Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
Members of the People’s Liberation Army desperate to drive to work with all the style and panache afforded by Elon Musk’s overhyped cars are apparently out of luck. Citing “national security” concerns, the Chinese government has reportedly banned the use of Tesla vehicles by state and military employees on certain government properties. Per reports from…
A slew of Amazon workers in Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland, Denver, and Southern California are looking into unionizing, emboldened by their Alabama coworkers’ high-profile union campaign, Bloomberg reported Friday. Amazon workers have been fighting to organize for years, citing backbreaking workloads, unsafe conditions amid the global covid-19 pandemic, dystopian workplace surveillance, and Amazon’s history of…
The FBI has amassed social media posts and encrypted text messages that implicate four senior members of the Proud Boys in a Jan. 6 plot to storm police barriers at the U.S. Capitol and stop members of Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory. In a superseding indictment on Friday targeting leaders of the notoriously violent…
If you thought last year’s clusterf*ck of a Senate hearing on social media was a good use of everyone’s time, congrats! The Senate is considering calling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and the rest of the gang back together for another hearing, this time before the Judiciary Committee. Per Politico, Senator Chris…
We’re probably never going to get the Edit Tweet button we’ve all been waiting for, but it looks like that Undo Tweet feature will be rolling out soon enough for members of the rumored upcoming Twitter subscription service. On Friday, tech researcher Jane Manchun Wong posted a screenshot from what seems to be a subscription…
In a study published last year, researchers with the National University of Singapore laid out what is essentially a high-tech solution for breaking and entering. The method, which is being called the “SpiKey” attack, is quite novel. It leverages acoustical analysis of the noises a key makes when it enters a lock to virtually simulate…
President Joe Biden’s administration is telling staffers that they absolutely have to have just said no to drugs—after telling them it was ok to have said yes to one specific drug every now and then. Per a report in the Daily Beast, “dozens” of White House staffers have been “suspended, asked to resign, or placed…
A seemingly rogue MoviePass website bearing the same styling of the now-defunct movie subscription service generated speculation earlier this week that the company may be making a comeback. Or, it was an extremely silly prank. It appears now that the latter is most likely the case. While the site bears the same style and appearance…
A new study in Nature suggests that shifting reader attention online can help combat the spread of inaccurate information. The study, published on March 17, 2021, found that while people prefer to share accurate information, it is difficult to convince the average social media user to seek it out before sharing. Adding a roadblock in…
Does anyone have the self-control to actually resist those shelves full of impulse purchase snacks at most checkouts? Apparently they do, because Mars Wrigley is stepping up its game with an autonomous robot that roams stores and tempts shoppers long before they head to the checkout. The robot was developed by Mars Wrigley and a…
It’s not every day that a new player enters the smartwatch game, so I was intrigued when OnePlus’s then-CEO Carl Pei hinted last summer that a wearable might be on the way. The rumors have been ramping up the past few weeks, and now we know what the watch will look like. After months of…
Earlier this week, stories emerged that some China-based advertising groups were coming up with their own clever workarounds for the new anti-tracking tech that Apple’s including with upcoming versions of iOS 14. Now it looks like Apple’s fighting back. On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Apple sent off warnings to at least two Chinese…
Federal prosecutors in Western Washington secured a grand jury indictment on Thursday against a Swiss national accused by the U.S. of hacking dozens of companies and government agencies. Tillie Kottman, a 21-year-old hacker, has reportedly taken credit for intrusions at major U.S. companies like Nissan and Intel, according to Bloomberg, which broke news of a…
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, commonly known as the QAnon Congresswoman, was temporarily suspended from Twitter on Friday. The social media crackdown coincided with the introduction of a resolution to expel the congresswoman from Georgia from the House, but Twitter claims its enforcement was an error. Rep. Greene has been a vocal peddler of grievance, victimhood,…
Samsung launched a new line of mid-range Galaxy A-series phones earlier this week, but now a new leaked roadmap may have just revealed what the South Korean tech giant has planned for the rest of the spring and summer. Assuming the roadmap, which appeared in a leaked graphic posted by Evan Blass on his Voice…
There’s no lack of speculation around Apple’s rumored AR headset, but the latest is the most sci-fi of them all. According to reliable Apple analyst Ming-chi Kuo, it’s possible the headset will eschew handheld controllers in favor of eye tracking and iris recognition. Per AppleInsider, Kuo’s investor note on the topic says the headset will…
For years, news of Barnes & Noble’s Nook line of e-readers and Android tablet being discontinued have surfaced again and again, but somehow the little-brand-that-could defies its own death with new hardware that brings it back from the brink of extinction. Today that comes in the form of a new 10-inch Nook tablet courtesy of…
The Apple HomePod is no more, but the HomePod Mini lives on.
Facebook, the social media behemoth that owns Instagram, is developing a new Instagram product for children under 13 years of age, according to leaked documents obtained by BuzzFeed. Instagram users must currently click a button declaring that they’re at least 13 years old, or that the account featuring a kid under the age of 13…
Uh oh. Why must Fox News host Sean Hannity panic and hide his vape from the world when the cameras come on, as he did last night? Why can’t Hannity just puff away as the cameras roll like Edward R. Murrow and Rod Serling, heroic TV men who were always seen with a cigarette in…