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There are a lot of unusual things to do at DEF CON, the annual hacker conference that draws tens of thousands of security enthusiasts to Las Vegas in the depths of summer—you can learn to lockpick, go fed-spotting, or hack an internet-connected sex toy. But last year offered something new. Jeff Moss, the founder of…
Something weird is going on with human sperm production. For decades, scientists have warned that sperm counts are dropping among Western men, but no one has really been able to prove it. In what is now the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have presented compelling evidence in support of this rather…
Here it is, hiding halfway down the company’s latest press release, like a guillotine in a crowded town square: “Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash.” Boom. That’s the sound of the blade dropping, and Flash, finally, thankfully, mercifully dying. Because Adobe just killed it. It’s actually slightly more complicated than that. Adobe is working with…
Well, this is ugly: On Monday evening, international secret-sharing website WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange’s behavior of late has been slightly concerning, tweeted out what certainly looks like an Amazon burner account journalist Kurt Eichenwald used to write positive reviews of his own books back in the aughts. WikiLeaks’ animosity seems to have been inspired…
While tens of thousands of hackers gear up to attend hacker week in Las Vegas, UPS is taking basic precautions to protect itself from any malicious links. The Caesar’s Palace UPS store is warning hotel guest that its printing services will be limited in anticipation of DEF CON, the world’s oldest and largest hacker conference,…
Like a baseball player running to make a catch, dragonflies are also capable of predicting the trajectory of a moving object, typically its next meal. New research is revealing the mechanisms behind this complex cognitive task, which was once thought to be exclusive to mammals. It’s hoped that these insights will lead to innovations in…
Motorola stands alone. Last year LG and Google both killed their respective modular phones. So the new Moto Z2 Force, with its small array of magnetic attachments, is the closest thing we have to a smartphone with customizable modular hardware. No one actually wants this, but that’s not stopping Motorola from doubling down and insisting…
No one ever said playing football was good for your brain. By this point, most sports fans have heard that those who suffer repeated concussions could possibly also suffer early-onset dementia and other neurological symptoms. This, in fact, could have lead Kansas City Chiefs’ Jovan Belcher to kill his girlfriend and himself. https://deadspin.com/reports-kansas-city-chiefs-lb-jovan-belcher-killed-his-5964841 The leading…
At some point President Trump is going to forget about the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton’s emails and turn his attention to the nation’s business. But today is not that day. President Trump is awake, angry, and tweeting. And you can probably guess the topic. Yes, President Trump has been in office for over six…
For three years, self-proclaimed Olive Garden connoisseur Vincent “Vino” Malone has used his blog All of Garden to share his love for the Italian-American restaurant chain. But last week he was bit by the hand that feeds him when he received a cease-and-desist letter. Malone started his blog after Olive Garden released the first Never…
Losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton badly bruised President Trump’s ego—so much so that he’s cast doubt on the outcome of an election he won by repeatedly suggesting that three million votes cast were illegitimate. On Monday, efforts to combat the president’s newly formed voting commission were dealt a serious blow in court after…
There are security fuck-ups and there are legendary security fuck-ups. This one clearly falls into the latter category. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven confirmed at a press conference on Monday that his administration potentially exposed the personal information of millions of Sweden’s citizens. https://gizmodo.com/huge-trove-of-confidential-medical-records-discovered-o-1795104856 Normally, for a fuck-up to be legendary, it needs the benefit…
Fifty years ago the first Consumer Electronics Show was held in New York City, giving local nerds a sneak peek at all the electronic toys arriving in 1967. Twenty years later, Art Vuolo attended the ‘Summer’ edition of the trade show with a giant camera on his shoulder, giving us a wonderful time capsule of…
If you’re looking for a lesson in how not to respond to bug reports, look no further than Budapest, where the city’s public transit system is getting savaged on Facebook for snitching on a security researcher who discovered a flaw in its online ticketing site. Budapest’s public transit system, the Budapesti Közlekedési Központ (BKK), has…
What the fuck is going on in the front seat of this car? It may be something else or it may be exactly what it looks like. Aner Manuel, a stylist in Boston, claims he captured the video of his Uber driver being “intimate” with a woman while driving him in mid-July. Of course, this…
I ordered it on eBay. When the four-ounce envelope arrived from New York three days later, it looked innocuous enough. It contained a finger-sized black plastic box, a small black antenna to screw onto that box, and two glass fuses. It was designed to fit into a car’s 12-volt electrical socket (that thing that used…
Modest reductions in measles vaccination rates among US children are poised to produce an inordinate number of new cases of the disease, while increasing annual public health expenditures by at least $2.1 million, according to new research. “I think our study is a wake-up call for what we can expect in the coming months and…
The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximize efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning…
Jared Kushner, the senior advisor and son-in-law of President Donald Trump, released a statement on Monday morning to the House and Senate intelligence committees—his first comments publicly regarding his interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign. He denied any wrongdoing. During the transition, Kushner reportedly met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak for the purpose of…
A South African shark-watching hotspot has recently turned into the scene of a seaside horror movie. For several months, enormous great white shark corpses have been washing up on the Gansbaai beaches, often missing their livers as if feasted upon by cetacean Hannibal Lecters. But this is no movie—it’s just biology, ruthless as ever. This…
