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After reportedly calling the requirements of a new Russian law a security threat and threatening to pull out of the country, Apple caved and decided to let Russia have its way, saying it would allow users to install government-approved Russian apps during iPhone setup. In recent days, we’ve gotten a first glimpse of what that…
If you have a Facebook account, you should probably be keeping your guard up in the near future. A new report states that a hacker has posted the private information, including phone numbers, birthdays, and locations, of more than 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries online for free. According to Insider, the hacker was…
After lying about the fact that some of its workers are under so much pressure that they are forced to relieve themselves in bottles in order to meet their quotas, Amazon has quietly said it’s sorry in its own very weird way and acknowledged that drivers do in fact do this. It then promptly pointed…
The online pinboard site Pinterest is reportedly in talks to scoop up VSCO, a photo-editing and sharing app that you may remember for inspiring a teen subculture back in 2019. Negotiations remain ongoing, two sources with knowledge of the matter told the New York Times, and there’s still no word on a possible price for…
Federal investigators began looking into Florida U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz following a mysterious after-hours visit to a Florida tax agency where a former local official was allegedly churning out fake IDs, the Daily Beast reports. Little did they know that was just the tip of the iceberg. Gaetz now faces a Justice Department probe into…
Rumors about the next model of Apple’s fan-favorite compact smartphone are already in full effect, though it could be well over a year before we see one. Analyst Ross Young posted to Twitter on April 1—grain of salt, etc.—that the next iPhone SE will arrive in 2022 with the same 4.7-inch form factor as the…
Spotify’s long-rumored Car Thing device has emerged once again—this time in some iOS code. Spotify first announced that it was testing a “voice-controlled music and podcast device” called Car Thing back in 2019. Spotify was pretty specific at the time that its “focus remains on becoming the world’s number one audio platform—not on creating hardware,”…
A few people have asked me when we’re going to hear the results of the Bessemer, Alabama union election. The short answer is maybe next week. The long answer, factoring in appeals and litigation, is maybe months. In a more soapbox-y sense, the effects could unfold over years. This is a landmark moment, catalyzed in…
The former employee of a Kansas-based water treatment facility is facing decades in prison after allegedly having broken into the plant’s computer systems two years ago. Wyatt A. Travnichek, 22, is accused of gaining “unauthorized access” to the internal workings of the Ellsworth Rural Water District No. 1 on March 27, 2019, according toan indictment…
LexisNexis—the data-harvesting company that you might know as a key tool for researchers and reporters across a cavalcade of industries—has signed a $16.8 million contract with Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE), the Intercept reported on Friday. The contract was initially scoped out by Mijente, a Lantinx advocacy group that had previously critiqued major tech companies…
Most internet service providers impose data caps, and as of today, you can add one more to the list. Ars Technica reports cable company WideOpenWest (WOW!), an ISP that once bragged about its unlimited data plans, is now imposing data caps on its customers. WOW!, which provides internet service to customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia,…
Google’s next Pixel phones will reportedly be the company’s first devices powered by its own homemade chip, internally called the “GS101” Whitechapel. According to documentation reviewed by 9to5Google, Whitechapel is used in conjunction with the codename “Slider,” which is a reference to the Google Camera app. It seems likely that Slider is a shared platform…
Making electronic music can often be a mind-numbing experience of endlessly turning dials and pushing buttons. To make the process more interesting, and to make it appealing to aspiring musicians, Belgium-based Atonal Circuits has created a 16-step sequencer that’s programmed by simply attaching Lego bricks. The A02 Brick Sequencer features four tracks with 16 steps…
Uber was ordered to pay more than $1.1 million on Thursday as part of an arbitration case brought on by a passenger with vision loss saying that she—and her guide dog—were repeatedly denied rides by drivers working for the ride-hailing giant. The woman at the center of the case, Lisa Irving, first filed a complaint…
With Thomas Bangalter clearly being blown to pieces in an epilogue video shared on the group’s YouTube channel in late February, Daft Punk is officially no more. Tributes to the duo keep rolling in, and Fabricio H. Franzoli’s take might be the best yet, with a set of arcing Tesla coils programmed to play Around…
Following a recent spate of new phones from OnePlus, Vivo, Xiaomi, and others, now it seems like Sony is up next with plans to release a new Xperia phone on April 14. Sony recently tipped its hand when it updated the banner on the Xperia YouTube page while also reportedly sending out invites to members…
You know that liquid gold at the bottom of an instant noodle cup? As intensely delicious as it may seem, it’s got more sodium than a salt mine, and really shouldn’t be slurped. To make it less messy to dispose of, Nissin, the company behind the iconic Cup Noodle, now includes a packet of seemingly…
Bread slicers weren’t exactly the safest things around in the middle of the 20th century. That open blade is just begging for someone’s hand to slip. But OSHA issues aside, it’s fascinating to watch a simple, beautiful machine like this get restored. The 16-minute video, first spotted by Digg, was produced for YouTube by LADB…
Australia’s federal government is considering a proposal to require internet users to submit several forms of identification before they’re allowed to obtain or even just maintain social media accounts on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, according to shocking reports from several news outlets in Australia. The extraordinary proposal seeks to ban all anonymous commenting on…
Let me start right off the bat with the disclaimer that this is not an April Fool’s joke. Atari, or rather, the corporate entity that now runs the shell of the beleaguered video game company, has jumped on the non-fungible token hype train to shamelessly cash in on that arcade nostalgia. The NFTs, “limited edition”…
