Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
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…
iOS 11 comes with a pretty sweet array of augmented reality tricks. Unfortunately, one thing that is less real than before in the new operating system is user controls for wireless connectivity. According to a report in Motherboard, iOS 11’s Control Center app which swipes up from the bottom of the screen gives the appearance…
According to a long-in-the-works report from Vanity Fair, Peter Thiel is in discussions to head what one insider described as the “only meaningful executive-branch oversight of the intelligence community.” Numerous officials, including Steve Bannon, confirmed this, and one of Thiel’s chief concerns is reportedly the sweeping powers that companies like Google and Amazon have amassed.…
If you’ve heard of Knightscope’s security robots, it was probably due to their high-profile failures: one would-be Robocop failed to detect a staircase and killed itself by driving into a water fountain, another ran over a toddler’s foot in a shopping mall. On Wednesday, Knightscope announced two new potential fuckups were joining the force: the K1 and the K5…
The first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in Puerto Rico since 1932 is leaving its mark on the tropical Caribbean island, packing extreme winds and knocking out power to all 3.4 million residents. Maria has been downgraded to a Category 3 storm, with winds topping 115 mph (185 km/h). The eye has moved past…
Democrats in the House and Senate are pushing the Federal Election Commission to develop new rules governing political advertising on social media after Facebook revealed that Russian trolls routinely purchased ads on its platform during the 2016 election cycle. “Foreign nationals were shown to have routinely deployed sophisticated tactics in making political expenditures to evade…
Amazon, as you may have heard, needs another base of operations. Rather than pick the best geographic location, Jeff Bezos dangled a substantial carrot in front of North America’s metropolitan centers: $5 billion in investment, and up to 50,000 jobs. Over 100 urban centers have already bent over backwards to submit their most enticing proposals…
Equifax’s response to its data breach has been a total shitshow, something the company seems determined to remind us of each and every day. For nearly two weeks, the company’s official Twitter account has been directing users to a fake lookalike website, the sole purpose of which is to expose Equifax’s reckless response to the…
Everybody seemed excited about Nest’s big event on Wednesday. New products! Several of them! New direction! Much needed for a company plagued with security flaws, product defects, and loads of other problems. But the most innovative thing that Nest announced was an alarm. Literally, a box that makes a loud noise. It’s called the Nest…
Last weekend, a user calling themselves yellows8, posted an intriguing discovery to SwitchBrew.org, a site dedicated to finding ways to hack the Nintendo Switch. Hidden on every Switch console is a mysterious game called Flog, which turns out to be an emulated version of the 1984 NES game Golf upgraded with motion controls. An even…
Juicero, the startup that brought us $399 cold press juice machines that work as good as your bare hands, shut down earlier this month. While his company was being squeezed dry, founder Doug Evans reportedly posted a video of himself vanishing into a sandstorm at Burning Man. And now, a few weeks later, Evans has…
Earlier this year, hundreds of companies began to publicly flee participation in the alt-right website Breitbart’s marketing network. One of those companies was Uber. But in a new lawsuit, Uber claims that its contracted advertising agency fraudulently continued to place ads on Breitbart, and the case seems poised to rock the seedy world of digital…
Poison aside, frogs are generally weak and pathetic. Dinosaurs, meanwhile, range from weak and pathetic to huge and strong, so I’m going to say they’re generally “not weak.” But 70 million years ago, things were different. Extinct species of frogs like the Beelzebufo ampinga grew to be ten pounds in size. Maybe they even ate…
Marine archaeologists have discovered a German submarine off the coast of Belgium in the North Sea. The U-boat dates back to the First World War, and its near-pristine condition suggests the remains of all 23 sailors are still inside. The Associated Press reports that the German Type UB II submarine was discovered by Tomas Termote, a…
When it comes to smart speakers, Amazon’s Alexa is already out to a big lead. But with refreshed Home speakers coming from Google not to mention Apple, Sonos, and others soon to be joining the fray with their own sound systems featuring built-in digital assistants, Amazon has no time to rest on its laurels. To…
In August, the Department of Justice reportedly launched a preliminary investigation into Uber to look into whether the ride-sharing service violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. An Uber spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company was cooperating with the investigation, and a new report indicates that Uber has already dug up some shady…
Male ducks have some of the weirdest junk in nature—a ludicrously long, corkscrew-shaped member that evolved on account of an ongoing battle of the sexes. New research shows that the social environment in which the male duck finds himself in has a pronounced effect on the length of his penis, a finding that may finally…
On Tuesday, numerous Amazon users noticed something strange: They’d received emails from the retailer notifying them “someone great recently purchased a gift from your baby registry!” Strange because few of the customers who had received the emails were pregnant or had newborns, let alone had an active baby registry on the site. Some users were…
