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Today, when you see an eerie child lift a toy with its mind in some hackneyed ‘80s-horror homage, you can be reasonably certain that kid is supposed to be special in some way. A hundred years from now, that might not translate. A hundred years from now, kids of all kinds—fictional and non-fictional; eerie and…
Normally I’m one to give credit where credit is due. But when you’re talking about a company with Facebook’s extensive laundry list of screwups, a healthy dose of side-eye is in order whenever its execs are quick to start patting themselves on the back for integrity. It’s like, OK guys, so you’re working on not…
To no one’s surprise, it seems like Samsung doesn’t want to give Apple too much time in the limelight. At least, that’s one possible reason the company could be gearing up to launch its new Galaxy S21 line in January, which is earlier than expected. If you’re curious as to what the Galaxy S21 and…
When Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of political news, the company’s engineers intentionally designed the system to disproportionately impact left-leaning outlets, effectively choking off their traffic in the process. According to a Wall Street Journal report this week, Facebook bigwigs at the time were concerned about how these changes…
For years, Tesla, as well as its eccentric founder and CEO Elon Musk, proudly proclaimed to recent customers that if they were unhappy with the vehicle they had just purchased, they could simply return it. The catch? Hardly anything. It just had to be done within seven calendar days. That was then. Now, as reported…
Simone Giertz, the self-proclaimed Queen of Shitty Robots, has used her time in quarantine wisely to create the kind of serotonin injection we could all use right about now: a paw-operated (pawperated?) photo booth for her dog. It essentially works like a Pavlovian selfie, only instead of ringing a bell, Giertz trained her dog Scraps…
The same Chinese government-linked hackers who targeted the campaigns of both 2020 presidential candidates earlier this year have been trying to trick users into installing malware by posing as the antivirus provider McAfee and using otherwise legitimate online services like GitHub and Dropbox. Shane Huntley, the head of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, offered new details about the…
Agility Robotics has announced a $20 million funding round for a robot that looks like a Greek myth crossed with a cyberpunk fever dream. The robot, called Digit, is designed to work alongside meat humans in environments where people congregate but that might be difficult for robots to manage. “Digit, Agility Robotics’ humanoid robot with…
It’s hard to believe that the 2020 election is just 18 days away, which may count for the inexorable sense of doom hanging over everything, or the sensation of that time is warping like the event horizon of a black hole. Before we’re smashed into an accretion disk, you might as well catch up on…
In what can only be described as a self-own, Google has released a YouTube Music app for the Apple Watch… before making an equivalent version for its own smartwatch platform, Wear OS. This is striking for a number of reasons. For starters, Google’s been working on rolling out a number of integrations for YouTube Music.…
Owners of the brand-new Oculus Quest 2—the first VR headset which requires a Facebook account to use—are finding themselves screwed out of their new purchases by Facebook’s account verification system. As first reported by UploadVR this week, some Oculus 2 owners are finding that Facebook’s reportedly AI-powered account verification system is demanding some users upload…
President Trump’s Twitter account has been the subject of several legal conundrums over the last few years, and figuring out how the social network should fit into the leader of the free world’s communications has been a learning process for us all. On Friday, a federal judge decided that he’s had enough of reading the…
Hackers are currently selling a trove of 3 million credit card numbers and customer records apparently stolen from Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, one of the biggest barbecue chains in the United States. The company made a statement today about the hack, suggesting that charges made to the stolen cards will be reversed. “We received a report…
If you need to figure out where the heck to vote or drop off your ballot, Google will now point you in the right direction in Maps and Search. Beginning today, Google will display information on your nearest voting locations when you search for queries related to ballot drop boxes, early voting, and in-person voting…
Despite assurances, Twitter continues to selectively enforce rules around the publishing of hacked materials.
Following a two year investigation by UK authorities into undisclosed #sponcon running rampant on Instagram, the platform—and its parent company, Facebook—are following their suggestions to make it a bit harder for influencers to sneak covert ads onto our feeds. One of the biggest changes here, per a statement put out earlier today by the UK’s…
This week, Republicans got their most coveted pre-election prize: smoking-gun evidence that Facebook and Twitter are depriving them of their God-given right to say whatever they want on Facebook and Twitter, as the Founding Fathers intended. It’s the moment they’ve all been waiting for. They could not be more outraged. Except, based on Facebook’s own…
Besides the A5 chip, backlit touch surface, support for stereo speaker setups, Ultra Wideband capability and $100 price tag, there’s something else about the new HomePod Mini that you might not have noticed: support for a little-known smart home protocol called Thread. The protocol could become a lot more significant in the years ahead. Here’s…
If you bought a Peloton Bike between July 2013 and May 2016, you might want to check the clip-in pedals. Peloton is currently recalling the out-of-warranty PR70P pedals as they can unexpectedly break while you’re getting your sweat on—possibly resulting in injuries. Peloton announced the recall on its website, though it’s a bit buried in…
The writing has been on the wall for a while now, but it finally appears that Japan is ready to proceed with dumping over 1 million tons of contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. The water will be treated to remove some—but not all—of the contaminants. Understandably, the local fishing…
