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The willingness of digital forensics firms to sell to pretty much any paying law enforcement agency, regardless of the country’s human rights record, has stirred up no minor amount of controversy. These tools, critics say, allow bad governments expansive, invasive powers, and may be used in the course of investigations that illegitimately target activists or…
Hot on the heels of Apple’s AirTags launch, Amazon announced that it’s expanding its Sidewalk network with Tile, smart lock company Level, and elder care smartwatch maker CareBand. The news is the biggest expansion of Amazon Sidewalk since it was announced last year, and offers a glimpse into how the company envisions this device-to-device network…
The best way to ensure you’re always comfortable when you head outdoors is to layer your outfit so you can strip some clothing away when you’re hot, or add more when you’re cold. But what if one garment could work both ways? That’s what scientists are promising with a new engineered material that heats on…
Elon Musk, richer than God and therefore a trusted source of investment advice for mortals, has pivoted now to offer some sober advice about the dangers of meme currencies. He provides previously unshared information: Doge’s only tangible value is hype, and HODLers may reach price discovery and then realize they’ve gambled on the sustainability of…
I can’t explain why I adopted a virtual pet while also navigating the wild world of new parenthood, though maybe it has something to do with our species’ penchant for falling back on the familiar. The pandemic added to the chaos of life with a newborn, so I found myself drawn to anything nerdy and…
Despite being announced back in the fall of 2019 and having already suffered from multiple delays, a new report is claiming that Windows 10X won’t ship in 2021 and possibly may never see an official retail launch. The latest on Windows 10X’s development comes from longtime Windows insider Brad Sams at Petri, who according to…
After nearly two long years of waiting, the Federal Trade Commission released its “Nixing the Fix” report on restrictions employed by manufacturers on product repairs. Folks, it does not mince words, saying there is “scant evidence” justifying the obstacles companies put in place to limit consumers’ options when it comes to repairs. The lengthy report…
If you’re going to miniaturize and portabilize a Wii, it only makes sense to draw inspiration from Nintendo’s own handheld consoles for the finished. So YouTube’s ‘StonedEdge’ created their Wii SPii with a folding screen design reminiscent of the Game Boy Advance SP, but with considerably more horsepower under the hood. Unlike GmanModz’ world’s smallest…
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled several models of Kidde-brand TruSense smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors sold in 2019 and 2020 according to a press release from the government agency. The alarms may fail to alert people in the event of a fire, which is kind of the whole point of the…
The idea of a pizza vending machine doesn’t sound half bad, but setting up one in Italy, where they practically invented pizza? Now that’s a recipe for disaster. One of Rome’s first automatic pizza dispensers, “Mr. Go Pizza,” was recently installed in Piazza Bologna. In three minutes, it cooks four different types of pizza costing…
If you decide you’re game enough to use Twitter’s new feature to send strangers on the internet money, do your best not to accidentally send them your residential address, too. To explain, you may have heard something about “Tip Jar,” which the company soft launched Thursday, heralding it as a way “for people to send…
It seems like every internet meme is getting the NFT treatment these days. The latest is “David After Dentist,” one of YouTube’s earliest viral videos. In 2008, David DeVore recorded his then-seven-year-old son, David Jr., babbling now-iconic lines like “Is this real life?” in a medication-fueled haze after a tooth extraction. The video has racked…
After recalling both of its treadmills, Tread and Tread+, Peloton is working on fixes to get the machines back on the market. One, a software update that will require a pin passcode to unlock the treadmills, will roll out in the coming days. But hardware fixes will also be necessary for both machines, and Peloton…
The Federal Aviation Administration is upping its “zero tolerance” war on pandemic passengers who disrupt flights by refusing to wear masks. In a press release on Wednesday, the agency proposed fines of $9,000 to $32,750 against three violators of the mandatory policy. The $32,750 fine may hit a JetBlue Airlines passenger flying from the Dominican…
TikTok, a gathering place for the victims of moldavite’s curse and misfired hexes, is now also your source for mystic strings of numbers 4 manifesting the elusive blessings of the universe. The kids are sharing Grabovoi numbers, the cheat codes 2 the universe. If you think on them hard enough, the numbers will bring you…
A recently discovered vulnerability inside Qualcomm-produced phone chips could be exploited to gain access to data on affected devices, allowing an intruder to snoop on phone calls and text messages. The bug, which was discovered and disclosed by security firm Check Point Research, may be exploitable on a whopping 30 percent of the world’s phones.…
A new printing system called Forust is using scrap wood to 3D print wooden objects that are as structurally sound as regular carved wood. Created by Andrew Jeffery and a team of researchers at Desktop Metal, the system prints using fine sawdust that is formed into solid objects. “Since we began in 2019, our focus…
Informants working for the FBI committed more than 9,600 crimes under the bureau’s supervision during President Trump’s first two years in office, according to unclassified government reports. The so-called “Otherwise Illegal Activity” reports, obtained first by Gizmodo, detail the number of crimes committed by what the bureau calls “confidential human sources.” The name of the…
A group backed by the largest internet service providers in the U.S. secretly funded the submission of millions of fraudulent comments opposing federal net neutrality rules, according to a report published Thursday by the New York Office of the Attorney General that surprises absolutely no one. The campaigns were, the OAG said, part of an…
For those who find reading a foreign film’s subtitles too distracting, movies are often dubbed into different languages. But that can be equally distracting when the movements of an actor’s mouth are completely out of sync with what they’re saying. So a company called Flawless has created an AI-powered solution that will replace an actor’s…
