of 911 reports near them and encourages them to go out and shoot videos of the crimes and their aftermath—has somehow managed to acquire a new round of eight-figure funding. Per Government Technology, Citizen has raised $12.2 million in Series A funding from 32…
After a string of decent phones that failed to sell and a stock price that plunged so low the company was de-listed from the largest Taiwanese stock index, we finally know what’s happening to HTC. Google ends months of speculation, but not by buying HTC, as previously rumored. Rather, Google is purchasing the HTC staff…
