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Here’s something that you’d normally see in a post-apocalyptic, zombie TV show, only instead of a mysterious radio message luring Rick and the gang to a group of cannibals, it’s a road closure notice from Obama’s second presidential inauguration. According to The Drive, the same AM radio station in Washington, D.C. has been broadcasting the…
Nick Weaver has a dog in the 5G fight. Weaver’s company, Eero, went from making niche home-networking software to being bought out by Amazon in February 2019. Along the way, his startup became part of Amazon’s constellation of unwired home accessories that depend on wifi to connect to Amazon services and the Internet. Eero, which…
Deepfakes are getting better and better, but instead of wearing Tom Cruise’s face on a golf course, we decided to commemorate some amazing scientists (and one science fiction writer) by bringing them back to fleeting life using DeepNostaglia, a tool created by MyHeritage that breathes movement into old photos.
A year into the pandemic most of us have honed our daily routines into a regular pattern of YouTube bingeing and snacking. But munching on crunchy snacks often makes it impossible to hear a video. The solution isn’t to turn off our computers and attempt to re-enter society, but to install a new Chrome extension…
I know, I know. Another pair of open-ear audio smart glasses? Were the Bose Frames, Echo Frames, and JLab JBuds not enough? Nope. Not according to Razer, which just announced its Razer Anzu Smart Glasses. Well, at least the company chose a more interesting name than Frames. The Anzu are basically like every other audio…
LiquidVPN is now facing a lawsuit from pissed-off movie copyright holders
What appeared to be one of the most exciting features of iOS 14.5 turns out to work a little differently than it originally seemed. Last month, Redditors discovered that the iOS 14.5 beta presented a new menu when a user asked Siri to play music. That menu offered app alternatives for music playback, including Spotify,…
China’s ByteDance, is planning on launching its own version of audio chat app Clubhouse for the Chinese market, Reuters reported on Thursday. Clubhouse allows users to set up audio chat rooms, and is popular among Silicon Valley types (and a few far-right trolls who have taken advantage of its loose approach to moderation and hang…
In the latest in a string of “hits” on Russian dark web forums, the prominent crime site Maza appears to have been hacked by someone earlier this week. This is kind of big news since Maza (previously called “Mazafaka”) has long been a destination forall assortment of criminal activity, including malware distribution, money laundering, carding…
In a letter to the FCC Thursday morning, several senators called for the federal agency to redefine the current minimum speeds that internet service providers can call “high-speed” broadband from 25/3 Mbps to 100/100 Mbps. That’s not only four times higher than the minimum download speed, but senators are also calling for symmetrical download and…
As the industry continues to transition to wireless audio, Qualcomm has a plan to make the audio quality on Bluetooth headphones sound a little more like the sound you hear on wired ones. A new standard called Snapdragon Sound is designed to greatly upgrade the audio quality you get from mobile devices connected to today’s wireless…
Rumors of a new Sonos speaker have been swirling for a while now, and it seems every detail of the new Sonos Roam has been leaked ahead of its announcement. The Verge obtained images and specs for the $169 Roam, which is a waterproof portable speaker that looks to be a UE Boom 3, but,…
Samsung and Mastercard are officially teaming up on a credit card with a built-in fingerprint scanner, Samsung announced on Thursday. These so-called “biometric cards” will come baked in with a “several key discrete chips” from Samsung’s side, and are planned to be compatible with any point of sale (POS) terminal, or any terminal that currently…
WhatsApp on Thursday announced the introduction of voice and video calls on its desktop apps for Mac and PC, expanding the ways in which you can create the illusion of meaningful human interaction in this moment of crushing isolation. “With so many people still apart from their loved ones, and adjusting to new ways of…
Spotify and Apple Music are the two biggest players in the streaming music game, but thanks to a new deal valued at $297 million, Square is looking to change that tune by acquiring a majority stake in Tidal. In a series of tweets, Square founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (who is also the CEO of…
Sound travels faster and farther underwater because it’s denser than air, and that can make it harder for researchers trying to study marine life who get an early heads up to go into hiding. But a new underwater robot could move stealthily through the waves using a propulsion system that doesn’t rely on a propeller…
Regulators in the UK have launched a new antitrust investigation into Apple’s App Store, according to an announcement from Britain’s Competition and Market’s Authority on Thursday. And if the details sound similar to the European Union’s antitrust probes, that’s no accident. The UK will investigate the terms developers must agree to when they build software…
Seresto, a popular flea collar produced by the company Elanco Animal Health, has been tied to over 1,600 pet deaths in the U.S. alone since 2012, according to a new investigation by USA Today. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates flea collars and any other pet treatment containing pesticides, still refuses to act.…
If you want a good example of the kind of havoc a well-placed cyberattack can wreak on an already stressed healthcare system, look no further than the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services center in Gallup, N.M. Rehoboth, a nonprofit hospital based in the rural, Northwestern part of the state, was struck by a ransomware…
Arizona legislators just passed an anti-monopoly bill in a 31-29 vote, which could have big implications for Apple, Google, and, weirdly enough, Fortnite. Arizona House Bill HB2005 “restricts the ability of certain digital application distribution platforms to require use of a specific in-application payment system.” (You can read the text of the bill here.) This…
