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If you’re of a certain age and cultural predilection, you’ll remember Tower Records with great fondness. Founded in 1960, the store was a bulwark against normality for years and probably one of the best places to buy vinyl, tapes, CDs, books, and merch for all your favorite pre-Spotify bands. When it died 14 years ago,…
After making a name for himself going after Facebook’s and Google’s data practices, Austrian lawyer Max Schrems—and his advocacy group Noyb—is setting his sights on a new tech giant. According to two separate complaints his group filed with regulatory bodies based in Germany and Spain, the advertising tech that comes baked into Apple’s iPhones allows…
Last month, GitHub removed a popular tool that is used to download videos from websites like YouTube after it received a DMCA takedown notice from the Recording Industry Association of America. For a moment, it seemed that GitHub might throw developers under the bus in the same fashion that Twitch has recently treated its streamers.…
Bumble, the dating app behemoth that’s allegedly headed to a major IPO as soon as next year, apparently took over half a year to deal with major security flaws that left sensitive information its millions of users vulnerable. That’s according to new research posted over the weekend by cybersecurity firm Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) detailing…
Soon, Google will present you with a clear choice to disable smart features, like Google assistant reminders to pay your bills and predictive text in Gmail. Whether you like the Gmail mindreader function that autofills “all the best” and “reaching out,” or have long dreaded the arrival of the machine staring back from the void,:…
Despite being excellent tools for harvesting the free energy the sun is blasting towards our planet all day long, the solar panels you see dotting roofs and blanketing fields don’t really work with artificial light. But as researchers sought out new materials to improve the efficiency of solar photovoltaics, they also discovered these materials could…
Big Sur dropped last Thursday and so far, it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride. The issues started as soon as Thursday, with an outage on Apple’s servercausing some absurd download times or errors preventing users from installing Big Sur entirely. The problems persisted even after Apple said the issue had been fixed. (Yours…
Months after the launch of Warner Media’s mega-streaming service, HBO Max is finally coming to Fire TV devices. The app will officially begin rolling out to Fire TV devices, smart TVs, and Fire tablets beginning Nov. 17, Amazon announced Monday. That means Fire TV users will finally have access to Warner Media’s marquee streaming service…
For decades, people have wondered who would win in a battle of jetliner vs. bear. Over the weekend, we finally got an answer, and it might just break your heart. On Saturday night, a Boeing 737-700 hit a brown bear on the runway at the Yakutat Airport in Eastern Alaska, Anchorage Daily News reports. According…
Time. There’s never enough of it, so the more ways you can find to speed through the business of the day the better—and if you spend a good number of hours sat in front of a computer, then time-saving shortcuts for operating Windows can make a big difference to how much free time you find…
Parler, the social media network that describes itself as the “world’s premier free speech platform,” which is apparently another way to say a space for misinformation and conspiracy theories like QAnon, is unsurprisingly backed by conservative megadonor Rebekah Mercer, the Wall Street Journal has found. In a Saturday report, the Journal stated that Mercer was…
There’s been a mass exodus of conservatives from Twitter and Facebook amid complaints of censorship and “free speech” dog-whistling in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Many have found a new home on Parler, a platform founded in 2018 and reportedly backed by Trump donors that sells itself as “unbiased social media.” On Sunday,…
President Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time on Sunday that Democratic challenger Joe Biden won the election. He then agreed to a peaceful transition of power and wished good old “sleepy” Joe the best of luck during his White House tenure. Nah, I’m just kidding about that last part. God, remember when presidential elections…
These are trying times, and that can sometimes means that our brains just don’t function as well as they normally do. A member of the Amazon support team unfortunately learned this lesson in a very public way on Saturday when they stated that Northern Ireland was not a part of the United Kingdom. Spoiler: It…
The Trump administration, distracted by other important things, has apparently forgotten that it’s mad at Huawei. If this seems strange to you, it’s probably because we’ve all gotten used to hearing the government go on and on about how the Chinese telecommunications company is a threat to U.S. national security. But alas, these comments apparently…
Uber is in talks to sell its scandal–ridden self-driving vehicle branch, Advanced Technologies Group, according to a Friday TechCrunch report. And it looks like Aurora Innovation, a startup founded by veterans of the autonomous vehicle industry, is first in line to scoop up the “prize.” Sources familiar with the negotiations told the outlet that Uber…
Some sculptors work in marble; some in clay; and some in microscopic dots of resin shaped by lasers. Microlight3D, a company based in Grenoble, France, develops 2D and 3D microprinting systems. To commemorate the release of season two of The Mandalorian, and inspired by Jedi masters who use green lightsabers, the team decided to microprint…
Another one of Google’s virtual reality ventures is biting the dust. The company says it’s ending support for its VR educational app, Expeditions, next year, though it’ll fare far better than Google’s shuttered Daydream VR platform. Instead of discontinuing Expeditions completely, Google’s folding many of the app’s functions into its Arts & Culture app. It…
In the four years since it implemented an agreement to promote equitable treatment of its users, Airbnb claims that 1.4 million individuals have been barred from the platform because they declined to refuse bigotry. In an email to Gizmodo, a spokesperson confirmed that this is the number people who were asked to click “accept” on…
If your budget doesn’t allow for dropping hundreds of dollars on a pricey soundbar, smart devices that double as home theater speakers could offer a way to upgrade your setup on the cheap. Google recently unveiled its newest line of Nest Audio speakers, a $100 product that offers the best sound you can get from…
