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For a platform that likes to keep reminding us over and over and over again that it prizes our individual privacy, Facebook’s done a pretty piss-poor job of actually following through. Over the past few months, we’ve seen the company purposefully prevent any of us from opting out of this sort of data-mining machine, while…
Multi-factor authentication is one of the easiest ways to protect your accounts from unauthorized access or bad actors, but the security feature was noticeably missing on some devices in one of the most popular videoconferencing apps on the planet—and that’s a big problem. Now, virtual meet-up app Zoom—a service that’s used for everything from remote…
We may never understand why Donald Trump has decided to force the sale of TikTok’s US assets. More troublingly, his remarks on the matter, and its seemingly arbitrary deadline, indicate he may not fully grasp the concepts of cause and effect, or of linear time. “I’m not extending deadlines, no. It’s September 15th,” President Trump…
Ellen Lord, the top official at the Pentagon in charge of acquiring new technology, appeared on a virtual panel Thursday to discuss the threat posed to the U.S. by small drones made by Chinese companies like DJI. And while it might seem self-evident to many people within the national security establishment that a geopolitical adversary…
When Samsung released the original Galaxy Fold last year, other companies were fast to follow suit. Motorola followed up quickly with its rebooted Razr, while Microsoft took a little longer to show off its folding Duo phone. Now, it seems Apple might be tinkering with making a foldable iPhone. In a post on Weibo, noted…
What does Jon Hamm’s penis have to do with internet freedom and the future of memes? Quite a lot, believe it or not, following a new court ruling in New York. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York ruled on Thursday that digital news outlet HuffPost didn’t violate copyright law when it…
With the 2020 presidential election looming close on the horizon, Google’s nixing autocomplete suggestions that “could be interpreted as claims for or against any candidate or political party,” the company said in a blog post Thursday. While you’ll still be able to search for whatever you want, phrases regarding the electoral process or particular candidates…
While it’s no secret that Amazon has a history of hosting unsafe products from third-party sellers on its platform, a recent CNN investigation found that the company’s own AmazonBasics line might be just as hazardous based on customer reviews. CNN reporters identified more than 1,500 reviews about AmazonBasics electronics and appliances from U.S. customers since…
Bluetooth technology has amassed its fair share of diehard stans over the years, despite some pretty gnarly bugs that open devices up to a bevy of bad actors. Now, the organization behind the namesake technology has put out a statement about the latest threat facing those of us with Bluetooth-enabled devices—and there’s no patch in…
In the weeks leading up to Apple’s September event, rumors swirled that the company could be gearing up to launch long-awaited subscription bundles that would group Apple services for lower prices than users paid for them individually. Now, more evidence points to a new mega-bundle that some reports have said the company is referring to…
What follows is an excerpt from my new book, Get Funded!: The Startup Entrepreneur’s Guide to Seriously Successful Fundraising, a book I wrote while working with hundreds of startups around the world. In this excerpt, my co-writer and I, Eric Villines, talk about how to build a hardware startup through crowdfunding. When it comes to…
Xbox All Access is a relatively new program from Microsoft that lets you make monthly payments on a new console over the course of two years.
Amazon has appointed former National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander to its board, the company disclosed in SEC filings released yesterday. There are no reasons anyone could find this alarming. Alexander headed the incarnation of NSA that— as classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed—engaged in rampant surveillance of citizens’ private phone records, email…
A YouTuber has combined drone footage of San Francisco’s apocalyptically orange real-life landscape from Wednesday with music created for the 2017 movie Blade Runner 2049. And it all fits together almost too perfectly. The entire west coast of the U.S. is experiencing devastating wildfires this week, with people in California’s Bay Area waking up on…
Following the official release of Android 11 earlier this week, Google also has some updates in store for the stripped-down version of Android designed for phones with lower specs. For Android 11 (Go Edition), the most important upgrade is just generally speedier performance, with Google claiming that apps will launch 20% faster in Android 11…
Portland, Oregon, might be best known as the home of bohemian stereotypes aplenty and some of the wildest donuts you can find in the state. Now it’s also earned the reputation for ambitious privacy legislation after passing the country’s broadest ban on facial recognition technology to date. Yesterday, the Portland City Council unanimously adopted two…
Two alleged crypto traders in Singapore apparently came up with a fool-proof plan: rather than convert a customer’s 365,000 Singapore dollars to bitcoin, they would simply rob the victim when he came in to do the trade. The cash, worth about $267,556 U.S., changed hands in 2018 when the alleged 20-year-old Malaysian victim, Pang Joon…
Just days after a surfaced video appeared to tease a new pair of Bose noise-canceling wireless earbuds, Bose has officially announced two new true wireless options: the QuietComfort Earbuds and the Bose Sport Earbuds. The two wireless earbud models originally slated to launch in 2020 were called the Earbuds 500 and Noise Cancelling Earbuds 700,…
It’s not exactly a secret that Donald Trump’s race-baiting, fascistic administration has turned a blind eye to violence committed by extreme far-righters. Trump said there were “very fine people” among the ranks of the neo-Nazis behind a deadly march in Charlottesville in 2017, encourages bigoted conspiracy theories like white genocide and QAnon, and recently came…
If you own a Vizio SmartCast TV, you’ll now be able to access Apple TV+ and Apple TV channels. You may even be able to snag a couple of months of Apple’s streaming service for free—which is probably about what users are willing to pay for it right now anyway. Vizio announced Tuesday that Apple…
