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AccuWeather sneakily got access to your location data, even when you turn off location access to its app. But after getting called out by a security researcher, the company is going to knock it off. Security researcher Will Strafach discovered that Accuweather’s iOS app partners with a service called Reveal Mobile, which uses an iPhone’s…
You may be familiar with the Big Buck Hunter bonus level where you pump a few dozen rounds into salmon flopping out of the river while grizzlies look on. This is not an especially good bonus level (I prefer the one with the basketballs or the electric eels), but it would be much worse if…
Reading science news all day can be real grim. Animals are dying, the climate is changing, the nuke’s a coming, yadda yadda. But sometimes (in fact, often) scientists do something that’s just neat, important, and won’t keep you up at night—that is, if you’re cool with photosynthesizing cyborg bacteria. Photosynthesis is a process by which…
Axon (the company formerly known as Taser) claims that their stun guns have only directly killed 24 people, and that those deaths were due to falls or fires related to the strikes, not because of shocks to the body. But a new investigative report by Reuters found 1,005 cases in the United States where a…
As Uber and Waymo frantically prepare for the October trial over self-driving technology, we’re getting more and more insight into what went on in the months leading up to Uber’s $680 million acquisition of the autonomous trucking startup Otto. Text messages between Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, as well as…
If your efforts to track down long-lost relatives and obscure musicians (or anyone else you’re looking for on the web) stop at Googling their name then you’ve come to the right place. Here’s how to seriously go about searching for people online, including some advice from the professionals who do it for a living, and…
German police confiscated some 5,000 orange ecstasy tablets shaped like Donald Trump’s head last weekend. That’s over $45,000 worth of fun drugs that European nightclub-goers will not be enjoying this August. Sad! But seriously, the pills are really funny-looking. The design is clearly Trump’s face, although it looks little bit like Trump’s face mixed with…
In The Martian, Matt Damon used his own shit to fertilize potatoes and survive the Red Planet. While we all know Matt Damon isn’t actually an astronaut, we do know that human excrement is very much real—and it could be integral to getting real humans to Mars in the near future. Researchers from Clemson University…
And the great telecom throttling wars of 2017 have begun. Back in July, Verizon customers noticed that the quality of video streams was being manipulated. Verizon insisted that it was just running a test. Then the company got trounced by T-Mobile (which already throttles video on mobile) in an overall speed test, and now, all…
Are you one of the four people who owns a Sony phone in the United States? Well get excited because you could be owed up to $300. That’s thanks to a new settlement that will see Sony paying owners of Xperia phones due to some less than accurate advertising. One of the reasons Sony phones…
Will a time come when the right doesn’t actively try to deceive its own base? Perhaps. But this weekend wasn’t it. Antifa—short for anti-fascist action—has grown in notoriety since the election of Donald Trump. Supporters see it as the front line in street-level protests against racism. But in the minds of the far-right, antifa are…
In a rare instance of a record company doing the right thing, Sony became the first major label to legalize unofficial remixes and DJ mixes. It’s not like DJs were ever going to stop borrowing copyrighted samples for remixes. Remixes can’t be stopped! But now, finally, you’re going to start seeing more remixes on Spotify…
While playing the “just one more episode” game with Netflix last night, I noticed a tweet from a former coworker: Best Buy, it seemed, had opened up pre-orders for the SNES Classic. Nintendo’s followup to the much sought-after NES-themed nostalgia box was sure to sell out quickly. But the hard part was getting Best Buy…
In Julius Horsthuis’ short film Recurrence, he takes the audience on a slow descent into a sprawling metropolis he’s created. But as you get closer and closer to the city, and try to make out details like houses and skyscrapers, you start to realize that those tiny details only reveal more of the same, and that…
Pro-Trump rallies that were originally being planned for roughly 37 locations across the US have been canceled. The rallies, scheduled for September 9th, were being coordinated by ACT For America, a pro-Trump and anti-Muslim hate group best known for its “March Against Sharia” back in June. The group said it will instead hold online demonstrations.…
Flying is terrible these days. It flat-out sucks. From ballooning lines to get through security procedures that mostly don’t work to random fees and seats so small analysts believe they may be safety hazards, it’s really just not a pleasant way to spend your time. So news that a British Airways passenger who paid nearly…
Astronomers, doctors and other experts alike are in total agreement on one point—don’t stare at a solar eclipse without eye protection unless you want to damage your vision or go blind, you goddamn idiot. This warning was in large part heeded by all but the very uninformed or the very impulsive, categories which both naturally…
Congratulations to those of you who used proper solar eclipse glasses and witnessed the phenomenon without permanently damaging your vision. Good job! But now you’re probably wondering what to do with those flimsy pieces of cardboard and black polymer that were basically priceless just hours ago. Fortunately, Astronomers Without Borders has offered to take them…
For months, even years, amateur astronomers, photographers, and anyone wanting the best possible view of today’s solar eclipse have been planning trips into the phenomenon’s path of totality. Now that it’s over, all that’s left are millions of grainy Instagram photos—and a traffic nightmare that traces the same path as the eclipse’s shadow. Twitter’s @dicktoblerone…
If you’re reading this post, congratulations on following basic instructions and not burning out your retinas while watching today’s eclipse. For a few hours, folks across America could put aside the myriad horrors of this year and stare at the hot ball of gas literally keeping us all alive. It was actually quite pleasant! Now…
